The song, though, had already charmed the snake.
Loosing the tension of his coils, he settled
185upon his countless spirals like a dark wave
settling soft and soundless on a sluggish sea.
Still, though, his crested head was lifted, still
he burned to grip them in his deadly jaws,
and so the maiden dipped a fresh-cut sprig
190of juniper into a magic potion
and drizzled it into his open eyes,
warbling all the while a lullaby,
as the aroma of its potency
spread sleep. The monster laid his head down then,
195 (160)and his innumerable convolutions
lay flat among the undergrowth behind him.
Then, at the maiden’s bidding, Jason took
the golden fleece down from the topmost boughs.
She stayed right where she had been, raining slumber
200upon the serpent’s head, till Jason told her
the time had come to head back to the Argo.
So they left the leaf-dark grove of Ares.
Just as a maiden catches in a gauzy gown
the shimmer of the full moon as it rises
205above her lofty chamber, and her heart
rejoices as she looks upon the light,
so, then, did Jason hold the great fleece up.
A sheepfold’s worth of wool gave forth a gleam
like flame that flushed his comely cheeks and brow.
210 (174)Wide as a yearling ox’s hide or that of
the stag that huntsmen call the “moose,” the fleece
was golden on the surface, heavy, dense,
and thick with wool. The path that Jason followed
glimmered before him every step he took.
215He started with the fleece around his neck
dangling from his shoulder to his ankles,
then rolled it up and stroked it, fearing greatly
some man or god would come and take it from him.
Dawn was already spreading through the world
220when they arrived at camp. The heroes marveled
at the colossal fleece, jumped up and down,
giddy to touch it, take it in their hands,
but Jason held them back and threw across it
a freshly woven robe. He scooped the girl up,
225 (189)set her down astern, and spoke as follows:
“No longer, friends, restrain yourselves from turning
homeward. By this maiden’s means the prize
for which we undertook our grievous voyage
and toiled in misery has been attained.
230And I shall take her home to be my wife
since she desires that it be so. Because
she has so nobly saved both you yourselves
and all Achaea, you must keep her safe.
Quite soon, I think, Aeëtes will descend
235with all his men around him to prevent us
from sailing from the river to the sea.
Therefore, let every other man among you
sit and attend to rowing while the rest
hold up their ox-hide shields to make a strong
240 (201)bulwark against the arrows of our foe,
and so safeguard our voyage home. We hold
parents and children, our entire homeland,
here in our hands. On our persistence hangs
the glory or the infamy of Greece.”
245Such were his words. He donned his battle armor,
and they replied with raucous cheers, and so
he drew his broadsword from the sheath and severed
the hawsers. Fully armed beside the maiden,
he stood up near the new steersman, Ancaeus,
250and soon the ship went speeding under oar,
with all his comrades heaving, passionately,
to clear the river’s mouth.
But by that time
news of Medea’s love and treachery
had spread through town and reached the Colchians
255 (214)and King Aeëtes. Armed from head to foot,
they started swarming toward the Council House
as thickly as the dead leaves tumble earthward
out of a tree with many boughs in autumn
—who could count them? So they all came swarming,
260mad with clamor, down the riverbank.
Aeëtes was preeminent among them
because he rode upon a war car drawn
by wind-swift stallions, gifts of Helius.
His left hand waved a big round shield, his right
a six-foot throwing spear was pointing forward.
His son Absyrtus held the stallions’ reins.
The Argo was already off, however,
riding the river’s seaward current under
270 (228)its oarsmen’s power. Throwing up his hands
in wild frustration, King Aeëtes summoned
Zeus and Helius as witnesses
to all that he had suffered. Furthermore,
he leveled horrid threats against his people:
275Unless they should by their own hands arrest
the maiden there on land or on the waves
of open ocean and return her to him
so that he could satisfy his rage
by punishing the girl for her misdeeds,
280they all would learn, through summary beheadings,
what it was like to know his wrath and vengeance.
So he proclaimed, and when the Colchian sailors
dragged out their warships, loaded tackle in them,
and took to water, you would not have thought
285 (239)so vast a gathering was an armada,
no, rather, an innumerable flock
of seabirds clamoring across the swell.
The winds were blowing strong to aid the heroes,
as Hera had devised, so that Medea
290might leave Aea, reach Pelasgia,
and prove a bane to Pelias’ house
as soon as possible. Three mornings later
they reached the coast of Paphlagonia
and tied the Argo’s hawsers to the shore
295right at the Halys River’s mouth. Medea,
you see, insisted that they disembark
and honor Hecate with sacrifices.
Holy dread prevents me from divulging
all that she did to carry out the rites—
300 (249)no man should know them; let my mind cease straining
to name them. But the shrine the heroes built
to honor Hecate remains today
for later generations to admire.
Jason and all the others then remembered
305Phineus had informed them that their route
out of Aea would be different,
but what that route would be remained unknown
to all of them, so they were quick to listen
when Argus spoke his mind about their course:
310“We four were sailing to Orchomenus
the way the faithful seer you met en route
had forecast to you. We already knew
there is another route to Greece. The priests
who serve the powers born of Triton’s daughter
315 (261)Theba recorded its discovery:
Not yet had all the stars that circle heaven
come into being, nor is any record
available, however much one searches,
about the sacred race of the Dan
aans.
320Back then Arcadians alone existed,
the Apidanian Arcadians,
that is, Arcadians who, legends tell us,
lived in the mountains eating acorn mash
before the moon was born. Way back before
325Pelasgia was under the illustrious
sons of Deucalion, the land of Egypt,
mother of all the men of old, was called
the fecund ‘Misty Land,’ and River Ocean
went by the name of ever-flowing ‘Triton.’
330 (270)This river was required to irrigate
the Misty Land because the showers of Zeus
had never graced its soil. (The annual flooding
is what brings up the ample harvests there.)
From there, they say, a certain king, relying
335upon his soldiers’ courage, might, and vigor,
pushed through all of Europe, all of Asia,
founding settlements along the way.
Some of the cities have survived, some not.
Though many ages have expired since then,
340Aea has remained right where it was,
along with the descendants of the men
this king had settled there. The priests, you see,
preserved this ancient knowledge by inscribing
pillars with markers. You can trace around them
345 (281)all the courses of the land and sea
from the perspective of a navigator.
The River Ocean’s north-most arc is broad
and deep enough for vessels to traverse.
They label it the Ister on the pillar
350and mark its whole course off. For quite a ways
it runs through an interminable plain
in one great rush because its sources rumble
and burst forth up in the Rhipaean mountains,
yes, up among the blasts of Boreas.
355However, when this mighty river enters
the country of the Scythians and Thracians,
it splits in two. Half of the water drains
right there into the Eastern Sea; the rest
reaches a deep and navigable gulf,
360 (291)a bay of the Trinacrian Sea, which borders
your homeland—that is, if the Acheloös
does, in fact, run seaward out of Hellas.”
So he submitted, and the goddess sent
a clear and timely portent. When they saw it,
365the heroes voiced approval of the route
he had described—a comet had appeared
before them, and its tail delineated
the heading they should follow.
Giddy, then,
they dropped off Dascylus the son of Lycus
370and in a hopeful mood put out to sea
with bellied sails. The Paphlagonian mountains
were what they steered by, but they never rounded
Carambis, since a gale and gleams of fire
from heaven haunted them until they reached
the Ister’s mighty spate.
375 (303)As for the Colchians,
one squadron sailed beyond the Clashing Rocks
out of the Pontus on a useless search.
Absyrtus turned the rest of the armada
upriver at the Ister through the inlet
380known as “the Handsome Mouth.” Thus they went past
the neck of land and reached the farthest gulf
of the Ionian Sea before the heroes.
There is an island in the Ister’s mouth,
a large three-sided island known as Peuca.
385While its base looks outward toward the coastline,
its apex points upriver and divides
the outflow into two. The upper entrance
is called the Narex and the lower one
the Handsome Mouth. Whereas Absyrtus sailed
390 (314)his Colchian sailors swiftly through the latter,
the heroes had already sailed around
the former.
All along the river flats
shepherds abandoned their abundant flocks
because they saw the ships as sea beasts rising
395out of the monster-generating depths.
None of these peoples ever had observed
seagoing vessels—not the Scythians
(who breed with Thracian tribes), not the Sigynni,
not even the Graucenni or the Sindi
400(who at the time inhabited the vast
Laurian flatlands).
Once the Colchians
had skirted Mount Angurum and, beyond it,
Mount Cauliacus where the Ister splits
and drains into the sea from two directions,
405 (326)they passed, at last, the Laurian flatlands, sailed
into the Gulf of Cronus, and blockaded
the exits everywhere so that their foes
by no means ever could escape them. Meanwhile
the heroes moved downstream and reached the two
410Brygian Isles of Artemis nearby.
One of them hosts a temple sacred to her,
but the heroes landed on the other
and thus escaped the soldiers of Absyrtus.
The Colchians, you see, had left those islands,
415alone of all the islands there, untouched
because they venerated Zeus’ daughter.
But they had occupied the other ones
and blocked all access to the sea. What’s more,
Absyrtus had dispatched a host of soldiers
420 (336)to posts along the neighboring coasts as far
as the Salangon River and Nesteia.
Outnumbered as they were, the Minyans
would have been worsted in an ugly battle
right then and there and so they cut a treaty
425to put off all-out war. The treaty stated
the heroes could retain the golden fleece,
whether they had acquired it by guile
or simply stole it in the king’s despite,
since he himself had promised it to them
430once they had proved their mettle in the contest.
Medea, though, because her case was pending,
would be released to Leto’s daughter’s temple
and kept apart, until one of the local
scepter-bearing kings decided whether
435 (348)she should return to King Aeëtes’ palace
or travel with the Minyans to Greece.
Now, when the maiden learned about the treaty,
a wave of anguish rumbled through her body.
She rushed to Aeson’s son, pulled him away
440from his companions to a private spot,
and voiced her grievance to him, face-to-face:
“Jason, what is this plot you have conceived
concerning me? Have your successes launched you
into forgetfulness, so that you take back
445all you said when you were gripped by need?
Where are the honeyed vows you made to me
with Zeus Savior of Suppliants as witness?
I ran off in contempt of all convention,
yes, with appalling urgency I left
450 (361)the country of my birth, a glorious palace,
even my parents—all that I held dear—
and now alone, alone at sea, I travel
among the miserable kingfishers,
and all because of you and your concerns.
455It was because of me that you survived
the trial of the bulls and earthborn
men,
and then, when our misdeeds were widely known,
I foolishly procured the fleece for you
and called down horrid shame upon my sex.
460Now, since I am your daughter, wife, and sister,
I say that I shall sail with you to Greece.
Kindly protect me, then, in every way.
Stand at my side, no matter what transpires,
and, when you meet the magistrates, do not
465 (372)desert me, but be faithful to my cause.
Either let Justice and the Vow we sealed
between us stick steadfast within your breast
or draw your sword and slit my throat to pay me
fit retribution for my lust.
You wretch!
470If the authority to whom you handed
this stony-hearted arbitration rules
I am my brother’s chattel, how can I
endure my father’s glare? Ah, reputation.
What rancor, what harsh blows will I endure
475to pay for all the awful things I’ve done?
And all the while will you be off somewhere
winning your heart-delighting passage home?
Never may Zeus’ wife, the mighty queen
of whom you boast, allow you to complete it.
480 (383)Remember me someday when agony
is squeezing you, and may the fleece then flutter,
dreamlike, into the depths of Erebus
and yield no good to you. Yes, may the Furies
drive you upon arrival from your homeland
485because of all I suffered through your cruelty.
Themis will not allow my execrations
to tumble unfulfilled onto the earth—
because you swore an oath to me and broke it,
you traitor-hearted man. Not long, however,
490will you and your companions sit at ease
and laugh at me, no, not for all your treaties.”
So she threatened, and her bitter rage
boiled over—how she longed to torch the ship,
ignite the whole wide world, and hurl her body
495 (394)into the blaze! Dreading what she might do,
Jason appeased her fears with honeyed words:
“Calm down, strange maiden. I don’t like this, either,
but we are seeking means to stave off war.
A thunderhead of foes is flashing round us
500because of you. The men who hold this land
are keen to help Absyrtus bring you home
because they think that you were kidnapped. Now,
if we engaged them hand to hand, we all
would suffer most abominable deaths,
505and still more bitter, then, would be your grief
if we, by dying, left you as their prize.