The Argonautica
with her right lifting up the hem of her tunic. Quickly along the dark
track, outside the towers of the spacious city, did she come in fear;
nor did any of the warders note her, but she sped on unseen by them.
Thence she was minded to go to the temple; for well she knew the way,
having often aforetime wandered there in quest of corpses and noxious
roots of the earth, as a sorceress is wont to do; and her soul
fluttered with quivering fear. And the Titanian goddess, the moon,
rising from a far land, beheld her as she fled distraught, and fiercely
exulted over her, and thus spake to her own heart:
“Not I alone then stray to the Latinian cave, nor do I alone burn with
love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been
driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of
night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to
thee. And now thou thyself too hast part in a like mad passion; and
some god of affection has given thee Jason to be thy grievous woe.
Well, go on, and steel thy heart, wise though thou be, to take up thy
burden of pain, fraught with many sighs.”
Thus spake the goddess; but swiftly the maiden’s feet bore her, hasting
on. And gladly did she gain the high-bank of the river and beheld on
the opposite side the gleam of fire, which all night long the heroes
were kindling in joy at the contest’s issue. Then through the gloom,
with clear-pealing voice from across the stream, she called on
Phrontis, the youngest of Phrixus’ sons, and he with his brothers and
Aeson’s son recognised the maiden’s voice; and in silence his comrades
wondered when they knew that it was so in truth. Thrice she called, and
thrice at the bidding of the company Phrontis called out in reply; and
meantime the heroes were rowing with swift-moving oars in search of
her. Not yet were they casting the ship’s hawsers upon the opposite
bank, when Jason with light feet leapt to land from the deck above, and
after him Phrontis and Argus, sons of Phrixus, leapt to the ground; and
she, clasping their knees with both hands, thus addressed them:
“Save me, the hapless one, my friends, from Aeetes, and yourselves too,
for all is brought to light, nor doth any remedy come. But let us flee
upon the ship, before the king mounts his swift chariot. And I will
lull to sleep the guardian serpent and give you the fleece of gold; but
do thou, stranger, amid thy comrades make the gods witness of the vows
thou hast taken on thyself for my sake; and now that I have fled far
from my country, make me not a mark for blame and dishonour for want of
kinsmen.”
She spake in anguish; but greatly did the heart of Aeson’s son rejoice,
and at once, as she fell at his knees, he raised her gently and
embraced her, and spake words of comfort: “Lady, let Zeus of Olympus
himself be witness to my oath, and Hera, queen of marriage, bride of
Zeus, that I will set thee in my halls my own wedded wife, when we have
reached the land of Hellas on our return.”
Thus he spake, and straightway clasped her right hand in his; and she
bade them row the swift ship to the sacred grove near at hand, in order
that, while it was still night, they might seize and carry off the
fleece against the will of Aeetes. Word and deed were one to the eager
crew. For they took her on board, and straightway thrust the ship from
shore; and loud was the din as the chieftains strained at their oars,
but she, starting back, held out her hands in despair towards the
shore. But Jason spoke cheering words and restrained her grief.
Now at the hour when men have cast sleep from their eyes~huntsmen, who,
trusting to their bounds, never slumber away the end of night, but
avoid the light of dawn lest, smiting with its white beams, it efface
the track and scent of the quarry—then did Aeson’s son and the maiden
step forth from the ship over a grassy spot, the “Ram’s couch” as men
call it, where it first bent its wearied knees in rest, bearing on its
back the Minyan son of Athamas. And close by, all smirched with soot,
was the base of the altar, which the Aeolid Phrixus once set up to
Zeus, the alder of fugitives, when he sacrificed the golden wonder at
the bidding of Hermes who graciously met him on the way. There by the
counsels of Argus the chieftains put them ashore.
And they two by the pathway came to the sacred grove, seeking the huge
oak tree on which was hung the fleece, like to a cloud that blushes red
with the fiery beams of the rising sun. But right in front the serpent
with his keen sleepless eyes saw them coming, and stretched out his
long neck and hissed in awful wise; and all round the long banks of the
river echoed and the boundless grove. Those heard it who dwelt in the
Colchian land very far from Titanian Aea, near the outfall of Lycus,
the river which parts from loud-roaring Araxes and blends his sacred
stream with Phasis, and they twain flow on together in one and pour
their waters into the Caucasian Sea. And through fear young mothers
awoke, and round their new-born babes, who were sleeping in their arms,
threw their hands in agony, for the small limbs started at that hiss.
And as when above a pile of smouldering wood countless eddies of smoke
roll up mingled with soot, and one ever springs up quickly after
another, rising aloft from beneath in wavering wreaths; so at that time
did that monster roll his countless coils covered with hard dry scales.
And as he writhed, the maiden came before his eyes, with sweet voice
calling to her aid sleep, highest of gods, to charm the monster; and
she cried to the queen of the underworld, the night-wanderer, to be
propitious to her enterprise. And Aeson’s son followed in fear, but the
serpent, already charmed by her song, was relaxing the long ridge of
his giant spine, and lengthening out his myriad coils, like a dark
wave, dumb and noiseless, rolling over a sluggish sea; but still he
raised aloft his grisly head, eager to enclose them both in his
murderous jaws. But she with a newly cut spray of juniper, dipping and
drawing untempered charms from her mystic brew, sprinkled his eyes,
while she chanted her song; and all around the potent scent of the
charm cast sleep; and on the very spot he let his jaw sink down; and
far behind through the wood with its many trees were those countless
coils stretched out.
Hereupon Jason snatched the golden fleece from the oak, at the maiden
bidding; and she, standing firm, smeared with the charm the monster’s
head, till Jason himself bade her turn back towards their ship, and she
left the grove of Ares, dusky with shade. And as a maiden catches on
her finely wrought robe the gleam of the moon at the full, as it rises
above her high-roofed chamber; and her heart rejoices as she beholds
the fair ray; so at that time did Jason uplift the mighty fleece in his
hands; and from the shimmering of the flocks of wool there settled on
his fair cheeks and brow a red flush like a flame. And great as is the
hide of a yearling ox or stag, which huntsmen call a brocket, so great
in extent was the fleece all golden above. Heavy it was, thickly
clustered with flocks; and as he moved along, even beneath his feet the
sheen rose up from the earth. And he strode on now with the fleece
covering his left shoulder from the height of his neck to his feet, and
now again he gathered it up in his hands; for he feared exceedingly,
lest some god or man should meet him and deprive him thereof.
Dawn was spreading over the earth when they reached the throng of
heroes; and the youths marvelled to behold the mighty fleece, which
gleamed like the lightning of Zeus. And each one started up eager to
touch it and clasp it in his hands. But the son of Aeson restrained
them all, and threw over it a mantle newly-woven; and he led the maiden
to the stern and seated her there, and spake to them all as follows:
“No longer now, my friends, forbear to return to your fatherland. For
now the task for which we dared this grievous voyage, toiling with
bitter sorrow of heart, has been lightly fulfilled by the maiden’s
counsels. Her—for such is her will—I will bring home to be my wedded
wife; do ye preserve her, the glorious saviour of all Achaea and of
yourselves. For of a surety, I ween, will Aeetes come with his host to
bar our passage from the river into the sea. But do some of you toil at
the oars in turn, sitting man by man; and half of you raise your
shields of oxhide, a ready defence against the darts of the enemy, and
guard our return. And now in our hands we hold the fate of our children
and dear country and of our aged parents; and on our venture all Hellas
depends, to reap either the shame of failure or great renown.”
Thus he spake, and donned his armour of war; and they cried aloud,
wondrously eager. And he drew his sword from the sheath and cut the
hawsers at the stern. And near the maiden he took his stand ready armed
by the steersman Aneaeus, and with their rowing the ship sped on as
they strained desperately to drive her clear of the river.
By this time Medea’s love and deeds had become known to haughty Aeetes
and to all the Colchians. And they thronged to the assembly in arms;
and countless as the waves of the stormy sea when they rise crested by
the wind, or as the leaves that fall to the ground from the wood with
its myriad branches in the month when the leaves fall—who could reckon
their tale?—so they in countless number poured along the banks of the
river shouting in frenzy; and in his shapely chariot Aeetes shone forth
above all with his steeds, the gift of Helios, swift as the blasts of
the wind. In his left hand he raised his curved shield, and in his
right a huge pine-torch, and near him in front stood up his mighty
spear. And Apsyrtus held in his hands the reins of the steeds. But
already the ship was cleaving the sea before her, urged on by stalwart
oarsmen, and the stream of the mighty river rushing down. But the king
in grievous anguish lifted his hands and called on Helios and Zeus to
bear witness to their evil deeds; and terrible threats he uttered
against all his people, that unless they should with their own hands
seize the maiden, either on the land or still finding the ship on the
swell of the open sea, and bring her back, that so he might satisfy his
eager soul with vengeance for all those deeds, at the cost of their own
lives they should learn and abide all his rage and revenge.
Thus spake Aeetes; and on that same day the Colchians launched their
ships and cast the tackle on board, and on that same day sailed forth
on the sea; thou wouldst not say so mighty a host was a fleet of ships,
but that a countless flight of birds, swarm on swarm, was clamouring
over the sea.
Swiftly the wind blew, as the goddess Hera planned, so that most
quickly Aeaean Medea might reach the Pelasgian land, a bane to the
house of Pelias, and on the third morn they bound the ship’s stern
cables to the shores of the Paphlagonians, at the mouth of the river
Halys. For Medea bade them land and propitiate Hecate with sacrifice.
Now all that the maiden prepared for offering the sacrifice may no man
know, and may my soul not urge me to sing thereof. Awe restrains my
lips, yet from that time the altar which the heroes raised on the beach
to the goddess remains till now, a sight to men of a later day.
And straightway Aeson’s son and the rest of the heroes bethought them
of Phineus, how that he had said that their course from Aea should be
different, but to all alike his meaning was dim. Then Argus spake, and
they eagerly hearkened:
“We go to Orchomenus, whither that unerring seer, whom ye met
aforetime, foretold your voyage. For there is another course, signified
by those priests of the immortal gods, who have sprung from Tritonian