to shield alone, he backtracked through a haze
of exhalation countless cloven hoofprints
until he struck on something like a burrow
or buried stall. Thence the bulls burst abruptly,
1660muzzle and nostril of a sudden scorching
the air around him. Soldiers on the sidelines
recoiled in terror, but not Jason, no—
he spread his feet for leverage and fought them,
taking the shock as a rock headland greets
1665 (1295)the big waves rising from a sudden squall.
Roaring, they stabbed and slashed with brutish horns,
ramming his buckler with their brows, but Jason
never retreated, never gave an inch.
Think of a blacksmith’s bull-hide bellows, now
1670shooting a spire of cinders through a vent
while stirring up the deadly blaze, now wheezing,
now still, and all the while infernal hiss
and flicker issue from the furnace grate—
panting and heaving thus, the bulls snuffed thrice
1675and bellowed, and a brimstone blast consumed him,
calamitous but for the maiden’s salve.
He gripped the tip of a right horn and yanked
masterfully, muscles taut, until the neck
had met the yoke. A quick kick followed after,
1680 (1308)foot against brazen fetlock, and the beast
was hunkered on its knees. A second kick
crumpled the other. Casting shield aside,
he bore, head-on, a swirling ball of flame
by gripping earth more widely with his feet,
1685his left hand and his right holding the bulls
bent over both on buckled knees.
Meanwhile
Aeëtes gaped at Jason’s fortitude
and Castor and his brother Polydeuces
played their part and dragged the yoke afield.
1690Soon as the bulls’ hump necks were harnessed, Jason
fed the bronze brace beam between the team
and drove its beveled end into the yoke loop.
The brothers shrank back from the flames, but Jason
took up his buckler, slung it over his shoulder,
1695 (1321)and cradled in his arm the helm brimful
of jagged fangs. Like a Pelasgic farmer,
he pricked the oxen’s haunches with his spear
and steered the stubborn plow unbreakable.
The bulls still mettlesome, still spitting out
1700eddies of frustrate flame, a roaring sounded
loud as the lightning-frazzled gusts that warn
old tars to reef the mainsail. Soon enough
they lumbered forward at the spear’s insistence;
soon enough the hoof-drawn harrow cleft
1705boulders and left them crumbled in its wake.
Clods with the girth of soldiers loudly ruptured
and turned to tilth. Feet planted on the draw bar,
he sledded after, and each backward toss
sent fangs some distance from him, lest the rows
1710 (1338)of earthborn soldiers rush him unprepared.
And still the bulls leaned on their brazen hooves
and lumbered forward.
At the hour when elsewhere
the third part of a workday still remained
and plodding plowmen prayed aloud that soon
1715the sweet hour of unyoking would arrive,
here was a field already tilled and sown,
and Jason shooed a tame team back to pasture.
Since he could see no earthborn soldiers sprouting
out of the soil, he paused to catch his breath
1720and walked back to the Argo where his mates
gathered around him, whistling and whooping.
He scooped the river with his helm, drank deeply,
and slaked his thirst. Stretching from side to side
to keep his muscles’ suppleness, he puffed
1725 (1350)his chest with lust for battle—rippling, ready,
keen as a boar that whets its tusks on oak
while slaver dribbles earthward from its snout.
Now in the god of slaughter’s garden sprang
an army nursed in earth—all rounded shields
1730and tufted spears and crested helmets bristling;
and from the soil through middle air the glint
shot to the gods. As, when a heavy snowfall
has covered all the fields, fresh gusts will scatter
the clouds in patches from a moonless night,
light up the darkness from both sky and snow—
so rose the soldiers from the furrows, sparkling.
Jason obeyed the mandates of the maiden,
the clever one. He lifted from the field
1740 (1365)a great round rock, the war god’s shot to toss,
a mass four strapping laborers would struggle
to budge in vain. Raising it without strain,
he spun round and around and cast it far
into their midst, then under his buckler crouched,
1745valiant, in hiding. The Colchians went wild,
roaring as hoarsely as the sea swell roars
on jagged cliffs. Aeëtes stood there dumbstruck,
dreading what would come. The earthborn soldiers
like famished mongrels snapping for a morsel
1750mangled each other round the boulder, falling
to Mother Earth beneath each other’s spears
like oaks or pines a leveling wind lays low.
Then, as a fiery meteor shoots from heaven
trailing a wake of light (a signal always
1755 (1379)ominous to the men who see its brilliance
separate the night), the son of Aeson
dashed on the earthborn ones with naked sword,
slashed here and there and harvested them all—
the seedlings grown as far as chest and back,
1760the waist-high, the knee-deep, those freshly afoot
and rushing to the fray—all fell beneath him.
As, when a border war has broken out,
a man who fears that foes will torch his yield
seizes upon a freshly whetted scythe
1765and runs to reap the too-green grain before
the proper time has parched it to perfection,
Jason mowed the growth of soldiers. Blood
flowed in the furrows like torrential flooding,
and still they fell—some, stumbling forward, bit
1770 (1393)the fine-ground, fang-fomenting dirt, some backward
tumbled or wallowed on an arm or flank
like beached sea beasts; a hundred more, hamstrung
before they first took steps upon the earth,
slumped over just as far with drooping head
as they had sprouted into air.
1775Such ruin,
one can imagine, pelting Zeus would wreak
upon a vineyard—nurslings sprawling, stalks
snapped at the root, and so much labor wasted,
a crushing heartbreak and dejection pressing
1780the vintner who had set the slips himself.
In such wise, heavy grief of mind came over
Aeëtes, and he turned homeward to Colchis
together with his Colchians contriving
how he might best contest the strangers’ claim.
1785The sun went down, and Jason’s work was done.
BOOK 4
Now Zeus’ daughter, deathless Muse, describe
for me the Colchian maiden’s wiles and worries.
The mind within me spins in speechlessness,
wondering whether I should call the impulse
5that drove her to forsake the Colchian people
a wild obsession’s lovesick injury
or headlong panic running from disgrace.
Up in the palace all night long Aeëtes
worked with his council on a foolproof plan
10to catch the heroes. He was vengeance-hearted,
wildly incensed about the painful contest,
but never for a moment thought his daughters
had worked to bring about the stranger’s triumph.
Hera, meanwhile, had pierced Medea’s heart
15 (12)with poignant dread. The girl was shaking like
a nimble fawn that baying hounds have trapped,
trembling, in a densely wooded thicket.
All in a flash she sensed the aid she gave
the foreigners had not escaped her father;
20her cup of woe would soon be overflowing;
surely her handmaids would divulge the crime.
Her eyes were full of fire, her ears abuzz
with trepidation. Time and time again
she gripped her throat, time and again pulled out
25her hair, and moaned in sorry misery.
She would have drained a vial of poison, died
right then and there before her proper time,
and ruined all of Hera’s plans, had not
the goddess driven her to run away,
30 (22)in utter terror, with the sons of Phrixus.
Once her fluttering heart had calmed, she poured
the potions from her lap into the casket.
She kissed her bed good-bye and kissed the frame
around the double doors and stroked the walls.
35She clipped a lock and left it for her mother
as a memento of her maidenhood,
then, sobbing, brought out heartfelt lamentation:
“I’m going, Mother, but have left this tress
to take my place when I am gone—farewell.
40Farewell, Chalciope. Farewell, old home.
Stranger, I wish the sea had torn you up
before you ever reached the land of Colchis.”
So she spoke, and from her eyelids tears
came pouring down. Picture a girl that fate
45 (35)has torn out of a wealthy home and homeland,
how, since she is unused to heavy labor
and ignorant of what slaves do and suffer,
she goes abroad to serve a mistress’
relentless whims in terror—that’s the way
50lovely Medea crept out of the palace.
The latches on the doors undid themselves
all on their own before her muttered spells.
Barefoot, she scampered down the narrow alleys,
her left hand pressed against her brow and draping
55a veil that cloaked her eyes and radiant cheeks,
her right hand holding up her dress’s hem.
So, frantic and in fear, she made her way
by covert routes outside the battlements
of broadly paved Aea. No watchmen
60 (49)observed her, no, she hastened past unseen.
Safely outside, she contemplated deep
within herself how best to reach the temple.
She was quite familiar with the roads
since she had traveled on them many times
65in search of corpses and the earth’s worst herbs,
the kinds that witches use. Convulsive terror
fluttered her spirit.
The Titanian Moon
had just then risen over the horizon.
She saw the maiden straying far from home
70in misery and cackled to herself:
“Well, well, I’m not the only one, it seems,
to slip away into a Latmian grotto,
no, not the only one to burn with love
for an adorable Endymion.
75 (59)You bitch! How often you have woven magic
to drive me from the sky in search of love
so that, in total darkness, you could work
your sorcery at ease, your precious spells.
Now you are subject to the same obsession
80I suffered. Yes, the god of lust has given
Jason to you—a grievous blow. Go on,
suffer, for all your ingenuity,
a heavy sentence fraught with misery.”
So Moon was thinking, as the maiden’s feet
85carried her, swiftly, on. The riverbank
was steep but welcome to her, since she saw,
on the opposing bank, the vivid bonfires
the heroes had been stoking all night long
to celebrate the victory. A sound
90 (72)out of the night, she called across the stream
to Phrontis, youngest son of Phrixus. He,
his brothers, even Jason recognized
her voice, and all the heroes stared in silence.
They knew, of course, just what was happening.
95She shouted “Phrontis” thrice, and Phrontis thrice
responded, at the crew’s encouragement.
The ship, meanwhile, was swiftly heading toward her
under oar. Before they threw the cables
onto the facing bank, the son of Aeson
100had vaulted from the deck. Phrontis and Argus,
two sons of Phrixus, jumped ashore behind him.
Clasping their legs with either hand, she pleaded:
“I’m helpless. Save me, friends, from King Aeëtes,
and save yourselves. My deeds have come to light.
105 (85)Danger is everywhere around me now.
Let us escape by ship before he mounts
his eager chargers. I myself will win you
the fleece by putting its protector serpent
to sleep. First, though, in front of your companions,
110you, stranger man, must call the gods to witness
the oath you gave—that you shall never leave me
contemptible, despised, without protection,
once I have traveled far away from home.”
Though she had uttered anguish, Jason’s heart
115greatly rejoiced. He hurried over to her
and eased her up from where she had collapsed
around her brothers’ knees. His words were soothing:
“Sad maiden, may Olympian Zeus himself
and Hera, Wife of Zeus and Queen of Marriage,
120 (97)attest that I shall take you to my palace
to be my wedded wife, once we have made
our journey home to Greece.”
Such was his pledge,
and he was quick to clasp her hand in his.
She ordered them to row the swift ship nearer
125the sacred grove, so that they could acquire
the fleece against the wishes of Aeëtes
and sail off under cover of the night.
Their haste was such that word and deed were one.
They took the girl aboard and shoved off quickly,
130and loud, then, were the grunts of heroes straining
to work the oars. Medea ran astern
and reached her hands out sadly toward her homeland,
but Jason soothed her fears with heartening words
and held her in his arms.
It was the hou
r
135 (109)when huntsmen shake the slumber from their eyes
(because they want the most out of their dogs,
they never sleep the full night, no, they start
before the potent light of dawn effaces
the quarry’s signs and scents). Such was the hour
140when Jason and Medea disembarked
onto a grassy meadow that is called
“The Manger of the Ram” because the ram
first bent its knees in utter weariness
upon it, after bearing on his back
145Minyan Phrixus, offspring of Athamas.
There was a soot-stained course of stones nearby,
the bottom of the shrine that Aeolid Phrixus
set up for Zeus the God of Fugitives.
That was the spot where Phrixus sacrificed
150 (120)the gilded miracle at Hermes’ bidding
(the god had kindly met him on the way).
At Argus’ behest, the heroes landed
Jason and Medea near this altar.
They took a footpath, reached the sacred grove,
155and found the huge oak tree from which the fleece
was hanging, brilliant as a cloud that glows
red in the rays of fiery dawn.
The serpent
lying before it reared his endless neck.
The sleepless slits had been alert and caught them
160approaching, and his hiss was loud and monstrous.
The whole grove, then the riverbanks resounded.
Many Colchians heard it, though they lived
as far off as Titanian Aea,
way out beside the sources of the Lycus
165 (132)which, as it leaves the loud, sacred Araxes,
joins with the river Phasis, and they swirl
together down to the Caucasian Sea.
Young mothers started up in trepidation
and squeezed the newborns cradled in their arms.
Their little limbs were quivering.
170Imagine
spirals, innumerable coils of smoke,
swirling above a pile of smoldering wood,
one billow coming swiftly on another,
each of them rising in a hazy wreath—
175that’s how the serpent rode on countless coils
covered with hard dry scales.
Soon, though, the maiden
fixed the writhing creature with her gaze
and summoned with a sweet voice Sleep the Helper,
the highest of the gods, to charm the serpent.
180 (147)She also asked the Netherworldly Queen,
the Late-Night Wanderer, to support the venture.
Jason, terrified, came on behind her.