time of thaw—
so I left it there. Pelias was giving a great banquet for his father Poseidon and the other gods—or all but
Hera—
when I came where he sat, his lords and ladies all
crowded around him,
dressed to the nines, like a flock of exotic birds—long
capes
more brilliant than precious stones, deep blue, sharp
yellow, scarlet—
eating and laughing, plump as the mountainous clusters
of grapes
the slaves bore in. I bowed to him, dressed in the
panther-cape
already famous for midnight strikes, unexpected attacks from rooftops, pits of dungeons. I bowed, most
dignified—
except, of course, for that one bare foot. He looked not
exactly
gratified that I’d made it. He looked, in fact, like a man who’s gotten an arrow in his back. Pelias threw out his
hands,
tiny chins trembling, and said, ‘J-J-J-Jason!’ And said no more. He’d fainted. It was three full days before I
could see him.
“Well, no reason to stretch it out. I sat by his bed, summed up my winnings, and waited to hear what he
thought it all worth.
I heard, instead, about the golden fleece. I had the
m-makings
of a king, he said. He continually squeezed his hands
together,
winking. I thought he’d gone crazy. ‘J-J-J-Jason, b-boy, you’ve got the m-makings of a king.’ He was gray and
flabby, like a man
who’s been sitting in a dimly lit room for a full
half-century.
His legs and arms were spindles, the rest of him loose,
like a pudding,
his large head wide and flat, wrinkled like an embryo’s. In his splendid bedclothes—azure and green and as full
of light
as wine falling in a stream in front of a candle flame-he looked like a slightly frightened treetoad, blinking
its eyes,
cautiously peeking out from a spray of peacock feathers. You would not have thought him a child of Poseidon
the Earth-trembler,
but demigod he was, nonetheless, and dangerous.
“I waited, laboring to figure him out. I dropped the
idea
of craziness. He was sly, vulpine. The way he made his eyes glint when he mentioned the fleece, and wrung
his hands
and made me bend to his pillow, to let him poke at me, conspirators in a cunning scheme—I knew the old man was sane enough. He was pulling something. Yet this
was the plan:
Bring him the golden fleece, and he’d split the kingdom
with me,
half and half. I could see at a glance what he wanted,
all right,
though I wasn’t quite sure of the reason—not then.
But half the kingdom!
I looked down, hiding my interest, adding it up. I saids “You seem to forget the difficulties,’ and watched him
closely.
‘No d-d-d-difficulties!’ he said, and splashed out his
arms,
then wiped his mouth. “None for a muh-muh-man like
you!
‘I waited. He grinned like a monkey. Then after a while
he sighed,
allowed that it might be a long way, allowed that there
might
be ‘snakes’ (he glanced at me) ‘snakes and suh-suh-so
on.’ He sighed.
‘And if I … refuse your offer?’ He sighed again, looked
grieved.
“You’re young, J-Jason. P-popular.’ He looked out the
window.
And I understood. ‘You think I’ll reclaim my father’s
throne
despite all the horrors of civil war. But if, by
mischance—’
‘J-Jason!’ he exclaimed. His eyes were wide with shock.
I laughed.
He snatched my hand, and, sickly as he looked, his grip
was fierce.
He wept. ‘J-Jason, I wish you w-well,’ he said. And
he did—
as Zeus wished Kronos well when he had all his bulk
in chains,
or as Herakles wished for nothing but peace to the
slaughtered snake
or the shredded, mammocked tree when he tore off the
apples of gold.
‘Suppose you had the suh-certain word of an oracle,’
he said,
What would
you do?’ I nodded. ‘I’d send him to fetch the golden
fleece,’
I said. Old Pelias squeezed my hand. ‘Go and f-fetch it.’ And so I agreed. Pelias had known I’d agree, of course. What Pelias couldn’t know was that I’d beat those odds. It meant two things—the perfect ship and the perfect
crew.
I could get them. That very day I checked with the
augurers,
playing it safe. No signs were ever better; and though I had, like any man of sense, my doubts about how much a squinting, cracked old priest—with
reasons of his own,
could be, for seeing what he did—how much such a
man could know
by watching a few stray birds, still, I was excited.
I was
a most devout young man, in those days. Goodness
in the gods
was a rockfirm fact of experience, I thought. And so
I told
the king that as soon as I’d gotten my ship and crew
together
I’d sail.
“It was Argus who built the ship—old Argus, under Athena’s eye. He built it of trees from her sacred groves, beech and ironwood, towering pines and great dark
oaks
that sang in the wind like men, a vast, unearthly
choir—
and Athena showed him herself which trees to cut.
When the beam
of the keel went in, old Argus smiled, his long gray hair tied back with a thong, and the beam said, ‘Good! Nice
work, old man!’
When he notched the planks and lowered them onto the
chucks, the planks
said, ‘Good! Nice fit!’ He carved the masts and shaped
them with figures
facing in all the four directions, and after he’d dropped
them,
slid them with a hollow thump to the central beam,
they said,
That’s fine! We’re snug as rocks!’ Then he built the
booms and wove
the sails. The black ship sang, and Argus had finished it.
“I gathered the crew.
“I can’t deny it: there never was
in all this world or on any world a mightier crew than the Argonauts. Sweet gods, beside the most feeble
of the lot,
I seemed, myself, a mildly intelligent hedgehog!
I gathered
Akhaians from far and near—all men of genius, sons of gods—
“And the first, the finest of them all, was Orpheus.
He was borne by Kalliope herself to her Thracian lover
Oiagros,
high on the slopes of Pimplea. Even as a child, with his
music
he enchanted the towering, frozen rocks and the violent
streams,
and to this day there are quernal forests on the coasts
of Thrace
that Orpheus, playing his lyre, lured down from Pieria, rank on rank of them, coming to his music like soldiers
on the march.
The next I chose was Polyphemon, son of Eilatos,
out of
Larissa. He was, in
his younger days, a hero in the
ranks
of the incredible Lapithai who warred with the centaurs
once.
His limbs by now were heavy with age, but he still had
the same
fierce heart.
‘The next was Asterios, son of an endless line
of travellers, explorers, river merchants, a man who
could trade up
wools and linens to priceless gems. And Iphiklos was
next,
my mother’s brother, who came for the sake of our
kinship. Then
Admetos, king of Pherai, rich in sheep. Then the sons of Hermes, out of Alope, land of cornfields; with them Aithalides their kinsman. Then, from wealthy Gyrton, Koronos came, the son of Kaineos—strong as a boulder, though he wasn’t the man his father was. In Gyrton
they say
the old man singlehanded beat the centaurs back, and after the centaurs rallied and overcame him, even then they couldn’t kill him. With massive pines they
drove him
down in the earth like a nail. He was still alive.
“Then Mopsos,
powerful man whom Apollo had trained to excel all
others
in the art of augury from birds. He knew when he
came, he said,
that he’d meet his end in the Libyan desert.
Then Telamon
and Peleus, sons of Aiakos, fathers in turn of sons as awesome as they were themselves—the heroes Aias
and Akhilles,
now chief terrors of Troy.
“And after the two great brothers,
from Attica came Butes, son of Teleon, and Phalerus, famous for their deadly spears. (Theseus, finest of the Attic line, was out of business. He’d gone with Peirithoös into the Underworld, and was kept
there, chained,
a prisoner deep in the earth.)
‘Then out of the Thespian town
of Siphai, Tiphys came. He was a mariner who could sense the coming of a swell across the open
sea
and knew by the sun and stars when storms were
brewing, six
weeks off. Athena herself had sent him to join us—she who’d supervised the building of our ship.
“Then Phlias
came, Dionysos’ son, who lived by the springs of
Asopos—
child of the black-robed god who was my father’s father. Phlias was a dancer, a tiger in battle. He never learned
speech.
“From Argos came Talaos and Areion, and powerful
Leodokos.
“Then came Herakles. He’d heard a rumor of the
expedition
when he’d just arrived from Arcadia. It was the famous
time
when he carried on his back—alive and thrashing—
the monstrous boar
that fed in the thickets of Lampeia. As soon as Herakles
heard it,
he threw down the boar, tied up its feet, and left it
squealing—
loud as a hurricane—blocking the gates of the great
market
at Mykenai. His squire, Hylas, that beautiful boy whom Herakles loved like a son—or like a god—came
with him,
serving as keeper of the bow. He was like a breeze,
like rain.
You see them sometimes, boys like Hylas, and you
pause, as if
snatched out of Time, stunned for an instant. It’s as
if you’ve come
suddenly, turning a familiar corner, to a world more
calm,
more innocent than ours, and there at the door of it, a deity, childlike, all-forgiving; you find yourself thrilled to what’s best in yourself, a spring not yet
corrupt,
and as religion wells in your chest—a strange humility—something else sweeps in, a curious sorrow, deep, mysterious despair. Such gentleness, such trust, such beauty of eyes and limbs … It was as if I knew
even then,
the instant I saw him, that something terrible awaited
him,
patient as a wolf, and knew that after the beautiful boy was gone, strange things would happen to us—
smoke-black darkness,
murderous winds, waves that ground at our ship like
monstrous
teeth … Impossible to say what I mean. He was like
a sign
of the best possible in nature, and his very goodness
made him …
“But enough. Let me think who else there was.
“There was Idmon the seer.
Of all the heroes of Argos, Idmon was the last to come. Like Mopsos, he knew by his own birdlore that for him
the trip
meant death; yet the poor devil came, for his reputation’s
sake.
A coward’s coward, I used to call him. He was terrified at the very idea that he ever might fly in terror.
“From Sparta
Aitolian Leda sent us the mighty Polydeukes, king of all boxers, and Kastor, master of the racing
horse.
She’d borne them as twins in Tyndareos’ palace, and
loved them so well
she swallowed her fear like bitter wine and allowed
them to go
as they wished. No wonder Zeus had loved her, a girl
like that,
and planted in Leda’s womb the most beautiful woman
on earth!
“From Arene the sons of Aphareos came, Lynkeus
and Idas.
They were both brave men and as powerful as bulls—
yet I hesitated
before I’d take them on board. Idas was crazy. He talked pure gibberish at times, and foamed at the mouth.
When sane,
he was quarrelsome, insolent, a chip on his shoulder
as big as a tree.
But Lynkeus wouldn’t have joined without him; and
Lynkeus had
the finest eyesight in the world. As easily as you and I see distant eagles, Lynkeus could see things
underground.
Yet Idas’ vision was keener still, I learned in the end. His beads were of human bone, and his cheek bore
lion scars,
and scorning, shaming, mocking was all he loved; yet
he was not
mad, exactly. Like leopards they watched the world,
those brothers,
though Idas fooled you. The man had the eyes of a
sleeping dragon.
“From Arcadia, Kepheus and Amphidamas came, two
sons of Aleos,
and their older brother Lykourgos sent us his
twelve-foot boy
Ankaios. He had to stay home, himself, to care for
his aging
father—a testy, sly old devil, as we saw for ourselves. The old man didn’t approve of allowing a boy so young to sail with us, whatever his size, and when argument
failed
to sway Ankaios’ father, old Aleos chewed his gums and schemed. Ankaios arrived at the ship in a bearskin,
waving
a two-edged axe in his right hand. His grandfather’d
hidden
his equipment in a corner of the bam, still hoping to
the very last
he’d keep his baby home.
“Augeias also came,
whose father was the sun; and Asterios and Amphion, from Pelles’ city on the cliffs. And Euphemos followed
them,
the fastest runner in the world—the boy Europa,
daughter
of Tityos, bore to Poseidon. He was a man who could run on the rolling waters of the sea so fast his invisible feet weren’t wet by it. —But Zetes and Kalais were faster
in the sky,
the two sons of the North Wind, whom Oreithyia bore to Boreas in the wint
ry borderland of Thrace. He’d
brought her
from Attica. She was whirling in the dance on the banks
of the Ilissos
when he snatched her from earth and carried her away
to Sarpedon’s Rock,
near the flowing waters of Erginos, where he wrapped
her up
in a dark cloud and raped her. It was an astounding
thing
to watch those sons of hers soar up into the sky,
the sea-blue
eagles’ road! The wings on each side of their ankles
whirred
and spangles of gold burst through like sparks from
the dusky feathers,
and they shot away. Their black locks whipped on their
shoulders and backs,
but their faces were steady as arrowheads in flight.
“The last
we took with us was Argus, gentle old craftsman, sly as Daidalos—but older, richer in ancient lore— a man who remembered secrets most of the gods
had long
forgotten. He was no fighter. In time of war he’d sit bent over, with his lips drawn tight, his blue eyes
violent,
alarmed, as though he’d pierced the forms of the ships
we’d burned,
the white bodies of the dead—had pierced the shapes
of our destruction,
and saw, beyond them, nothing. And yet he forgave
our work,
when breezes had cleaned the air of the stink and smoke,
and we’d laid
the dead away. Old Argus didn’t much care for us, destroyers of filigreed halls and high-prowed ships,
wasters
of goldsmiths’ work, despoilers of cities, the works of
mind.
There were times when that gentle scorn of his—a
sneer, almost—
inclined us to smash his head for him. But we couldn’t,
of course.
We needed him—needed his art, if not that calcifying smile. And Argus came, whatever his distaste, to guard his masterpiece—to guard, perhaps, whatever work he could. And because he was curious. Not death itself would have given the old man pause if he thought he
could learn from it.
For all his nobility of mind he was a man consumed by need to know, need to reduce the universe to facts.
“Such was my crew, or anyway the best of it;
all men of genius, sons of the immortal gods.
“The Argo
was ready, equipped with all that goes into a well-found
ship
when pressing business carries people to sea. We made our way to the shore where the ship lay grumbling,
muttering to herself
to be gone. A crowd of excited townsfolk gathered
around us,
tall men, some of them, some of them fine to see; but set by the best of them all, the Argo’s crew stood out