Jason and the Argonauts (5 page)

wide enough to receive the vessel's keel

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the whole way down into the sea (that is,

the total breadth of beach the ship would travel

pulled by their hands). As they approached the surf

they dug the channel deeper than was needed

to house the keel, inserted polished rollers

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into the extra space, and tipped the vessel

onto the rollers so that she would coast

oceanward while gliding over them.

Next, they reversed the oars that stuck out starboard

and port so that the blades were on the inside

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and handles sticking out a cubit's length.

After the stems were fastened to the oarlocks,

they stood on either side between the oars,

their hands and torsos pressed against the hull.

Tiphys had climbed on deck to tell the crew

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when it was time to push. He bellowed hugely—

that was the signal. One concerted heave,

and they had loosed the vessel from the props,

feet dancing as they pushed and pulled it seaward.

Pelian
Argo
followed in a rush,

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the men on each side boisterously shouting

as they were swept up in its course. The rollers

squealed as the sturdy keel scraped over them.

Friction and torsion sent up coils of smoke.

After the ship had rolled into the surf,

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they yanked landward upon the lines to check

its forward motion. Then they snapped the oar pins

into the holes, locked them, and lugged aboard

the mast, the well-sewn sails, and all the gear.

Once they had scurried back and forth and seen

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to each detail, they turned to
divvying

the benches up by lot, two men per bench.

Straight off, though, separate from the lottery,

they gave the center bench to Heracles

to work beside Ancaeus the Tegean.

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After the berths were set, they gladly handed

Tiphys the tiller of the well-keeled
Argo
.

Then they heaped some stones up on the beach

to make a seaside altar for Apollo

God of the Beachfront, God of Embarkation.

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Dried olive boughs were quickly laid upon it.

Meanwhile, Jason's herdsmen had selected

two bulls out of the herd and led them back.

Some younger heroes tugged them toward the altar,

others lugged in grain and lustral water,

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and Jason duly summoned with a hymn

Phoebus Apollo, his ancestral god:

“Hear me, O lord, O power who inhabit

Pagasae and Aesonia, the city

that bears my father's name. When I came seeking

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a prophecy at Pytho, you assured me

you would reveal the methods of success

and all the courses of my quest, since you

were equal partner in this enterprise.

Therefore, I ask you please to guide our vessel

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there and back again to Greece; please keep

my crew alive and healthy. Afterward,

to do you honor, I shall once again

heap up this altar with the sacrifice

of just so many bulls as men of mine

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have safely made the journey. Furthermore,

I shall deliver countless other gifts

to Pytho and Ortygia.

Far shooter,

come to us now; accept these sacrifices,

the first of many, that we offer asking

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for an auspicious boarding of our ship.

Lord, when I loose the hawsers, may I find

a future free of harm, and all because

of your assistance. May the gale be gentle,

the weather always favorable for sailing

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as we pursue our quest across the sea.”

So he intoned and tossed the barley offering.

Heracles, then, and proud Ancaeus stepped up

to slay the bulls. Heracles with his club

struck one of them dead center on the brow.

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It lay there in a heap, all crumpled up.

Ancaeus with a bronze ax hacked the other,

chopped clean on through the strained and stubborn sinew

that stuck out of its neck. It toppled forward

onto its horns. The other heroes all

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jumped in and slit the throats, stripped off the hides,

and made the cuts. While divvying the portions,

they set aside the sacred thighbones, wrapped them

snugly in fat, and roasted them on spits,

and Jason poured a gift of unmixed wine

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into the fire. Idmon was delighted

to see the blaze enkindling the bones

and favorable coils of thick black smoke

ascending. He divulged Apollo's will

straight off with perfect clarity:

“The gods

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by harbinger and oracle have promised

you shall return here with the fleece in hand

despite the countless labors that await you

on both the outward and the homeward journey.

The gods have also specified that I

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must perish somewhere on the Asian mainland

far from home. Although I learned my fate

some time ago from inauspicious bird signs,

I left my homeland, all the same, to join

the quest and win a name that would survive me

among my people.”

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So the seer spoke

and, when the heroes heard the prophecy,

they reveled in the news of their return

even as they succumbed to grief at learning

of Idmon's doom.

Already at the hour

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when sunlight starts to slant toward evening

and mountain ridges fill the fields with shadows,

the men had heaped up leaf beds on the beach

and lay there side by side above the surf.

Abundant food was waiting near at hand,

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and, as the stewards poured them unmixed wine

from jugs, they told each other different stories,

the sort that young men tell to give amusement

over a meal or at a drinking party

when insult and offense are far away.

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Jason, however,
like a man in sorrow,

minutely scrutinized within himself

all that might leave him feeling still more helpless.

Idas leered at him awhile, then ribbed him

in an obnoxious voice:

“Jason, what plan

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is spinning in your mind? Come now and share

what you are thinking. Has dismay, the monster

that panics cowards, shambled up and mauled you?

I'll swear an oath and wager as a pledge

the spear with which, above all other heroes,

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I win renown in combat (no, not even

Zeus backs me up as well as my own spear):

no trouble you encounter will be fatal,

no task you try will go unfinished—no,

not even if a god should block the path—

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so long as you have Idas on your side.

Just such a champion you are bringing with you

in me, your great salvation from Arene.”

So he proclaimed and picked a full bowl up

with both his hands and swilled the sweet neat wine.

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He came up with his lips and black beard dripping.

While others muttered curses in the background,

Idmon called him out for all to hear:

“Idiot, have you always cherished wicked

presumptions such as these or is it rather

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the unmixed wine that has incensed your heart

with recklessness and pushed you to offend

the gods? There are a thousand heartening words

a man can say to urge a comrade on,

but you have blurted out offensive ones.

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They say Aloeus' gigantic sons

sputtered such stuff against the blessed gods,

and you're not half their valor. All the same,

the two of them, courageous as they were,

went down beneath the arrows of Apollo.”

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As soon as Idmon finished speaking, Idas

the son of Aphareus, burst out laughing,

glared slantwise at the seer and answered sharply:

“Come now and
forecast with your prophet's art

whether the gods shall work the same destruction

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upon me as your father Phoebus wrought

upon the offspring of Aloeus—stop

and think, though, how you will escape my clutches

when you are caught predicting utter nonsense.”

So Idas raged and threatened, and the quarrel

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would certainly have come to blows, had Jason

and all the others not rebuked and checked them.

Orpheus also did his best to calm them.

He took his lyre up in his left hand

and played a song he had been working on.

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He sang of how the earth and sea and sky

were once commingled in a single mass

until contentious strife divided each from other

in ordered layers,

how the stars and moon

and sun's advance consistently provide

clear beacons in the firmament,

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and how

the mountains rose, and roaring watercourses,

each with a nymph, started into existence,

and animals began to walk on land.

He sang of how, back in the world's beginning,

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Ophion and Eurynoma, the daughter

of Ocean, ruled on snow-capped Mount Olympus

till Ophion released the throne perforce

to strong-armed Cronus, and Eurynoma

gave way to Rhea, and the vanquished gods

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went tumbling into the ocean waves,

and the usurpers ruled the Titans, happy

so long as Zeus was still a child, still growing

in thought, still hidden in a cave on Dicte.

The earthborn Cyclopes had not yet fashioned

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the lightning bolt, the source of Zeus' power.

So Orpheus intoned, then hushed his lyre

at the same time as his ambrosial voice.

Though he had ceased, each of his comrades still

leaned forward longingly, their ears intent,

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their bodies motionless with ecstasy.

Such was the magic of the song he cast

upon them. After they had mixed libations

for Zeus, they rose and dutifully poured them

over the victims' simmering tongues, then turned

their minds toward sleeping through the night.

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As soon

as radiant Dawn with her resplendent gaze

looked on the steep cliff face of Pelion,

and day broke fair, and breezes stirred the sea

that dashed, in turn, upon the headlands, Tiphys

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awoke and roused the dozing crew and bade them

hasten aboard and man the oars. The harbor

of Pagasae called out, urging departure,

and, yes, the ship itself, Pelian
Argo,

called to them also, since its hull contained

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a talking plank. Athena had herself

cut it from a Dodonan oak to serve

beneath them as the keel. And so the heroes

headed to the benches single file

and duly took their seats beside their weapons

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in just the places they had been assigned.

Ancaeus and colossal Heracles

were seated at the center bench. The latter

set down his club beside him, and the keel

sank deep beneath his feet. The mooring ropes

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were drawn in, and the heroes poured libations

of wine into the bay, and Jason, weeping,

turned his eyes from his ancestral home.

When dancing for Apollo at Ortygia

or Pytho or along the Ismenus,

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young men will sway around a shrine together

heeding the lyre's rhythm as their nimble

feet beat time—in just that way the heroes

slapped the choppy water with their oars,

churning the sea as Orpheus' harp

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accompanied their strokes. The billows surged

around the oar blades, and to port and starboard

the dark brine boiled in foam, its spray excited,

stirred up by the thrusts of mighty men.

Their armor shone like fire in the sunlight,

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and
Argo
plunged onward, its long white wake

most like a pathway through a grassy plain.

And on that day
the gods looked down from heaven

upon the ship and demigods within it—

the finest heroes ever to have sailed.

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Nymphs of the mountains on the topmost peak

of Pelion stood wonderstruck, admiring

the craft work of Itonian Athena

and all those heroes with their hands working

the
Argo
's oars. Cheiron, Phillyra's son,

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strode from a mountain summit to the sea

and wet his fetlocks where the brackish surf

churns on the shore. Waving a mighty hand,

he wished them all a safe return. Beside him

his wife was holding up
infant Achilles

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so that Peleus, the loving father,

could see his son.

Under the tutelage

of prudent Tiphys, Hagnias' son

(the master hand who gripped the sanded tiller

and kept the vessel steady on her course),

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the heroes left the curved shore of the bay

behind them. When they reached the open sea