Jason and the Argonauts (32 page)

No further trials befell you once you sailed

from Aegina, no other gales opposed you,

so I have now arrived at your adventure's

glorious conclusion. After gladly passing

2300
the land of Cecrops, Aulis in Euboea,

and the Opuntian cities of the Locrians,

you landed on the beach of
Pagasae.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

fr.
fragment

frr.
fragments

Gr.
Greek

Pf.
R. Pfeiffer, ed.
Callimachus.
2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949–53.

PMG
D. L. Page, ed.
Poetae Melici Graeci.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.

V.
E.-M. Voigt, ed.
Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta.
Amsterdam: Plak and Van Gennep, 1971.

W.
M. L. West, ed.
Iambi et Elegi Graeci.
2 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

BOOK 1

1.1
from you, Phoebus Apollo
:
The
Argonautica
begins and ends (
Argonautica
4.2293–2302) with poetic gestures that mark it as a traditional Greek hymn, one of the many indications of generic complexity of the poem.

1.7–8
Pelias had received / a prophecy
:
The background to the poem is given as a very short summary, set between parts of the proem: a feature of Hellenistic poetry is variation of emphasis.

1.28
Past poets
:
Interestingly, we do not have any evidence about whom the poet refers to here, whether individual poets, poems, or a larger poetic tradition.

1.34
surrogates of my song
:
One of the most enigmatic and debated phrases in the poem. It is clear, however, that the poet is in some way repositioning himself in relation to the Muses, traditionally figured as the direct source of the poet's artistic inspiration, as the opening lines of Homer's
Iliad
and
Odyssey
both demonstrate.

1.35
Orpheus is the first
:
Catalog is a traditional feature of the epic genre. Whereas the Catalog of Ships in Homer's
Iliad
assembles multiple leaders and peoples, Apollonius' catalog of heroes figures individuals who man
one
ship, the
Argo
.

1.36
Calliope
:
The Muse frequently figured as the patron of poetic song, Calliope appears here in the context of the epic narrative as the mother of Orpheus, often thought to be the first poet.

1.43
still today
:
A standard feature of Hellenistic poetry is the
aetion,
or “origin” of, among other things, contemporary natural phenomena, animal behavior, and cult practices. Apollonius' contemporary Callimachus composed a four-book poem, his
Aetia,
that interweaves a series of individual etiological narratives. There are many
aetia
in Apollonius' poem.

1.90
he sank into the earth
:
One of many fantastical moments in the poem. The
Argonautica
is something of a combination of the heroic and the fantastical (rather like the narrative of Odysseus
in the
Odyssey
).

1.95
the sacred signs exhibited by birds
:
Augury through reading the flight or sounds of birds was a standard practice in Greco-Roman antiquity. A recently discovered papyrus roll of short poems attributed to Apollonius' near-contemporary poet Posidippus includes a section of poems on bird omens.

1.121–22
Libya, a land / as far from Colchis
:
A possible learned double entendre, as the Colchians were sometimes thought to be originally Egyptian (Herodotus 2). The image may be a subtle allusion to the extent of the Ptolemaic Empire at the time of Ptolemy II.

1.135
Peleus
:
The father of Achilles, hero of the
Iliad.
An ongoing leitmotif of the poem is that the legend of the
Argonautica
occurs chronologically
before
the Trojan War, while Apollonius' poem is composed many generations later than the
Iliad
.

1.165
the
Argo
was the most remarkable
:
The construction of the
Argo,
the story
not
told in the opening of the poem, is invoked repeatedly in the course of the hexameter narrative.

1.190
Hylas
:
The hero's attendant is to be the cause of Heracles' separation from the expedition. The reference here, juxtaposed to that of Heracles' taskmaster Eurystheus, creates an ironic foreboding of what is to happen later in
Argonautica
1.

1.288
offspring of Hephaestus
:
Hephaestus' hobbled feet are the source of laughter among the gods at the conclusion of the first book of the
Iliad
. Hephaestus' hobbled feet are a sign of his parents' wrath, those of Palaemonius rather one of the distinction of a divine father.

1.312
a wonder to behold
:
The Argonauts include among their number both the heroic and the fantastical, as befits a ship that has the power of speech.

1.319
Argus
:
With the shipwright of Athena, we return to the launching point of the catalog, the note that the poet would not sing of the ship's building, but of its heroes.

1.323
“Minyans”
:
Apollonius attempts here to clarify a problem in ancient genealogy regarding early southern Thessaly and northern Boeotia, to which he returns twice later in the poem, giving two other explanations. We do not know that all three of these explanations carried equal weight for the poem's audience. This one, that most of the heroes are descended from the shadowy figure Minyas, seems exaggerated (some certainly are: that Alcimide was descended from Minyas is found in Stesichorus).

1.378
As a lonely maiden
:
Apollonian similes are a fascinating enhanced development of Homeric ones, often with unusual implications within the surrounding narrative. Alcimede, through the possible loss of her son, risks being left a helpless and mistreated dependent.

1.425
Think of Apollo
:
The simile influences Virgil's description of Aeneas as Apollo at
Aeneid
4.143–50. Apollo thus informs the poem as patron god of song, figure of comparison, and through his own two appearances as himself. The comparison of Jason to Apollo, and of Medea to Artemis in
Argonautica
3, lends a particularly complex character to their eventual union.

1.456
the course he thought most prudent
:
One of many moments that mark Jason as cautious, a potentially ambivalent value in a traditionally heroic setting.

1.468
mighty Heracles
:
The heroes first choose Heracles as their leader, a moment that problematizes Jason's position among the assembled men and is indicative of a contrast of heroic types: managing details and alliances are not Heracles' standard attributes.

1.498
the tasks at hand
:
While eschewing to narrate the building of the
Argo,
the poet gives a detailed description of embarking the ship. A primary model for the scene is Odysseus' building of the raft in
Odyssey
5.

1.540–41
divvying / the benches
:
Apollonius' response to an oft-repeated Homeric “set scene.” Such scenes of eating, dressing, sleeping, and rising are a standard feature of Homer, and a characteristic of oral poetry.

1.625
like a man in sorrow
:
Jason's thoughtful, often reflective nature is at odds with the behavior of many an epic hero, as Idas' challenge here illustrates.

1.663
forecast with your prophet's art
:
A main model for this scene is Eurymachus' mistreatment of the seer Halitherses at
Odyssey
2.178–80.

1.675
He sang of how the earth
:
Orpheus' cosmogony (“origin of the world”) is a reflection of earlier cosmogonic hexameter poetry. Orpheus was himself thought by many to have been the first poet.

1.742
the gods looked down from heaven
:
Another Apollonian response to a repeated Homeric scene, where the gods' major pastime in the
Iliad
is as spectators of the events on the battlefield. This is the only such scene in the
Argonautica
.

1.754
infant Achilles
:
The moment is emblematic of the poem's relationship to the Homeric epics. The Argonautica saga is of an earlier generation than the Trojan War, while Apollonius' poem is composed after, and in light of, the Homeric epics.

1.774
Fish both big and small
:
A fragment of the lyric poet Simonides (
PMG 567
) tells of Orpheus charming the birds and fish with his song, and suggests that Apollonius may well have had Simonides in mind here.

1.837
Hipsipyle
:
Earlier treatments of Hipsipyle and the Lemnian women include Aeschlyus and Euripides. Considerable fragments of the latter's play are extant. Callimachus (fr. 226 Pf.) also treated this story.

1.843
Oenoa
:
This unusual
aetion
plays, in chiastic form, with the possibilities of etiological transformation: Oenoa becomes Sicinus, Oenoa bears Sicinus.

1.874
why have I digressed so widely
:
One of several moments where the poet marks that his is not a continuous, linear treatment.

1.971
Over either shoulder
:
The description of Jason's cloak is a remarkable
ecphrasis
,
a description of a work of art, or of a natural phenomenon in the manner of a work of art, in ancient Greek poetry. Over his shoulders Jason places seven scenes of Greek mythology; the final one blends into the
Argonautica
narrative—Phrixus is the father of the four Colchians whom the Argonauts encounter in Book 2.

1.998
the shield of Ares in her hand
:
Throughout the poem Apollonius plays on the reader's familiarity with the narrative told in
Odyssey
8 of the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite, and Hephaestus' punishment of the errant couple. Aphrodite gazing at her own reflection is a standard theme of Hellenistic art.

1.1024
Phrixus
:
Son of the Boeotian king Athamas (who is Jason's great-uncle), Phrixus is driven, together with his sister Helle, by a cruel stepmother to flee on the back of a golden ram. Helle falls from the ram's back, thus giving her name to the Hellespont. Phrixus arrives in Colchis, where the golden ram is sacrificed, its fleece left to be guarded by a dragon. It is this fleece that Jason and the other Argonauts are sent to obtain.

1.1039
like the star
:
The first comparison of Jason to a celestial body. These similes highlight both Jason as the object of the (particularly female) gaze and the potentially destructive power of Eros
(Love).

1.1076
a vicious plot of Cypris
:
This episode, while part of a traditional myth, may have had particular resonance at the Ptolemaic court, where love and bloodshed were a feature of the lives of the reigning family.

1.1153
Cypris Queen of Love
:
An apparent but false ending to the heroes' quest, a traditional feature of epic poetry.

1.1156
had Heracles not called them
:
The isolation from Heracles is a theme that gains ground throughout
Argonautica
1, leading to his final separation from the Argonauts at the end of the book.

1.1178
As bees swarm
:
While the simile has Homeric models, it is especially apt here in the context of the Lemnian women. Apollonian similes often have complex associations with the surrounding narrative.

1.1213
and you have borne a son
:
A passage Virgil may have had in mind in composing Dido's tragic lament at
Aen
eid
4.327–30 that Aeneas has not left her the succor of a child.

1.1233
of which it is forbidden me to sing
:
A type of religious
praeteritio
that allows just a hint of what cannot be told. Cf. Callimachus fr. 75.4–7 for a similar first-person injunction that breaks into a surrounding narrative.

1.1259
savage Earthborn Giants
:
The reference to the Earthborn Giants at once marks the island as primordial (so almost part of preheroic cosmogonic narrative) and underlines the early place of the
Argonautica
saga in Greek mythology.

1.1275
the stone that served as anchor loose
:
Another of many
aetia
in the poem, this one was also treated by Callimachus toward the end of his four-book
Aetia
(frr. 108–9 Pf.).

1.1299
like Jason's
:
Apollonius figures Cyzicus as something of a tragic double to Jason, hence the particular irony that Jason kills his young host—Jason's moment of epic heroism in the first book of the poem turns out to be one of unwitting manslaughter.