Jason and the Argonauts (9 page)

Later, another marvel came to pass:

1530 (1147)
water had never flowed on Dindymum

but on that day it sprang forth on its own

ceaselessly from the barren mountaintop,

and locals from that day have called the spring

“The Font of Jason.” Then they held a feast

1535
in honor of the goddess of that mountain,

the Mountain of the Bears, and sang the praises

of Rhea, Rhea, Queen of Many Names.

The storm winds died by daybreak, and they left

the island under oar. And then a spirit

1540
of healthy competition spurred the heroes

to find out which of them would weary last.

The air had calmed around them, and the waves

fallen asleep. Trusting in these conditions,

they heaved the
Argo
on with all their might.

1545 (1158)
Not even lord Poseidon's tempest-footed

stallions could have outstripped them as they dashed

across the sea.

But when the violent winds

that rise up fresh from rivers in the evening

had riled the swell again, the heroes tired

1550
and gave up trying. Heracles alone,

he and his boundless strength, pulled all those weary

oarsmen along. His labor sent a shudder

through the strong-knit timbers of the ship,

and soon the
Argo
raised Rhyndacus strait

1555
and the colossal barrow of Aegaeum.

But as they passed quite near the Phrygian coast

in their desire to reach the Mysian land,

Heracles, in the very act of plowing

deep furrows through the sea swell,
broke his oar

1560 (1169)
and toppled sideways. While the handle stayed

locked in his fist, the ocean caught and carried

the blade off in the
Argo
's wake. He sat up,

dumbstruck, silent, swiveling his eyes:

his hands were not accustomed to disuse.

1565
At just the hour when a field hand,

a plowman, gratefully forsakes the furrows

to head home hungry for his evening meal

and squats on weary knees, sun-burned, dust-caked,

before the door, eying his calloused hands

1570
and calling curses down upon his belly,

the heroes reached the land of the Cianians

who dwell beneath Mount Arganthonia

along the delta of the Cius River.

Since they had come in peace, the local people,

1575 (1179)
Mysians by race, received them warmly

and gave provisions, sheep and ample wine,

to satisfy their needs. Some of the heroes

collected kindling; others gathered leaves

out of the fields to make up mattresses;

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still others grated fire out of sticks,

decanted wine in bowls, and, after giving

due offerings at dusk to Lord Apollo,

the God of Embarkation, cooked a feast.

After encouraging his friends to banquet

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heartily, Heracles the son of Zeus

set out into the woods to find a tree

to carve into an oar that fit his hands.

He wandered for a while until he spotted

a pine with few boughs and a dearth of needles,

1590 (1190)
most like a poplar in its height and girth.

He set his bow and arrow-bearing quiver

straightway upon the ground and laid aside

the lion skin. Then, leveling his club,

a great big bronze-encinctured log, he loosened

1595
the trunk inside the soil. With all his faith

placed in his strength, he wrapped his arms around it,

squared his shoulder, braced his feet, pulled tight,

and heaved it, deeply rooted though it was,

out of the earth, with big clods dangling from it.

1600
In just the way that,
after dire Orion

has made his stormy setting in the sea,

a sudden bluster from above assails

a ship's mast unexpectedly and snaps it

free of the stays and wedges, Heracles

1605 (1205)
ripped out the pine. Afterward he retrieved

his bow and arrows, lion skin, and club

and went galumphing shoreward.

Meanwhile
Hylas

had taken up a pitcher cast in bronze

and wandered far from his companions, seeking

1610
a holy flowing river, so that he

might draw off water for the evening meal.

He wanted to get everything in order

promptly, before his lord came back to camp.

Such were the habits Heracles himself

1615
had fostered since he first took Hylas, then

a toddler, from the palace of his father,

the noble Theodamas, whom the hero

ruthlessly slew among the Dryopes

in a dispute about a plowing ox.

1620 (1213)
You see, this Theodamas had been poor,

so he was furrowing his fields himself

when Heracles commanded him to yield

the plowing ox or else. The hero did this

only to find a pretext for a war

1625
against the Dryopes because they lived

scornful of justice—but this tale would steer

my song too far from its purported subject.

Soon Hylas happened on a spring called Pegae

among the locals. As it chanced, the nymphs

1630
were just then gathering to dance. In fact,

the nymphs who dwelled upon that lovely summit

convened each night to honor Artemis

in song. All those whose haunts were peaks and torrents—

the guardian forest nymphs—were in the woods

chanting their hymns.

1635 (1228)
But one, a water nymph,

had surfaced from the sweetly flowing spring,

and she could see the boy,
how flush with beauty

he was, how captivating in his sweetness,

because the moon shone full and clear above them

1640
and cast its beams on him. The goddess Cypris

so roused the nymph that she could hardly keep

her heart together. Rapture struck her helpless.

As soon as he was laid at length and dipping

the pitcher in the spring, just as the surface

1645
water came rushing in and gurgled echoes

inside the bronze, she threw her left arm up

around his neck. An urgent need to kiss

his plush lips moved her,
so her right hand tugged

his elbow closer, closer—down he plunged

into the swirling water.

1650 (1240)
Polyphemus

son of Eilatus was the only one

of all the crew to hear the boy cry out.

He had been walking down the path to greet

colossal Heracles on his return.

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He dashed toward Pegae like some savage beast

that baas and bleats have summoned from afar.

On fire with hunger, it pursues the sheep

but never reaches them because the shepherds

already have enclosed them in the fold.

1660
Just as that creature snorts and roars horribly

until he tires, so did Polyphemus

groan horribly and range about the place

hallooing, but his shouts were all in vain.

So, whipping out his broadsword with dispatch,

1665 (1250)
he hurried farther down the path, afraid

that wild animals were mangling Hylas

or kidnappers had lain in ambush for him

and were that moment dragging him away,

an all-too-easy prey. As, sword in hand,

1670
he ran along, he spotted Heracles

and recognized at once what man it was

galumphing through the twilight toward the ship.

Breath laboring, heart pounding, Polyphemus

divulged at once the dire calamity:

1675
“Poor friend, I shall be the first to tell you

news of a shocking loss. Though Hylas left

to fetch some water, he has not come safely

back to us. Bandits nabbed him and decamped

or beasts have eaten him. I heard his cry.”

1680 (1261)
So he explained, and at his words abundant

sweat tumbled down from Heracles' temples,

and bad blood boiled blackly in his guts.

He hurled the fir tree to the ground in rage

and set out running, and his feet impelled him

at top speed down the path.

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As when a bull

that has been
goaded by a gadfly bolts

out of the meadows and the fens and, heedless

of herd and herdsmen, rushes here and there,

and only stops to rear his thick dewlap

1690
and roar in vain at the relentless stinging,

so in his frenzy Heracles at one time

worked his frantic knees incessantly

and at another paused the search to heave

a mighty bellow far into the distance.

1695 (1273)
Soon the morning star had risen over

the highest summits, and a breeze got up,

and Tiphys promptly roused the crew to clamber

aboard and take advantage of the wind.

Straightaway they embarked and with a will

1700
pulled up the anchor stone and hauled the cables

astern. The mainsail bellied with the gale,

and they were happy to be far from shore

coasting around the Posideian headland.

Only after Bright-Eyed Dawn had risen

1705
from the horizon to the middle sky,

and all the seaways were distinct and vivid,

and the dew-wet plains were spangling bright,

did they discern that they had accidentally

abandoned Heracles and Polyphemus.

1710 (1284)
Fierce was the quarrel that erupted then,

an ignominious row, since they had left

the bravest of the company behind.

Jason was so dumbstruck and at a loss

he uttered nothing one way or the other—

1715
no, he just sat there gnawing at his heart,

feeling the burden of catastrophe.

Rage laid its hands on Telamon, who told him:

“Go on, keep sitting there at ease like that

because you are the one who benefits

1720
from leaving Heracles behind. You hatched

this little scheme so that his fame in Greece

would not eclipse your own, that is, if ever

the gods consent to grant us passage home.

But what's the use in words? No, I will go

1725 (1294)
and bring him back, even if I must do it

without your claque of co-conspirators.”

So he accused them all, then charged at Tiphys

the son of Hagnias. His eyes were blazing

like twists of flame inside a raging bonfire.

1730
They would have all sailed back across the gulf

and braved its constant gales and deep-sea swell

to reach again the Mysian dominions,

had not the sons of Thracian Boreas

broken in and with harsh reproaches stopped

1735
Telamon short—a ruinous decision!

Terrible vengeance later came upon them

at Heracles' hands because they chose

to halt the search for him: when they were heading

home from the funeral games of Pelias,

1740 (1305)
he killed them on the isle of Tenos, heaped

barrows above them, and erected two

pillars on top (one of the pillars swivels

in answer to the breath of Boreas—

a clever thing, a wonder to behold).

1745
Out of the salt sea's depths appeared, just then,

Glaucus, the eloquent interpreter

for holy Neleus—a shaggy head

emerged, and then a torso to the waist.

His right hand resting on the
Argo
's keel,

1750
he bellowed at the agitated sailors:

“Why, in contempt of mighty Zeus' will,

have you resolved to drag bold Heracles

the whole way to Aeëtes' citadel?

Heracles' lot is bound to Argos: heavy

1755 (1317)
toil for presumptuous Eurystheus

until he finishes the full twelve labors—

and he will sit at the immortals' banquet

if only he completes a last few more.

So let his loss occasion no regret.

1760
Likewise with Polyphemus, who is destined

to build beside the Cius River's mouth

a famous citadel among the Mysians

and then go off to meet his destiny

in the unbounded Chalybian waste.

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As for the loss of Hylas, here's the cause:

a holy nymph has dragged him off as husband

because she loves him. When those heroes ran

to rescue Hylas, they were left behind.”

After these words he dove and cloaked his body

1770 (1327)
in the unresting swell. The dark-blue wake

that boiled out of his plunge rose up behind

the hollow ship and drove it through the waves.

The men took solace in the prophecy,

and Telamon went running up to Jason,

1775
gripped his hand, embraced him, and proclaimed:

“Do not be angry with me, son of Aeson,

if, in my thoughtlessness, I gave offense.

Overwhelming sorrow made me utter

a rash, insufferable accusation.

1780
Let us cast that error to the winds

and be as friendly as we were before.”

Jason replied with due consideration:

“You certainly accused me, dear old friend,

of dirty dealing when you claimed, in public,

1785 (1338)
I had betrayed a man that loved me well.