Jason and the Argonauts (34 page)

2.813
with subtle words and sidelong purpose
:
Modeled in part on Agamemnon in
Iliad
2, the passage is one of several in the
Argonautica
that highlights political astuteness and diplomacy as desirable qualities in a leader.

2.863
Imagine oxen laboring to furrow
:
One of many moments in Book 2 that prefigures what is to come later in the poem—here, the fire-breathing bulls that Jason will yoke as a feat of heroism in Book 3.

2.874
“the morning twilight”
:
An hour that Callimachus evokes in a vivid description in one of the few longer fragments of his
Heacle
(fr. 74) as the “predawn.”

2.877
The son of Leto
:
A truly remarkable moment in the poem, in which the Argonauts catch sight of the god Apollo as himself. A similar moment of revelation occurs when Apollo causes light to shine for the Argonauts toward the end of
Argonautica
4.

2.914
a choral dance
:
The Argonauts perform a
paean,
a choral dance in honor of Apollo. There is a close parallel with this passage in Callimachus
Hymn
2 (to Apollo), including the ritual cry
Hie, hie
. In both cases the poets have transposed a lyric poetic form into a hexameter narrative.

2.954
a cave that leads to Hades
:
These lines both echo the shadowy opening of
Odyssey
11 and prefigure the site of Aeneas' descent into the Underworld in
Aeneid
6. There is, however, a crucial difference: in Apollonius the expected journey downward (Gr.
katabasis
) does not occur; rather, this is replaced by the ingress to the river Phasis and the land of the Colchians.

2.984
Jason named the names
:
An unusual moment of catalog poetry (a much-beloved art form in the Hellenistic world) where the narrative of the poem up to now becomes the material of the catalog. There is a striking and controversial parallel in
Odyssey
23, where Odysseus recounts the adventures of the earlier poem to Penelope.

2.1048
Tyndareus' sons
:
An
aetion
that also prefigures Polydeuces and Castor becoming the
Dioscuri,
twin gods (to the Romans Castor and Pollux) associated particularly with sailing, and of great significance in Ptolemaic cult.

2.1059
Idmon son of Abas
:
The deaths of the two seers, Idmon here and Mopsus in Libya in Book 4, frame the Jason and Medea narrative.

2.1092–93
Because / I heed the Muses' will
:
Here Apollonius varies the outline of the poet's relationship with the Muses that he suggests in the last line of the poem's proem (Book 1 line 22). This variation on the traditional phrasing of the rapport poet-Muse is a recurrent motif in the
Argonautica
.

2.1112
they collapsed
:
The first of two scenes that find the heroes given up to despair; the second occurs toward the end of the fourth book in the Libyan desert. In both cases the heroes are roused back to action by female divinities, here by Hera, in Book 4 by the Libyan maidens. While Apollonius generally does not use the type of repeated scene that is a standard motif in Homer (e.g., particularly scenes of dressing, eating, going to sleep), his repetition of larger thematic structures is one of the striking compositional features of the poem.

2.1170
the Nysaean son of Zeus
:
These lines briefly encompass the passage of the cult of Dionysus from India to the Mediterranean, one of the defining cultural evolutions of the ancient world.

2.1237–38
their comrade / Heracles
:
Again Heracles appears on the periphery of the poem's narrative. One of the models of this scene is Telemachus taking on the refugee seer Theoclymenus in
Odyssey
16.

2.1304
when a woman is with child
:
On the anthropological phenomenon of male imitation of pregnancy and childbirth in antiquity, see Leitao 2012.

2.1312
Odd laws and customs
:
These lines are almost a short poetic rendition of Herodotus on the everyday life and practices of the Egyptians as opposite to those of the Greeks (esp. Herodotus 2.35). This is particularly striking at this point in the
Argonautica,
as Herodotus tells us that the Colchians were originally Egyptian (2.104–15), a narrative that in turn makes the cultural engagement of Greek and Colchian in Apollonius' poem particularly relevant for the Greek rulers of Egypt. Another text implicated here is Xenophon's
Anabasis
5.4.26–34 on the Mossynoeci, an important source for Apollonius' Black Sea narrative.

2.1323
Their ruler sits inside the highest tower
:
Xenophon's
Anabasis
5.4.26 on the king of the Mossynoeci is one text that clearly influences Apollonius here.

2.1355–56
Not even / Heracles
:
Not only does Heracles continue to figure around the margins of the poem, but so do past narratives about him, as here.

2.1365
let's all set on our heads
:
The stratagem to overcome the dangerous birds in part recalls Odysseus' plot to prevail over the Sirens in
Odyssey
12, even though the Sirens and the contest with them will appear again in
Argonautica
4. Each incident, differently and in part, recalls the Homeric original.

2.1383
so half the heroes locked their shields together
:
This reflects an actual military practice to avoid onslaught of missiles, in the Roman army known as the
testudo,
or “tortoise.”

2.1405
The sons of Phrixus
:
The encounter with the sons of Phrixus brings two parts of the narrative together, with outward journeys from Thessaly and from Colchis. The description of the shipwrecked Colchians recalls the shipwrecked Odysseus at the end of
Odyssey
5, on the eve of the Phaeacian episode there, and its recasting in Apollonius' poem.

2.1449
and give us clothes
:
The act of supplication, and request for clothing, recalls Odysseus' entreaty to Nausicaa in
Odyssey
6, and here suggests that a reworking of that episode is about to occur.

2.1471
The ram, you see, could talk
:
These lines evoke the last scene on Jason's cloak in
Argonautica
1, where the ram appears to speak to Phrixus (1.1025–27).

2.1548
The man could rival Ares
:
The comparison is especially effective, as Ares, the god of war to whom Argus compares Aeëtes, is the god at whose altar the new friends have just offered sacrifice. At the same time the comparison heightens the fearful prospect of interaction with the Colchian king.

97 2.1585
and infant Zeus
:
Zeus as infant returns in the description of the ball at the opening of
Argonautica
3, another example of Apollonius' frequent doubling motifs.

2.1606
Prometheus
:
As the Argonauts earlier saw the god Apollo himself walking across the landscape, so here they pass by earlier Greek mythology, the punishment of the Titan who gave fire to man. As in
Argonautica
4 they will pass by the still smoldering Phaëthon, the Argonauts effectively enact their own place in Greek mythology.

2.1645
or whether other means
:
Epic choices are usually presented (as the one opening
Arg
onautica
4) as two options, of which the latter is the one taken. While that is also true here, the option is not yet spelled out, as the “means,” Medea's infatuation for Jason, has not yet happened.

2.1650
and so they spent the night
:
Apollonius recalls Odysseus at the end of
Odyssey
5, when the shipwrecked hero is finally able to sleep on land, thus creating a pause to one line of narrative as another is about to open.

BOOK 3

3.1
Erato
:
Erato is one of the nine Muses (Hesiod,
Theogony
75–79), who comes to be associated with love poetry (this passage is an important moment in that development). Apollonius opens his third book with an etymology of the Muse's name. This third book has markedly lyric overtones, and there is a distinct change of narrative direction, which will change yet again at the opening of
Argonautica
4. Virgil imitates the division of the poem into two halves with the invocation to Erato at
Aeneid
7.37.

3.2
Medea, Jason
:
Whereas the Argonauts appear as a group in the proem of the first book, here the focus moves to Medea's love for Jason, and his success because of that love. The final two books center much more on these two figures, with Medea in many ways in the role of an epic hero. Among the highlights of the third book are the careful details of her thought processes.

3.9–10
Athena / and Hera
:
The action of the two goddesses recalls their combined plotting and martial enterprise at
Iliad
8.350–96. Another important Homeric passage recalled here is Hera's approach to Aphrodite in
Iliad
14 to borrow her erotic “zone,” or “girdle.”

3.50
Hephaestus
:
The absence of Hephaestus, and the description of Aphrodite alone in her bedchamber, lead the reader to suspect the possible presence of Ares, who is, however, not here (in spite of the image of Aphrodite and Ares' shield on Jason's cloak). The fatherhood of Eros was a notorious problem in ancient mythology, and one Hellenistic poets enjoyed playing upon.

3.69
Before today
:
Aphrodite's address recalls that of Charis to Thetis at
Iliad
18.385–86, when Thetis comes to Hephaestus (here husband to Charis) to ask for new armor for Achilles.

3.87
Jason proved his worth
:
Hera's short narrative here fills in a gap in the brief parenthetical background passage at
Argonautica
1.5–17, and underlines the opening of Book 3 as a new beginning.

3.121
little Eros
:
In pre-Hellenistic Greek literature, Eros is often depicted as young, but not as a little boy. The Hellenistic period, however, shows a marked interest in children and their portrayal.

3.159–60
Little Eros / stood clutching
:
This image recalls a passage of the poet Anacreon (
PMG
398), a poet whose images of Eros as competitor had much appeal for the Alexandrians.

3.174
A nice bright ball!
:
This is one of the remarkable
ecphrases
in Apollonius' poem, and it has a variety of scientific, poetic, and philosophical implications (particularly of the pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles). Apollonius' contemporary Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276–194 BCE) is credited with inventing the armillary sphere or globe. Aratus'
Phaenomena
525–36 is a close parallel to this passage.

3.208–9
Thence / opens the downward path
:
Eros' descent in some ways parallels that of Hermes to Calypso in
Odyssey
6, where Hermes is also on a divine mission. In a moment of Apollonian variation, the expected simile (e.g., to a gull in descent) is absent.

3.262
Circe's Plain
:
Burial customs are a common feature of ancient ethnography, the one here a sign of the otherworldly realm the Argonauts are entering.

3.275
Hera helped
:
The model here is the mist Athena casts around Odysseus at the opening of
Odyssey
7, so that he may enter the palace of Alcinoös undisturbed. Virgil uses the same feature at
Aeneid
1.411–14.

3.286
They softly crossed the threshold
:
The description of the palace of Aeëtes is based in part on that of the palace of Alcinoös at
Odyssey
7.81–132, with some striking enhancements. Whereas Hephaestus fashioned gold and silver dogs for Alcinoös, for Aeëtes these are fire-breathing bulls, which prefigure the plowing scene later in
Argonautica
3.

3.318
“Phaëthon”
:
Phaëthon is the name of the son of Helios, and his smoldering corpse figures in the Italian part of the Argonauts' return in Book 4. That Absyrtus is called “Phaëthon” allows for the poet's etymology of the name here, but also introduces a somewhat sinister undertone suggestive of the boy's tragic fate later in the poem.

3.331
she shrieked
:
Medea's first utterance in the poem is one of alarm. The passage evokes Andromache hearing the tumult over the dead Hector. Here the immediate recognition, Chalciope seeing her sons safely returned, is one of joy, but the passage's tone bodes ill for the future.