Legendary Passages #0089 -XV ARGONAUTS-
Medea's Letter, from Ovid's Heroides.
Previously, Jason left Medea for another woman. Now she wants him to take her back, or else...
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
Medea's Letter,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
HEROIDES EPISTLE XII,
trans. by GRANT SHOWERMAN
Meanwhile the condition is imposed that you press the hard necks of the fierce bulls at the unaccustomed plow. To Mars the bulls belonged, raging with more than mere horns, for their breathing was of terrible fire; of solid bronze were their feet, wrought round with bronze their nostrils, made black, too, by the blasts of their own breath. Besides this, you are bidden to scatter with obedient hand over the wide fields the seeds that should beget peoples to assail you with weapons born with themselves; a baneful harvest, that, to its own husbandman. The eyes of the guardian that know not yielding to sleep – by some art to elude them is your final task.
Aeëtes has spoken; in gloom you all rise up, and the high table is removed from the purple-spread couches. How far away then from your thought were Creusa’s dowry-realm, and the daughter of great Creon, and Creon the father of your bride! With foreboding you depart; and as you go my moist eyes follow you, and in faint murmur comes from my tongue: “Fare thou well!” Laying myself on the ordered couch within my chamber, grievously wounded, in tears I passed the whole night long; before my eyes appeared the bulls and the dreadful harvest, before my eyes the unsleeping serpent. On the one hand was love, on the other, fear; and fear increased my very love. Morning came, and my dear sister, admitted to my chamber, found me with loosened hair and lying prone upon my face, and everywhere my tears. She implores aid for your Minyae. What one asks, another is to receive; what she petitions for the Aesonian youth, I grant.
There is a grove, sombre with pine-trees and the fronds of the ilex; into it scarce can the rays of the sun find way. There is in it – there was, at least – a shrine to Diana, wherein stands the goddess, a golden image fashioned by barbaric hand. Do you know the place? or have places fallen from your mind along with me? We came to the spot. You were the first to speak, with those faithless lips, and these were your words: “To thy hand fortune has committed the right of choosing or not my deliverance, and in thy hand are the ways of life and death for me. To have power to ruin is enough, if anyone delight in power for itself; but to save me will be greater glory. By our misfortunes, which thou hast power to relieve, I pray, by thy line, and by the godhead of thy all-seeing grandsire the sun, by the three-fold face and holy mysteries of Diana, and by the gods of that race of thine – if so be gods it have – by all these, O maiden, have pity upon me, have pity on my men; be kind to me and make me thine for ever! And if it chance thou dost not disdain a Pelasgian suitor – but how can I hope the gods will be so facile to my wish? – may my spirit vanish away into thin air before another than thou shall come a bride to my chamber! My witness be Juno, ward of the rites of wedlock, and the goddess in whose marble shrine we stand!”
Words like these – and how slight a part of them is here! – and your right hand clasped with mine, moved the heart of the simple maid. I saw even tears – or was there in the tears, too, part of your deceit? Thus quickly was I ensnared, girl that I was, by your words.
You yoke together the bronze-footed bulls with your body unharmed by their fire, and cleave the solid mould with the share as you were bid. The ploughed fields you sow full with envenomed teeth in place of seed; and there rises out of the earth, with sword and shield, a warrior band. Myself, the giver of the charmèd drug, sat pallid there at sight of men all suddenly arisen and in arms; until the earth-born brothers – O deed most wonderful! – drew arms and came to the grapple each with each.
Then, lo and behold! all a-bristle with rattling scales, come the unsleeping sentinel, hissing and sweeping the ground with winding belly. Where then was your rich dowry? Where then your royal consort, and the Isthmus that sunders the waters of two seas? I, the maiden who am now at last become a barbarian in your eyes, who now am poor, who now seem baneful – I closed the lids of the flame-like eyes in slumber wrought by my drug, and gave into your hand the fleece to steal away unharmed. I betrayed my sire, I left my throne and my native soil; the reward I get is leave to live in exile! My maidenly innocence has become the spoil of a pirate from overseas; beloved mother and best of sisters I have left behind.
But thee, O my brother, I did not leave behind as I fled! In this one place my pen fails. Of the deed my right hand was bold enough to do, it is not bold enough to write. So I, too, should have been torn limb from limb – but with thee! And yet I did not fear – for what, after that, could I fear? – to trust myself to the sea, woman though I was, and now with guilt upon me. Where is heavenly justice? Where the gods? Let the penalty that is our due overtake us on the deep – you for your treachery, me for my trustfulness!
Would the Stymplegades had caught and crushed us out together, and that my bones were clinging now to yours; or Scylla the ravening submerged us in the deep to be devoured by her dogs – fit were it for Scylla to work woe to ingrate men! And she who spews forth so many times the floods, and sucks them so many times back in again – would she had brought us, too, beneath the Trinacrian wave! Yet unharmed and victorious you return to Haemonia’s towns, and the golden fleece is laid before your fathers’ gods.
Why rehearse the tale of Pelias’ daughters, by devotion led to evil deeds – of how their maiden hands laid knife to the members of their sire? I may be blamed by others, but you perforce must praise me – you, for whom so many times I have been driven to crime.
Yet you have dared – O, fit words fail me for my righteous wrath! – you have dared to say: “Withdraw from the palace of Aeson’s line!” At your bidding I have withdrawn from your palace, taking with me our two children, and – what follows me evermore – my love for you. When, all suddenly, there came to my ears the chant of Hymen, and to my eyes the gleam of blazing torches, and the pipe poured forth its notes, for you a wedding-strain, but for me a strain more tearful than the funeral trump, I will filled with fear; I did not yet believe such monstrous guilt could be; but all my breast none the less grew chill. The throng pressed eagerly on, crying “Hymen, O Hymenaeus!” in full chorus – the nearer the cry, for me the more dreadful. My slaves turned away and wept, seeking to hide their tears – who would be willing messenger of tidings so ill? Whatever it was, ‘twas better, indeed, that I not know; but my heart was heavy, as if I really knew, when the younger of the children, at my bidding, and eager for the sight, went and stood at the outer threshold of the double door. “Here, mother, come out!” he cries to me. “A procession is coming, and my father Jason leading it. He’s all in gold, and driving a team of horses!” Then straight I rent my cloak and beat my breast and cried aloud, and my cheeks were at the mercy of my nails. My heart impelled me to rush into the midst of the moving throng, to tear off the wreaths from my ordered locks; I scarce could keep from crying out, thus with hair all torn, “He is mine!” and laying hold on you.
Ah, injured father, rejoice! Rejoice, ye Colchians whom I left! Shades of my brother, receive in my fate your sacrifice due; I am abandoned; I have lost my throne, my native soil, my home, my husband – who alone for me took the place of all! Dragons and maddened bulls, it seems, I could subdue; a man alone I could not; I, who could beat back fierce fire with wise drugs, have not the power to escape the flames of my own passion. My very incantations, herbs, and arts abandon me; naught does my goddess aid me, naught the sacrifice I make to potent Hecate. I take no pleasure in the day; my nights are watches of bitterness, and gentle sleep is far departed from my wretched soul. I, who could charm the dragon to sleep, can bring none to myself; my effort brings more good to any one else soever than to me. The limbs I saved, a wanton now embraces; ‘tis she who reaps the fruit of my toil.
Perhaps, too, when you wish to make boast to your stupid mate and say what will pleasure her unjust ears, you will fashion strange slanders against my face and against my ways. Let her make merry and be joyful over my faults! Let her make merry, and lie aloft on the Tyrian purple – she shall weep, and the flames that consume her will surpass my own! While sword and fire are at my hand, and the juice of poison, no foe of Medea shall go unpunished!
But if it chance my entreaties touch a heart of iron, list now to words – words too humble for my proud soul! I am as much a suppliant to you as you have often been to me, and I hesitate not to cast myself at your feet. If I am cheap in your eyes, be kind to our common offspring; a hard stepdame will be cruel to the fruitage of my womb. Their resemblance to you is all too great, and I am touched by the likeness; and as often as I see them, my eyes drop tears. By the gods above, by the light of your grandsire’s beams, by my favours to you, and by the two children who are our mutual pledge – restore me to the bed for which I madly left so much behind; be faithful to your promises, and come to my aid as I came to yours! I do not implore you to go forth against bulls and men, nor ask your aid to quiet and overcome a dragon; it is you I ask for, - you, whom I have earned, whom you yourself gave to me, by whom I became a mother, as you by me a father.
Where is my dowry, you ask? On the field I counted it out – that field which you had to plough before you could bear away the fleece. The famous golden ram, sightly for deep flock, is my dowry – the which, should I say to you “Restore it!” you would refuse to render up. My dowry is yourself – saved; my dowry is the band of Grecian youth! Go now, wretch, compare with that your wealth of Sisyphus! That you are alive, that you take to wife one who, with the father she brings you, is of kingly station, that you have the very power of being ingrate – you owe to me. Whom, hark you, I will straight – but what boots it to foretell your penalty? My ire is in travail with mighty threats. Whither my ire leads, will I follow. Mayhap I shall repent me of what I do – but I repent me, too, of regard for a faithless husband’s good. Be that the concern of the god who now embroils my heart! Something portentous, surely, is working in my soul!
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
This passage continues with a letter from Laodameia, but our next passage is part one of Euripides' play, Medea.
Greek and Roman mythology from the original sources, from Atlantis to Hercules to the Trojan War. Email: LegendaryPassages@gmail.com
Friday, March 16, 2018
Thursday, March 1, 2018
LP0088 -XIV ARGNONAUTS- Canace & Medea, from Ovid's Heroides
Legendary Passages #0088 -XIV ARGNONAUTS-
Canace & Medea, from Ovid's Heroides.
Previously, Medea helped Jason win the golden fleece, they got married, and lived happily ever after. In this passage, however, with their marriage at an end, Medea recounts their first fateful meeting.
But first, a letter to Marcareus from Canace, son and daughter of King Aeolus, and star-crossed lovers as well. Their forbidden love yields a son that they try to sneak out of the palace. But the newborn cries out and Canace is confronted by her father. King Aeolus orders the babe abandoned in the woods, and sends his daughter an honor blade to end her life. She bids Marcareus, brother and husband both, to bury her with their son, and then to remember her, and live on.
Medea's letter to Jason begins several years after they moved to Corinth and had children. Leaving her by the wayside, Jason decides to marry the daughter of Creon. Medea, having betrayed her own family and country on Jason's behalf, is justifiably upset. She bitterly recalls their first encounter, lamenting her love at first sight.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
Canace & Medea,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
HEROIDES EPISTLES XI-XII,
trans. by GRANT SHOWERMAN
XI. CANACE TO MACAREUS
If aught of what I write is yet blotted deep and escapes your eye, ‘twill be because the little roll has been stained by its mistress’ blood. My right hand holds the pen, a drawn blade the other holds, and the paper lies unrolled in my lap. This is the picture of Aeolus’ daughter writing to her brother; in this guise, it seems, I may please my hard-hearted sire.
I would he himself were here to view my end, and the deed were done before the eyes of him who orders it! Fierce as he is, far harsher than his own east-winds, he would look dry-eyed upon my wounds. Surely, something comes from a life with savage winds; his temper is like that of his subjects. It is Notus, and Zephyrus, and Sithonian Aquilo, over whom he rules, and over thy pinions, wanton Eurus. He rules the winds, alas! but his swelling wrath he does not rule, and the realms of his possession are less wide than his faults. Of what avail for me through my grandsires’ names to reach even to the skies, to be able to number Jove among my kin? Is there less deadlines in the blade – my funeral gift! – that I hold in my woman’s hand, weapon not meet for me?
Ah, Macareus, would that the hour that made us two as one had come after my death! Oh why, my brother, did you ever love me more than brother, and why have I been to you what a sister should not be? I, too, was inflamed by love; I felt some god in my glowing heart, and knew him from what I sued to hear he was. My colour had fled from my face; wasting had shrunk my frame; I scarce took food, and with unwilling mouth; my sleep was never easy, the night was a year for me, and I groaned, though stricken with no pain. Nor could I render myself a reason why I did these things; I did not know what it was to be in love – yet in love I was.
The first to perceive my trouble, in her old wife’s way, was my nurse; she first, my nurse, said: “Daughter of Aeolus, thou art in love!” I blushed, and shame bent down my eyes into my bosom; I said no word, but this was sign enough that I confessed. And presently there grew apace the burden of my wayward bosom, and my weakened frame felt the weight of its secret load. What herbs and what medicines did my nurse not bring to me, applying them with bold hand to drive forth entirely from my bosom – this was the only secret we kept from you – the burden that was increasing there! Ah, too full of life, the little thing withstood the arts employed against it, and was kept safe from its hidden foe!
And now for the ninth time had Phoebus’ fairest sister risen, and for the tenth time the moon was driving on her light-bearing steeds. I knew not what caused the sudden pangs in me; to travail I was unused, a soldier new to the service. I could not keep from groans. “Why betray thy fault?” said the ancient dame who knew my secret, and stopped my crying lips. What shall I do, unhappy that I am? The pains compel my groans, but fear, the nurse, and shame itself forbid. I repress my groans, and try to take back the words that slip from me, and force myself to drink my very tears. Death was before my eyes; and Lucina denied her aid – death, too, were I to die, would fasten upon me heavy guilt – when leaning over me, you tore my robe and my hair away, and warmed my bosom back to life with the pressure of your own, and said: “Live, sister, sister O most dear; live, and do not be the death of two beings in one! Let good hope give thee strength; for now thou shalt be thy brother’s bride. He who made thee mother will also make thee wife.”
Dead that I am, believe me, yet at your words I live again, and have brought forth the reproach and burden of my womb. But why rejoice? In the midst of the palace hall sits Aeolus; the sign of my fault must be removed from my father’s eyes. With fruits and whitening olive-branches, and with light fillets, the careful dame attempts to hide the babe, and makes pretence of sacrifice, and utters words of prayer; the people give way to let her pass, my father himself gives way. She is already near the threshold – my father’s ears have caught the crying sound, and the babe is lost, betrayed by his own sign! Aeolus catches up the child and reveals the pretended sacrifice; the whole palace resounds with his maddened cries. As the sea is set a-trembling when a light breeze passes o’er, as the ashen branch is shaken by the tepid breeze from the south, so might you have seen my blanching members quiver; the couch was a-quake with the body that lay upon it. He rushes in and with cries makes known my shame to all, and scarce restrains his hand from my wretched face. Myself in my confusion did naught but pour forth tears; my tongue had grown dumb with the icy chill of fear.
And now he had ordered his little grandchild thrown to the gods and birds, to be abandoned in some solitary place. The hapless babe broke forth in wailings – you would have thought he understood – and with what utterance he could entreated his grandsire. What heart do you think was mine then, O my brother – for you can judge from your own – when the enemy before my eyes bore away to the deep forests the fruit of my bosom to be devoured by mountain wolves? My father had gone out of my chamber; then at length could I beat my breasts and furrow my cheeks with the nail.
Meanwhile with sorrowful air came one of my father’s guards, and pronounced these shameful words: “Aeolus sends this sword to you” – he handed me the sword – “and bids you know from your desert what it may mean.” I do know, and shall bravely make use of the violent blade; I shall bury in my breast my father’s gift. Is it presents like this, O my sire, you give me on my marriage? With this dowry from you, O father, shall your daughter be made rich? Take away afar, deluded Hymenaeus, they wedding-torches, and fly with frightened foot from these nefarious halls! Bring for me the torches ye bear, Erinyes dark, and let my funeral pyre blaze bright from the fires ye give! Wed happily under a better fate, O my sisters, but yet remember me though lost!
What crime could the babe commit, with so few hours of life? With what act could he, scarce born, do harm to his grandsire? If it could be he deserved his death, let it be judged he did – ah, wretched child, it is my fault he suffers for! O my son, grief of thy mother, prey of the ravening beasts, ah me! torn limb from limb on thy day of birth; O my son, miserable pledge of my unhallowed love – this was the first of days for thee, and this for thee the last. Fate did not permit me to shed o’er thee the tears I owed, nor to bear to thy tomb the shorn lock; I have not bent o’er thee, nor culled the kiss from thy cold lips. Greedy wilds beasts are rending in pieces the child my womb put forth.
I, too, shall follow the shades of my babe – shall deal myself the stroke – and shall not long have been called or mother or bereaved. Do thou, nevertheless, O hoped for in vain by thy wretched sister, collect, I entreat, the scattered members of thy son, and bring them again to their mother to share her sepulchre, and let one urn, however scant, possess us both! O live, and forget me not; pour forth thy tears upon my wounds, nor shrink from her thou once didst love, and who loved thee. Do thou, I pray, fulfil the behests of the sister thou didst love too well; the behest of my father I shall myself perform!
XII. MEDEA TO JASON
And yet for you, I remember, I the queen of Colchis could find time, when you besought that my art might bring you help. Then was the time when the sisters who pay out the fated thread of mortal life should have unwound for aye my spindle. Then could Medea have ended well! Whatever of life has been lengthened out for me from what time forth has been but punishment.
Ah me! why was the ship from the forests of Pelion ever driven over the seas by strong young arms in quest of the ram of Phrixus? Why did we Colchians ever cast eye upon Magnesian Argo, and why did your Greek crew ever drink the water of the Phasis? Why did I too greatly delight in those golden locks of yours, in your comely ways, and in the false graces of your tongue? Yet delight too greatly I did – else, when once the strange craft had been beached upon our sands and brought us her bold crew, all unanointed would the unremembering son of Aeson have gone forth to meet the fires exhaled from the flame-scorched nostrils of the bulls; he would have scattered the seeds – as many as the seeds were the enemy, too – for the sower himself to fall in strife with his own sowing! How much perfidy, vile wretch, would have perished with you, and how many woes been averted from my head!
‘Tis some pleasure to reproach the ungrateful with favours done. That pleasure I will enjoy; that is the only delight I shall win from you. Bidden to turn the hitherto untried craft to the shores of Colchis, you set foot in the rich realms of my native land. There I, Medea, was what here your new bride is; as rich as her sire is, so rich was mine. Hers holds Ephyre, washed by two seas; mine, all the country which lies along the left strand of the Pontus e’en to the snows of Scythia.
Aeëtes welcomes to his home the Pelasgian youths, and you rest your Greek limbs upon the pictured couch. Then ‘twas that I saw you, then began to know you; that was the first impulse to the downfall of my soul. I saw you, and I was undone; nor did I kindle with ordinary fires, but like the pine-torch kindled before the mighty gods. Not only were you noble to look upon, but my fates were dragging me to doom; your eyes had robbed mine of their power to see. Traitor, you saw it – for who can well hide love? Its flame shines forth its own betrayer.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
This passage continues next episode with the winning of the golden fleece, Jason's remarriage, and a promise of vengeance, as we finish Medea's letter.
Canace & Medea, from Ovid's Heroides.
Previously, Medea helped Jason win the golden fleece, they got married, and lived happily ever after. In this passage, however, with their marriage at an end, Medea recounts their first fateful meeting.
But first, a letter to Marcareus from Canace, son and daughter of King Aeolus, and star-crossed lovers as well. Their forbidden love yields a son that they try to sneak out of the palace. But the newborn cries out and Canace is confronted by her father. King Aeolus orders the babe abandoned in the woods, and sends his daughter an honor blade to end her life. She bids Marcareus, brother and husband both, to bury her with their son, and then to remember her, and live on.
Medea's letter to Jason begins several years after they moved to Corinth and had children. Leaving her by the wayside, Jason decides to marry the daughter of Creon. Medea, having betrayed her own family and country on Jason's behalf, is justifiably upset. She bitterly recalls their first encounter, lamenting her love at first sight.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
Canace & Medea,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
HEROIDES EPISTLES XI-XII,
trans. by GRANT SHOWERMAN
XI. CANACE TO MACAREUS
If aught of what I write is yet blotted deep and escapes your eye, ‘twill be because the little roll has been stained by its mistress’ blood. My right hand holds the pen, a drawn blade the other holds, and the paper lies unrolled in my lap. This is the picture of Aeolus’ daughter writing to her brother; in this guise, it seems, I may please my hard-hearted sire.
I would he himself were here to view my end, and the deed were done before the eyes of him who orders it! Fierce as he is, far harsher than his own east-winds, he would look dry-eyed upon my wounds. Surely, something comes from a life with savage winds; his temper is like that of his subjects. It is Notus, and Zephyrus, and Sithonian Aquilo, over whom he rules, and over thy pinions, wanton Eurus. He rules the winds, alas! but his swelling wrath he does not rule, and the realms of his possession are less wide than his faults. Of what avail for me through my grandsires’ names to reach even to the skies, to be able to number Jove among my kin? Is there less deadlines in the blade – my funeral gift! – that I hold in my woman’s hand, weapon not meet for me?
Ah, Macareus, would that the hour that made us two as one had come after my death! Oh why, my brother, did you ever love me more than brother, and why have I been to you what a sister should not be? I, too, was inflamed by love; I felt some god in my glowing heart, and knew him from what I sued to hear he was. My colour had fled from my face; wasting had shrunk my frame; I scarce took food, and with unwilling mouth; my sleep was never easy, the night was a year for me, and I groaned, though stricken with no pain. Nor could I render myself a reason why I did these things; I did not know what it was to be in love – yet in love I was.
The first to perceive my trouble, in her old wife’s way, was my nurse; she first, my nurse, said: “Daughter of Aeolus, thou art in love!” I blushed, and shame bent down my eyes into my bosom; I said no word, but this was sign enough that I confessed. And presently there grew apace the burden of my wayward bosom, and my weakened frame felt the weight of its secret load. What herbs and what medicines did my nurse not bring to me, applying them with bold hand to drive forth entirely from my bosom – this was the only secret we kept from you – the burden that was increasing there! Ah, too full of life, the little thing withstood the arts employed against it, and was kept safe from its hidden foe!
And now for the ninth time had Phoebus’ fairest sister risen, and for the tenth time the moon was driving on her light-bearing steeds. I knew not what caused the sudden pangs in me; to travail I was unused, a soldier new to the service. I could not keep from groans. “Why betray thy fault?” said the ancient dame who knew my secret, and stopped my crying lips. What shall I do, unhappy that I am? The pains compel my groans, but fear, the nurse, and shame itself forbid. I repress my groans, and try to take back the words that slip from me, and force myself to drink my very tears. Death was before my eyes; and Lucina denied her aid – death, too, were I to die, would fasten upon me heavy guilt – when leaning over me, you tore my robe and my hair away, and warmed my bosom back to life with the pressure of your own, and said: “Live, sister, sister O most dear; live, and do not be the death of two beings in one! Let good hope give thee strength; for now thou shalt be thy brother’s bride. He who made thee mother will also make thee wife.”
Dead that I am, believe me, yet at your words I live again, and have brought forth the reproach and burden of my womb. But why rejoice? In the midst of the palace hall sits Aeolus; the sign of my fault must be removed from my father’s eyes. With fruits and whitening olive-branches, and with light fillets, the careful dame attempts to hide the babe, and makes pretence of sacrifice, and utters words of prayer; the people give way to let her pass, my father himself gives way. She is already near the threshold – my father’s ears have caught the crying sound, and the babe is lost, betrayed by his own sign! Aeolus catches up the child and reveals the pretended sacrifice; the whole palace resounds with his maddened cries. As the sea is set a-trembling when a light breeze passes o’er, as the ashen branch is shaken by the tepid breeze from the south, so might you have seen my blanching members quiver; the couch was a-quake with the body that lay upon it. He rushes in and with cries makes known my shame to all, and scarce restrains his hand from my wretched face. Myself in my confusion did naught but pour forth tears; my tongue had grown dumb with the icy chill of fear.
And now he had ordered his little grandchild thrown to the gods and birds, to be abandoned in some solitary place. The hapless babe broke forth in wailings – you would have thought he understood – and with what utterance he could entreated his grandsire. What heart do you think was mine then, O my brother – for you can judge from your own – when the enemy before my eyes bore away to the deep forests the fruit of my bosom to be devoured by mountain wolves? My father had gone out of my chamber; then at length could I beat my breasts and furrow my cheeks with the nail.
Meanwhile with sorrowful air came one of my father’s guards, and pronounced these shameful words: “Aeolus sends this sword to you” – he handed me the sword – “and bids you know from your desert what it may mean.” I do know, and shall bravely make use of the violent blade; I shall bury in my breast my father’s gift. Is it presents like this, O my sire, you give me on my marriage? With this dowry from you, O father, shall your daughter be made rich? Take away afar, deluded Hymenaeus, they wedding-torches, and fly with frightened foot from these nefarious halls! Bring for me the torches ye bear, Erinyes dark, and let my funeral pyre blaze bright from the fires ye give! Wed happily under a better fate, O my sisters, but yet remember me though lost!
What crime could the babe commit, with so few hours of life? With what act could he, scarce born, do harm to his grandsire? If it could be he deserved his death, let it be judged he did – ah, wretched child, it is my fault he suffers for! O my son, grief of thy mother, prey of the ravening beasts, ah me! torn limb from limb on thy day of birth; O my son, miserable pledge of my unhallowed love – this was the first of days for thee, and this for thee the last. Fate did not permit me to shed o’er thee the tears I owed, nor to bear to thy tomb the shorn lock; I have not bent o’er thee, nor culled the kiss from thy cold lips. Greedy wilds beasts are rending in pieces the child my womb put forth.
I, too, shall follow the shades of my babe – shall deal myself the stroke – and shall not long have been called or mother or bereaved. Do thou, nevertheless, O hoped for in vain by thy wretched sister, collect, I entreat, the scattered members of thy son, and bring them again to their mother to share her sepulchre, and let one urn, however scant, possess us both! O live, and forget me not; pour forth thy tears upon my wounds, nor shrink from her thou once didst love, and who loved thee. Do thou, I pray, fulfil the behests of the sister thou didst love too well; the behest of my father I shall myself perform!
XII. MEDEA TO JASON
And yet for you, I remember, I the queen of Colchis could find time, when you besought that my art might bring you help. Then was the time when the sisters who pay out the fated thread of mortal life should have unwound for aye my spindle. Then could Medea have ended well! Whatever of life has been lengthened out for me from what time forth has been but punishment.
Ah me! why was the ship from the forests of Pelion ever driven over the seas by strong young arms in quest of the ram of Phrixus? Why did we Colchians ever cast eye upon Magnesian Argo, and why did your Greek crew ever drink the water of the Phasis? Why did I too greatly delight in those golden locks of yours, in your comely ways, and in the false graces of your tongue? Yet delight too greatly I did – else, when once the strange craft had been beached upon our sands and brought us her bold crew, all unanointed would the unremembering son of Aeson have gone forth to meet the fires exhaled from the flame-scorched nostrils of the bulls; he would have scattered the seeds – as many as the seeds were the enemy, too – for the sower himself to fall in strife with his own sowing! How much perfidy, vile wretch, would have perished with you, and how many woes been averted from my head!
‘Tis some pleasure to reproach the ungrateful with favours done. That pleasure I will enjoy; that is the only delight I shall win from you. Bidden to turn the hitherto untried craft to the shores of Colchis, you set foot in the rich realms of my native land. There I, Medea, was what here your new bride is; as rich as her sire is, so rich was mine. Hers holds Ephyre, washed by two seas; mine, all the country which lies along the left strand of the Pontus e’en to the snows of Scythia.
Aeëtes welcomes to his home the Pelasgian youths, and you rest your Greek limbs upon the pictured couch. Then ‘twas that I saw you, then began to know you; that was the first impulse to the downfall of my soul. I saw you, and I was undone; nor did I kindle with ordinary fires, but like the pine-torch kindled before the mighty gods. Not only were you noble to look upon, but my fates were dragging me to doom; your eyes had robbed mine of their power to see. Traitor, you saw it – for who can well hide love? Its flame shines forth its own betrayer.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
This passage continues next episode with the winning of the golden fleece, Jason's remarriage, and a promise of vengeance, as we finish Medea's letter.
Friday, February 16, 2018
LP0087 -XIII ARGONAUTS- Rejuvenation, from Ovid's Metamorphoses
Legendary Passages #0087 -XIII ARGONAUTS-
Rejuvenation, from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Previously, the Argonauts returned home with the golden fleece, discovered old King Pelias had killed Jason's father, and then Medea tricked Pelias' daughters into killing him, thinking they were restoring his youth.
In this passage, Jason's father Aeson still lives, although quite old. At Jason's request, Medea flies on her dragons across Greece, searching for magic herbs to make Aeson young again.
She succeeds, and telling the story to the daughters of Pelias, they beg her to do the same for their own father. So Medea changes an old ram back into a lamb, and wins their trust completely.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#2
Rejuvenation,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
METAMORPHOSES BOOK 7,
trans. by BROOKES MORE,
[159] - [322]
REJUVENATION OF AESON
Now when the valiant Argonauts returned to Thessaly, their happy relatives, fathers and mothers, praised the living Gods; and with their hallowed gifts enhanced the flames with precious incense; and they offered Jove a sacred bullock, rich with gilded horns. But Jason's father, Aeson, came not down rejoicing to behold his son, for now worn out with many years, he waited death. And Jason to Medea grieving said: “Dearest, to whom my life and love are due, although your kindness has been great to me, and you have granted more than I should ask, yet one thing more I beg of you; if your enchantments can accomplish my desire, take from my life some years that I should live and add them to my father's ending days.”—And as he spoke he could not check his tears. Medea, moved by his affection, thought how much less she had grieved for her loved sire: and she replied:—“A wicked thing you ask! Can I be capable of using you in such a manner as to take your life and give it to another? Ask not me a thing so dreadful! May the Gods forbid! -- I will endeavor to perform for you a task much greater. By the powers of Night I will most certainly return to him the lost years of your father, but must not deprive you of your own.—Oh grant the power, great goddess of the triple form, that I may fail not to accomplish this great deed!”
Three nights were wanting for the moon to join her circling horns and form a perfect orb. When these were passed, the rounded light shone full and bright upon the earth.—Through the still night alone, Medea stole forth from the house with feet bare, and in flowing garment clothed—her long hair unadorned and not confined. Deep slumber has relaxed the world, and all that's living, animals and birds and men, and even the hedges and the breathing leaves are still—and motionless the laden air. Only the stars are twinkling, and to them she looks and beckons with imploring hands. Now thrice around she paces, and three times besprinkles her long hair with water dipt from crystal streams, which having done she kneels a moment on the cold, bare ground, and screaming three times calls upon the Night,— "O faithful Night, regard my mysteries! O golden-lighted Stars! O softly-moving Moon—genial, your fire succeeds the heated day! O Hecate! grave three-faced queen of these charms of enchanters and enchanters, arts! O fruitful Earth, giver of potent herbs! O gentle Breezes and destructive Winds! You Mountains, Rivers, Lakes and sacred Groves, and every dreaded god of silent Night! Attend upon me!—When my power commands, the rivers turn from their accustomed ways and roll far backward to their secret springs! I speak--and the wild, troubled sea is calm, and I command the waters to arise! The clouds I scatter—and I bring the clouds; I smooth the winds and ruffle up their rage; I weave my spells and I recite my charms; I pluck the fangs of serpents, and I move the living rocks and twist the rooted oaks; I blast the forests. Mountains at my word tremble and quake; and from her granite tombs the liberated ghosts arise as Earth astonished groans! From your appointed ways, O wonder-working Moon, I draw you down against the magic-making sound of gongs and brazen vessels of Temesa's ore; I cast my spells and veil the jeweled rays of Phoebus' wain, and quench Aurora's fires. At my command you tamed the flaming bulls which long disdained to bend beneath the yoke, until they pressed their necks against the plows; and, subject to my will, you raised up war till the strong company of dragon-birth were slaughtered as they fought amongst themselves; and, last, you lulled asleep the warden's eyes -- guards of the Golden Fleece—till then awake and sleeping never—so, deceiving him, you sent the treasure to the Grecian cities! Witness my need of super-natured herbs, elixirs potent to renew the years of age, giving the bloom of youth.—You shall not fail to grant me this; for not in vain the stars are flashing confirmation; not in vain the flying dragons, harnessed by their necks, from skies descending bring my chariot down.”
A chariot, sent from heaven, came to her—and soon as she had stroked the dragons' necks, and shaken in her hands the guiding reins—as soon as she had mounted, she was borne quickly above, through unresisting air. And, sailing over Thessaly, she saw the vale of Tempe, where the level soil is widely covered with a crumbling chalk—she turned her dragons towards new regions there: and she observed the herbs by Ossa born, the weeds on lofty Pelion, Othrys, Pindus and vast Olympus -- and from here she plucked the needed roots, or there, the blossoms clipped all with a moon-curved sickle made of brass—many the wild weeds by Apidanus, as well as blue Amphrysus' banks, she chose, and not escaped Enipeus from her search; Peneian stretches and Spercheian banks all yielded what she chose:—and Boebe's shore where sway the rushes; and she plucked up grass, a secret grass, from fair Euboean fields life-giving virtues in their waving blades, as yet unknown for transformation wrought on Glaucus.
All those fields she visited, with ceaseless diligence in quest of charms, nine days and nine nights sought strong herbs, and the swift dragons with their active wings, failed not to guide the chariot where she willed—until they reached her home. The dragons then had not been even touched by anything, except the odor of surrounding herbs, and yet they sloughed their skins, the growth of years. She would not cross the threshold of her home nor pass its gates; but, standing in the field, alone beneath the canopy of Heaven, she shunned all contact with her husband, while she built up from the ever-living turf two altars, one of which upon the right to Hecate was given, but the one upon the left was sacred then to you, O Hebe, goddess of eternal youth! Festooning woodland boughs and sweet vervain adorned these altars, near by which she dug as many trenches. Then, when all was done, she slaughtered a black ram, and sprinkled with blood the thirsty trenches; after which she poured from rich carchesian goblets generous wine and warm milk, grateful to propitious Gods—the Deities of earth on whom she called—entreating, as she did so, Pluto, lord of ghostly shades, and ravished Proserpine, that they should not, in undue haste, deprive her patient's aged limbs of life.
When certain she compelled the God's regard, assured her incantations and long prayers were both approved and heard, she bade her people bring out the body of her father-in-law—old Aeson's worn out body—and when she had buried him in a deep slumber by her spells, as if he were a dead man, she then stretched him out upon a bed of herbs. She ordered Jason and his servants thence, and warned them not to spy upon her rites, with eyes profane. As soon as they retired, Medea, with disheveled hair and wild abandon, as a Bacchanalian, paced times three around the blazing altars, while she dipped her torches, splintered at the top, into the trenches, dark: with blood, and lit the dipt ends in the sacred altar flames. Times three she purified the ancient man with flames, and thrice with water, and three times with sulphur,—as the boiling mixture seethed and bubbled in the brazen cauldron near. And into this, acerbic juices, roots, and flowers and seeds—from vales Hemonian—and mixed elixirs, into which she cast stones of strange virtue from the Orient, and sifted sands of ebbing ocean's tide; white hoar-frost, gathered when the moon was full, the nauseating flesh and luckless wings of the uncanny screech-owl, and the entrails from a mysterious animal that changed from wolf to man, from man to wolf again; the scaly sloughing of a water-snake, the medic liver of a long-lived stag, and the hard beak and head of an old crow which was alive nine centuries before; these, and a thousand nameless things the foreign sorceress prepared and mixed, and blended all together with a branch of peaceful olive, old and dry with years.—And while she stirred the withered olive branch in the hot mixture, it began to change from brown to green; and presently put forth new leaves, and soon was heavy with a wealth of luscious olives.—As the ever-rising fire threw bubbling froth beyond the cauldron's rim, the ground was covered with fresh verdure—flowers and all luxuriant grasses, and green plants.
Medea, when she saw this wonder took her unsheathed knife and cut the old man's throat; then, letting all his old blood out of him she filled his ancient veins with rich elixir. As he received it through his lips or wound, his beard and hair no longer white with age, turned quickly to their natural vigor, dark and lustrous; and his wasted form renewed, appeared in all the vigor of bright youth, no longer lean and sallow, for new blood coursed in his well-filled veins.—Astonished, when released from his deep sleep, and strong in youth, his memory assured him, such he was years four times ten before that day!—
Bacchus, from his celestial vantage saw this marvel, and convinced his nurses might then all regain their former vigor, he pled with Medea to restore their youth. The Colchian woman granted his request.
MEDEA AND PELIAS
But so her malice might be satisfied Medea feigned she had a quarrel with her husband, and for safety she had fled to Pelias. There, since the king himself was heavy with old age, his daughters gave her generous reception. And these girls the shrewd Medea in a short time won, by her false show of friendliness; and while among the most remarkable of her achievements she was telling how she had rejuvenated Aeson, and she dwelt particularly, on that strange event, these daughters were induced to hope that by some skill like this their father might regain his lost youth also. And they begged of her this boon, persuading her to name the price; no matter if it was large. She did not reply at once and seemed to hesitate, and so she held their fond minds in a deep suspense by her feigned meditation. When she had at length declared she would restore his youth, she said to them: “That you may have strong confidence in this my promised boon, the oldest leader of your flock of sheep shall be changed to a lamb again by my prized drugs.”
Straightway a wooly ram, worn out with length of untold years was brought, his great horns curved around his hollow temples. After she had cut his scrawny throat with her sharp knife Thessalian, barely staining it with his thin blood, Medea plunged his carcass in a bronze-made kettle, throwing in it at the same time juices of great potency. These made his body shrink and burnt away his two horns, and with horns his years. And now thin bleating was heard from within the pot; and even while they wondered at the sound, a lamb jumped out and frisking, ran away to find some udder with its needed milk.
Amazed the daughters looked on and, now that these promises had been performed, they urged more eagerly their first request.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#2
This passage continues with the death of Pelias and exile in Corinth, but our next passage previews an unhappy marriage in Medea's Letter to Jason.
Rejuvenation, from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Previously, the Argonauts returned home with the golden fleece, discovered old King Pelias had killed Jason's father, and then Medea tricked Pelias' daughters into killing him, thinking they were restoring his youth.
In this passage, Jason's father Aeson still lives, although quite old. At Jason's request, Medea flies on her dragons across Greece, searching for magic herbs to make Aeson young again.
She succeeds, and telling the story to the daughters of Pelias, they beg her to do the same for their own father. So Medea changes an old ram back into a lamb, and wins their trust completely.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#2
Rejuvenation,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
METAMORPHOSES BOOK 7,
trans. by BROOKES MORE,
[159] - [322]
REJUVENATION OF AESON
Now when the valiant Argonauts returned to Thessaly, their happy relatives, fathers and mothers, praised the living Gods; and with their hallowed gifts enhanced the flames with precious incense; and they offered Jove a sacred bullock, rich with gilded horns. But Jason's father, Aeson, came not down rejoicing to behold his son, for now worn out with many years, he waited death. And Jason to Medea grieving said: “Dearest, to whom my life and love are due, although your kindness has been great to me, and you have granted more than I should ask, yet one thing more I beg of you; if your enchantments can accomplish my desire, take from my life some years that I should live and add them to my father's ending days.”—And as he spoke he could not check his tears. Medea, moved by his affection, thought how much less she had grieved for her loved sire: and she replied:—“A wicked thing you ask! Can I be capable of using you in such a manner as to take your life and give it to another? Ask not me a thing so dreadful! May the Gods forbid! -- I will endeavor to perform for you a task much greater. By the powers of Night I will most certainly return to him the lost years of your father, but must not deprive you of your own.—Oh grant the power, great goddess of the triple form, that I may fail not to accomplish this great deed!”
Three nights were wanting for the moon to join her circling horns and form a perfect orb. When these were passed, the rounded light shone full and bright upon the earth.—Through the still night alone, Medea stole forth from the house with feet bare, and in flowing garment clothed—her long hair unadorned and not confined. Deep slumber has relaxed the world, and all that's living, animals and birds and men, and even the hedges and the breathing leaves are still—and motionless the laden air. Only the stars are twinkling, and to them she looks and beckons with imploring hands. Now thrice around she paces, and three times besprinkles her long hair with water dipt from crystal streams, which having done she kneels a moment on the cold, bare ground, and screaming three times calls upon the Night,— "O faithful Night, regard my mysteries! O golden-lighted Stars! O softly-moving Moon—genial, your fire succeeds the heated day! O Hecate! grave three-faced queen of these charms of enchanters and enchanters, arts! O fruitful Earth, giver of potent herbs! O gentle Breezes and destructive Winds! You Mountains, Rivers, Lakes and sacred Groves, and every dreaded god of silent Night! Attend upon me!—When my power commands, the rivers turn from their accustomed ways and roll far backward to their secret springs! I speak--and the wild, troubled sea is calm, and I command the waters to arise! The clouds I scatter—and I bring the clouds; I smooth the winds and ruffle up their rage; I weave my spells and I recite my charms; I pluck the fangs of serpents, and I move the living rocks and twist the rooted oaks; I blast the forests. Mountains at my word tremble and quake; and from her granite tombs the liberated ghosts arise as Earth astonished groans! From your appointed ways, O wonder-working Moon, I draw you down against the magic-making sound of gongs and brazen vessels of Temesa's ore; I cast my spells and veil the jeweled rays of Phoebus' wain, and quench Aurora's fires. At my command you tamed the flaming bulls which long disdained to bend beneath the yoke, until they pressed their necks against the plows; and, subject to my will, you raised up war till the strong company of dragon-birth were slaughtered as they fought amongst themselves; and, last, you lulled asleep the warden's eyes -- guards of the Golden Fleece—till then awake and sleeping never—so, deceiving him, you sent the treasure to the Grecian cities! Witness my need of super-natured herbs, elixirs potent to renew the years of age, giving the bloom of youth.—You shall not fail to grant me this; for not in vain the stars are flashing confirmation; not in vain the flying dragons, harnessed by their necks, from skies descending bring my chariot down.”
A chariot, sent from heaven, came to her—and soon as she had stroked the dragons' necks, and shaken in her hands the guiding reins—as soon as she had mounted, she was borne quickly above, through unresisting air. And, sailing over Thessaly, she saw the vale of Tempe, where the level soil is widely covered with a crumbling chalk—she turned her dragons towards new regions there: and she observed the herbs by Ossa born, the weeds on lofty Pelion, Othrys, Pindus and vast Olympus -- and from here she plucked the needed roots, or there, the blossoms clipped all with a moon-curved sickle made of brass—many the wild weeds by Apidanus, as well as blue Amphrysus' banks, she chose, and not escaped Enipeus from her search; Peneian stretches and Spercheian banks all yielded what she chose:—and Boebe's shore where sway the rushes; and she plucked up grass, a secret grass, from fair Euboean fields life-giving virtues in their waving blades, as yet unknown for transformation wrought on Glaucus.
All those fields she visited, with ceaseless diligence in quest of charms, nine days and nine nights sought strong herbs, and the swift dragons with their active wings, failed not to guide the chariot where she willed—until they reached her home. The dragons then had not been even touched by anything, except the odor of surrounding herbs, and yet they sloughed their skins, the growth of years. She would not cross the threshold of her home nor pass its gates; but, standing in the field, alone beneath the canopy of Heaven, she shunned all contact with her husband, while she built up from the ever-living turf two altars, one of which upon the right to Hecate was given, but the one upon the left was sacred then to you, O Hebe, goddess of eternal youth! Festooning woodland boughs and sweet vervain adorned these altars, near by which she dug as many trenches. Then, when all was done, she slaughtered a black ram, and sprinkled with blood the thirsty trenches; after which she poured from rich carchesian goblets generous wine and warm milk, grateful to propitious Gods—the Deities of earth on whom she called—entreating, as she did so, Pluto, lord of ghostly shades, and ravished Proserpine, that they should not, in undue haste, deprive her patient's aged limbs of life.
When certain she compelled the God's regard, assured her incantations and long prayers were both approved and heard, she bade her people bring out the body of her father-in-law—old Aeson's worn out body—and when she had buried him in a deep slumber by her spells, as if he were a dead man, she then stretched him out upon a bed of herbs. She ordered Jason and his servants thence, and warned them not to spy upon her rites, with eyes profane. As soon as they retired, Medea, with disheveled hair and wild abandon, as a Bacchanalian, paced times three around the blazing altars, while she dipped her torches, splintered at the top, into the trenches, dark: with blood, and lit the dipt ends in the sacred altar flames. Times three she purified the ancient man with flames, and thrice with water, and three times with sulphur,—as the boiling mixture seethed and bubbled in the brazen cauldron near. And into this, acerbic juices, roots, and flowers and seeds—from vales Hemonian—and mixed elixirs, into which she cast stones of strange virtue from the Orient, and sifted sands of ebbing ocean's tide; white hoar-frost, gathered when the moon was full, the nauseating flesh and luckless wings of the uncanny screech-owl, and the entrails from a mysterious animal that changed from wolf to man, from man to wolf again; the scaly sloughing of a water-snake, the medic liver of a long-lived stag, and the hard beak and head of an old crow which was alive nine centuries before; these, and a thousand nameless things the foreign sorceress prepared and mixed, and blended all together with a branch of peaceful olive, old and dry with years.—And while she stirred the withered olive branch in the hot mixture, it began to change from brown to green; and presently put forth new leaves, and soon was heavy with a wealth of luscious olives.—As the ever-rising fire threw bubbling froth beyond the cauldron's rim, the ground was covered with fresh verdure—flowers and all luxuriant grasses, and green plants.
Medea, when she saw this wonder took her unsheathed knife and cut the old man's throat; then, letting all his old blood out of him she filled his ancient veins with rich elixir. As he received it through his lips or wound, his beard and hair no longer white with age, turned quickly to their natural vigor, dark and lustrous; and his wasted form renewed, appeared in all the vigor of bright youth, no longer lean and sallow, for new blood coursed in his well-filled veins.—Astonished, when released from his deep sleep, and strong in youth, his memory assured him, such he was years four times ten before that day!—
Bacchus, from his celestial vantage saw this marvel, and convinced his nurses might then all regain their former vigor, he pled with Medea to restore their youth. The Colchian woman granted his request.
MEDEA AND PELIAS
But so her malice might be satisfied Medea feigned she had a quarrel with her husband, and for safety she had fled to Pelias. There, since the king himself was heavy with old age, his daughters gave her generous reception. And these girls the shrewd Medea in a short time won, by her false show of friendliness; and while among the most remarkable of her achievements she was telling how she had rejuvenated Aeson, and she dwelt particularly, on that strange event, these daughters were induced to hope that by some skill like this their father might regain his lost youth also. And they begged of her this boon, persuading her to name the price; no matter if it was large. She did not reply at once and seemed to hesitate, and so she held their fond minds in a deep suspense by her feigned meditation. When she had at length declared she would restore his youth, she said to them: “That you may have strong confidence in this my promised boon, the oldest leader of your flock of sheep shall be changed to a lamb again by my prized drugs.”
Straightway a wooly ram, worn out with length of untold years was brought, his great horns curved around his hollow temples. After she had cut his scrawny throat with her sharp knife Thessalian, barely staining it with his thin blood, Medea plunged his carcass in a bronze-made kettle, throwing in it at the same time juices of great potency. These made his body shrink and burnt away his two horns, and with horns his years. And now thin bleating was heard from within the pot; and even while they wondered at the sound, a lamb jumped out and frisking, ran away to find some udder with its needed milk.
Amazed the daughters looked on and, now that these promises had been performed, they urged more eagerly their first request.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#2
This passage continues with the death of Pelias and exile in Corinth, but our next passage previews an unhappy marriage in Medea's Letter to Jason.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
LP0086 -XII ARGONAUTS- The Return of the Argo, from Diodorus
Legendary Passages #0086 -XII ARGONAUTS-
The Return of the Argo, from Diodorus.
Previously, the Argonauts rescued King Laomedon's daughter from the Trojan sea-monster, and suffered casualties escaping with the golden fleece. In this passage they are rescued by the sea-god Glaucus, return to King Laomedon for rewards, and Medea avenges Jason's family against King Pelias.
After setting sail with the fleece, Orpheus prays for an end to the savage storms. The sea-god Glaucus guides them to safety and tells them their fortunes.
When they arrive at Troy, Hercules sends some argonauts to pick up the princess and the magic mares. Naturally, King Laomedon throws them in jail, but prince Priam snuck in swords and they fought their way out. Laomedon is killed, and Priam rules as king until the Trojan War.
At home in Thessaly, King Pelias kills Jason's entire family. The argonauts plot their revenge, but Medea comes up with the plan. She dresses as an old woman, tricks her way into the palace, uses magic to become young again, and says she can do the same for Pelias. He agrees, and she tricks his daughters into killing their own father.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#11
The Return of the Argo,
a Legendary Passage from,
DIODORUS SICULUS,
LIBRARY OF HISTORY,
BOOK IV. Sections 48 - 52,
trans. by C. H. OLDFATHER.
[4.48.5] - [4.52.2]
There were wounded among the chieftains Jason, Laërtes, Atalantê, and the sons of Thespius, as they are called. However they were all healed in a few days, they say, by Medea by means of roots and provision for themselves, set out to sea, and they had already reached the middle of the Pontic sea when they ran into a storm which put them in the greatest peril.
THE ARGONAUTS AND GLAUCUS
But when Orpheus, as on the former occasion, offered up prayers to the deities of Samothrace, the winds ceased and there appeared near the ship Glaucus the Sea-god, as he is called. The god accompanied the ship in its voyage without ceasing for two days and night and foretold to Heracles his Labours and immortality, and to the Tyndaridae that they should be called Dioscori (“Sons of Zeus”) and receive at the hands of all mankind honour like that offered to the gods.
And, in general, he addressed all the Argonauts by name and told them that because of the prayers of Orpheus he had appeared in accordance with a Providence of the gods and was showing forth to them what was destined to take place; and he counseled them, accordingly, that so soon as they touched land they should pay their vows to the gods through the intervention of whom they had twice already been saved.
After this, the account continues, Glaucus sank back beneath the deep, and the Argonauts, arriving at the mouth of the Pontus, put in to the land, the king of the country being at that time Byzas, after whom the city of Byzantium was named.
There they set up altars, and when they had paid their vows to the gods they sanctified the place, which is even to this day held in honour by the sailors who pass by.
HERACLES AND LAOMEDON
After this they put out to sea, and after sailing through the Propontis and Hellespont they landed at the Troad. Here, when Heracles dispatched to the city his brother Iphiclus and Telamon to demand back both the mares and Hesionê, Laomedon, it is said, threw the ambassadors into prison and planned to lay an ambush for the other Argonauts and encompass their death. He had the rest of his sons as willing aids in the deed, but Priam alone opposed it; for he declared that Laomedon should observe justice in his dealings with the strangers and should deliver to them both his sister and the mares which had been promised.
But when no one paid any heed to Priam, he brought two swords to the prison, they say, and gave them secretly to Telamon and his companions, and by disclosing the plan of his father he became the cause of their deliverance.
For immediately Telamon and his companions slew such of the guards as offered resistance, and fleeing to the sea gave the Argonauts a full account of what had happened. Accordingly, these got ready for battle and went out to meet the forces which were pouring out of the city with the king.
There was a sharp battle, but their courage gave the chieftains the upper hand, and Heracles, the myths report, performed the bravest feasts of them all; for he slew Laomedon, and taking the city at the first assault he punished those who were parties with the king to the plot, but to Priam, because of the spirit of justice he had shown, he gave the kingship, entered in to a league of friendship with him, and then sailed away in company with the Argonauts.
But certain of the ancient poets have handed down the account that Heracles took Troy, not with the aid of the Argonauts, but on a campaign of his own with six ships, in order to get the mares; and Homer also adds his witness to this version in the following lines:
Aye, what a man, they say, was Heracles in might, my father he, steadfast, with heart of lion, who once came here to carry of the mares of King Laomedon, with but six ships and scantier men, yet sacked he then the city of proud Ilium, and made her streets bereft.
But the Argonauts, they say, set forth from the Troad and arrived at Samothrace, where they again paid their vows to the great gods and dedicated in the sacred precinct the bowls which are preserved there even to this day.
MEDEA AND THE DEATH OF PELIAS
While the return of the chieftains was as yet not known in Thessaly, a rumour, they say, went the rounds there that all the companions of Jason in the expedition had perished in the region of the Pontus. Consequently Pelias, thinking that an occasion was now come to do away with all who were waiting for the throne, forced the father of Jason to drink the blood of a bull, and murdered his brother Promachus, who was still a mere lad in years.
But Amphinomê, his mother, they say, when on the point of being slain, performed a manly deed and one worthy of mention; for fleeing to the hearth of the king she pronounced a curse against him, to the effect that he might suffer the fate which his impious deeds merited, and then, striking her own breast with a sword, she ended her life heroically.
But as for Pelias, when he had utterly destroyed in this fashion all the relatives of Jason, he speedily received the punishment befitting his impious deeds. For Jason, who had sailed that night into a roadstead which lay not far from Iolcus and yet was not in sight of the dwellers in the city, learned from one of the country-folk of the misfortunes which had befallen his kinsmen.
Now all the chieftains stood ready to lend Jason their aid and to face any peril on his behalf, but they fell into dispute over how they should make the attack; some, for instance, advised that they force their way at once into the city and fall upon the king while he was not expecting them, but certain others declared that each one of them should gather soldiers from his own birthplace and then raise a general war; since it was impossible, they maintained, for fifty-three men to overcome a king who controlled an army and important cities.
While they were in this perplexity Medea, it is said, promised to slay Pelias all alone by means of cunning and to deliver to the chieftains the royal palace without their running any risk.
And when they all expressed astonishment at her statement and sought to learn what sort of a scheme she had in mind, she said that she had brought with her many drugs of marvelous potency which had been discovered by her mother Hecatê and by her sister Circê; and though before this time she had never used them to destroy human beings, on this occasion she would by means of them easily wreak vengeance upon men who were deserving of punishment.
Then, after disclosing beforehand to the chieftains the detailed plans of the attack she would make, she promised them that she would give them a signal from the palace during the day by means of smoke, during the night by fire, in the direction of the look-out which stood high above the sea.
Then Medea, the tale goes on, fashioning a hollow image of Artemis secreted in it drugs of diverse natures, and as for herself, she anointed her hair with certain potent ointments and made it grey, and filled her face and body so full of wrinkles that all who looked upon her thought that she was surely an old woman. And finally, taking with her the statue of the goddess which had been so made as to strike with terror the superstitious populace and move it to fear of the gods, at daybreak she entered the city.
She acted like one inspired, and as the multitude rushed together along the streets she summoned the whole people to receive the goddess with reverence, telling them that the goddess had come to them from the Hyperboreans to bring good luck to both the whole city and the king.
And while all the inhabitants were rendering obeisance to the goddess and honouring her with sacrifices, and the whole city, in a word, was, along with Medea herself, acting like people inspired, she entered the palace, and there she threw Pelias into such a state of superstitious fear and, by her magic arts, so terrified his daughters that they believed that the goddess was actually there in person to bring prosperity to the house of the king.
For she declared that Artemis, riding through the air upon a chariot drawn by dragons, had flown in the air over many parts of the inhabited earth and had chosen out the realm of the most pious king in all the world for the establishment of her own worship and for honours which should be for ever and ever; and that the goddess had commanded her not only to divest Pelias, by means of certain power which she possessed, of his old age and make his body entirely young, but also to bestow upon him many other gifts, to the end that his life should be blessed and pleasing to the gods.
The king was filled with amazement at these astonishing proposals, but Medea, we are informed, promised him that then and there, in the case of her own body, she would furnish the proof of what she had said. Then she told one of the daughters of Pelias to bring pure water, and when the maiden at once cried out her request, she shut herself up, they say, in a small chamber and washing thoroughly her whole body she made it clean of the potent influences of the drugs. Being restored, then, to her former condition, and showing herself to the king, she amazed those who gazed upon her, and they thought that a kind of Providence of the gods had transformed her old age into a maiden’s youth and striking beauty.
Also, by means of certain drugs, Medea caused shapes of the dragons to appear, which she declared had brought the goddess through the air from the Hyperboreans to make her stay with Pelias. And since the deeds which Medea had performed appeared to be too great for mortal nature, and the king saw fit to regard her with great approval and, in a word, believed that she was telling the truth, she now, they say, in private conversation with Pelias urged him to order his daughters to co-operate with her and to do whatever she might command them; for it was fitting, she Said, that the king’s body should receive the favour which the gods were according to him through the hands, not of servants, but of his own children.
Consequently Pelias gave explicit directions to his daughters to do everything that Medea might command them with respect to the body of their father, and the maidens were quite ready to carry out her orders.
Medea then, the story relates, when night had come and Pelias had fallen asleep, informed the daughters that it was required that the body of Pelias be boiled in a cauldron. But when the maidens received the proposal with hostility, she devised a second proof that what she said could be believed. For there was a ram full of years which was kept in their home, and she announced to the maidens that she would first boil it and thus make it into a lamb again.
When they agreed to this, we are told that Medea severed it apart limb by limb, boiled the ram’s body, and then, working a deception by means of certain drugs, she drew out of the cauldron an image which looked like a lamb. Thereupon the maidens were astounded, and were so convinced that they had received all possible proofs that she could do what she was promising that they carried out her orders. All the rest of them beat their father to death, but Alcestis alone, because of her great piety, would not lay hands upon him who had begotten her.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#11
This passage continues with the disbanding of the Argonauts, but our next passage gives another version of Medea's magical rejuvenation.
The Return of the Argo, from Diodorus.
Previously, the Argonauts rescued King Laomedon's daughter from the Trojan sea-monster, and suffered casualties escaping with the golden fleece. In this passage they are rescued by the sea-god Glaucus, return to King Laomedon for rewards, and Medea avenges Jason's family against King Pelias.
After setting sail with the fleece, Orpheus prays for an end to the savage storms. The sea-god Glaucus guides them to safety and tells them their fortunes.
When they arrive at Troy, Hercules sends some argonauts to pick up the princess and the magic mares. Naturally, King Laomedon throws them in jail, but prince Priam snuck in swords and they fought their way out. Laomedon is killed, and Priam rules as king until the Trojan War.
At home in Thessaly, King Pelias kills Jason's entire family. The argonauts plot their revenge, but Medea comes up with the plan. She dresses as an old woman, tricks her way into the palace, uses magic to become young again, and says she can do the same for Pelias. He agrees, and she tricks his daughters into killing their own father.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#11
The Return of the Argo,
a Legendary Passage from,
DIODORUS SICULUS,
LIBRARY OF HISTORY,
BOOK IV. Sections 48 - 52,
trans. by C. H. OLDFATHER.
[4.48.5] - [4.52.2]
There were wounded among the chieftains Jason, Laërtes, Atalantê, and the sons of Thespius, as they are called. However they were all healed in a few days, they say, by Medea by means of roots and provision for themselves, set out to sea, and they had already reached the middle of the Pontic sea when they ran into a storm which put them in the greatest peril.
THE ARGONAUTS AND GLAUCUS
But when Orpheus, as on the former occasion, offered up prayers to the deities of Samothrace, the winds ceased and there appeared near the ship Glaucus the Sea-god, as he is called. The god accompanied the ship in its voyage without ceasing for two days and night and foretold to Heracles his Labours and immortality, and to the Tyndaridae that they should be called Dioscori (“Sons of Zeus”) and receive at the hands of all mankind honour like that offered to the gods.
And, in general, he addressed all the Argonauts by name and told them that because of the prayers of Orpheus he had appeared in accordance with a Providence of the gods and was showing forth to them what was destined to take place; and he counseled them, accordingly, that so soon as they touched land they should pay their vows to the gods through the intervention of whom they had twice already been saved.
After this, the account continues, Glaucus sank back beneath the deep, and the Argonauts, arriving at the mouth of the Pontus, put in to the land, the king of the country being at that time Byzas, after whom the city of Byzantium was named.
There they set up altars, and when they had paid their vows to the gods they sanctified the place, which is even to this day held in honour by the sailors who pass by.
HERACLES AND LAOMEDON
After this they put out to sea, and after sailing through the Propontis and Hellespont they landed at the Troad. Here, when Heracles dispatched to the city his brother Iphiclus and Telamon to demand back both the mares and Hesionê, Laomedon, it is said, threw the ambassadors into prison and planned to lay an ambush for the other Argonauts and encompass their death. He had the rest of his sons as willing aids in the deed, but Priam alone opposed it; for he declared that Laomedon should observe justice in his dealings with the strangers and should deliver to them both his sister and the mares which had been promised.
But when no one paid any heed to Priam, he brought two swords to the prison, they say, and gave them secretly to Telamon and his companions, and by disclosing the plan of his father he became the cause of their deliverance.
For immediately Telamon and his companions slew such of the guards as offered resistance, and fleeing to the sea gave the Argonauts a full account of what had happened. Accordingly, these got ready for battle and went out to meet the forces which were pouring out of the city with the king.
There was a sharp battle, but their courage gave the chieftains the upper hand, and Heracles, the myths report, performed the bravest feasts of them all; for he slew Laomedon, and taking the city at the first assault he punished those who were parties with the king to the plot, but to Priam, because of the spirit of justice he had shown, he gave the kingship, entered in to a league of friendship with him, and then sailed away in company with the Argonauts.
But certain of the ancient poets have handed down the account that Heracles took Troy, not with the aid of the Argonauts, but on a campaign of his own with six ships, in order to get the mares; and Homer also adds his witness to this version in the following lines:
Aye, what a man, they say, was Heracles in might, my father he, steadfast, with heart of lion, who once came here to carry of the mares of King Laomedon, with but six ships and scantier men, yet sacked he then the city of proud Ilium, and made her streets bereft.
But the Argonauts, they say, set forth from the Troad and arrived at Samothrace, where they again paid their vows to the great gods and dedicated in the sacred precinct the bowls which are preserved there even to this day.
MEDEA AND THE DEATH OF PELIAS
While the return of the chieftains was as yet not known in Thessaly, a rumour, they say, went the rounds there that all the companions of Jason in the expedition had perished in the region of the Pontus. Consequently Pelias, thinking that an occasion was now come to do away with all who were waiting for the throne, forced the father of Jason to drink the blood of a bull, and murdered his brother Promachus, who was still a mere lad in years.
But Amphinomê, his mother, they say, when on the point of being slain, performed a manly deed and one worthy of mention; for fleeing to the hearth of the king she pronounced a curse against him, to the effect that he might suffer the fate which his impious deeds merited, and then, striking her own breast with a sword, she ended her life heroically.
But as for Pelias, when he had utterly destroyed in this fashion all the relatives of Jason, he speedily received the punishment befitting his impious deeds. For Jason, who had sailed that night into a roadstead which lay not far from Iolcus and yet was not in sight of the dwellers in the city, learned from one of the country-folk of the misfortunes which had befallen his kinsmen.
Now all the chieftains stood ready to lend Jason their aid and to face any peril on his behalf, but they fell into dispute over how they should make the attack; some, for instance, advised that they force their way at once into the city and fall upon the king while he was not expecting them, but certain others declared that each one of them should gather soldiers from his own birthplace and then raise a general war; since it was impossible, they maintained, for fifty-three men to overcome a king who controlled an army and important cities.
While they were in this perplexity Medea, it is said, promised to slay Pelias all alone by means of cunning and to deliver to the chieftains the royal palace without their running any risk.
And when they all expressed astonishment at her statement and sought to learn what sort of a scheme she had in mind, she said that she had brought with her many drugs of marvelous potency which had been discovered by her mother Hecatê and by her sister Circê; and though before this time she had never used them to destroy human beings, on this occasion she would by means of them easily wreak vengeance upon men who were deserving of punishment.
Then, after disclosing beforehand to the chieftains the detailed plans of the attack she would make, she promised them that she would give them a signal from the palace during the day by means of smoke, during the night by fire, in the direction of the look-out which stood high above the sea.
Then Medea, the tale goes on, fashioning a hollow image of Artemis secreted in it drugs of diverse natures, and as for herself, she anointed her hair with certain potent ointments and made it grey, and filled her face and body so full of wrinkles that all who looked upon her thought that she was surely an old woman. And finally, taking with her the statue of the goddess which had been so made as to strike with terror the superstitious populace and move it to fear of the gods, at daybreak she entered the city.
She acted like one inspired, and as the multitude rushed together along the streets she summoned the whole people to receive the goddess with reverence, telling them that the goddess had come to them from the Hyperboreans to bring good luck to both the whole city and the king.
And while all the inhabitants were rendering obeisance to the goddess and honouring her with sacrifices, and the whole city, in a word, was, along with Medea herself, acting like people inspired, she entered the palace, and there she threw Pelias into such a state of superstitious fear and, by her magic arts, so terrified his daughters that they believed that the goddess was actually there in person to bring prosperity to the house of the king.
For she declared that Artemis, riding through the air upon a chariot drawn by dragons, had flown in the air over many parts of the inhabited earth and had chosen out the realm of the most pious king in all the world for the establishment of her own worship and for honours which should be for ever and ever; and that the goddess had commanded her not only to divest Pelias, by means of certain power which she possessed, of his old age and make his body entirely young, but also to bestow upon him many other gifts, to the end that his life should be blessed and pleasing to the gods.
The king was filled with amazement at these astonishing proposals, but Medea, we are informed, promised him that then and there, in the case of her own body, she would furnish the proof of what she had said. Then she told one of the daughters of Pelias to bring pure water, and when the maiden at once cried out her request, she shut herself up, they say, in a small chamber and washing thoroughly her whole body she made it clean of the potent influences of the drugs. Being restored, then, to her former condition, and showing herself to the king, she amazed those who gazed upon her, and they thought that a kind of Providence of the gods had transformed her old age into a maiden’s youth and striking beauty.
Also, by means of certain drugs, Medea caused shapes of the dragons to appear, which she declared had brought the goddess through the air from the Hyperboreans to make her stay with Pelias. And since the deeds which Medea had performed appeared to be too great for mortal nature, and the king saw fit to regard her with great approval and, in a word, believed that she was telling the truth, she now, they say, in private conversation with Pelias urged him to order his daughters to co-operate with her and to do whatever she might command them; for it was fitting, she Said, that the king’s body should receive the favour which the gods were according to him through the hands, not of servants, but of his own children.
Consequently Pelias gave explicit directions to his daughters to do everything that Medea might command them with respect to the body of their father, and the maidens were quite ready to carry out her orders.
Medea then, the story relates, when night had come and Pelias had fallen asleep, informed the daughters that it was required that the body of Pelias be boiled in a cauldron. But when the maidens received the proposal with hostility, she devised a second proof that what she said could be believed. For there was a ram full of years which was kept in their home, and she announced to the maidens that she would first boil it and thus make it into a lamb again.
When they agreed to this, we are told that Medea severed it apart limb by limb, boiled the ram’s body, and then, working a deception by means of certain drugs, she drew out of the cauldron an image which looked like a lamb. Thereupon the maidens were astounded, and were so convinced that they had received all possible proofs that she could do what she was promising that they carried out her orders. All the rest of them beat their father to death, but Alcestis alone, because of her great piety, would not lay hands upon him who had begotten her.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#11
This passage continues with the disbanding of the Argonauts, but our next passage gives another version of Medea's magical rejuvenation.
Friday, December 22, 2017
LP0085 -XI ARGNONAUTS- Hypsipyle's Letter, from Ovid's Heroides
Legendary Passages #0085 -XI ARGNONAUTS-
Hypsipyle's Letter, from Ovid's Heroides.
Previously, the Argonauts began their adventures on Lemnos, eventually capturing the golden fleece, Jason married Medea, and they all returned home. In this passage the Queen of Lemnos, Hypsipyle, curses Jason for not returning to her and their children together.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides2.html#6
Hypsipyle's Letter,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
HEROIDES EPISTLES VI,
trans. by GRANT SHOWERMAN.
VI. HYPSIPYLE TO JASON
You are said to have touched the shores of Thessaly with safe-returning keel, rich in the fleece of the golden ram. I speak you well for your safety – so far as you give me chance; yet of this very thing I should have been informed by message of your own. For the winds might have failed you, even though you longed to see me, and kept you from returning by way of the realms I pledged to you; but a letter may be written, howe’er adverse the wind. Hypsipyle deserved the sending of a greeting.
Why was it rumour brought me tidings of you, rather than lines from your hand? – tidings that the sacred bulls of Mars had received the curving yoke; that at the scattering of the seed there sprang forth the harvest of men, who for their doom had no need of your right arm; that the spoil of the ram, the deep-gold fleece the unsleeping dragon guarded, had nevertheless been stolen away by your bold hand. Could I say to those who are slow to credit these reports, “He has written me this with his own hand,” how proud should I be!
But why complain that my lord has been slow in his duty? I shall think myself treated with all indulgence, so I remain yours. A barbarian poisoner, so the story goes, has come with you, admitted to share the marriage-couch you promised me. Love is quick to believe; may it prove that I am hasty, and have brought a groundless charge against my lord! Only now from Haemonian borders came a Thessalian stranger to my gates. Scarce had he well touched the threshold, when I cried, “How doth my lord, the son of Aeson?” Speechless he stood in embarrassment, his eyes fixed fast upon the ground. I straight leaped up, and rent the garment from my breast. “Lives he?” I cried, “or must fate call me too?” “He lives,” was his reply. Full of fears is love; I made him say it on his oath. Scarce with a god to witness could I believe you living.
When calm of mind returned, I began to ask of your fortunes. He tells me of the brazen-footed oxen of Mars, how they ploughed, of the serpent’s teeth scattered upon the ground in way of seed, of men sprung suddenly forth and bearing arms – earth-born peoples slain in combat with their fellows, filling out the fates of their lives in the space of a day. He tells of the dragon overcome. Again I ask if Jason lives; hope and fear bring trust and mistrust by turns.
While he tells the details of his story, such are the eagerness and quickness of his speech that of his own nature he reveals the wounds that have been dealt me. Alas! where is the faith that was promised me? Where the bonds of wedlock, and the marriage torch, more fit to set ablaze my funeral pile? I was not made acquaint with you in stealthy wise; Juno was there to join us when we were wed, and Hymen, his temples bound with wreaths. And yet neither Juno nor Hymen, but gloomy Erinys, stained with blood, carried before me the unhallowed torch.
What had I with the Minyae, or Dodona’s pine? What had you with my native land, O helmsman Tiphys? There was here no ram, sightly with golden fleece, nor was Lemnos the royal home of old Aeëtes. I was resolved at first – but my ill fate drew me on – to drive out with my women’s ban the stranger troop; the women of Lemnos know – yea, even too well – how to vanquish men. I should have let a soldiery so brave defend my cause.
But I looked on the man in my city; I welcomed him under my roof and into my heart! Here twice the summer fled for you, here twice the winter. It was the third harvest when you were compelled to set sail, and with your tears poured forth such words as these: “I am sundered from thee, Hypsipyle; but so the fates grant me return, thine own I leave thee now, and thine own will I ever be. What lieth heavy in thy bosom from me – may it come to live, and may we both share in its parentage!”
Thus did you speak; and with tears streaming down your false face I remember you could say no more.
You are the last of your band to board the sacred Argo. It flies upon its way; the wind bellies out the sail; the dark-blue wave glides from under the keel as it drives along; your gaze is on the land, and mine is on the sea. There is a tower that looks from every side upon the waters round about; thither I betake myself, my face and bosom wet with tears. Through my tears I gaze; my eyes are gracious to my eager heart, and see farther than their wont. Add thereto pure-hearted prayers, and vows mingled with fears – vows which I must now fulfil, since you are safe.
And am I to absolve these vows – vows but for Medea to enjoy? My heart is sick, and surges with mingled wrath and love. Am I to bear gifts to the shrines because Jason lives, though mine no more? Is a victim to fall beneath the stroke for the loss that has come to me?
No, I never felt secure; but my fear was ever that your sire would look to an Argolic city for a bride to his son. ‘Twas the daughters of Argolis I feared – yet my ruin has been a barbarian jade! The wound I feel is not from the foe whence I thought to see it come. It is neither by her beauty nor by her merits that she wins you, but by the incantations she knows and the baneful herbs she cuts with enchanted knife. She is one to strive to draw down from its course the unwilling moon, and to hide in darkness the horses of the sun; she curbs the waters and stays the down-winding streams; she moves from their places the woods and the living rocks. Among sepulchres she stalks, ungirded, with hair flowing loose, and gathers from the yet warm funeral pyre the appointed bones. She vows to their doom the absent, fashions the waxen image, and into its wretched heart drives the slender needle – and other deeds ‘twere better not to know. Ill sought by herbs is love that should be won by virtue and by beauty.
A woman like this can you embrace? Can you be left in the same chamber with her and not feel fear, and enjoy the slumber of the silent night? Surely, she must have forced you to bear the yoke, just as she forced the bulls, and has you subdued by the same means she uses with fierce dragons. Add that she has her name writ in the record of your own and your heroes’ exploits, and the wife obscures the glory of the husband. And someone of the partisans of Pelias imputes your deeds to her poisons, and wins the people to believe: “This fleece of gold from the ram of Phrixus the son of Aeson did not seize away, but the Phasian girl, Aeëtes child.” Your mother Alcimede – ask counsel of your mother – favours her not, nor your sire, who sees his son’s bride come from the frozen north. Let her seek for herself a husband – from the Tanais, from the marshes of watery Scythia, even from her own land of Phasis!
O changeable son of Aeson, more uncertain than the breezes of springtime, why lack your words the weight a promise claims? My own you went forth hence; my own you have not returned. Let me be your wedded mate now you are come back, as I was when you set forth! If noble blood and generous lineage move you – lo, I am known as daughter of Minoan Thoas! Bacchus was my grandsire; the bride of Bacchus, with crown-encircled brow, outshines with her stars the lesser constellations. Lemnos will be my marriage portion, land kindly-natured to the husbandman; and me, too, you will possess among the subjects my dowry brings.
And now, too, I have brought forth; rejoice for us both, Jason! Sweet was the burden that I bore – its author had made it so. I am happy in the number, too, for by Lucina’s kindly favour I have brought forth twin offspring, a pledge for each of us. If you ask whom they resemble, I answer, yourself is seen in them. The ways of deceit they know not; for the rest, they are like their father. I almost gave them to be carried to you, their mother’s ambassadors; but thought of the cruel stepdame turned me back from the path I would have trod. ‘Twas Medea I feared. Medea is more than a stepdame; the hands of Medea are fitted for any crime.
Would she who could tear her brother limb from limb and strew him o’er the fields be one to spare my pledges? Such is she, such the woman, O madman swept from your senses by the poisons of Colchis, for whom your are said to have slighted the marriage-bed with Hypsipyle! Base and shameless was the way that maid became your bride; but the bond that gave me to you, and you to me, was chaste. She betrayed her sire; I rescued from death my father Thoas. She deserted the Colchians; my Lemnos has me still. What matters aught, if sin is to be set before devotion, and she has won her husband with the very crime she brought him as her dower?
The vengeful deed of the Lemnian women I condemn, Jason, I do not marvel at it; passion itself drives the weak, however powerless, to take up arms. Come, say, what if, driven by unfriendly gales, you had entered my harbours, as ‘twere fitting you had done, you and your companion, and I had come forth to meet you with my twin babes – surely you must have prayed earth to yawn for you – with what countenance could you have gazed upon your children, O wretched man, with what countenance upon me? What death would you not deserve as the price of your perfidy? And yet you yourself would have met with safety and protection at my hands – not that you deserved, but that I was merciful. But as for your mistress – with my own hand I would have dashed my face with her blood, and your face, that she stole away with her poisonous arts! I would have been Medea to Medea!
But if in any way just Jupiter himself from on high attends to my prayers, may the woman who intrudes upon my marriage-bed suffer the woes in which Hypsipyle groans, and feel the lot she herself now brings on me; and as I am now left alone, wife and mother of two babes, so may she one day be reft of as many babes, and of her husband! Nor may she long keep her ill-gotten gains, but leave them in worse hap – let her be an exile, and seek a refuge through the entire world! A bitter sister to her brother, a bitter daughter to her wretched sire, may she be as bitter to her children, and as bitter to her husband! When she shall have no hope more of refuge by the sea or by the land, let her make trial of the air; let her wander, destitute, bereft of hope, stained red with the blood of her murders! This fate do I, the daughter of Thoas, cheated of my wedded state, in prayer call down upon you. Live on, a wife and husband, accursed in your bed!
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides2.html#6
This passage continues with Dido's letter to Aeneas, but our next passage tells of the return of the Argo to Iolcus.
Hypsipyle's Letter, from Ovid's Heroides.
Previously, the Argonauts began their adventures on Lemnos, eventually capturing the golden fleece, Jason married Medea, and they all returned home. In this passage the Queen of Lemnos, Hypsipyle, curses Jason for not returning to her and their children together.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides2.html#6
Hypsipyle's Letter,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
HEROIDES EPISTLES VI,
trans. by GRANT SHOWERMAN.
VI. HYPSIPYLE TO JASON
You are said to have touched the shores of Thessaly with safe-returning keel, rich in the fleece of the golden ram. I speak you well for your safety – so far as you give me chance; yet of this very thing I should have been informed by message of your own. For the winds might have failed you, even though you longed to see me, and kept you from returning by way of the realms I pledged to you; but a letter may be written, howe’er adverse the wind. Hypsipyle deserved the sending of a greeting.
Why was it rumour brought me tidings of you, rather than lines from your hand? – tidings that the sacred bulls of Mars had received the curving yoke; that at the scattering of the seed there sprang forth the harvest of men, who for their doom had no need of your right arm; that the spoil of the ram, the deep-gold fleece the unsleeping dragon guarded, had nevertheless been stolen away by your bold hand. Could I say to those who are slow to credit these reports, “He has written me this with his own hand,” how proud should I be!
But why complain that my lord has been slow in his duty? I shall think myself treated with all indulgence, so I remain yours. A barbarian poisoner, so the story goes, has come with you, admitted to share the marriage-couch you promised me. Love is quick to believe; may it prove that I am hasty, and have brought a groundless charge against my lord! Only now from Haemonian borders came a Thessalian stranger to my gates. Scarce had he well touched the threshold, when I cried, “How doth my lord, the son of Aeson?” Speechless he stood in embarrassment, his eyes fixed fast upon the ground. I straight leaped up, and rent the garment from my breast. “Lives he?” I cried, “or must fate call me too?” “He lives,” was his reply. Full of fears is love; I made him say it on his oath. Scarce with a god to witness could I believe you living.
When calm of mind returned, I began to ask of your fortunes. He tells me of the brazen-footed oxen of Mars, how they ploughed, of the serpent’s teeth scattered upon the ground in way of seed, of men sprung suddenly forth and bearing arms – earth-born peoples slain in combat with their fellows, filling out the fates of their lives in the space of a day. He tells of the dragon overcome. Again I ask if Jason lives; hope and fear bring trust and mistrust by turns.
While he tells the details of his story, such are the eagerness and quickness of his speech that of his own nature he reveals the wounds that have been dealt me. Alas! where is the faith that was promised me? Where the bonds of wedlock, and the marriage torch, more fit to set ablaze my funeral pile? I was not made acquaint with you in stealthy wise; Juno was there to join us when we were wed, and Hymen, his temples bound with wreaths. And yet neither Juno nor Hymen, but gloomy Erinys, stained with blood, carried before me the unhallowed torch.
What had I with the Minyae, or Dodona’s pine? What had you with my native land, O helmsman Tiphys? There was here no ram, sightly with golden fleece, nor was Lemnos the royal home of old Aeëtes. I was resolved at first – but my ill fate drew me on – to drive out with my women’s ban the stranger troop; the women of Lemnos know – yea, even too well – how to vanquish men. I should have let a soldiery so brave defend my cause.
But I looked on the man in my city; I welcomed him under my roof and into my heart! Here twice the summer fled for you, here twice the winter. It was the third harvest when you were compelled to set sail, and with your tears poured forth such words as these: “I am sundered from thee, Hypsipyle; but so the fates grant me return, thine own I leave thee now, and thine own will I ever be. What lieth heavy in thy bosom from me – may it come to live, and may we both share in its parentage!”
Thus did you speak; and with tears streaming down your false face I remember you could say no more.
You are the last of your band to board the sacred Argo. It flies upon its way; the wind bellies out the sail; the dark-blue wave glides from under the keel as it drives along; your gaze is on the land, and mine is on the sea. There is a tower that looks from every side upon the waters round about; thither I betake myself, my face and bosom wet with tears. Through my tears I gaze; my eyes are gracious to my eager heart, and see farther than their wont. Add thereto pure-hearted prayers, and vows mingled with fears – vows which I must now fulfil, since you are safe.
And am I to absolve these vows – vows but for Medea to enjoy? My heart is sick, and surges with mingled wrath and love. Am I to bear gifts to the shrines because Jason lives, though mine no more? Is a victim to fall beneath the stroke for the loss that has come to me?
No, I never felt secure; but my fear was ever that your sire would look to an Argolic city for a bride to his son. ‘Twas the daughters of Argolis I feared – yet my ruin has been a barbarian jade! The wound I feel is not from the foe whence I thought to see it come. It is neither by her beauty nor by her merits that she wins you, but by the incantations she knows and the baneful herbs she cuts with enchanted knife. She is one to strive to draw down from its course the unwilling moon, and to hide in darkness the horses of the sun; she curbs the waters and stays the down-winding streams; she moves from their places the woods and the living rocks. Among sepulchres she stalks, ungirded, with hair flowing loose, and gathers from the yet warm funeral pyre the appointed bones. She vows to their doom the absent, fashions the waxen image, and into its wretched heart drives the slender needle – and other deeds ‘twere better not to know. Ill sought by herbs is love that should be won by virtue and by beauty.
A woman like this can you embrace? Can you be left in the same chamber with her and not feel fear, and enjoy the slumber of the silent night? Surely, she must have forced you to bear the yoke, just as she forced the bulls, and has you subdued by the same means she uses with fierce dragons. Add that she has her name writ in the record of your own and your heroes’ exploits, and the wife obscures the glory of the husband. And someone of the partisans of Pelias imputes your deeds to her poisons, and wins the people to believe: “This fleece of gold from the ram of Phrixus the son of Aeson did not seize away, but the Phasian girl, Aeëtes child.” Your mother Alcimede – ask counsel of your mother – favours her not, nor your sire, who sees his son’s bride come from the frozen north. Let her seek for herself a husband – from the Tanais, from the marshes of watery Scythia, even from her own land of Phasis!
O changeable son of Aeson, more uncertain than the breezes of springtime, why lack your words the weight a promise claims? My own you went forth hence; my own you have not returned. Let me be your wedded mate now you are come back, as I was when you set forth! If noble blood and generous lineage move you – lo, I am known as daughter of Minoan Thoas! Bacchus was my grandsire; the bride of Bacchus, with crown-encircled brow, outshines with her stars the lesser constellations. Lemnos will be my marriage portion, land kindly-natured to the husbandman; and me, too, you will possess among the subjects my dowry brings.
And now, too, I have brought forth; rejoice for us both, Jason! Sweet was the burden that I bore – its author had made it so. I am happy in the number, too, for by Lucina’s kindly favour I have brought forth twin offspring, a pledge for each of us. If you ask whom they resemble, I answer, yourself is seen in them. The ways of deceit they know not; for the rest, they are like their father. I almost gave them to be carried to you, their mother’s ambassadors; but thought of the cruel stepdame turned me back from the path I would have trod. ‘Twas Medea I feared. Medea is more than a stepdame; the hands of Medea are fitted for any crime.
Would she who could tear her brother limb from limb and strew him o’er the fields be one to spare my pledges? Such is she, such the woman, O madman swept from your senses by the poisons of Colchis, for whom your are said to have slighted the marriage-bed with Hypsipyle! Base and shameless was the way that maid became your bride; but the bond that gave me to you, and you to me, was chaste. She betrayed her sire; I rescued from death my father Thoas. She deserted the Colchians; my Lemnos has me still. What matters aught, if sin is to be set before devotion, and she has won her husband with the very crime she brought him as her dower?
The vengeful deed of the Lemnian women I condemn, Jason, I do not marvel at it; passion itself drives the weak, however powerless, to take up arms. Come, say, what if, driven by unfriendly gales, you had entered my harbours, as ‘twere fitting you had done, you and your companion, and I had come forth to meet you with my twin babes – surely you must have prayed earth to yawn for you – with what countenance could you have gazed upon your children, O wretched man, with what countenance upon me? What death would you not deserve as the price of your perfidy? And yet you yourself would have met with safety and protection at my hands – not that you deserved, but that I was merciful. But as for your mistress – with my own hand I would have dashed my face with her blood, and your face, that she stole away with her poisonous arts! I would have been Medea to Medea!
But if in any way just Jupiter himself from on high attends to my prayers, may the woman who intrudes upon my marriage-bed suffer the woes in which Hypsipyle groans, and feel the lot she herself now brings on me; and as I am now left alone, wife and mother of two babes, so may she one day be reft of as many babes, and of her husband! Nor may she long keep her ill-gotten gains, but leave them in worse hap – let her be an exile, and seek a refuge through the entire world! A bitter sister to her brother, a bitter daughter to her wretched sire, may she be as bitter to her children, and as bitter to her husband! When she shall have no hope more of refuge by the sea or by the land, let her make trial of the air; let her wander, destitute, bereft of hope, stained red with the blood of her murders! This fate do I, the daughter of Thoas, cheated of my wedded state, in prayer call down upon you. Live on, a wife and husband, accursed in your bed!
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides2.html#6
This passage continues with Dido's letter to Aeneas, but our next passage tells of the return of the Argo to Iolcus.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
LP0084 -X ARGONAUTS- Crete & Calliste, from The Argonautica
Legendary Passages #0084 -X ARGONAUTS-
Crete & Calliste, from The Argonautica.
Previously, Jason & Medea took the Golden Fleece and set sail for Iolcus. This passage recounts their final adventures before returning home: the bronze giant Talos, the Island of Anaphe, Calliste (also known as Thera), and finally their return to Iolcus.
After getting lost in Libya, where Triton gave them directions and a clod of earth, the Argonauts came to the Island of Crete. Unfortunately, Talos, a giant man of bronze, threw huge boulders at them and drove them off. Medea used her magical incantations to kill Talos, then the argonauts resupplied and sailed on.
Adrift in a starless night, Phoebus Apollo answered their prayers with a distant gleam, and they sailed to the Island of Anaphe. They offered what they had in grateful sacrifice, despite the laughter of Medea's handmaids.
The argonaut Euphemus had a dream about that clod of earth, and Jason told him to drop it into the sea. There rose up the islands of Calliste, also known today as the super-volcano Thera.
After a brief race to fetch water, the Argonauts sailed home to Iolcus. But while their journey ends here, the story is far from over....
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius4.html
Crete & Calliste,
a Legendary Passage from,
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS,
ARGONAUTICA BOOK 4,
trans. by R. C. SEATON.
[1601] - [1773]
And rugged Carpathus far away welcomed them; and thence they were to cross to Crete, which rises in the sea above other islands.
And Talos, the man of bronze, as he broke off rocks from the hard cliff, stayed them from fastening hawsers to the shore, when they came to the roadstead of Dicte's haven. He was of the stock of bronze, of the men sprung from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods; and the son of Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the island thrice a day with his feet of bronze. Now in all the rest of his body and limbs was he fashioned of bronze and invulnerable; but beneath the sinew by his ankle was a blood-red vein; and this, with its issues of life and death, was covered by a thin skin. So the heroes, though outworn with toil, quickly backed their ship from the land in sore dismay. And now far from Crete would they have been borne in wretched plight, distressed both by thirst and pain, had not Medea addressed them as they turned away:
"Hearken to me. For I deem that I alone can subdue for you that man, whoever he be, even though his frame be of bronze throughout, unless his life too is everlasting. But be ready to keep your ship here beyond the cast of his stones, till he yield the victory to me."
Thus she spake; and they drew the ship out of range, resting on their oars, waiting to see what plan unlooked for she would bring to pass; and she, holding the fold of her purple robe over her cheeks on each side, mounted on the deck; and Aeson's son took her hand in his and guided her way along the thwarts. And with songs did she propitiate and invoke the Death-spirits, devourers of life, the swift hounds of Hades, who, hovering through all the air, swoop down on the living. Kneeling in supplication, thrice she called on them with songs, and thrice with prayers; and, shaping her soul to mischief, with her hostile glance she bewitched the eyes of Talos, the man of bronze; and her teeth gnashed bitter wrath against him, and she sent forth baneful phantoms in the frenzy of her rage.
Father Zeus, surely great wonder rises in my mind, seeing that dire destruction meets us not from disease and wounds alone, but lo! even from afar, may be, it tortures us! So Talos, for all his frame of bronze, yielded the victory to the might of Medea the sorceress. And as he was heaving massy rocks to stay them from reaching the haven, he grazed his ankle on a pointed crag; and the ichor gushed forth like melted lead; and not long thereafter did he stand towering on the jutting cliff. But even as some huge pine, high up on the mountains, which woodmen have left half hewn through by their sharp axes when they returned from the forest -- at first it shivers in the wind by night, then at last snaps at the stump and crashes down; so Talos for a while stood on his tireless feet, swaying to and fro, when at last, all strengthless, fell with a mighty thud. For that night there in Crete the heroes lay; then, just as dawn was growing bright, they built a shrine to Minoan Athena, and drew water and went aboard, so that first of all they might by rowing pass beyond Salmone's height.
-
But straightway as they sped over the wide Cretan sea night scared them, that night which they name the Pall of Darkness; the stars pierced not that fatal night nor the beams of the moon, but black chaos descended from heaven, or haply some other darkness came, rising from the nethermost depths. And the heroes, whether they drifted in Hades or on the waters, knew not one whit; but they committed their return to the sea in helpless doubt whither it was bearing them. But Jason raised his hands and cried to Phoebus with mighty voice, calling on him to save them; and the tears ran down in his distress; and often did he promise to bring countless offerings to Pytho, to Amyclae, and to Ortygia. And quickly, O son of Leto, swift to hear, didst thou come down from heaven to the Melantian rocks, which lie there in the sea. Then darting upon one of the twin peaks, thou raisedst aloft in thy right hand thy golden bow; and the bow flashed a dazzling gleam all round.
And to their sight appeared a small island of the Sporades, over against the tiny isle Hippuris, and there they cast anchor and stayed; and straightway dawn arose and gave them light; and they made for Apollo a glorious abode in a shady wood, and a shady altar, calling on Phoebus the "Gleamer", because of the gleam far-seen; and that bare island they called Anaphe, for that Phoebus had revealed it to men sore bewildered. And they sacrificed all that men could provide for sacrifice on a desolate strand; wherefore when Medea's Phaeacian handmaids saw them pouring water for libations on the burning brands, they could no longer restrain laughter within their bosoms, for that ever they had seen oxen in plenty slain in the halls of Alcinous. And the heroes delighted in the jest and attacked them with taunting words; and merry railing and contention flung to and fro were kindled among them. And from that sport of the heroes such scoffs do the women fling at the men in that island whenever they propitiate with sacrifices Apollo the gleaming god, the warder of Anaphe.
-
But when they had loosed the hawsers thence in fair weather, then Euphemus bethought him of a dream of the night, reverencing the glorious son of Maia. For it seemed to him that the god-given clod of earth held in his palm close to his breast was being suckled by white streams of milk, and that from it, little though it was, grew a woman like a virgin; and he, overcome by strong desire, lay with her in love's embrace; and united with her he pitied her, as though she were a maiden whom he was feeding with his own milk; but she comforted him with gentle words:
"Daughter of Triton am I, dear friend, and nurse of thy children, no maiden; Triton and Libya are my parents. But restore me to the daughters of Nereus to dwell in the sea near Anaphe; I shall return again to the light of the sun, to prepare a home for thy descendants."
Of this he stored in his heart the memory, and declared it to Aeson's son; and Jason pondered a prophecy of the Far-Darter and lifted up his voice and said:
"My friend, great and glorious renown has fallen to thy lot. For of this clod when thou hast cast it into the sea, the gods will make an island, where thy children's children shall dwell; for Triton gave this to thee as a stranger's gift from the Libyan mainland. None other of the immortals it was than he that gave thee this when he met thee."
Thus he spake; and Euphemus made not vain the answer of Aeson's son; but, cheered by the prophecy, he cast the clod into the depths. Therefrom rose up an island, Calliste, sacred nurse of the sons of Euphemus, who in former days dwelt in Sintian Lemnos, and from Lemnos were driven forth by Tyrrhenians and came to Sparta as suppliants; and when they left Sparta, Theras, the goodly son of Autesion, brought them to the island Calliste, and from himself he gave it the name of Thera. But this befell after the days of Euphemus.
-
And thence they steadily left behind long leagues of sea and stayed on the beach of Aegina; and at once they contended in innocent strife about the fetching of water, who first should draw it and reach the ship. For both their need and the ceaseless breeze urged them on. There even to this day do the youths of the Myrmidons take up on their shoulders full- brimming jars, and with swift feet strive for victory in the race.
Be gracious, race of blessed chieftains! And may these songs year after year be sweeter to sing among men. For now have I come to the glorious end of your toils; for no adventure befell you as ye came home from Aegina, and no tempest of winds opposed you; but quietly did ye skirt the Cecropian land and Aulis inside of Euboea and the Opuntian cities of the Locrians, and gladly did ye step forth upon the beach of Pagasae.
THE END
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius4.html
This passage concludes Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, but our next passage revisits the first love of Jason: Queen Hypsipyle.
Crete & Calliste, from The Argonautica.
Previously, Jason & Medea took the Golden Fleece and set sail for Iolcus. This passage recounts their final adventures before returning home: the bronze giant Talos, the Island of Anaphe, Calliste (also known as Thera), and finally their return to Iolcus.
After getting lost in Libya, where Triton gave them directions and a clod of earth, the Argonauts came to the Island of Crete. Unfortunately, Talos, a giant man of bronze, threw huge boulders at them and drove them off. Medea used her magical incantations to kill Talos, then the argonauts resupplied and sailed on.
Adrift in a starless night, Phoebus Apollo answered their prayers with a distant gleam, and they sailed to the Island of Anaphe. They offered what they had in grateful sacrifice, despite the laughter of Medea's handmaids.
The argonaut Euphemus had a dream about that clod of earth, and Jason told him to drop it into the sea. There rose up the islands of Calliste, also known today as the super-volcano Thera.
After a brief race to fetch water, the Argonauts sailed home to Iolcus. But while their journey ends here, the story is far from over....
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius4.html
Crete & Calliste,
a Legendary Passage from,
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS,
ARGONAUTICA BOOK 4,
trans. by R. C. SEATON.
[1601] - [1773]
And rugged Carpathus far away welcomed them; and thence they were to cross to Crete, which rises in the sea above other islands.
And Talos, the man of bronze, as he broke off rocks from the hard cliff, stayed them from fastening hawsers to the shore, when they came to the roadstead of Dicte's haven. He was of the stock of bronze, of the men sprung from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods; and the son of Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the island thrice a day with his feet of bronze. Now in all the rest of his body and limbs was he fashioned of bronze and invulnerable; but beneath the sinew by his ankle was a blood-red vein; and this, with its issues of life and death, was covered by a thin skin. So the heroes, though outworn with toil, quickly backed their ship from the land in sore dismay. And now far from Crete would they have been borne in wretched plight, distressed both by thirst and pain, had not Medea addressed them as they turned away:
"Hearken to me. For I deem that I alone can subdue for you that man, whoever he be, even though his frame be of bronze throughout, unless his life too is everlasting. But be ready to keep your ship here beyond the cast of his stones, till he yield the victory to me."
Thus she spake; and they drew the ship out of range, resting on their oars, waiting to see what plan unlooked for she would bring to pass; and she, holding the fold of her purple robe over her cheeks on each side, mounted on the deck; and Aeson's son took her hand in his and guided her way along the thwarts. And with songs did she propitiate and invoke the Death-spirits, devourers of life, the swift hounds of Hades, who, hovering through all the air, swoop down on the living. Kneeling in supplication, thrice she called on them with songs, and thrice with prayers; and, shaping her soul to mischief, with her hostile glance she bewitched the eyes of Talos, the man of bronze; and her teeth gnashed bitter wrath against him, and she sent forth baneful phantoms in the frenzy of her rage.
Father Zeus, surely great wonder rises in my mind, seeing that dire destruction meets us not from disease and wounds alone, but lo! even from afar, may be, it tortures us! So Talos, for all his frame of bronze, yielded the victory to the might of Medea the sorceress. And as he was heaving massy rocks to stay them from reaching the haven, he grazed his ankle on a pointed crag; and the ichor gushed forth like melted lead; and not long thereafter did he stand towering on the jutting cliff. But even as some huge pine, high up on the mountains, which woodmen have left half hewn through by their sharp axes when they returned from the forest -- at first it shivers in the wind by night, then at last snaps at the stump and crashes down; so Talos for a while stood on his tireless feet, swaying to and fro, when at last, all strengthless, fell with a mighty thud. For that night there in Crete the heroes lay; then, just as dawn was growing bright, they built a shrine to Minoan Athena, and drew water and went aboard, so that first of all they might by rowing pass beyond Salmone's height.
-
But straightway as they sped over the wide Cretan sea night scared them, that night which they name the Pall of Darkness; the stars pierced not that fatal night nor the beams of the moon, but black chaos descended from heaven, or haply some other darkness came, rising from the nethermost depths. And the heroes, whether they drifted in Hades or on the waters, knew not one whit; but they committed their return to the sea in helpless doubt whither it was bearing them. But Jason raised his hands and cried to Phoebus with mighty voice, calling on him to save them; and the tears ran down in his distress; and often did he promise to bring countless offerings to Pytho, to Amyclae, and to Ortygia. And quickly, O son of Leto, swift to hear, didst thou come down from heaven to the Melantian rocks, which lie there in the sea. Then darting upon one of the twin peaks, thou raisedst aloft in thy right hand thy golden bow; and the bow flashed a dazzling gleam all round.
And to their sight appeared a small island of the Sporades, over against the tiny isle Hippuris, and there they cast anchor and stayed; and straightway dawn arose and gave them light; and they made for Apollo a glorious abode in a shady wood, and a shady altar, calling on Phoebus the "Gleamer", because of the gleam far-seen; and that bare island they called Anaphe, for that Phoebus had revealed it to men sore bewildered. And they sacrificed all that men could provide for sacrifice on a desolate strand; wherefore when Medea's Phaeacian handmaids saw them pouring water for libations on the burning brands, they could no longer restrain laughter within their bosoms, for that ever they had seen oxen in plenty slain in the halls of Alcinous. And the heroes delighted in the jest and attacked them with taunting words; and merry railing and contention flung to and fro were kindled among them. And from that sport of the heroes such scoffs do the women fling at the men in that island whenever they propitiate with sacrifices Apollo the gleaming god, the warder of Anaphe.
-
But when they had loosed the hawsers thence in fair weather, then Euphemus bethought him of a dream of the night, reverencing the glorious son of Maia. For it seemed to him that the god-given clod of earth held in his palm close to his breast was being suckled by white streams of milk, and that from it, little though it was, grew a woman like a virgin; and he, overcome by strong desire, lay with her in love's embrace; and united with her he pitied her, as though she were a maiden whom he was feeding with his own milk; but she comforted him with gentle words:
"Daughter of Triton am I, dear friend, and nurse of thy children, no maiden; Triton and Libya are my parents. But restore me to the daughters of Nereus to dwell in the sea near Anaphe; I shall return again to the light of the sun, to prepare a home for thy descendants."
Of this he stored in his heart the memory, and declared it to Aeson's son; and Jason pondered a prophecy of the Far-Darter and lifted up his voice and said:
"My friend, great and glorious renown has fallen to thy lot. For of this clod when thou hast cast it into the sea, the gods will make an island, where thy children's children shall dwell; for Triton gave this to thee as a stranger's gift from the Libyan mainland. None other of the immortals it was than he that gave thee this when he met thee."
Thus he spake; and Euphemus made not vain the answer of Aeson's son; but, cheered by the prophecy, he cast the clod into the depths. Therefrom rose up an island, Calliste, sacred nurse of the sons of Euphemus, who in former days dwelt in Sintian Lemnos, and from Lemnos were driven forth by Tyrrhenians and came to Sparta as suppliants; and when they left Sparta, Theras, the goodly son of Autesion, brought them to the island Calliste, and from himself he gave it the name of Thera. But this befell after the days of Euphemus.
-
And thence they steadily left behind long leagues of sea and stayed on the beach of Aegina; and at once they contended in innocent strife about the fetching of water, who first should draw it and reach the ship. For both their need and the ceaseless breeze urged them on. There even to this day do the youths of the Myrmidons take up on their shoulders full- brimming jars, and with swift feet strive for victory in the race.
Be gracious, race of blessed chieftains! And may these songs year after year be sweeter to sing among men. For now have I come to the glorious end of your toils; for no adventure befell you as ye came home from Aegina, and no tempest of winds opposed you; but quietly did ye skirt the Cecropian land and Aulis inside of Euboea and the Opuntian cities of the Locrians, and gladly did ye step forth upon the beach of Pagasae.
THE END
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius4.html
This passage concludes Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, but our next passage revisits the first love of Jason: Queen Hypsipyle.
Sunday, December 10, 2017
LP0083 -IX ARGONAUTS- Jason & Medea, from Ovid's Metamorphoses
Legendary Passages #0083 -IX ARGONAUTS-
Jason & Medea, from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Previously, Medea and Jason exchanged magic charms and promises of marriage. We see that scene again, and then how Medea's magic helped Jason win the Golden Fleece.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#1
Jason & Medea,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
METAMORPHOSES BOOK 7,
trans. by BROOKES MORE,
[1] - [149]
And having suffered hardships and great toils, after the day they rescued the sad king from the vile Harpies, those twin valiant youths, Zetes and Calais came with their chief, the mighty Jason, where the Phasis flows. From the green margin of that river, all the crew of Argonauts, by Jason led, went to the king Aeetes and required the Golden Fleece, that he received from Phryxus. When they had bargained with him, full of wiles he offered to restore the Golden Fleece only to those who might to him return, victorious from hard labors of great risk.
Medea, the king's daughter, near his throne, saw Jason, leader of the Argonauts, as he was pressing to secure a prize—and loved at sight with a consuming flame. Although she struggled to suppress her love, unable to restrain herself, she said, “In vain I've striven to subdue my heart: some god it must be, which I cannot tell, is working to destroy my hapless life; or else it is the burning flame of love that in me rages. If it is not love, why do the mandates of my father seem too harsh? They surely are too harsh. Why do I fear that he may perish whom I have seen only once? What is the secret cause that I am agitated by such fears?—It is no other than the god of Love. Thrust from your virgin breast such burning flames and overcome their hot unhappiness—if I could do so, I should be myself: but some deluding power is holding me helpless against my will. Desire persuades me one way, but my reason still persuades another way. I see a better course and I approve, but follow its defeat. —O royal maiden, why are you consumed with love for this strange man, and why are you so willing to be carried by the nuptial ties so far from your own country, where, indeed, are many brave men worthy of your love?
"Whether for life or death his numbered hours are in the mercy of the living Gods, and that he may not suffer risk of death, too well foreseen, now let my prayers prevail -- righteously uttered of a generous heart without the stress of love. What wicked thing has Jason done? His handsome person, youth, and noble ways, would move a heart of stone. Have I a heart of flint, or was I born a tigress to deny him timely aid?—Unless I interpose, he will be slain by the hot breath of brazen-footed bulls, or will be slaughtered by the warriors, sprung miraculous from earth, or will be given to satisfy the ravenous appetite of a huge dragon. Let my gloating eyes be satiate with his dying agonies! Let me incite the fury of these bulls! Stir to their blood-lust mad-born sons of Earth! Rouse up the never-sleeping dragon's rage!—Avert it Gods!—But why should I cry out upon the Gods to save him from such wrong, when, by my actions and my power, myself may shield him from all evils? Such a course would wreck the kingdom of my father—and by me the wily stranger would escape from him; and spreading to the wind his ready sails he would forget and leave me to my fate.—Oh, if he should forget my sacrifice, and so prefer those who neglected him, let him then perish in his treachery.—But these are idle thoughts: his countenance, reveals innate nobility and grace, that should dispel all fear of treachery, and guarantee his ever-faithful heart. The Gods will witness our united souls, and he shall pledge his faith. Secure of it my fear will be removed. Be ready, then—and make a virtue of necessity: your Jason owes himself to you; and he must join you in true wedlock. Then you shall be celebrated through the land of Greece, by throngs of women, for the man you saved.
"Shall I then sail away, and so forsake my sister, brother, father, Gods, and land that gave me birth? My father is indeed a stern man, and my native land is all too barbarous; my brother is a child,—my sister's goodwill is good help for me; and heaven's supreme god is within my breast. I shall not so be leaving valued hopes, but will be going surely to great things. And I should gain applause from all the world, as having saved the threatened Argonauts, most noble of the Greeks; and in their land, which certainly is better than my own, become the bride of Jason, for whose love I should not hesitate to give the world—and in whose love the living Gods rejoice so greatly; for his sake they would bestow their favors on my head, and make the stars my habitation. Should I hesitate because the wreck-strewn mountains bar the way, and clash together in the Euxine waves; or fear Charybdis, fatal to large ships, that sucks the deep sea in its whirling gulf and spouts far upward, with alternate force, or Scylla, circled with infuriate hounds howling in rage from deep Sicilian waves? Safe in the shielding arms of him I love, on Jason's bosom leaning, I shall be borne safely over wide and hostile seas; and in his dear embrace forget my fears—or if for anything I suffer dread, it will be only for the one I love.—Alas, Medea, this vain argument has only furnished plausible excuse for criminal desires, and desecrates the marriage rite. It is a wicked thing to think upon. Before it is too late forget your passion and deny this guilt.” And after she had said these words, her eyes were opened to the prize of modesty, chaste virtue, and a pure affection: and Cupid, vanquished, turned away and fled.
Then, to an ancient altar of the goddess named Hecate, Perse's daughter took her way in the deep shadows of a forest. She was strong of purpose now, and all the flames of vanquished passion had died down; but when she saw the son of Aeson, dying flames leaped up again. Her cheeks grew red, then all her face went pale again; as a small spark when hid beneath the ashes, if fed by a breath of wind grows and regains its strength, as it is fanned to life; so now her love that had been smoldering, and which you would have thought was almost dead, when she had see again his manly youth, blazed up once more. For on that day his graceful person seemed as glorious as a God;—and as she gazed, and fixed her eyes upon his countenance, her frenzy so prevailed, she was convinced that he was not a mortal. And her eyes were fascinated; and she could not turn away from him. But when he spoke to her, and promised marriage, grasping her right hand: she answered, as her eyes suffused with tears; “I see what I will do, and ignorance of truth will not be my undoing now, but love itself. By my assistance you shall be preserved; but when preserved fulfill your promise.” He swore that she could trust in him. Then by the goddess of the triple form, Diana, Trivia, or Luna called, and by her sacred groves and fanes, he vowed, and by the hallowed Sun that sees all things, and by his own adventures, and his life,—on these the youthful Jason took his oath.—With this she was assured and quickly gave to him the magic herbs: he learnt their use and full of joy withdrew into his house.
Now when the dawn had dimmed the glittering stars, the people hastened to the sacred field of Mars, and on the hills expectant stood.—Arrayed in purple, and in majesty distinguished by his ivory sceptre, sat the king, surrounded by a multitude. Below them on the visioned Field of Mars, huge brazen-footed bulls were breathing forth from adamantine nostrils living flames, blasting the verdant herbage in their path! As forges glowing with hot flames resound, or as much quick-lime, burnt in earthen kilns, crackles and hisses as if mad with rage, sprinkled with water, liberating heat; so their hot throats and triple-heated sides, resounding told of pent-up fires within. The son of Aeson went to meet them. As he came to meet them the fierce animals turned on him faces terrible, and sharp horns tipped with iron, and they pawed the dusty earth with cloven feet, and filled the place with fiery bellowings. The Minyans were stark with fear; he went up to the bulls not feeling their hot breath at all, so great the power of his charmed drugs; and while he was stroking their down-hanging dewlaps with a fearless hand, he placed the yoke down on their necks and made them draw the heavy plow, and cut through fields that never felt the steel before. The Colchians were amazed and silent; but the loud shouting of the Minyans increased their hero's courage.
Taking then the serpent's teeth out of a brazen helmet he sowed them broadcast in the new-plowed field. The moist earth softened these seeds that were steeped in virulent poison and the teeth swelled up and took new forms. And just as in its mother an infant gradually assumes the form of man, and is perfected through all parts within, and does not come forth to the light till fully formed; so, when the forms of men had been completed in the womb of earth made pregnant, they rose up from it, and what is yet more wonderful, each one clashed weapons that had been brought forth with him. When his companions saw the warriors turn as if with one accord, to hurl their spears, sharp-pointed, at the head of Jason, fear unnerved the boldest and their courage failed. So, too, the maid whose sorcery had saved him from much danger, when she saw the youth encompassed by those raging enemies, and he alone against so many—struck with sudden panic, she turned ashen white, her bloodless cheeks were blanched; and chilled with fear she wilted to the ground; and lest the herbs, so lately given him, might fail his need she added incantations and invoked mysterious arts. While she protected him he seized upon a heavy stone, and hurled it in the midst of his new enemies—distracted by this cast, and murderous, they turned from him, and clashing their new arms, those earth-born brothers fought among themselves till all were slaughtered in blood-thirsty strife. Gladly the Greeks acclaimed him conqueror, and pressed around him for the first embrace. Then, too, Medea, barbarous Colchian maid, although her modesty restrained her heart, eagerly longed to fold him in her arms, but careful of her good name, held aloof,—rejoicing in deep, silent love; and she acknowledged to the Gods her mighty gift of incantations.
But the dragon, still alert,—magnificent and terrible with gorgeous crest and triple tongue, and fangs barbed as a javelin, guards the Golden Fleece: and Jason can obtain that quest only if slumber may seal up the monster's eyes.—Jason, successful, sprinkled on his crest Lethean juices of a magic herb, and then recited thrice the words which bring deep slumber, potent words which would becalm the storm-tossed ocean, and would stop the flow of the most rapid rivers of our earth: and slowly slumber sealed the dragon's eyes. While that great monster slept, the hero took the Golden Fleece; and proudly sailed away bearing his treasure and the willing maid, (whose aid had saved him) to his native port Iolcus—victorious with the Argonauts.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#1
This passage continues with the Argonauts arriving home, but our next passage shows their final adventures on their voyage, Crete & Calliste.
Jason & Medea, from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Previously, Medea and Jason exchanged magic charms and promises of marriage. We see that scene again, and then how Medea's magic helped Jason win the Golden Fleece.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#1
Jason & Medea,
a Legendary Passage from,
Publius Ovidius Naso,
METAMORPHOSES BOOK 7,
trans. by BROOKES MORE,
[1] - [149]
And having suffered hardships and great toils, after the day they rescued the sad king from the vile Harpies, those twin valiant youths, Zetes and Calais came with their chief, the mighty Jason, where the Phasis flows. From the green margin of that river, all the crew of Argonauts, by Jason led, went to the king Aeetes and required the Golden Fleece, that he received from Phryxus. When they had bargained with him, full of wiles he offered to restore the Golden Fleece only to those who might to him return, victorious from hard labors of great risk.
Medea, the king's daughter, near his throne, saw Jason, leader of the Argonauts, as he was pressing to secure a prize—and loved at sight with a consuming flame. Although she struggled to suppress her love, unable to restrain herself, she said, “In vain I've striven to subdue my heart: some god it must be, which I cannot tell, is working to destroy my hapless life; or else it is the burning flame of love that in me rages. If it is not love, why do the mandates of my father seem too harsh? They surely are too harsh. Why do I fear that he may perish whom I have seen only once? What is the secret cause that I am agitated by such fears?—It is no other than the god of Love. Thrust from your virgin breast such burning flames and overcome their hot unhappiness—if I could do so, I should be myself: but some deluding power is holding me helpless against my will. Desire persuades me one way, but my reason still persuades another way. I see a better course and I approve, but follow its defeat. —O royal maiden, why are you consumed with love for this strange man, and why are you so willing to be carried by the nuptial ties so far from your own country, where, indeed, are many brave men worthy of your love?
"Whether for life or death his numbered hours are in the mercy of the living Gods, and that he may not suffer risk of death, too well foreseen, now let my prayers prevail -- righteously uttered of a generous heart without the stress of love. What wicked thing has Jason done? His handsome person, youth, and noble ways, would move a heart of stone. Have I a heart of flint, or was I born a tigress to deny him timely aid?—Unless I interpose, he will be slain by the hot breath of brazen-footed bulls, or will be slaughtered by the warriors, sprung miraculous from earth, or will be given to satisfy the ravenous appetite of a huge dragon. Let my gloating eyes be satiate with his dying agonies! Let me incite the fury of these bulls! Stir to their blood-lust mad-born sons of Earth! Rouse up the never-sleeping dragon's rage!—Avert it Gods!—But why should I cry out upon the Gods to save him from such wrong, when, by my actions and my power, myself may shield him from all evils? Such a course would wreck the kingdom of my father—and by me the wily stranger would escape from him; and spreading to the wind his ready sails he would forget and leave me to my fate.—Oh, if he should forget my sacrifice, and so prefer those who neglected him, let him then perish in his treachery.—But these are idle thoughts: his countenance, reveals innate nobility and grace, that should dispel all fear of treachery, and guarantee his ever-faithful heart. The Gods will witness our united souls, and he shall pledge his faith. Secure of it my fear will be removed. Be ready, then—and make a virtue of necessity: your Jason owes himself to you; and he must join you in true wedlock. Then you shall be celebrated through the land of Greece, by throngs of women, for the man you saved.
"Shall I then sail away, and so forsake my sister, brother, father, Gods, and land that gave me birth? My father is indeed a stern man, and my native land is all too barbarous; my brother is a child,—my sister's goodwill is good help for me; and heaven's supreme god is within my breast. I shall not so be leaving valued hopes, but will be going surely to great things. And I should gain applause from all the world, as having saved the threatened Argonauts, most noble of the Greeks; and in their land, which certainly is better than my own, become the bride of Jason, for whose love I should not hesitate to give the world—and in whose love the living Gods rejoice so greatly; for his sake they would bestow their favors on my head, and make the stars my habitation. Should I hesitate because the wreck-strewn mountains bar the way, and clash together in the Euxine waves; or fear Charybdis, fatal to large ships, that sucks the deep sea in its whirling gulf and spouts far upward, with alternate force, or Scylla, circled with infuriate hounds howling in rage from deep Sicilian waves? Safe in the shielding arms of him I love, on Jason's bosom leaning, I shall be borne safely over wide and hostile seas; and in his dear embrace forget my fears—or if for anything I suffer dread, it will be only for the one I love.—Alas, Medea, this vain argument has only furnished plausible excuse for criminal desires, and desecrates the marriage rite. It is a wicked thing to think upon. Before it is too late forget your passion and deny this guilt.” And after she had said these words, her eyes were opened to the prize of modesty, chaste virtue, and a pure affection: and Cupid, vanquished, turned away and fled.
Then, to an ancient altar of the goddess named Hecate, Perse's daughter took her way in the deep shadows of a forest. She was strong of purpose now, and all the flames of vanquished passion had died down; but when she saw the son of Aeson, dying flames leaped up again. Her cheeks grew red, then all her face went pale again; as a small spark when hid beneath the ashes, if fed by a breath of wind grows and regains its strength, as it is fanned to life; so now her love that had been smoldering, and which you would have thought was almost dead, when she had see again his manly youth, blazed up once more. For on that day his graceful person seemed as glorious as a God;—and as she gazed, and fixed her eyes upon his countenance, her frenzy so prevailed, she was convinced that he was not a mortal. And her eyes were fascinated; and she could not turn away from him. But when he spoke to her, and promised marriage, grasping her right hand: she answered, as her eyes suffused with tears; “I see what I will do, and ignorance of truth will not be my undoing now, but love itself. By my assistance you shall be preserved; but when preserved fulfill your promise.” He swore that she could trust in him. Then by the goddess of the triple form, Diana, Trivia, or Luna called, and by her sacred groves and fanes, he vowed, and by the hallowed Sun that sees all things, and by his own adventures, and his life,—on these the youthful Jason took his oath.—With this she was assured and quickly gave to him the magic herbs: he learnt their use and full of joy withdrew into his house.
Now when the dawn had dimmed the glittering stars, the people hastened to the sacred field of Mars, and on the hills expectant stood.—Arrayed in purple, and in majesty distinguished by his ivory sceptre, sat the king, surrounded by a multitude. Below them on the visioned Field of Mars, huge brazen-footed bulls were breathing forth from adamantine nostrils living flames, blasting the verdant herbage in their path! As forges glowing with hot flames resound, or as much quick-lime, burnt in earthen kilns, crackles and hisses as if mad with rage, sprinkled with water, liberating heat; so their hot throats and triple-heated sides, resounding told of pent-up fires within. The son of Aeson went to meet them. As he came to meet them the fierce animals turned on him faces terrible, and sharp horns tipped with iron, and they pawed the dusty earth with cloven feet, and filled the place with fiery bellowings. The Minyans were stark with fear; he went up to the bulls not feeling their hot breath at all, so great the power of his charmed drugs; and while he was stroking their down-hanging dewlaps with a fearless hand, he placed the yoke down on their necks and made them draw the heavy plow, and cut through fields that never felt the steel before. The Colchians were amazed and silent; but the loud shouting of the Minyans increased their hero's courage.
Taking then the serpent's teeth out of a brazen helmet he sowed them broadcast in the new-plowed field. The moist earth softened these seeds that were steeped in virulent poison and the teeth swelled up and took new forms. And just as in its mother an infant gradually assumes the form of man, and is perfected through all parts within, and does not come forth to the light till fully formed; so, when the forms of men had been completed in the womb of earth made pregnant, they rose up from it, and what is yet more wonderful, each one clashed weapons that had been brought forth with him. When his companions saw the warriors turn as if with one accord, to hurl their spears, sharp-pointed, at the head of Jason, fear unnerved the boldest and their courage failed. So, too, the maid whose sorcery had saved him from much danger, when she saw the youth encompassed by those raging enemies, and he alone against so many—struck with sudden panic, she turned ashen white, her bloodless cheeks were blanched; and chilled with fear she wilted to the ground; and lest the herbs, so lately given him, might fail his need she added incantations and invoked mysterious arts. While she protected him he seized upon a heavy stone, and hurled it in the midst of his new enemies—distracted by this cast, and murderous, they turned from him, and clashing their new arms, those earth-born brothers fought among themselves till all were slaughtered in blood-thirsty strife. Gladly the Greeks acclaimed him conqueror, and pressed around him for the first embrace. Then, too, Medea, barbarous Colchian maid, although her modesty restrained her heart, eagerly longed to fold him in her arms, but careful of her good name, held aloof,—rejoicing in deep, silent love; and she acknowledged to the Gods her mighty gift of incantations.
But the dragon, still alert,—magnificent and terrible with gorgeous crest and triple tongue, and fangs barbed as a javelin, guards the Golden Fleece: and Jason can obtain that quest only if slumber may seal up the monster's eyes.—Jason, successful, sprinkled on his crest Lethean juices of a magic herb, and then recited thrice the words which bring deep slumber, potent words which would becalm the storm-tossed ocean, and would stop the flow of the most rapid rivers of our earth: and slowly slumber sealed the dragon's eyes. While that great monster slept, the hero took the Golden Fleece; and proudly sailed away bearing his treasure and the willing maid, (whose aid had saved him) to his native port Iolcus—victorious with the Argonauts.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html#1
This passage continues with the Argonauts arriving home, but our next passage shows their final adventures on their voyage, Crete & Calliste.
Friday, December 8, 2017
LP0082 -VIII ARGONAUTS- The Love of Medea, from The Argonautica
Legendary Passages #0082 -VIII ARGONAUTS-
The Love of Medea, from The Argonautica.
Previously, Jason and the Argonauts sailed all the way from Iolcus to Colchus to retrieve the Golden Fleece. This passage shows his meeting with Medea, obtaining her help to overcome the trials, and his promise of love and never-ending gratitude.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius3.html
The Love of Medea,
a Legendary Passage from,
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS,
ARGONAUTICA BOOK 3,
trans. by R. C. SEATON.
[912] - [1146]
Nor was Medea's heart turned to other thoughts, for all her singing, and never a song that she essayed pleased her long in her sport. But in confusion she ever faltered, nor did she keep her eyes resting quietly upon the throng of her handmaids; but to the paths far off she strained her gaze, turning her face aside. Oft did her heart sink fainting within her bosom whenever she fancied she heard passing by the sound of a footfall or of the wind. But soon he appeared to her longing eyes, striding along loftily, like Sirius coming from ocean, which rises fair and clear to see, but brings unspeakable mischief to flocks; thus then did Aeson's son come to her, fair to see, but the sight of him brought love-sick care. Her heart fell from out her bosom, and a dark mist came over her eyes, and a hot blush covered her cheeks. And she had no strength to lift her knees backwards or forwards, but her feet beneath were rooted to the ground; and meantime all her handmaidens had drawn aside. So they two stood face to face without a word, without a sound, like oaks or lofty pines, which stand quietly side by side on the mountains when the wind is still; then again, when stirred by the breath of the wind, they murmur ceaselessly; so they two were destined to tell out all their tale, stirred by the breath of Love.
And Aeson's son saw that she had fallen into some heaven-sent calamity, and with soothing words thus addressed her:
"Why, pray, maiden, dost thou fear me so much, all alone as I am? Never was I one of these idle boasters such as other men are -- not even aforetime, when I dwelt in my own country. Wherefore, maiden, be not too much abashed before me, either to enquire whatever thou wilt or to speak thy mind. But since we have met one another with friendly hearts, in a hallowed spot, where it is wrong to sin, speak openly and ask questions, and beguile me not with pleasing words, for at the first thou didst promise thy sister to give me the charms my heart desires. I implore thee by Hecate herself, by thy parents, and by Zeus who holds his guardian hand over strangers and suppliants; I come here to thee both a suppliant and a stranger, bending the knee in my sore need. For without thee and thy sister never shall I prevail in the grievous contest. And to thee will I render thanks hereafter for thy aid, as is right and fitting for men who dwell far oft, making glorious thy name and fame; and the rest of the heroes, returning to Hellas, will spread thy renown and so will the heroes' wives and mothers, who now perhaps are sitting on the shore and making moan for us; their painful affliction thou mightest scatter to the winds. In days past the maiden Ariadne, daughter of Minos, with kindly intent rescued Theseus from grim contests -- the maiden whom Pasiphae daughter of Helios bare. But she, when Minos had lulled his wrath to rest, went aboard the ship with him and left her fatherland; and her even the immortal gods loved, and, as a sign in mid-sky, a crown of stars, which men call Ariadne's crown, rolls along all night among the heavenly constellations. So to thee too shall be thanks from the gods, if thou wilt save so mighty an array of chieftains. For surely from thy lovely form thou art like to excel in gentle courtest."
Thus he spake, honouring her; and she cast her eyes down with a smile divinely sweet; and her soul melted within her, uplifted by his praise, and she gazed upon him face to face; nor did she know what word to utter first, but was eager to pour out everything at once. And forth from her fragrant girdle ungrudgingly she brought out the charm; and he at once received it in his hands with joy. And she would even have drawn out all her soul from her breast and given it to him, exulting in his desire; so wonderfully did love flash forth a sweet flame from the golden head of Aeson's son; and he captivated her gleaming eyes; and her heart within grew warm, melting away as the dew melts away round roses when warmed by the morning's light. And now both were fixing their eyes on the ground abashed, and again were throwing glances at each other, smiling with the light of love beneath their radiant brows.
And at last and scarcely then did the maiden greet him:
"Take heed now, that I may devise help for thee. When at thy coming my father has given thee the deadly teeth from the dragon's jaws for sowing, then watch for the time when the night is parted in twain, then bathe in the stream of the tireless river, and alone, apart from others, clad in dusky raiment, dig a rounded pit; and therein slay a ewe, and sacrifice it whole, heaping high the pyre on the very edge of the pit. And propitiate only-begotten Hecate, daughter of Perses, pouring from a goblet the hive-stored labour of bees. And then, when thou hast heedfully sought the grace of the goddess, retreat from the pyre; and let neither the sound of feet drive thee to turn back, nor the baying of hounds, lest haply thou shouldst maim all the rites and thyself fail to return duly to thy comrades. And at dawn steep this charm in water, strip, and anoint thy body therewith as with oil; and in it there will be boundless prowess and mighty strength, and thou wilt deem thyself a match not for men but for the immortal gods. And besides, let thy spear and shield and sword be sprinkled. Thereupon the spear-heads of the earthborn men shall not pierce thee, nor the flame of the deadly bulls as it rushes forth resistless. But such thou shalt be not for long, but for that one day; still never flinch from the contest. And I will tell thee besides of yet another help. As soon as thou hast yoked the strong oxen, and with thy might and thy prowess hast ploughed all the stubborn fallow, and now along the furrows the Giants are springing up, when the serpent's teeth are sown on the dusky clods, if thou markest them uprising in throngs from the fallow, cast unseen among them a massy stone; and they over it, like ravening hounds over their food, will slay one another; and do thou thyself hasten to rush to the battle- strife, and the fleece thereupon thou shalt bear far away from Aea; nevertheless, depart wherever thou wilt, or thy pleasure takes thee, when thou hast gone hence."
Thus she spake, and cast her eyes to her feet in silence, and her cheek, divinely fair, was wet with warm tears as she sorrowed for that he was about to wander far from her side over the wide sea: and once again she addressed him face to face with mournful words, and took his right hand; for now shame had left her eyes:
"Remember, if haply thou returnest to thy home, Medea's name; and so will I remember thine, though thou be far away. And of thy kindness tell me this, where is thy home, whither wilt thou sail hence in thy ship over the sea; wilt thou come near wealthy Orchomenus, or near the Aeaean isle? And tell me of the maiden, whosoever she be that thou hast named, the far-renowned daughter of Pasiphae, who is kinswoman to my father."
Thus she spake; and over him too, at the tears of the maiden, stole Love the destroyer, and he thus answered her:
"All too surely do I deem that never by night and never by day will I forget thee if I escape death and indeed make my way in safety to the Achaean land, and Aeetes set not before us some other contest worse than this. And if it pleases thee to know about my fatherland, I will tell it out; for indeed my own heart bids me do that. There is a land encircled by lofty mountains, rich in sheep and in pasture, where Prometheus, son of Iapetus, begat goodly Deucalion, who first founded cities and reared temples to the immortal gods, and first ruled over men. This land the neighbours who dwell around call Haemonia. And in it stands Iolcus, my city, and in it many others, where they have not so much as heard the name of the Aeaean isle; yet there is a story that Minyas starting thence, Minyas son of Aeolus, built long ago the city of Orchomenus that borders on the Cadmeians. But why do I tell thee all this vain talk, of our home and of Minos' daughter, far-famed Ariadne, by which glorious name they called that lovely maiden of whom thou askest me? Would that, as Minos then was well inclined to Theseus for her sake, so may thy father be joined to us in friendship!"
Thus he spake, soothing her with gentle converse. But pangs most bitter stirred her heart and in grief did she address him with vehement words:
"In Hellas, I ween, this is fair to pay heed to covenants; but Aeetes is not such a man among men as thou sayest was Pasiphae's husband, Minos; nor can I liken myself to Ariadne; wherefore speak not of guest-love. But only do thou, when thou hast reached Iolcus, remember me, and thee even in my parents' despite, will I remember. And from far off may a rumour come to me or some messenger-bird, when thou forgettest me; or me, even me, may swift blasts catch up and bear over the sea hence to Iolcus, that so I may cast reproaches in thy face and remind thee that it was by my good will thou didst escape. May I then be seated in thy halls, an unexpected guest!"
Thus she spake with piteous tears falling down her cheeks, and to her Jason replied:
"Let the empty blasts wander at will, lady, and the messenger-bird, for vain is thy talk. But if thou comest to those abodes and to the land of Hellas, honoured and reverenced shalt thou be by women and men; and they shall worship thee even as a goddess, for that by thy counsel their sons came home again, their brothers and kinsmen and stalwart husbands were saved from calamity. And in our bridal chamber shalt thou prepare our couch; and nothing shall come between our love till the doom of death fold us round."
Thus he spake; and her soul melted within her to hear his words; nevertheless she shuddered to behold the deeds of destruction to come. Poor wretch! Not long was she destined to refuse a home in Hellas. For thus Hera devised it, that Aeaean Medea might come to Ioleus for a bane to Pelias, forsaking her native land.
And now her handmaids, glancing at them from a distance, were grieving in silence; and the time of day required that the maiden should return home to her mother's side. But she thought not yet of departing, for her soul delighted both in his beauty and in his winsome words, but Aeson's son took heed, and spake at last, though late:
"It is time to depart, lest the sunlight sink before we know it, and some stranger notice all; but again will we come and meet here."
So did they two make trial of one another thus far with gentle words; and thereafter parted.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius3.html
This passage continues with Jason yoking the bronze bulls, but in our next passage Jason & Medea sail away with the golden fleece.
The Love of Medea, from The Argonautica.
Previously, Jason and the Argonauts sailed all the way from Iolcus to Colchus to retrieve the Golden Fleece. This passage shows his meeting with Medea, obtaining her help to overcome the trials, and his promise of love and never-ending gratitude.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius3.html
The Love of Medea,
a Legendary Passage from,
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS,
ARGONAUTICA BOOK 3,
trans. by R. C. SEATON.
[912] - [1146]
Nor was Medea's heart turned to other thoughts, for all her singing, and never a song that she essayed pleased her long in her sport. But in confusion she ever faltered, nor did she keep her eyes resting quietly upon the throng of her handmaids; but to the paths far off she strained her gaze, turning her face aside. Oft did her heart sink fainting within her bosom whenever she fancied she heard passing by the sound of a footfall or of the wind. But soon he appeared to her longing eyes, striding along loftily, like Sirius coming from ocean, which rises fair and clear to see, but brings unspeakable mischief to flocks; thus then did Aeson's son come to her, fair to see, but the sight of him brought love-sick care. Her heart fell from out her bosom, and a dark mist came over her eyes, and a hot blush covered her cheeks. And she had no strength to lift her knees backwards or forwards, but her feet beneath were rooted to the ground; and meantime all her handmaidens had drawn aside. So they two stood face to face without a word, without a sound, like oaks or lofty pines, which stand quietly side by side on the mountains when the wind is still; then again, when stirred by the breath of the wind, they murmur ceaselessly; so they two were destined to tell out all their tale, stirred by the breath of Love.
And Aeson's son saw that she had fallen into some heaven-sent calamity, and with soothing words thus addressed her:
"Why, pray, maiden, dost thou fear me so much, all alone as I am? Never was I one of these idle boasters such as other men are -- not even aforetime, when I dwelt in my own country. Wherefore, maiden, be not too much abashed before me, either to enquire whatever thou wilt or to speak thy mind. But since we have met one another with friendly hearts, in a hallowed spot, where it is wrong to sin, speak openly and ask questions, and beguile me not with pleasing words, for at the first thou didst promise thy sister to give me the charms my heart desires. I implore thee by Hecate herself, by thy parents, and by Zeus who holds his guardian hand over strangers and suppliants; I come here to thee both a suppliant and a stranger, bending the knee in my sore need. For without thee and thy sister never shall I prevail in the grievous contest. And to thee will I render thanks hereafter for thy aid, as is right and fitting for men who dwell far oft, making glorious thy name and fame; and the rest of the heroes, returning to Hellas, will spread thy renown and so will the heroes' wives and mothers, who now perhaps are sitting on the shore and making moan for us; their painful affliction thou mightest scatter to the winds. In days past the maiden Ariadne, daughter of Minos, with kindly intent rescued Theseus from grim contests -- the maiden whom Pasiphae daughter of Helios bare. But she, when Minos had lulled his wrath to rest, went aboard the ship with him and left her fatherland; and her even the immortal gods loved, and, as a sign in mid-sky, a crown of stars, which men call Ariadne's crown, rolls along all night among the heavenly constellations. So to thee too shall be thanks from the gods, if thou wilt save so mighty an array of chieftains. For surely from thy lovely form thou art like to excel in gentle courtest."
Thus he spake, honouring her; and she cast her eyes down with a smile divinely sweet; and her soul melted within her, uplifted by his praise, and she gazed upon him face to face; nor did she know what word to utter first, but was eager to pour out everything at once. And forth from her fragrant girdle ungrudgingly she brought out the charm; and he at once received it in his hands with joy. And she would even have drawn out all her soul from her breast and given it to him, exulting in his desire; so wonderfully did love flash forth a sweet flame from the golden head of Aeson's son; and he captivated her gleaming eyes; and her heart within grew warm, melting away as the dew melts away round roses when warmed by the morning's light. And now both were fixing their eyes on the ground abashed, and again were throwing glances at each other, smiling with the light of love beneath their radiant brows.
And at last and scarcely then did the maiden greet him:
"Take heed now, that I may devise help for thee. When at thy coming my father has given thee the deadly teeth from the dragon's jaws for sowing, then watch for the time when the night is parted in twain, then bathe in the stream of the tireless river, and alone, apart from others, clad in dusky raiment, dig a rounded pit; and therein slay a ewe, and sacrifice it whole, heaping high the pyre on the very edge of the pit. And propitiate only-begotten Hecate, daughter of Perses, pouring from a goblet the hive-stored labour of bees. And then, when thou hast heedfully sought the grace of the goddess, retreat from the pyre; and let neither the sound of feet drive thee to turn back, nor the baying of hounds, lest haply thou shouldst maim all the rites and thyself fail to return duly to thy comrades. And at dawn steep this charm in water, strip, and anoint thy body therewith as with oil; and in it there will be boundless prowess and mighty strength, and thou wilt deem thyself a match not for men but for the immortal gods. And besides, let thy spear and shield and sword be sprinkled. Thereupon the spear-heads of the earthborn men shall not pierce thee, nor the flame of the deadly bulls as it rushes forth resistless. But such thou shalt be not for long, but for that one day; still never flinch from the contest. And I will tell thee besides of yet another help. As soon as thou hast yoked the strong oxen, and with thy might and thy prowess hast ploughed all the stubborn fallow, and now along the furrows the Giants are springing up, when the serpent's teeth are sown on the dusky clods, if thou markest them uprising in throngs from the fallow, cast unseen among them a massy stone; and they over it, like ravening hounds over their food, will slay one another; and do thou thyself hasten to rush to the battle- strife, and the fleece thereupon thou shalt bear far away from Aea; nevertheless, depart wherever thou wilt, or thy pleasure takes thee, when thou hast gone hence."
Thus she spake, and cast her eyes to her feet in silence, and her cheek, divinely fair, was wet with warm tears as she sorrowed for that he was about to wander far from her side over the wide sea: and once again she addressed him face to face with mournful words, and took his right hand; for now shame had left her eyes:
"Remember, if haply thou returnest to thy home, Medea's name; and so will I remember thine, though thou be far away. And of thy kindness tell me this, where is thy home, whither wilt thou sail hence in thy ship over the sea; wilt thou come near wealthy Orchomenus, or near the Aeaean isle? And tell me of the maiden, whosoever she be that thou hast named, the far-renowned daughter of Pasiphae, who is kinswoman to my father."
Thus she spake; and over him too, at the tears of the maiden, stole Love the destroyer, and he thus answered her:
"All too surely do I deem that never by night and never by day will I forget thee if I escape death and indeed make my way in safety to the Achaean land, and Aeetes set not before us some other contest worse than this. And if it pleases thee to know about my fatherland, I will tell it out; for indeed my own heart bids me do that. There is a land encircled by lofty mountains, rich in sheep and in pasture, where Prometheus, son of Iapetus, begat goodly Deucalion, who first founded cities and reared temples to the immortal gods, and first ruled over men. This land the neighbours who dwell around call Haemonia. And in it stands Iolcus, my city, and in it many others, where they have not so much as heard the name of the Aeaean isle; yet there is a story that Minyas starting thence, Minyas son of Aeolus, built long ago the city of Orchomenus that borders on the Cadmeians. But why do I tell thee all this vain talk, of our home and of Minos' daughter, far-famed Ariadne, by which glorious name they called that lovely maiden of whom thou askest me? Would that, as Minos then was well inclined to Theseus for her sake, so may thy father be joined to us in friendship!"
Thus he spake, soothing her with gentle converse. But pangs most bitter stirred her heart and in grief did she address him with vehement words:
"In Hellas, I ween, this is fair to pay heed to covenants; but Aeetes is not such a man among men as thou sayest was Pasiphae's husband, Minos; nor can I liken myself to Ariadne; wherefore speak not of guest-love. But only do thou, when thou hast reached Iolcus, remember me, and thee even in my parents' despite, will I remember. And from far off may a rumour come to me or some messenger-bird, when thou forgettest me; or me, even me, may swift blasts catch up and bear over the sea hence to Iolcus, that so I may cast reproaches in thy face and remind thee that it was by my good will thou didst escape. May I then be seated in thy halls, an unexpected guest!"
Thus she spake with piteous tears falling down her cheeks, and to her Jason replied:
"Let the empty blasts wander at will, lady, and the messenger-bird, for vain is thy talk. But if thou comest to those abodes and to the land of Hellas, honoured and reverenced shalt thou be by women and men; and they shall worship thee even as a goddess, for that by thy counsel their sons came home again, their brothers and kinsmen and stalwart husbands were saved from calamity. And in our bridal chamber shalt thou prepare our couch; and nothing shall come between our love till the doom of death fold us round."
Thus he spake; and her soul melted within her to hear his words; nevertheless she shuddered to behold the deeds of destruction to come. Poor wretch! Not long was she destined to refuse a home in Hellas. For thus Hera devised it, that Aeaean Medea might come to Ioleus for a bane to Pelias, forsaking her native land.
And now her handmaids, glancing at them from a distance, were grieving in silence; and the time of day required that the maiden should return home to her mother's side. But she thought not yet of departing, for her soul delighted both in his beauty and in his winsome words, but Aeson's son took heed, and spake at last, though late:
"It is time to depart, lest the sunlight sink before we know it, and some stranger notice all; but again will we come and meet here."
So did they two make trial of one another thus far with gentle words; and thereafter parted.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius3.html
This passage continues with Jason yoking the bronze bulls, but in our next passage Jason & Medea sail away with the golden fleece.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
LP0081 -VII ARGONAUTS- The Trojan Sea-Monster, from Diodorus
Legendary Passages #0081 -VII ARGONAUTS-
The Trojan Sea-Monster, from Diodorus.
Previously, Jason and the Argonauts set sail from Iolcus, and had several adventures, concluding with Phineas and the Harpies. This passages is similar, but has stories of Troy, the Dioscori, and a very different account of Phineas.
After Jason assembles the Argonauts, thankfully only a handful are mentioned this time, they land at Troy and discover a princess bound in chains on the shore's edge. Hercules frees the princess, and they learn that Poseidon had sent a monster to ravage the countryside; and so the Trojans had offered up Princess Hesione as a sacrifice. Hercules agrees to slay the monster, in exchange for some magic horses and the princess herself.
Later, after shooting stars fell behind the twin Dioscori, the Argonauts come upon the kingdom of Phineas. Now Phineas was married to Idaea, but had had twin sons with his ex-wife Cleopatra. Queen Idaea unjustly claimed that her stepsons meant to do her harm, so Phineas punished them harshly. The Argonauts rescued the boys, both Phineas and Idaea were killed, and Cleopatra was made queen. The boys joined the Argonauts as they set sail for Colchis.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#1
The Trojan Sea-Monster,
a Legendary Passage from,
DIODORUS SICULUS,
LIBRARY OF HISTORY,
BOOK IV. Sections 40 - 44,
trans. by C. H. OLDFATHER.
[4.40.1] - [4.44.7]
JASON AND PELIAS
As for the Argonauts, since Heracles joined them in their campaign, it may be appropriate to speak of them in this connection. This is the account which is given:- Jason was the son of Aeson and the nephew through his father of Pelias, the king of the Thessalians, and excelling as he did above those of his years in strength of body and nobility of spirit he was eager to accomplish a deed worthy of memory.
And since he observed that men of former times Perseus and certain others had gained glory which was held in everlasting remembrance from the campaigns which they had waged in foreign lands and the hazard attending the labours they had performed, he was eager to follow the examples they had set. As a consequence he revealed his undertaking to the king and quickly received his approval. It was not so much that Pelias was eager to bring distinction to the youth as that he hoped that in the hazardous expeditions he would lose his life.
For he himself had been deprived by nature of any male children and was fearful of his brother, with his son to aid him, would make an attempt upon the kingdom. Hiding, however, this suspicion and promising to supply everything which would be needed for the expedition, he urged Jason to undertake an exploit by sailing to Colchis after the renowned golden-fleeced skin of the ram.
The Pontus at that time was inhabited on all its shores by nations which were barbarous and altogether fierce and was called “Axenos,” since the natives were in the habit of slaying the strangers who landed on its shores.
Jason, who was eager for glory, recognizing that the labour was difficult of accomplishment and yet not altogether impossible, and concluding that for this very reason the greater renown would attach to himself, made ready everything needed for the undertaking.
EMBARKATION OF THE ARGONAUTS
First of all, in the vicinity of Mount Pelion he built a ship which far surpassed in its size and in its equipment in general any vessel known in those days, since the men of that time put to sea on rafts or in very small boats. Consequently those who saw the ship at the time were greatly astonished, and when the report was noised about throughout Greece both of the exploit and of the enterprise of building the ship, no small number of the youths of prominence were eager to take part in the expedition.
Jason, then, after he had launched the ship and fitted it out in brilliant fashion with everything which would astonish the mind, picked out the most renowned chieftains from those who were eager to share his plan, with the result that the whole number of those in his company amounted to fifty-four. Of these the most famous were Castor and Polydeuces, Heracles and Telamon, Orpheus and Atalantê the daughter of Schoeneus, and the sons of Thespius, and the leader himself who was setting out on the voyage to Colchis.
The vessel was called Argo after Argus, as some writers of myths record, who was the master-builder of the ship and went along on the voyage in order to repair the parts of the vessel as they were strained from time to time, but, as some say, after its exceeding great swiftness, since the ancients called what is swift argos. Now after the chieftains had gathered together they chose Heracles to be their general, preferring him because of his courage.
HERACLES AND THE TROJAN SEA-MONSTER
After they had sailed from Iolcus, the account continues, and had gone past Athos and Samothrace, they encountered a storm and were carried to Sigeium in the Troad. When they disembarked there, it is said, they discovered a maiden bound in chains upon the shore, the reason for it being as follows.
Poseidon, as the story runs, became angry with Laomedon the king of Troy in connection with the building of its walls, according to the mythical story, and sent forth from the sea a monster to ravage the land. By this monster those who made their living by the seashore and the farmers who tilled the land contiguous to the sea were being surprised and carried off. Furthermore, a pestilence fell upon the people and a total destruction of their crops, so that all the inhabitants were at their wits’ end because of the magnitude of what had befallen them.
Consequently the common crowd gathered together into an assembly and sought for a deliverance from their misfortunes, and the king, it is said, dispatched a mission to Apollo to inquire of the god regarding what had befallen them. When the oracle, then, became known, which told that the cause was the anger of Poseidon and that only then would it cease when the Trojans should of their own free will select by lot one of their children and deliver him to the monster for his food, although all the children submitted to the lot, it fell upon the king’s daughter Hesionê.
Consequently Laomedon was constrained by necessity to deliver the maiden and to leave her, bound in chains, upon the shore.
Here Heracles, when he had disembarked with the Argonauts and learned from the girl of her sudden change of fortune, rent asunder the chains which were about her body and going up to the city made an offer to the king to slay the monster.
When Laomedon accepted the proposal and promised to give him as his reward his invincible mares, Heracles, they say, did slay the monster and Hesionê was given the choice either to leave her home with her saviour or to remain in her native land with her parents. The girl, then, chose to spend her life with the stranger, not merely because she preferred the benefaction she had received to the ties of kinship, but also because she feared that a monster might again appear and she be exposed by the citizens to the same fate as that from which she had just escaped.
As for Heracles, after he had been splendidly honoured with gifts and the appropriate tokens of hospitality, he left Hesionê and the mares in keeping with Laomedon, having arranged that after he had returned from Colchis, he should receive them again; he then set sail with all haste in the company of the Argonauts to accomplish the labour which lay before them.
THE STARS OF THE DIOSCURI
But there came on a great storm and the chieftains had given up hope of being saved, when Orpheus, they say, who was the only one on ship-board who had ever been initiated in the mysteries of the deities of Samothrace, offered to these deities the prayers for their salvation.
And immediately the wind died down and two stars fell over the heads of the Dioscori, and the whole company was amazed at the marvel which had taken place and concluded that they had been rescued from their perils by an act of Providence of the gods. For this reason, the story of this reversal of fortune for the Argonauts has been handed down to succeeding generations, and sailors when caught in storms always direct their prayers to the deities of Samothrace and attribute the appearance of the two stars to the epiphany of the Dioscori.
THE ARGONAUTS AND PHINEUS
At that time, however, the tale continues, when the storm had abated, the chieftains landed in Thrace on the country which was ruled over by Phineus. Here they came upon two youths who by way of punishment had been shut within a burial vault where they were being subjected to continual blows of the whip; these were sons of Phineus and Cleopatra, who men said was born of Oreithyïa, the daughter of Erechtheus, and Boreas, and had unjustly been subjected to such a punishment because of the unscrupulousness and lying accusations of their mother-in-law.
For Phineus had married Idaea, the daughter of Dardanus the king of the Scythians, and yielding to her every desire out of his love for her he had believed her charge that his sons by an earlier marriage had insolently offered violence to their mother-in-law out of a desire to please their mother.
And when Heracles and his friends unexpectedly appeared, the youths who were suffering these tortures, they say, made supplication to the chieftains as they would to gods, and setting forth the causes of their father’s unlawful conduct implored that they be delivered from their unfortunate lot.
Phineus, however, the account continues, met the strangers with bitter words and ordered them not to busy themselves with his affairs; for no father, he said, exacts punishment of his sons of his free will, unless they have overcome, by the magnitude of their crimes, the natural love which parents bear towards their children.
Thereupon the young men, who were known as Boreadae and were of the company which sailed with Heracles, since they were brothers of Cleopatra, and because of their kinship with the young men, were the first, it is said, to rush to their aid, and they tore apart the chains which encircled them and slew such barbarians as offered resistance.
And when Phineus hastened to join battle with them and the Thracian multitude ran together, Heracles, they say, who performed the mightiest deeds of them all, slew Phineus himself and no small number of the rest, and finally capturing the royal palace led Cleopatra forth from out the prison, and restored to the sons of Phineus their ancestral rule. But when the sons wished to put their stepmother to death under torture, Heracles persuaded them to renounce such a vengeance, and so the sons, sending her to her father in Scythia, urged that she be punished for her wicked treatment of them.
And this was done; the Scythian condemned his daughter to death, and the sons of Cleopatra gained in this way among the Thracians a reputation for equitable dealing.
I am not unaware that certain writers of myths say that the son of Phineus were blinded by their father and that Phineus suffered the like fate at the hands of Boreas. Likewise certain writers have passed down the account that Heracles, when he went ashore once in Asia to get water, was left behind in the country by the Argonauts. But, as a general thing, we find that the ancient myths do not give us a simple and consistent story. Consequently it should occasion no surprise if we find, when we put the ancient accounts together, that in some details they are not in agreement with those given by every poet and historian.
At any rate, according to these ancient accounts, the sons of Phineus turned over the kingdom to their mother Cleopatra and joined the chieftains in the expedition.
And after they had set sail from Thrace and had entered the Pontus, they put in at the Tauric Chersonese, being ignorant of the savage ways of the native people. For it is customary among the barbarians who inhabit this land to sacrifice to Artemis Tauropolus the stranger who put in there, and it is among them, they say, that at a later time Iphigeneia became a priestess of this goddess and sacrificed to her those who were taken captive.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#1
This passage continues back into episode 75, with Medea helping the Argonauts steal the golden fleece, but our next passage deals with the first encounter between Jason and Medea.
The Trojan Sea-Monster, from Diodorus.
Previously, Jason and the Argonauts set sail from Iolcus, and had several adventures, concluding with Phineas and the Harpies. This passages is similar, but has stories of Troy, the Dioscori, and a very different account of Phineas.
After Jason assembles the Argonauts, thankfully only a handful are mentioned this time, they land at Troy and discover a princess bound in chains on the shore's edge. Hercules frees the princess, and they learn that Poseidon had sent a monster to ravage the countryside; and so the Trojans had offered up Princess Hesione as a sacrifice. Hercules agrees to slay the monster, in exchange for some magic horses and the princess herself.
Later, after shooting stars fell behind the twin Dioscori, the Argonauts come upon the kingdom of Phineas. Now Phineas was married to Idaea, but had had twin sons with his ex-wife Cleopatra. Queen Idaea unjustly claimed that her stepsons meant to do her harm, so Phineas punished them harshly. The Argonauts rescued the boys, both Phineas and Idaea were killed, and Cleopatra was made queen. The boys joined the Argonauts as they set sail for Colchis.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#1
The Trojan Sea-Monster,
a Legendary Passage from,
DIODORUS SICULUS,
LIBRARY OF HISTORY,
BOOK IV. Sections 40 - 44,
trans. by C. H. OLDFATHER.
[4.40.1] - [4.44.7]
JASON AND PELIAS
As for the Argonauts, since Heracles joined them in their campaign, it may be appropriate to speak of them in this connection. This is the account which is given:- Jason was the son of Aeson and the nephew through his father of Pelias, the king of the Thessalians, and excelling as he did above those of his years in strength of body and nobility of spirit he was eager to accomplish a deed worthy of memory.
And since he observed that men of former times Perseus and certain others had gained glory which was held in everlasting remembrance from the campaigns which they had waged in foreign lands and the hazard attending the labours they had performed, he was eager to follow the examples they had set. As a consequence he revealed his undertaking to the king and quickly received his approval. It was not so much that Pelias was eager to bring distinction to the youth as that he hoped that in the hazardous expeditions he would lose his life.
For he himself had been deprived by nature of any male children and was fearful of his brother, with his son to aid him, would make an attempt upon the kingdom. Hiding, however, this suspicion and promising to supply everything which would be needed for the expedition, he urged Jason to undertake an exploit by sailing to Colchis after the renowned golden-fleeced skin of the ram.
The Pontus at that time was inhabited on all its shores by nations which were barbarous and altogether fierce and was called “Axenos,” since the natives were in the habit of slaying the strangers who landed on its shores.
Jason, who was eager for glory, recognizing that the labour was difficult of accomplishment and yet not altogether impossible, and concluding that for this very reason the greater renown would attach to himself, made ready everything needed for the undertaking.
EMBARKATION OF THE ARGONAUTS
First of all, in the vicinity of Mount Pelion he built a ship which far surpassed in its size and in its equipment in general any vessel known in those days, since the men of that time put to sea on rafts or in very small boats. Consequently those who saw the ship at the time were greatly astonished, and when the report was noised about throughout Greece both of the exploit and of the enterprise of building the ship, no small number of the youths of prominence were eager to take part in the expedition.
Jason, then, after he had launched the ship and fitted it out in brilliant fashion with everything which would astonish the mind, picked out the most renowned chieftains from those who were eager to share his plan, with the result that the whole number of those in his company amounted to fifty-four. Of these the most famous were Castor and Polydeuces, Heracles and Telamon, Orpheus and Atalantê the daughter of Schoeneus, and the sons of Thespius, and the leader himself who was setting out on the voyage to Colchis.
The vessel was called Argo after Argus, as some writers of myths record, who was the master-builder of the ship and went along on the voyage in order to repair the parts of the vessel as they were strained from time to time, but, as some say, after its exceeding great swiftness, since the ancients called what is swift argos. Now after the chieftains had gathered together they chose Heracles to be their general, preferring him because of his courage.
HERACLES AND THE TROJAN SEA-MONSTER
After they had sailed from Iolcus, the account continues, and had gone past Athos and Samothrace, they encountered a storm and were carried to Sigeium in the Troad. When they disembarked there, it is said, they discovered a maiden bound in chains upon the shore, the reason for it being as follows.
Poseidon, as the story runs, became angry with Laomedon the king of Troy in connection with the building of its walls, according to the mythical story, and sent forth from the sea a monster to ravage the land. By this monster those who made their living by the seashore and the farmers who tilled the land contiguous to the sea were being surprised and carried off. Furthermore, a pestilence fell upon the people and a total destruction of their crops, so that all the inhabitants were at their wits’ end because of the magnitude of what had befallen them.
Consequently the common crowd gathered together into an assembly and sought for a deliverance from their misfortunes, and the king, it is said, dispatched a mission to Apollo to inquire of the god regarding what had befallen them. When the oracle, then, became known, which told that the cause was the anger of Poseidon and that only then would it cease when the Trojans should of their own free will select by lot one of their children and deliver him to the monster for his food, although all the children submitted to the lot, it fell upon the king’s daughter Hesionê.
Consequently Laomedon was constrained by necessity to deliver the maiden and to leave her, bound in chains, upon the shore.
Here Heracles, when he had disembarked with the Argonauts and learned from the girl of her sudden change of fortune, rent asunder the chains which were about her body and going up to the city made an offer to the king to slay the monster.
When Laomedon accepted the proposal and promised to give him as his reward his invincible mares, Heracles, they say, did slay the monster and Hesionê was given the choice either to leave her home with her saviour or to remain in her native land with her parents. The girl, then, chose to spend her life with the stranger, not merely because she preferred the benefaction she had received to the ties of kinship, but also because she feared that a monster might again appear and she be exposed by the citizens to the same fate as that from which she had just escaped.
As for Heracles, after he had been splendidly honoured with gifts and the appropriate tokens of hospitality, he left Hesionê and the mares in keeping with Laomedon, having arranged that after he had returned from Colchis, he should receive them again; he then set sail with all haste in the company of the Argonauts to accomplish the labour which lay before them.
THE STARS OF THE DIOSCURI
But there came on a great storm and the chieftains had given up hope of being saved, when Orpheus, they say, who was the only one on ship-board who had ever been initiated in the mysteries of the deities of Samothrace, offered to these deities the prayers for their salvation.
And immediately the wind died down and two stars fell over the heads of the Dioscori, and the whole company was amazed at the marvel which had taken place and concluded that they had been rescued from their perils by an act of Providence of the gods. For this reason, the story of this reversal of fortune for the Argonauts has been handed down to succeeding generations, and sailors when caught in storms always direct their prayers to the deities of Samothrace and attribute the appearance of the two stars to the epiphany of the Dioscori.
THE ARGONAUTS AND PHINEUS
At that time, however, the tale continues, when the storm had abated, the chieftains landed in Thrace on the country which was ruled over by Phineus. Here they came upon two youths who by way of punishment had been shut within a burial vault where they were being subjected to continual blows of the whip; these were sons of Phineus and Cleopatra, who men said was born of Oreithyïa, the daughter of Erechtheus, and Boreas, and had unjustly been subjected to such a punishment because of the unscrupulousness and lying accusations of their mother-in-law.
For Phineus had married Idaea, the daughter of Dardanus the king of the Scythians, and yielding to her every desire out of his love for her he had believed her charge that his sons by an earlier marriage had insolently offered violence to their mother-in-law out of a desire to please their mother.
And when Heracles and his friends unexpectedly appeared, the youths who were suffering these tortures, they say, made supplication to the chieftains as they would to gods, and setting forth the causes of their father’s unlawful conduct implored that they be delivered from their unfortunate lot.
Phineus, however, the account continues, met the strangers with bitter words and ordered them not to busy themselves with his affairs; for no father, he said, exacts punishment of his sons of his free will, unless they have overcome, by the magnitude of their crimes, the natural love which parents bear towards their children.
Thereupon the young men, who were known as Boreadae and were of the company which sailed with Heracles, since they were brothers of Cleopatra, and because of their kinship with the young men, were the first, it is said, to rush to their aid, and they tore apart the chains which encircled them and slew such barbarians as offered resistance.
And when Phineus hastened to join battle with them and the Thracian multitude ran together, Heracles, they say, who performed the mightiest deeds of them all, slew Phineus himself and no small number of the rest, and finally capturing the royal palace led Cleopatra forth from out the prison, and restored to the sons of Phineus their ancestral rule. But when the sons wished to put their stepmother to death under torture, Heracles persuaded them to renounce such a vengeance, and so the sons, sending her to her father in Scythia, urged that she be punished for her wicked treatment of them.
And this was done; the Scythian condemned his daughter to death, and the sons of Cleopatra gained in this way among the Thracians a reputation for equitable dealing.
I am not unaware that certain writers of myths say that the son of Phineus were blinded by their father and that Phineus suffered the like fate at the hands of Boreas. Likewise certain writers have passed down the account that Heracles, when he went ashore once in Asia to get water, was left behind in the country by the Argonauts. But, as a general thing, we find that the ancient myths do not give us a simple and consistent story. Consequently it should occasion no surprise if we find, when we put the ancient accounts together, that in some details they are not in agreement with those given by every poet and historian.
At any rate, according to these ancient accounts, the sons of Phineus turned over the kingdom to their mother Cleopatra and joined the chieftains in the expedition.
And after they had set sail from Thrace and had entered the Pontus, they put in at the Tauric Chersonese, being ignorant of the savage ways of the native people. For it is customary among the barbarians who inhabit this land to sacrifice to Artemis Tauropolus the stranger who put in there, and it is among them, they say, that at a later time Iphigeneia became a priestess of this goddess and sacrificed to her those who were taken captive.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#1
This passage continues back into episode 75, with Medea helping the Argonauts steal the golden fleece, but our next passage deals with the first encounter between Jason and Medea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)