Then all the heroes cried together, 'I will go!' 'and I!'
'and I!' And Idas the rash grew mad with envy; for he longed
to be
foremost in all things. But Medeia calmed them, and
said, 'Orpheus shall go with Jason, and bring his magic harp;
for I hear of him that he is the king of all minstrels, and
can charm all things on earth.'
And Orpheus laughed for joy, and clapped his hands, because
the choice had fallen on him; for in those days poets and
singers were as bold warriors as the best.
So at
midnight they went up the bank, and found Medeia; and
beside came Absyrtus her young brother, leading a yearling
lamb.
Then Medeia brought them to a
thicket beside the War-god's
gate; and there she bade Jason dig a ditch, and kill the
lamb, and leave it there, and strew on it magic herbs and
honey from the honeycomb.
Then
sprang up through the earth, with the red fire flashing
before her, Brimo the wild witch-huntress, while her mad
hounds howled around. She had one head like a horse's, and
another like a ravening hound's, and another like a hissing
snake's, and a sword in either hand. And she leapt into the
ditch with her hounds, and they ate and drank their fill,
while Jason and Orpheus trembled, and Medeia hid her eyes.
And at last the witch-queen vanished, and fled with her
hounds into the woods; and the bars of the gates fell down,
and the
brazen doors flew wide, and Medeia and the heroes ran
forward and
hurried through the
poison wood, among the dark
stems of the
mighty beeches, guided by the gleam of the
golden
fleece, until they saw it
hanging on one vast tree in
the midst. And Jason would have
sprung to seize it; but
Medeia held him back, and
pointed, shuddering, to the tree-
foot, where the
mightyserpent lay, coiled in and out among
the roots, with a body like a mountain pine. His coils
stretched many a
fathom, spangled with
bronze and gold; and
half of him they could see, but no more, for the rest lay in
the darkness far beyond.
And when he saw them coming he lifted up his head, and
watched them with his small bright eyes, and flashed his
forked tongue, and roared like the fire among the woodlands,
till the forest tossed and groaned. For his cries shook the
trees from leaf to root, and swept over the long reaches of
the river, and over Aietes' hall, and woke the sleepers in
the city, till mothers clasped their children in their fear.
But Medeia called
gently to him, and he stretched out his
long spotted neck, and licked her hand, and looked up in her
face, as if to ask for food. Then she made a sign to
Orpheus, and he began his magic song.
And as he sung, the forest grew calm again, and the leaves on
every tree hung still; and the
serpent's head sank down, and
his
brazen coils grew limp, and his glittering eyes closed
lazily, till he
breathed as
gently as a child, while Orpheus
called to pleasant Slumber, who gives peace to men, and
beasts, and waves.
Then Jason leapt forward warily, and stept across that
mightysnake, and tore the
fleece from off the tree-trunk; and the
four rushed down the garden, to the bank where the ARGO lay.
There was a silence for a moment, while Jason held the golden
fleece on high. Then he cried, 'Go now, good ARGO, swift and
steady, if ever you would see Pelion more.'
And she went, as the heroes drove her, grim and silent all,
with muffled oars, till the pine-wood bent like
willow in
their hands, and stout ARGO groaned beneath their strokes.
On and on, beneath the dewy darkness, they fled
swiftly down
the swirling
stream;
underneath black walls, and temples, and
the castles of the princes of the East; past sluice-mouths,
and
fragrant gardens, and groves of all strange fruits; past
marshes where fat kine lay
sleeping, and long beds of
whispering reeds; till they heard the merry music of the
surge upon the bar, as it tumbled in the
moonlight all alone.
Into the surge they rushed, and ARGO leapt the breakers like
a horse; for she knew the time was come to show her mettle,
and win honour for the heroes and herself.
Into the surge they rushed, and ARGO leapt the breakers like
a horse, till the heroes stopped all panting, each man upon
his oar, as she slid into the still broad sea.
Then Orpheus took his harp and sang a paean, till the heroes'
hearts rose high again; and they rowed on stoutly and
steadfastly, away into the darkness of the West.
PART V - HOW THE ARGONAUTS WERE DRIVEN INTO THE UNKNOWN SEA
SO they fled away in haste to the
westward; but Aietes manned
his fleet and followed them. And Lynceus the quick-eyed saw
him coming, while he was still many a mile away, and cried,
'I see a hundred ships, like a flock of white swans, far in
the east.' And at that they rowed hard, like heroes; but the
ships came nearer every hour.
Then Medeia, the dark witch-
maiden, laid a cruel and a
cunning plot; for she killed Absyrtus her young brother, and
cast him into the sea, and said, 'Ere my father can take up
his
corpse and bury it, he must wait long, and be left far
behind.'
And all the heroes shuddered, and looked one at the other for
shame; yet they did not
punish that dark witch-woman, because
she had won for them the golden
fleece.
And when Aietes came to the place he saw the floating
corpse;
and he stopped a long while, and bewailed his son, and took
him up, and went home. But he sent on his sailors toward the
westward, and bound them by a
mighty curse - 'Bring back to
me that dark witch-woman, that she may die a
dreadful death.
But if you return without her, you shall die by the same
death yourselves.'
So the Argonauts escaped for that time: but Father Zeus saw
that foul crime; and out of the heavens he sent a storm, and
swept the ship far from her course. Day after day the storm
drove her, amid foam and blinding mist, till they knew no
longer where they were, for the sun was blotted from the
skies. And at last the ship struck on a shoal, amid low
isles of mud and sand, and the waves rolled over her and
through her, and the heroes lost all hope of life.
Then Jason cried to Hera, 'Fair queen, who hast befriended us
till now, why hast thou left us in our
misery, to die here
among unknown seas? It is hard to lose the honour which we
have won with such toil and danger, and hard never to see
Hellas again, and the pleasant bay of Pagasai.'
Then out and spoke the magic bough which stood upon the
ARGO'S beak, 'Because Father Zeus is angry, all this has
fallen on you; for a cruel crime has been done on board, and
the
sacred ship is foul with blood.'
At that some of the heroes cried, 'Medeia is the murderess.
Let the witch-woman bear her sin, and die!' And they seized
Medeia, to hurl her into the sea, and atone for the young
boy's death; but the magic bough spoke again, 'Let her live
till her crimes are full. Vengeance waits for her, slow and
sure; but she must live, for you need her still. She must
show you the way to her sister Circe, who lives among the
islands of the West. To her you must sail, a weary way, and
she shall
cleanse you from your guilt.'
Then all the heroes wept aloud when they heard the sentence
of the oak; for they knew that a dark journey lay before
them, and years of bitter toil. And some upbraided the dark
witch-woman, and some said, 'Nay, we are her debtors still;
without her we should never have won the
fleece.' But most
of them bit their lips in silence, for they feared the
witch's spells.
And now the sea grew calmer, and the sun shone out once more,
and the heroes
thrust the ship off the sand-bank, and rowed
forward on their weary course under the guiding of the dark
witch-
maiden, into the wastes of the unknown sea.
Whither they went I cannot tell, nor how they came to Circe's
isle. Some say that they went to the
westward, and up the
Ister (2)
stream, and so came into the Adriatic, dragging
their ship over the snowy Alps. And others say that they
went
southward, into the Red Indian Sea, and past the sunny
lands where spices grow, round AEthiopia toward the West; and
that at last they came to Libya, and dragged their ship
across the burning sands, and over the hills into the Syrtes,
where the flats and quicksands spread for many a mile,
between rich Cyrene and the Lotus-eaters' shore. But all
these are but dreams and fables, and dim hints of unknown
lands.
But all say that they came to a place where they had to drag
their ship across the land nine days with ropes and rollers,
till they came into an unknown sea. And the best of all the
old songs tells us how they went away toward the North, till
they came to the slope of Caucasus, where it sinks into the
sea; and to the narrow Cimmerian Bosphorus, (3) where the
Titan swam across upon the bull; and
thence into the lazy
waters of the still Maeotid lake. (4) And
thence they went
northward ever, up the Tanais, which we call Don, past the
Geloni and Sauromatai, and many a
wandering shepherd-tribe,
and the one-eyed Arimaspi, of whom old Greek poets tell, who
steal the gold from the Griffins, in the cold Riphaian hills.
(5)
And they passed the Scythian archers, and the Tauri who eat
men, and the
wandering Hyperboreai, who feed their flocks
beneath the pole-star, until they came into the northern
ocean, the dull dead Cronian Sea. (6) And there ARGO would
move on no longer; and each man clasped his elbow, and leaned
his head upon his hand, heart-broken with toil and
hunger,