The Argonautica
Artemis. In its vestibule he fell on his knees; and at last the hero
breathing out his life caught up in both hands the dark blood as it
welled from the wound; and he dyed with red his sister’s silvery veil
and robe as she shrank away. And with swift side-glance the
irresistible pitiless Fury beheld the deadly deed they had done. And
the hero, Aeson’s son, cut off the extremities of the dead man, and
thrice licked up some blood and thrice spat the pollution from his
teeth, as it is right for the slayer to do, to atone for a treacherous
murder. And the clammy corpse he hid in the ground where even now those
bones lie among the Apsyrtians.
Now as soon as the heroes saw the blaze of a torch, which the maiden
raised for them as a sign to pursue, they laid their own ship near the
Colchian ship, and they slaughtered the Colchian host, as kites slay
the tribes of wood-pigeons, or as lions of the wold, when they have
leapt amid the steading, drive a great flock of sheep huddled together.
Nor did one of them escape death, but the heroes rushed upon the whole
crew, destroying them like a flame; and at last Jason met them, and was
eager to give aid where none was needed; but already they were taking
thought for him too. Thereupon they sat to devise some prudent counsel
for their voyage, and the maiden came upon them as they pondered, but
Peleus spake his word first:
“I now bid you embark while it is still night, and take with your oars
the passage opposite to that which the enemy guards, for at dawn when
they see their plight I deem that no word urging to further pursuit of
us will prevail with them; but as people bereft of their king, they
will be scattered in grievous dissension. And easy, when the people are
scattered, will this path be for us on our return.”
Thus he spake; and the youths assented to the words of Aeacus’ son. And
quickly they entered the ship, and toiled at their oars unceasingly
until they reached the sacred isle of Electra, the highest of them all,
near the river Eridanus.
But when the Colchians learnt the death of their prince, verily they
were eager to pursue Argo and the Minyans through all the Cronian sea.
But Hera restrained them by terrible lightnings from the sky. And at
last they loathed their own homes in the Cytaean land, quailing before
Aeetes’ fierce wrath; so they landed and made abiding homes there,
scattered far and wide. Some set foot on those very islands where the
heroes had stayed, and they still dwell there, bearing a name derived
from Apsyrtus; and others built a fenced city by the dark deep Illyrian
river, where is the tomb of Harmonia and Cadmus, dwelling among the
Encheleans; and others live amid the mountains which are called the
Thunderers, from the day when the thunders of Zeus, son of Cronos,
prevented them from crossing over to the island opposite.
Now the heroes, when their return seemed safe for them, fared onward
and made their hawsers fast to the land of the Hylleans. For the
islands lay thick in the river and made the path dangerous for those
who sailed thereby. Nor, as aforetime, did the Hylleans devise their
hurt, but of their own accord furthered their passage, winning as
guerdon a mighty tripod of Apollo. For tripods twain had Phoebus given
to Aeson’s son to carry afar in the voyage he had to make, at the time
when he went to sacred Pytho to enquire about this very voyage; and it
was ordained by fate that in whatever land they should be placed, that
land should never be ravaged by the attacks of foemen. Therefore even
now this tripod is hidden in that land near the pleasant city of
Hyllus, far beneath the earth, that it may ever be unseen by mortals.
Yet they found not King Hyllus still alive in the land, whom fair
Melite bare to Heracles in the land of the Phaeacians. For he came to
the abode of Nausithous and to Macris, the nurse of Dionysus, to
cleanse himself from the deadly murder of his children; here he loved
and overcame the water nymph Melite, the daughter of the river Aegaeus,
and she bare mighty Hyllus. But when he had grown up he desired not to
dwell in that island under the rule of Nausithous the king; but he
collected a host of native Phaeacians and came to the Cronian sea; for
the hero King Nausithous aided his journey, and there he settled, and
the Mentores slew him as he was fighting for the oxen of his field.
Now, goddesses, say how it is that beyond this sea, near the land of
Ausonia and the Ligystian isles, which are called Stoechades, the
mighty tracks of the ship Argo are clearly sung of? What great
constraint and need brought the heroes so far? What breezes wafted
them?
When Apsyrtus had fallen in mighty overthrow Zeus himself, king of
gods, was seized with wrath at what they had done. And he ordained that
by the counsels of Aeaean Circe they should cleanse themselves from the
terrible stain of blood and suffer countless woes before their return.
Yet none of the chieftains knew this; but far onward they sped starting
from the Hyllean land, and they left behind all the islands that were
beforetime thronged by the Colchians—the Liburnian isles, isle after
isle, Issa, Dysceladus, and lovely Pityeia. Next after them they came
to Corcyra, where Poseidon settled the daughter of Asopus, fair-haired
Corcyra, far from the land of Phlius, whence he had carried her off
through love; and sailors beholding it from the sea, all black with its
sombre woods, call it Corcyra the Black. And next they passed Melite,
rejoicing in the soft-blowing breeze, and steep Cerossus, and Nymphaea
at a distance, where lady Calypso, daughter of Atlas, dwelt; and they
deemed they saw the misty mountains of Thunder. And then Hera bethought
her of the counsels and wrath of Zeus concerning them. And she devised
an ending of their voyage and stirred up storm-winds before them, by
which they were caught and borne back to the rocky isle of Electra. And
straightway on a sudden there called to them in the midst of their
course, speaking with a human voice, the beam of the hollow ship, which
Athena had set in the centre of the stem, made of Dodonian oak. And
deadly fear seized them as they heard the voice that told of the
grievous wrath of Zeus. For it proclaimed that they should not escape
the paths of an endless sea nor grievous tempests, unless Circe should
purge away the guilt of the ruthless murder of Apsyrtus; and it bade
Polydeuces and Castor pray to the immortal gods first to grant a path
through the Ausonian sea where they should find Circe, daughter of
Perse and Helios.
Thus Argo cried through the darkness; and the sons of Tyndareus uprose,
and lifted their hands to the immortals praying for each boon: but
dejection held the rest of the Minyan heroes. And far on sped Argo
under sail, and entered deep into the stream of Eridanus; where once,
smitten on the breast by the blazing bolt, Phaethon half-consumed fell
from the chariot of Helios into the opening of that deep lake; and even
now it belcheth up heavy steam clouds from the smouldering wound. And
no bird spreading its light wings can cross that water; but in
mid-course it plunges into the flame, fluttering. And all around the
maidens, the daughters of Helios, enclosed in tall poplars, wretchedly
wail a piteous plaint; and from their eyes they shed on the ground
bright drops of amber. These are dried by the sun upon the sand; but
whenever the waters of the dark lake flow over the strand before the
blast of the wailing wind, then they roll on in a mass into Eridanus
with swelling tide. But the Celts have attached this story to them,
that these are the tears of Leto’s son, Apollo, that are borne along by
the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to
the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the
chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son whom divine
Coronis bare in bright Lacereia at the mouth of Amyrus. And such is the
story told among these men. But no desire for food or drink seized the
heroes nor were their thoughts turned to joy. But they were sorely
afflicted all day, heavy and faint at heart, with the noisome stench,
hard to endure, which the streams of Eridanus sent forth from Phaethon
still burning; and at night they heard the piercing lament of the
daughters of Helios, wailing with shrill voice; and, as they lamented,
their tears were borne on the water like drops of oil.
Thence they entered the deep stream of Rhodanus which flows into
Eridanus; and where they meet there is a roar of mingling waters. Now
that river, rising from the ends of the earth, where are the portals
and mansions of Night, on one side bursts forth upon the beach of
Ocean, at another pours into the Ionian sea, and on the third through
seven mouths sends its stream to the Sardinian sea and its limitless
bay.[29] And from Rhodanus they entered stormy lakes, which spread
throughout the Celtic mainland of wondrous size; and there they would
have met with an inglorious calamity; for a certain branch of the river
was bearing them towards a gulf of Ocean which in ignorance they were
about to enter, and never would they have returned from there in
safety. But Hera leaping forth from heaven pealed her cry from the
Hercynian rock; and all together were shaken with fear of her cry; for
terribly crashed the mighty firmament. And backward they turned by
reason of the goddess, and noted the path by which their return was
ordained. And after a long while they came to the beach of the surging
sea by the devising of Hera, passing unharmed through countless tribes
of the Celts and Ligyans. For round them the goddess poured a dread
mist day by day as they fared on. And so, sailing through the midmost
mouth, they reached the Stoechades islands in safety by the aid of the
sons of Zeus; wherefore altars and sacred rites are established in
their honour for ever; and not that sea-faring alone did they attend to
succour; but Zeus granted to them the ships of future sailors too. Then
leaving the Stoechades they passed on to the island Aethalia, where
after their toil they wiped away with pebbles sweat in abundance; and
pebbles like skin in colour are strewn on the beach;[30] and there are
their quoits and their wondrous armour; and there is the Argoan harbour
called after them.
And quickly from there they passed through the sea, beholding the
Tyrrhenian shores of Ausonia; and they came to the famous harbour of
Aeaea, and from the ship they cast hawsers to the shore near at hand.
And here they found Circe bathing her head in the salt sea-spray, for
sorely had she been scared by visions of the night. With blood her
chambers and all the walls of her palace seemed to be running, and
flame was devouring all the magic herbs with which she used to bewitch
strangers whoever came; and she herself with murderous blood quenched
the glowing flame, drawing it up in her hands; and she ceased from
deadly fear. Wherefore when morning came she rose, and with sea-spray
was bathing her hair and her garments. And beasts, not resembling the
beasts of the wild, nor yet like men in body, but with a medley of
limbs, went in a throng, as sheep from the fold in multitudes follow
the shepherd. Such creatures, compacted of various limbs, did each
herself produce from the primeval slime when she had not yet grown
solid beneath a rainless sky nor yet had received a drop of moisture
from the rays of the scorching sun; but time combined these forms and
marshalled them in their ranks; in such wise these monsters shapeless
of form followed her. And exceeding wonder seized the heroes, and at
once, as each gazed on the form and face of Circe, they readily guessed
that she was the sister of Aeetes.
Now when she had dismissed the fears of her nightly visions,