The Argonautica
out thy thought in the midst. Does fear come on and master thee, fear,
that confounds cowards? Be witness now my impetuous spear, wherewith in
wars I win renown beyond all others (nor does Zeus aid me so much as my
own spear), that no woe will be fatal, no venture will be unachieved,
while Idas follows, even though a god should oppose thee. Such a
helpmeet am I that thou bringest from Arene.”
He spake, and holding a brimming goblet in both hands drank off the
unmixed sweet wine; and his lips and dark cheeks were drenched with it;
and all the heroes clamoured together and Idmon spoke out openly:
“Vain wretch, thou art devising destruction for thyself before the
time. Does the pure wine cause thy bold heart to swell in thy breast to
thy ruin, and has it set thee on to dishonour the gods? Other words of
comfort there are with which a man might encourage his comrade; but
thou hast spoken with utter recklessness. Such taunts, the tale goes,
did the sons of Aloeus once blurt out against the blessed gods, and
thou dost no wise equal them in valour; nevertheless they were both
slain by the swift arrows of Leto’s son, mighty though they were.”
Thus he spake, and Aphareian Iclas laughed out, loud and long, and
eyeing him askance replied with biting words:
“Come now, tell me this by thy prophetic art, whether for me too the
gods will bring to pass such doom as thy father promised for the sons
of Aloeus. And bethink thee how thou wilt escape from my hands alive,
if thou art caught making a prophecy vain as the idle wind.”
Thus in wrath Idas reviled him, and the strife would have gone further
had not their comrades and Aeson’s son himself with indignant cry
restrained the contending chiefs; and Orpheus lifted his lyre in his
left hand and made essay to sing.
He sang how the earth, the heaven and the sea, once mingled together in
one form, after deadly strife were separated each from other; and how
the stars and the moon and the paths of the sun ever keep their fixed
place in the sky; and how the mountains rose, and how the resounding
rivers with their nymphs came into being and all creeping things. And
he sang how first of all Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Ocean, held
the sway of snowy Olympus, and how through strength of arm one yielded
his prerogative to Cronos and the other to Rhea, and how they fell into
the waves of Ocean; but the other two meanwhile ruled over the blessed
Titan-gods, while Zeus, still a child and with the thoughts of a child,
dwelt in the Dictaean cave; and the earthborn Cyclopes had not yet
armed him with the bolt, with thunder and lightning; for these things
give renown to Zeus.
He ended, and stayed his lyre and divine voice. But though he had
ceased they still bent forward with eagerness all hushed to quiet, with
ears intent on the enchanting strain; such a charm of song had he left
behind in their hearts. Not long after they mixed libations in honour
of Zeus, with pious rites as is customary, and poured them upon the
burning tongues, and bethought them of sleep in the darkness.
Now when gleaming dawn with bright eyes beheld the lofty peaks of
Pelion, and the calm headlands were being drenched as the sea was
ruffled by the winds, then Tiphys awoke from sleep; and at once he
roused his comrades to go on board and make ready the oars. And a
strange cry did the harbour of Pagasae utter, yea and Pelian Argo
herself, urging them to set forth. For in her a beam divine had been
laid which Athena had brought from an oak of Dodona and fitted in the
middle of the stem. And the heroes went to the benches one after the
other, as they had previously assigned for each to row in his place,
and took their seats in due order near their fighting gear. In the
middle sat Antaeus and mighty Heracles, and near him he laid his club,
and beneath his tread the ship’s keel sank deep. And now the hawsers
were being slipped and they poured wine on the sea. But Jason with
tears held his eyes away from his fatherland. And just as youths set up
a dance in honour of Phoebus either in Pytho or haply in Ortygia, or by
the waters of Ismenus, and to the sound of the lyre round his altar all
together in time beat the earth with swiftly-moving feet; so they to
the sound of Orpheus’ lyre smote with their oars the rushing sea-water,
and the surge broke over the blades; and on this side and on that the
dark brine seethed with foam, boiling terribly through the might of the
sturdy heroes. And their arms shone in the sun like flame as the ship
sped on; and ever their wake gleamed white far behind, like a path seen
over a green plain. On that day all the gods looked down from heaven
upon the ship and the might of the heroes, half-divine, the bravest of
men then sailing the sea; and on the topmost heights the nymphs of
Pelion wondered as they beheld the work of Itonian Athena, and the
heroes themselves wielding the oars. And there came down from the
mountain-top to the sea Chiron, son of Philyra, and where the white
surf broke he dipped his feet, and, often waving with his broad hand,
cried out to them at their departure, “Good speed and a sorrowless
home-return!” And with him his wife, bearing Peleus’ son Achilles on
her arm, showed the child to his dear father.
Now when they had left the curving shore of the harbour through the
cunning and counsel of prudent Tiphys son of Hagnias, who skilfully
handled the well-polished helm that he might guide them steadfastly,
then at length they set up the tall mast in the mastbox, and secured it
with forestays, drawing them taut on each side, and from it they let
down the sail when they had hauled it to the top-mast. And a breeze
came down piping shrilly; and upon the deck they fastened the ropes
separately round the well-polished pins, and ran quietly past the long
Tisaean headland. And for them the son of Oeagrus touched his lyre and
sang in rhythmical song of Artemis, saviour of ships, child of a
glorious sire, who hath in her keeping those peaks by the sea, and the
land of Iolcos; and the fishes came darting through the deep sea, great
mixed with small, and followed gambolling along the watery paths. And
as when in the track of the shepherd, their master, countless sheep
follow to the fold that have fed to the full of grass, and he goes
before gaily piping a shepherd’s strain on Iris shrill reed; so these
fishes followed; and a chasing breeze ever bore the ship onward.
And straightway the misty land of the Pelasgians, rich in cornfields,
sank out of sight, and ever speeding onward they passed the rugged
sides of Pelion; and the Sepian headland sank away, and Sciathus
appeared in the sea, and far off appeared Piresiae and the calm shore
of Magnesia on the mainland and the tomb of Dolops; here then in the
evening, as the wind blew against them, they put to land, and paying
honour to him at nightfall burnt sheep as victims, while the sea was
tossed by the swell: and for two days they lingered on the shore, but
on the third day they put forth the ship, spreading on high the broad
sail. And even now men call that beach Aphetae[8] of Argo.
Thence going forward they ran past Meliboea, escaping a stormy beach
and surf-line. And in the morning they saw Homole close at hand leaning
on the sea, and skirted it, and not long after they were about to pass
by the outfall of the river Amyrus. From there they beheld Eurymenae
and the seawashed ravines of Ossa and Olympus; next they reached the
slopes of Pallene, beyond the headland of Canastra, running all night
with the wind. And at dawn before them as they journeyed rose Athos,
the Thracian mountain, which with its topmost peak overshadows Lemnos,
even as far as Myrine, though it lies as far off as the space that a
well-trimmed merchantship would traverse up to mid-day. For them on
that day, till darkness fell, the breeze blew exceedingly fresh, and
the sails of the ship strained to it. But with the setting of the sun
the wind left them, and it was by the oars that they reached Lemnos,
the Sintian isle.
Here the whole of the men of the people together had been ruthlessly
slain through the transgressions of the women in the year gone by. For
the men had rejected their lawful wives, loathing them, and had
conceived a fierce passion for captive maids whom they themselves
brought across the sea from their forays in Thrace; for the terrible
wrath of Cypris came upon them, because for a long time they had
grudged her the honours due. O hapless women, and insatiate in jealousy
to their own ruin! Not their husbands alone with the captives did they
slay on account of the marriage-bed, but all the males at the same
time, that they might thereafter pay no retribution for the grim
murder. And of all the women, Hypsipyle alone spared her aged father
Thoas, who was king over the people; and she sent him in a hollow
chest, to drift over the sea, if haply he should escape. And fishermen
dragged him to shore at the island of Oenoe, formerly Oenoe, but
afterwards called Sicinus from Sicinus, whom the water-nymph Oenoe bore
to Thoas. Now for all the women to tend kine, to don armour of bronze,
and to cleave with the plough-share the wheat-bearing fields, was
easier than the works of Athena, with which they were busied aforetime.
Yet for all that did they often gaze over the broad sea, in grievous
fear against the Thracians’ coming. So when they saw Argo being rowed
near the island, straightway crowding in multitude from the gates of
Myrine and clad in their harness of war, they poured forth to the beach
like ravening Thyiades: for they deemed that the Thracians were come;
and with them Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, donned her father’s
harness. And they streamed down speechless with dismay; such fear was
wafted about them.
Meantime from the ship the chiefs had sent Aethalides the swift herald,
to whose care they entrusted their messages and the wand of Hermes, his
sire, who had granted him a memory of all things, that never grew dim;
and not even now, though he has entered the unspeakable whirlpools of
Acheron, has forgetfulness swept over his soul, but its fixed doom is
to be ever changing its abode; at one time to be numbered among the
dwellers beneath the earth, at another to be in the light of the sun
among living men. But why need I tell at length tales of Aethalides? He
at that time persuaded Hypsipyle to receive the new-comers as the day
was waning into darkness; nor yet at dawn did they loose the ship’s
hawsers to the breath of the north wind.
Now the Lemnian women fared through the city and sat down to the
assembly, for Hypsipyle herself had so bidden. And when they were all
gathered together in one great throng straightway she spake among them
with stirring words:
“O friends, come let us grant these men gifts to their hearts’ desire,
such as it is fitting that they should take on ship-board, food and
sweet wine, in order that they may steadfastly remain outside our
towers, and may not, passing among us for need’s sake, get to know us
all too well, and so an evil report be widely spread; for we have
wrought a terrible deed and in nowise will it be to their liking,
should they learn it. Such is our counsel now, but if any of you can
devise a better plan let her rise, for it was on this account that I
summoned you hither.”
Thus she spake and sat upon her father’s seat of stone, and then rose
up her dear nurse Polyxo, for very age halting upon her withered feet,
bowed over a staff, and she was eager to address them. Near her were
seated four virgins, unwedded, crowned with white hair. And she stood
in the midst of the assembly and from her bent back she feebly raised
her neck and spake thus:
“Gifts, as Hypsipyle herself wishes, let us send to the strangers, for
it is better to give them. But for you what device have ye to get