Jason and the Argonauts (29 page)

1530 (1195)
while strumming something gorgeous on his lyre.

And when the heroes sang the wedding hymn

the Naiads sang as well, sometimes in answer,

sometimes a wholly separate part, while
dancing

a cyclic dance, and in your honor, Hera,

1535
because you were the one who put the thought

into Arete's mind to warn the couple

about Alcinoös' wise decision.

Once he had given his momentous verdict,

Alcinoös upheld it to the letter.

1540
By then the consummation of the marriage

was widely known, but neither King Aeëtes'

grudging anger nor the fear of battle

swayed his mind, since he had bound both parties

by steadfast oaths to reverence his ruling.

1545 (1206)
So, when the Colchians perceived appeals

were useless, and Alcinoös insisted

they either heed his word or keep their ships

far from his harbors, they were all so frightened

of King Aeëtes' threats that they entreated

1550
Alcinoös to welcome them as allies.

They lived awhile among the Phaeacians

until some tribesmen from Ephyra called

the Bacchidae arrived and settled there

among them. So the Colchian soldiers picked up

1555
and settled on the island opposite.

From there they moved, at destiny's behest,

to the Ceraunian hills of the Abantes

and then to Oricum and the Nesteians,

but all this happened many ages later.

1560 (1217)
The shrines Medea founded in the precinct

of Nomian Apollo still receive

annual sacrifices to the Moirae

and nymphs. Alcinoös bestowed rich gifts

upon the Minyans at their departure,

1565
and Queen Arete did the same. What's more,

she gave the girl twelve Phaeacian handmaids

out of the palace store to wait upon her.

They left Drepana on the seventh day.

A stiff, favorable wind arose from Zeus

1570
that morning, and the ship was speeding onward

before the gale. Still, it was not their fate

to rest their feet upon Achaean land,

no, not until they suffered further, farther

away in distant Libya. Soon the heroes

1575 (1228)
had left astern the Ambracian Gulf,

soon they had skirted, with their sails spread wide,

the Curetes' dominion and a string

of islands, the Echinades among them.

But, at the very moment when
the land

1580
of Pelops had arisen into view,

a dismal gust of wind out of the north

seized them midcourse and carried them away

across the Libyan Sea for nine whole nights

and nine whole days until they coasted deep

1585
into the Syrtes. Any ship that hits them

never can sail back out to sea again.

Shallows are everywhere, and everywhere

tangles of bracken washed out of the depths.

The sea scurf passes over them in silence.

1590 (1240)
The sand extends to the horizon. Nothing

that walks or flies is ever stirring there.

Over and over flood tides leave the mainland

and then come rushing back to drag salt water

across the sand. One of these tides abruptly

1595
dropped the
Argo
so far up the beach

that little of the keel was still in water.

So all the heroes jumped out of the ship,

and sorrow struck them when they saw the sky

and the expanse of endless land extending,

1600
just like the sky, into the endless distance.

No path, no herdsman's shelter, no oasis

appeared. A dead calm haunted everything.

They said to one another in despair:

“Where have the storm winds landed us? Where are we?

1605 (1251)
If only we had laughed at deadly fear

and risked retreating back out through the Rocks

the way we came. It surely had been better

if we had gone against the will of Zeus

and died attempting something glorious.

1610
Now if the winds compel us to remain here

even a short time, what are we to do?

The coast of this vast land is too, too barren.”

So each of them exclaimed. Ancaeus even,

their helmsman, helpless to relieve their troubles,

1615
addressed them bleakly as they sat there grieving:

“I'm sorry—we must die a shameful death.

There's no escaping this catastrophe.

Even if gale winds blow in from the land,

we've foundered on a desert. All the worst

1620 (1264)
a mortal can endure is now before us.

However far I stare into the distance,

I see more ocean shallows, brackish water

ceaselessly washing over dull gray sand.

This holy vessel would have roughly foundered

1625
far from the beach, except the surf itself

swept it at high tide inland from the bay.

Now that the tide has drained back out again,

only a surf too thin for sailing laps

about us, lightly covering the sand.

1630
That's why I say all hope of sailing home

is severed from us. Let some other man

display his skill. He's welcome to sit down

and take the tiller if he wants to save us,

but Zeus, it seems, has no desire whatever

1635 (1276)
to land us at our port of embarkation

in Hellas, even after all our efforts.”

So Ancaeus spoke and broke down weeping.

The men with nautical experience

agreed with his despair. All hearts were ice,

1640
all cheeks surrendering to sallowness.

Just as when people wander through a city

like breathless ghosts, awaiting their destruction

by war or plague or some relentless flood

that will erase the oxen's work afield,

1645
and all because
odd omens have been witnessed—

statues spontaneously sweating blood,

roars sounding, mouthless, from the holy groves—

and high noon only means more night in heaven,

and stars do not stop shining all day long,

1650 (1288)
so did the heroes wander without purpose

along the endless shore.

A somber dusk

too soon came over them and, sadly, then,

they wrapped their arms around each other, wept,

and said good-bye, so that they each could then

1655
go off alone,
fall in the sand, and die.

They staggered off, each farther than the last,

to pick their final resting places. Heads

shrouded by their cloaks, they lay unnourished,

weakening, all night long, all day, awaiting

1660
the most horrendous death imaginable.

The handmaids shuffled to a place apart

and clustered, wailing, round Aeëtes' daughter.

As unfledged nestlings chirrup desperately

when they have tumbled from a cliff-side nest,

1665 (1301)
or
swans release their dying proclamations

from banks along the gorgeous Pactolus,

and dew-drenched glades are echoing around them,

and, echoing, the river's handsome current,

so did the maidens loose their long blond hair,

1670
drape it along the dust, and wail all night

a pitiful lament.

And now these men,

these heroes, would have left their lives behind

and no names, no renown for later men

to study, and their mission would have failed.

1675
But, as they withered there in helplessness,

the local nymphs,
the guardians of Libya,

took pity on them. Once upon a time,

these goddesses had come to tend Athena

after she leapt out of her father's head

1680 (1311)
sublimely armed. These were the goddesses

who bathed her in the tide of Triton Lake.

The hour was noon. The sun's most cruel rays

were scorching Libya. These powers gathered

around the son of Aeson, and their fingers

1685
gently tugged the mantle from his head.

He dropped his gaze out of respect for them,

but they were bright before him and addressed him,

terrified as he was, with soothing words:

“Unlucky fellow, why has feebleness

1690
afflicted you? We know about your journey,

how you were questing for the golden fleece.

We know your labors, too, the mighty deeds

you have performed while wandering across

the land and sea. We are the Lonely Ones,

1695 (1323)
daughters and guardians of Libya,

fluent in human utterance. Stand up now.

Stop grumbling and carrying on like this.

Go rouse your men. As soon as Amphitrite

unyokes Poseidon's smooth-wheeled chariot,

1700
you and your comrades must repay your mother

for all the pain she suffered bearing you

so long inside her womb, and you may yet

come to the holy country of Achaea.”

So they spoke and vanished in a flash

1705
from where they had been standing, and their voices

faded away. But Jason started upright,

looked everywhere around him, and implored:

“Be kind, you noble powers of the dunes,

though I confess the meaning of your words

1710 (1334)
about our journey home eluded me.

Still, I shall rouse my friends and tell them all

you told me in the hope that we can find

some sign to guide us out of this morass.

In counsel many men outdistance one.”

1715
So he implored and leapt up, cloaked in dust

from head to foot. He shouted to his comrades

far into the distance, as a lion

wandering through a forest roars to summon

his mate, and even distant mountain valleys

1720
tremble at the sound, and all the herdsmen

and oxen shake with fear. (But Jason's cry

was not at all upsetting to his men

because it was the bellow of a friend

calling to friends.) The heroes gathered round him,

1725 (1345)
their heads all hanging. Still, despite their sorrow,

he got the crew to sit beside the ship,

the women, too. He spoke among them, then,

telling them all that he had witnessed:

“Listen,

my friends: as I was lying in despair,

1730
three goddesses appeared to me, like maidens,

but clad in wild goatskin from neck to waist.

They gathered round my head, pulled off my cloak

with no unfriendly tug, and bade me rise

all on my own and wake you up to pay

1735
due recompense for all our mother suffered

while bearing us inside her womb so long.

This should be done whenever Amphitrite

unyokes Poseidon's smooth-wheeled chariot.

I don't quite grasp the holy mandate's meaning.

1740 (1358)
They said they were, in fact, divinities,

daughters and guardians of Libya.

What's more, they claimed they had a thorough
knowledge

of what we have endured by land and sea.

Suddenly I could see them there no longer—

1745
some mist or cloud, it seemed, had hidden them

right in the middle of their apparition.”

So he explained, and they were all amazed.

Suddenly an extraordinary omen

appeared before the Minyans—a stallion,

1750
gigantic, monstrous, leapt from sea to land,

the mane golden and blowing round his neck.

After he shook the sea spray from his flanks,

he galloped off, his hoofbeats like the wind,

and Peleus exulted in the vision

1755 (1369)
and cried into the crowd of his companions:

“I hereby do proclaim Poseidon's wife

has just now loosed his chariot with her hands.

What's more, our mother is the ship herself

because, indeed, she bears us in her womb

1760
and constantly endures the pains of labor.

Come, let us lift her with a hearty heave,

place her upon our unrelenting shoulders,

and lug her inland through the sand-choked waste

along the course the sprinting horse has shown us.

1765
For surely he will not go plunging under

the earth. No, rather, I suspect his hoofprints

will point us toward a gulf that feeds the sea.”

So he proposed and everyone agreed

to heed his plan.

The Muses own this story.

1770 (1382)
I sing at the Pierides' command

and now shall tell precisely what they told me—

that you, by far the mightiest sons of kings,

with strength and courage heaved the
Argo
up

onto your shoulders, also everything

1775
the ship had in it, and you lugged that burden

over the arid dunes of Libya

for twelve whole days and twelve whole nights. But who

could narrate all the pain and misery

they suffered at their task? Let no one doubt

1780
they were descended from immortal gods,

so weighty was the chore they undertook

out of necessity. They felt as much joy

lugging that tonnage down the salty bank

to Triton Lake as they did reaching brine