Book 6

6. Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, Book Six.

But wakeful Mars burns with the same furies and swells in his keen heart, nor does he find what battle-lines, what camp to follow; at last he resolves to go and to watch present in the field, whether he can lay the Minyae low and repay with great grief the king's bargains, and destroy the Greek ship. Hence he drove on his chariot, brandishing the irrevocable monster of war, and halts above the tents of Scythia. At once sleep flees from the camp: weapons are roused, and the troubled leaders gather; and besides, a huge rumour moves them, that by their sacred ship the Achaeans had come, seeking again the fleece of their own Phrixus, whom wicked Aeetes had mocked with hospitality and a right hand joined to covenants, and had drawn into his own arms. Therefore, while the deep night is free for moving counsels, they resolve that envoy-leaders should go, and Perses instructs them in his charges: to address the Minyae and warn them of the tyrant's deceit. What error has turned their minds hither? He first had urged that the fleece be given back to the Haemonian lands and the spoils of the sacred beast be sent away: hence the hatred and the beginnings of so great a war had come. Nay, rather let them follow his right hand and his arms, or return; for the promises and faith of Aeetes hold no place; let them keep from the blood of another's fight. Not for that had such great labours come over the seas. What need to clash with unknown men, and men you do not hate? While Perses gives these charges in the midst of time, a golden glow flashed over the fields, and the arms and shrill trumpets sounded of their own accord. Savage Mars from his high steeds cries 'Lo, the foe! Come, go, he draws near,' and at once pours hence the Colchians, hence Perses into the field. Then each race joined battle with its own weapons, and the god's voice was heard alike through all the fights.

Come now, tell, Muse, what furies you saw in the Riphaean world, with what great effort Perses roused Scythia, trusting in what horses and men through the wars. But I would record neither all by number nor by name, though I had a thousand mouths; for no region is richer in peoples: though the Maeotian youth fall by ceaseless war, yet from its rich breast it never fails to fill both Bears and the great Serpent with their stock. Therefore, goddesses, bring forth for me the leaders and the races alone.

Anausis, long since hostile, had sent the ardent Alani, then followed himself, and the fierce Heniochi, because his betrothed Medea was pledged to the Albanian tyrant, not knowing, alas, of how great a monster's bridal she would burn to ascend, and what terror awaits the Achaean cities. He himself is dearer to the gods, and happier in his childless hall. Next the legion of the Bisaltae and its leader Colaxes, himself too of the blood of the gods, whom Jupiter begot on the Scythian shores, on green Myrace and beside the Tibisean mouths, taken (if it is worthy of belief) by her half-beast body, nor did he shudder at the nymph's twin serpents. The whole phalanx bears the emblem of Jove and the engraved coverings, fires scattered with three-forked flashes; nor were you the first, Roman soldier, to spread the rays of the flashing thunderbolt and the ruddy wings upon your shields. Besides, he himself had gathered golden dragons, the likeness of his mother Hora, and with tongues opposed on either side the serpent meets and gives wounds to the smooth gem. Third, coming with his like-minded thousands, Auchus displays the Cimmerian wealth, in whom is white hair of old, a birth-gift; his longer age now gives space for it; running over his temples with a triple knot he lets down twin fillets from his sacred crown. Daraps, the heavier for a wound in the Achaemenian fight, sent Datis into arms, whom the Martial line surrounds of the Gangaridae, and those whom Gerus brings forth, its water drunk, and those who girt the lake Byce. Anxur was not lacking, nor Sidon with his brother Rhadalus, and on the left, with ill omen, prophetic Phrixus moves the lines of the Acesinus' hind. She herself, a companion, gleaming with bristles and golden horns, is borne before the line on the burden of a tall pole, mournful, and not to return to the groves of savage Diana. Perses also moved suppliant Syene with the Hylaean race, stretching before them the impious wounds of his brother. Nowhere has a forest raised any timbers thicker or taller, and the arrows returned wearied first . . . Nay, Cyris the Titanian drove the men into arms from the Hyrcanian caves, and to the battle the Coelaletae dragged all their bands on wagons; there is their stitched home, and a wife sitting beneath the raw fleece, and a boy hurling the cateiae from the first wagon-pole. Tyras is left, broken off by the sea; left too is the mountain Ambenus and Ophiusa, strong with cold poisons. The degenerate Sindi rush and gather, even now fearing the lash for their fathers' crime, into squadrons. Above these Phalces drives a brazen cloud over the plain with a roar, and the dense Coralli raise their standards, whose ensigns are a barbaric wheel and the iron-clad shape of a boar on their backs, and images of Jove as a truncated column; nor do they care to kindle battle with the hoarse horn, but duly sing their native leaders and the ancient deeds of their own and the praises that exhort the men. But where the foot levels the Sidonian reins among them, thence Aea draws to herself the Batarni, sworn against her, whom, with Teutagonus as leader, the rough delay of bark arms, and the rumpia, neither shorter than iron nor than wood, and even. Nor far off he strikes the whitening shields with a twin javelin, he who tills the back of wintry Nova with the axe and the cold land, and hears the Alazon not at all on all his bank. . . . and those whom Taras and Euarchus, fertile in snowy swans, bring. You too, vast Ariasmenes, I would hand down to coming ages, a mass of war and bearing far and wide on every side his scythed chariots over the deserted plains. The Drangaean phalanx follows, and the Caspiadae poured out from their barriers, with whom a throng of dogs leaps no less keenly to the trumpets and takes up their masters' fights. Hence too is equal honour in death, and they are received in the tombs among the forefathers and laid among the men; for breasting in iron and wreathed with terrible manes, a cohort rushes in a black line with a barking as loud as the dread door of Dis sounds, or the train of Hecate into the upper air. A holy seer leads the lines from the Hyrcanian groves, Vanus; the third age of Scythia had already seen him singing of the great-hearted Minyae and the Argo's sails. By his warnings' pledges both the rich Indians, and the Lagean fields of hundred-gated Thebes, and all Panchaia were snatched in the Riphaean triumph. Parti-coloured Iberia poured out her spear-bearing squadrons, which Otaces, which Latris lead, and Neurus the ravisher of loves, and the Iazyges who have no part in singing age. For where now their strength and the familiar bow refuse them, and the lance, once begun, now scorns its master's hand, a custom told by their great-hearted forefathers, to suffer no sluggish laws of death, but to fall by the right hand of their dear offspring with sword given; and son and father break off delay, both in spirit, both wretched in deeds so brave. Here too the Mycae, breathing with perfumed hair, and the Cessaean bands, and you who do not yet dig up your acres, guiltless Arimaspe, from the unknown metals, and the Auchates, skilled to scatter the wandering bonds in a wide circle and to draw the farthest squadrons with their nooses. Nor will I be silent of the Thyrsagetes bearing drums in his bloody wars, and girt behind with shaggy skins, and making his spears green with woven flowers. Fame has it that Bacchus, leader of Jove and of Cadmus' blood, poured out by this hand too the frankincense-bearing Sabaeans, happy realms, and the Arabs by that; and soon, when he burst the fords of Hebrus, he left the Thyrsagetes beneath the cold north. Theirs is still all the old style and the sacred clash of bronze and the pipe that records the eastern fight. Emoda joins her own forces; following their own standards came the Exomatae and the Toryni and the Satarchae of yellow hair: honour of honey for the Toryni, their own milk-pails enrich the Satarchae, the hunt feeds the Exomatae, nor is the Bear brighter to any horses; they go off through the Hypanis and the fragile wave fleeing with the cub of a tiger or a savage lioness, and the mournful mother, on the suspected bank's mound, stands amazed. The blaze of the Phrixean fleece drove on too the wavering Centori and the Choatrae, dire with magic terror. In all is a savage clamour against the gods, in all monstrous arts: now in the new spring to check the leaves, now to loosen suddenly the Maeotis for the frightened wagons. Greatest among these comes Coastes by his Stygian art; nor does the love of Mars draw him, but the fame of the Cytaean maiden and Medea breathing with poisons like his own. The Avernan marsh rejoices, the ferryman rejoices now in the quiet night, and Latonia coming in a safe heaven. There went also, matching wings with their twin horns, the Balloniti, and swift Moesus, changer of his comrades' horses, and the Sarmatian, curber of the huge pike. Not so many waves does Boreas drive from the farthest sea, nor so does he answer his brothers from the opposing wave, nor such is the singing of the birds among the rivers, as great a concord of trumpets then reaches the sky and mingles the frenzied thousands, as many as the year begins with leaves, as many as with flowers. The very field groans, struck by the wheels, and the trembling ground sways with the beating, as when Jupiter shakes Phlegra with the savage thunderbolt and lashes Typhoeus in the deepest fields.

On that side Absyrtus holds the foremost place in his father's arms, and the son-in-law and huge kings among their own thousands. But around the son of Aeson is the band of the Danai and Pallas herself with her terrifying aegis, which neither the goddess wearies by holding nor the father, bristling with snakes and dreadful with its Gorgon face; nor is it yet time to show the half-living locks, and she lets the first battles clash. Father Mars drove these against, and the evil Joys of death and Tisiphone, raising her head through the clouds at the trumpet's sound and tallest in the midst of the fight, nor yet is it clear to whose minds Flight should add herself.

When they joined their roaring lines with locked weapons and man breathed on man with helmets thrust forward, at once here are deaths and arms broken with slaughter and bodies, blood on this side and that, ruins on this side and that; the field rolls helmets and the breastplate raises showers of blood; here are gathered the barbarian shouts of triumph, here groans, and the lives of men mingled with the dust. The Caspian carried off Aeaean Moneses, seized by the hair; hence alike the Colchians and the Greeks follow with missiles; he snatches the death and leaves the spoil, nor have his comrades now care for the man. Caresus throws down Dipsas and Strymon scattering wounds with the dark sling; he himself falls by the spear of Albanian Cremedon, and now lies hidden, and chariots and squadrons are borne over him. Melas and Idasmenus came forth; Melas begins first with the spear, but the light fir-shaft eluded both. Then they rush with swords; first Melas seizes with swift bronze the base of the helmet; the neck is broken with the wound. Valour perishes mingled: it knows not to whom Ocheus or to whom Tyres owes his fate. While Iron looks back at the hiss of the Argive spear-point, he takes the Pylian spear in his side.

Castor had seen the Hyrcanian brothers ranging on matched horses, whom their father, rich in every herd, had reared and shown the way to unjust fates. Then more and more, when he marked their footman by his whiteness, love inflames the son of Tyndareus, and at once meeting him he casts his spear against the breast . . . and the wing-footed . . . the victor stood, the leader shaken off; the father laughed from his high cloud and knew the horseman by the seized reins. But Medores, raging alike with grief and with the sight, seeks the son of Tyndareus and prays to the gods thus with his voice: 'Come, give me back even as companion to my slain brother, and let this impious horse fall first by my spear, which did not bring back the arms entrusted to it to its wretched master and comes against me and supplies a captive back.' He had spoken; but the spear of Actaean Phalerus throws him down first; the horse swiftly flees to the allied wings.

Who would ever have feared for you fatal Amyclae and the Oebalian hand, Rhyndacus, parted by so many mountains and as many seas? Tages, the busy nursling of famous Taulas, falls together, his groin pierced through, born of a half-divine mother, for whom her mother's sister keeps watch most often in the woods and labours over his array. Not the thin linen of the white flax, not the cloak painted with gold, not the yellow hair of his cap nor breeches of woven embroidery avail him. And now a new horseman goes through the bands of the mid-battle, amazed, scattering spears with a thick right hand, and drives his lightning sword into men, here and there; when behold, a fiercer youth and the Sarmatian bands gather, and a roar of half-beast men; on these a breastplate stiffens with soft chain; that covering too is for the horses; but the horses, the fir-shaft stretched over their shoulders and head, bear a huge shadow over the hostile fields, pressed on the knee, and go with the man's might, go with the horse's, teachable to wheel back and teachable to be left and again to go through the midst of the foe no higher. These, panting and forgetful of death, Castor mocks with rapid circlings and a soft winding of his lighter horse over the plains; but not with the same arts do the Colchians clash alike, and of their own accord rush into death. Campesus, with the oak driven between his side and flank, is lifted up, and dying goes down upon the middle of the spear. Oebasus, thinking he had escaped hostile Phalces by lowering his knee, is pierced through the left orb of his eye; his tender cheeks flow away with the wound. But against this, trusting in his twin breastplates, Sibotes sustains the blow and with his sword strikes the tip of the weapon, in vain; now the point is in, nor does Ambenus care for the fragments and goes under the middle of Ocrea with the broken shaft of wood. Taxes carries half-dead Hypanis, and dragging him slack behind as he flees, strips off the spear by his running; and while he sets it again, gathered up, the Laconian rushes in of his own accord and assails the man troubled and still unarmed. A headlong horse, with the pike facing it, drove Onchaeus, in vain recalling with all his strength his shoulders to the side: the steed comes on, comes on too the man himself, cold: his arms fall, the last point drips far off; just as if one should bring down from the air of a high branch a bird trusting in the bonds of the poplar's shade, for whom much reed has grown beneath the silent hand; she, snatched above by the guile and the clinging birdlime, implores the branches and beats her wings in vain.

In another part, in hostile arms (for so chance had joined them), Styrus is at hand, and Anausis joyfully recognizes the man, and first: 'Lo, in whose bridal the Aeetian maiden is said to await, and who, victor, will bear away our love. You shall not,' he says, 'be changed as son-in-law against the father's will.' Then together with rushing courses they hurl their opposing spears; the Albanian flees with reins drawn in, wounded, and does not hope that Anausis is given to death, nor sees it. But the other, dying with the weapon driven in, 'To your fathers-in-law and the bosom of your betrothed bride, lo, Styrus, you flee,' he says, 'bearing a wound which by no song Medea may sustain, nor lighten with any poisons.' He had spoken, when the last darkness seizes his eyes, and his voice was checked by chill, and the earth struck with his crown.

Hence the battle-line increases its spirits, and in a great whirlwind of grief Mars snatches Gesander: he upbraids the lingering ones and thus with drawn sword urges the Iazyges: 'Surely all the old men have fallen, surely every father taken before. What foul old age has so suddenly seized you and broken your spirits and taken away your wraths? Either with me, young men, come, go through the midst of the city and the Argolic band, or fall before your dear sons.' He rushes in and fiercely summons his fathers' shades to his enterprise: 'Holy Voraptus, my father, supply now to your son your courage and an equal spirit, if to you, hating the fates, the slow and shameful delays no less did I myself obey, and the small grandsons have learned the same.' This he says, and is heard in Erebus. Then he seizes his sword, turbid, and burning with his fathers' furies shakes his arms. Aquites, consecrated to the native waters and priest of great Phasis, wandered in northern arms (the honour of his brow is of poplar, and his temples are seen bound with the gray-green bough), longing to lead you, Cyrnus, forgetful of your father, from the harsh fight; and now ranging unhurt through all the throngs and the scattered lines, he sees his son nowhere, and as he enters again crying out, again ranges the different parts of the war, and his driven lance rings about his sea-blue fillets. Fierce Gesander overwhelms him with reins let loose. He, trembling, stretched out his hand and his vain sacred emblems and said: 'You, by this, I beg, if a father awaits you, by your gray hairs, check your threats, and if you have a son, spare mine.' He spoke. Against this the victor with sword driven in replies thus: 'The father whom you think still survives for me in shameful old age, himself chose to fall by this right hand and of his own accord to break off the sluggish bounds. And if you had a son's piety, if a right hand, you would not now wear away the hours in the midst of war with prayers, about to be the prey of dogs. For a youth every lot is fairer: it is fitting both to have striven by hand and to have lacked a tomb.' He had spoken; the other, dying, prays to the gods and heaven that no such right hand should meet his wretched son.

You too, Canthus, Argo, not unaware of your death, wept for as you snatched your weapons from the unwilling ship. Now, pitiable one, you had reached the Scythian gulfs, now the river of Phasis, and the day was not far when you would see the captured fleece and the Euboean fires from your native mountains. Him, when in the clash Gesander overwhelms with unequal strife, he terrifies with these words: 'You who thought these homes of men easy, Argive, here, wretched one, you behold another year and the nursing snow and the swift weariness of life. We have not learned either to fit our arms to the light oars or to wait, a task, for favouring winds; we go on horses, where the sea stiffens even in mid-flood or the Hister roars with its swollen water; nor do your walls please us: I am borne now free over the northern fields, holding all, all my love with me, and the loss of a wagon alone, nor will you long, as victor, possess this plunder. But for feasts, whatever beast, whatever of the wild creatures. Send to Asia, send charges to the Argolic colonists, that they tremble not; never will I leave these winters, these rocks, the fields of Mars, where by so savage a river we have hardened our offspring and our rude sons, where so great a store of death is for the men. Thus it is sweet to make war in our native frosts and to plunder, and take this such a right hand.' He spoke, and the missile, nourished by the Edonian winds, he hurls; it goes through the middle of the breast, and the deadly steel and the bristling bronze in their knot. Trembling, Idas flies up above and at once the son of Oeneus and likewise Menoetius and he who returned victor nearer from the Bebrycian host. But Telamon far off raised his huge round shield, covering you, Canthus, lifeless; as a lion, hedged in a strait, sets his cubs behind his back, so close at hand stands the Aeacid and holds his step, and against the rushing foe wheels round the mass strong with sevenfold hide. Nor less from here presses the Scythian band, and the arms of Canthus each demands for himself and a penalty from the Greek body. Hence a steep labour, and over the body in the middle the fight is joined. As when, with a great whirlwind, the winds break themselves on the threshold of Aeolia herself, which the rage of the sea, which the clouds, and which that day should follow: so the men's fight clings close at hand, straining, nor can they be driven from the body they have seized. As one who breaks a bull's hide with much oil gives it to his servants, they stretch it, and in turn by their pulling tame the bull's back, the ground flows with the rich grease: such is the labour on both sides, and snatched along the narrow line the man's pitiable limbs go: these strain against, those against, and the alternate right hands of the men do not yield. Hence Telamon snatches Canthus by the middle, hence burning Gesander holds the man's neck and the soft reins of the helmet, which, slipping to the ground, rang and cheated his right hand. He, wicked, again rams against the orb of the sevenfold shield and follows Canthus and demands Canthus back, whom a hand snatches from behind, his comrade, and, received, sets in the chariot of the maiden Euryale. She herself flies up and at once the Haemonidae, and all the band against Gesander alone goes. He, when he sees the new lines and the maiden's arms, 'Shall we war even against these?' he says; 'Alas, the shame.' Then he strikes Lyce at the edge of the breast, then Thoe, where the shield is bare; and now he was going for Harpe, scarcely drawing her first horns with the light string, and for Menippe, stretching the reins of her falling horse: when the queen, doubling the axe heavy with knots and gold, shatters part of her head and her wild-beast helmet. Here alike a vast mass of weapons goes against one; he for long suffices against the hurled spears, nay, even heavier and with a nod . . . lacking it terrified Idas; then he falls as the side of a mountain or as the engine of a wall, which long worn down by rocks and beams and by flames at last sank and brought down a huge city.

Behold, thinking the place and time had come and that now his own battles were demanded, Ariasmenes brings in his scythed axles and at once spreads the savage yokes of his comrades, about to snatch all the Greek-born from the line, all the Colchians. As if Jupiter, hating the race of Pyrrha, should again pour the seas and all his reins of the flood, that the steep ridges of Parnassus should lie hidden, pine-bearing Othrys should yield, and the Alps shrink with their crags sunk: with such a flood and equal destructions Ariasmenes presses, snatching his chariots with no distinction. Then for the first time the maiden raised the aegis and the breath of Medusa, squalid with thrice a hundred savage snakes, which the horses alone saw. Huge dread seizes them, the men shaken off onto their backs, and they turn back the dire plague upon their comrades, not willingly. Then with hooked swords discord entangles and tears the panicked chariots. As when most savage Tisiphone stirs the Roman legions and the kings, whose lines flash with javelins on either side, whose eagles, and whose parents till the same fields, the same fields which unhappy Tiber had sent chosen from all, not to these battles: so but now concordant and seeking foreign fates, the Palladian terrors snatched them away, so, turned to their own deaths, the axles clash though their masters call them back. Not such foul bands of men did the south winds cast up on the Laurentine lands, nor such the image on the Libyan shore, when the seas roll over the broken ships. Here the yoked horses, there the masters' limbs are stretched, which the spokes, which the reins cut, and the chariot drags and is dragged, dripping with slaughter, and in the black dust the kings' entrails cling now to some, now to other chariots. Nowhere is there spirit in the Colchians, nor . . . weapons, but the entangled and bound in the wretched bane they stab through, and no other form of death arises than when a hunter seeks stags not with the devouring Umbrian hound, nor with the feathered shaft, but finds them clinging by their lofty horns and takes them, bound fast, with blind wrath. Bold Ariasmenes himself, his arms gathered up, leaps down; the line of the curved scythe cuts him on every side and parts him with the wheels, and snatched thence onto the raging yokes, he touched the Circaean fields no more.

Such deaths the Minyae and the scattered Cytaeans were mingling in rivalry on the fields, and pressing Scythia, when Juno, seeing that this was not the way to the fleece for the son of Aeson, nor were returns to be thus prepared, the queen sets in motion the last resource, before the treacherous king lays open his deadly counsels and savage wraths. She upbraids Vulcan, sorrowful, with late complaints, whose flame-breathing bulls she sees among the royal pastures, breathing Tartarean night from their breast. For lest, the war finished, he bid the Minyae yoke these monsters and sow with the teeth of the Cadmean serpent, she fears for the day and looks about for various arts. Medea alone comes to her mind, all her thought on one maiden, than whom none is more powerful at the nocturnal altars. At her addresses and the juices scattered through the pathless places the fixed stars are afraid, and the orbit of her grandsire the Sun is amazed. She changes the fields and the river's ways, her own fire binds all things, sleep revives parents wearied with age and gives the distaffs other lengths without law. Her even mighty Circe marvelled at, with her terrifying measures, her the stranger Phrixus, although he knew the moon to foam with Atracian poison and shades to be stirred by Haemonian songs. Therefore Juno seeks to join, dread with magic powers and virginity, the Colchian as ally to the Greek leader. For she sees none other equal against the bulls and the springing arms, nor one who would stand in the midst of the line of flame: to dread no crime in her mind, no sights. What if blind love and savage fire be added? Hence she seeks the bridal halls of Venus and the roofs ever fresh with garlands. At her sight the goddess long since leaps up from the high couches, and all the host of the winged Loves. And first Saturnia, as suppliant, approaches her with calm words, fearing to lay open her true fears. 'Now in your hands is our hope and all power,' she says; 'consent to this the more to one telling the truth. As the harsh Tirynthian is exiled from the Argolic shores, my mind is not the same as Jove's, and his will opposed, no honour to my bridal chamber or its fires of old in the night. Grant, I pray, the alluring breathings of cunning beauty and your adornments powerful on earth and in heaven.' The goddess felt the guile, long since of her own accord seeking the Colchian and to cut off all the race of hated Phoebus. Then indeed she gains her wishes, nor, suffering her to pray further, she gave the keen grace and the girdle fertile in monsters, in which is no piety nor care for fame, no modesty, but on the contrary light and hasty desire and the address of evil and sweet error for the wavering and fear and the mad care of another's peril. 'All my empire and all the arms of my sons,' she says, 'I have given; now shake what minds you please.'

Saturnia is girded, glad, with the secret poisons, and hence comes to the inmost chamber of the maiden's seat, imitating her sister Chalciope in sound and form. The divinity shone from afar against her will, and dread at once struck her limbs and a huge horror smote the daughter of Aeetes. 'So do you not know, sister,' she says, 'that the Minyae have come hither over unknown waves, and that not only to our father have they joined allied hands? But the rest of the throng holds the walls and enjoys the men's heavenly arms, while you sit idle in your chamber, you alone fixed in your father's house? When will it be yours to see such kings?' She nothing in reply; for the goddess did not suffer it, but clasps her hand and bears the marvelling one off with rapid steps. The unhappy maiden is led to the topmost walls, ignorant of the evil to come, and entrusted to a false sister: as white lilies shine especially through the vernal colours, whose life is short and all their honour blooms but a little while, and now the South wind with dusky wings threatens. Her, sitting in the high groves, Hecate, child of Perses, wept for, and gave forth these voices from the depth of her breast: 'You leave, alas, our grove and the bands of your peers, ah wretched one, that you may wander, not of your will, to the Greek cities, yet not unbidden; nor will I leave you, my care. You shall give great memorials of your flight, nor anywhere shall you be despised, a captive to a lying man, and he shall feel me your mistress and shall grieve at the shameful theft of a handmaid.' She had spoken. But they make for the edges of the walls and, fixed, shudder at the crashes of men and trumpets, as, sad at the threatening cold of the storm-clouds, birds come up to the branches and cling in fear.

Now the Getae, now all Iberia and the Drangaean legion fall in a dense slaughter and are strewn over the wide fields. Half-dead and doubled among their own weapons and their own horses, they roll over in wretched struggle a savage heap and fill the fields with long sobbings. Against them the victorious Geloni redouble their fathers' paean; soon the same joys return to the vanquished, where the god and the better image of war looks back. Who would have given such deaths, who such deeds, say now, and you, Muse, recall the fierce frenzy. Absyrtus, flashing with the rays of his shield and the chariot of his grandsire the Sun, whose quivering spear close at hand the races could not behold, nor his menacing helmet, but they return trembling and take wounds in the turned back and increase their flight with great cries, tramples the heavy lines with his charge and strews the bodies with his high horses and stifles the groans of the breathing heap. Nor does Aron accompany him lighter, over whose bristling parti-coloured arms and limbs squalid with bronze a barbaric cloak blazes with embroidery, and, shaken by the wind, fills out the horse, as Lucifer goes on rosy wings, whom Venus rejoices to lead forth in the bright heaven. But not far from there Rambelus and keen Otaxes had scattered the Colchians, and likewise inglorious Armes, accustomed with a new trick to ravage the stalls and the herds with unpunished thefts, had increased his brow with horns, shaggy, and had hidden in the terror of the Lycaean god: with this guise then he had fixed the astonished foes. Whom, as soon as Aron saw moving the wars with their known fright, 'Do you now think,' he says, 'that you have sought frightened herdsmen and a stupid flock? Neither pastures nor an ox are here for you; send these illusions to your nocturnal robberies and feign no god to me; a god too, join your right hand.' So he speaks, and aiming the missile with foot set forward, directs it, and as the hairs slipped the wounds lay open. Nor less the Aeetian offspring of Aeolian Phrixus is borne raging himself too, and now glad shows himself to the Cytaean lines, now to his kindred Achaeans. And when in the midst of the trial of the hard war Jason saw these rejoicing in their very praises, 'Blessed,' he says, 'O our race and now sure offspring of the house of Aeolus, unlooked-for; great enough are the gifts of toil I bring, enough do I repay all things by this sight.' He spoke, and against Suetes and the fate of great Ceramnus he flashed out, and whirling his shield throws down this one with his knee cut, opens that one with a wide gash through the breast. Argus stretches both from their horses with a huge daring, Zacorus and Phalces, and on foot, a footman, drains Amastris. That barbarian bears clots of blood and his spilled entrails and, hissing with empty wrath, sinks down. Calais gives Barisas to death and Rhipeus, ever attending the near battles with venal blood, a warrior who bargained a hundred chosen oxen, a hundred horses; with these the cruel one repays his soul and the light; at last, now bereft, he looks back into the sweet air, and no treasure can buy back heaven. He sinks, through his temples the sea-blue twisted locks, even then veiled with his mother's reed, Peucon. But his mother Maeotis alike from the deepest caverns filled the lakes with wailing and called her son, now no longer flying along the banks, now not over the curving pools, nor cutting off the stags in the midst of the marble. Eurytus drives the Exomatae over the plain. On Nestor's spear youthful Helix dies, nor was the nourishment given back to his dear father, and he is snatched away in his short years. But Latagus and Zetes, Daraps; that one he dispatches with the spear, this one he flees, when he saw the huge wave of sudden blood and the breast gleaming with the point at its end.

But behold, Medea, seated on her father's walls, while she surveys the single contests of the great war and herself recognizes these kings afar in the dense gloom and seeks others with Juno as her teacher, catches sight of the Aesonian head far off, and at once brings her keen eyes and senses and favouring mind hither, now seeing beforehand whither he might snatch himself, now whither, turning, he might go off, and how many horses, how many arms he, one man, might scatter, and how with how dense spears he might halt the wandering men. And wherever she scatters again her wandering eyes with silent face, seeking either her brother's or her betrothed husband's arms, there fierce and alone Jason meets the wretched one. Then she addresses her sister with these words, as if ignorant: 'Who, I pray, is this, who long since I behold burning over all the field, whom you yourself too see? For you also at such valour I think astonished.' Against this harsh Juno replies, driving with goads and pressing with dire deceits: 'The very son of Aeson you behold, sister, who over so great a sea seeks again the owed fleece of his kinsman Phrixus, nor now is any first in the glory of race or in blood. You see how among the Minyae and the Cytaean nobles he flashes shining, and over what great heaps he leaps; and now he will set sail, now he will leave our shores, seeking the riches of happy Thessaly and the fields beloved by Phrixus. Let him go, and would that he overcame his labours.' Having said only this, she urges her to gaze more on the fields, while it is given, and to run over the man's ardent fights; but at once the goddess with her words drove this one, that one with favouring Mars, and drove new strength beneath his breast. His face beneath the lofty peak of his cone has long flashed savage, and he kindles in his course, nor to you, Perses, nor to you, maiden, is the crest a glad star of the Achaean, keen as the autumn dog, and the comets summoned by angry Jove to the unjust realm, fatal. Nor did his own goddess escape the son of Cretheus, and he feels a fresh force driven through his limbs and lifts himself above the lines, as great as when Caucasus himself grows white with frost and a great rain and goes off, wintry, into the highest north. Then indeed, as a lion rages in the rich folds, luxuriating, and scatters his hunger and changes his slaughters, so neither fierce in one part nor lingering in one death is he, turbulent, and rages alike on all, and now with savage sword, now with hostile spear the fights grow thin. Then both Hebrus, surging with terrifying locks, and Getic Prion he strikes; he snatches the head of Auchus and the arms and sends them to roll on the vast sands.

But the son of Jove, Colaxes, had filled out his fates; and now the father saddens the stars with mournful face, moving in vain his sick breast with such cares: 'Ah me, if I should strive to withdraw my son from the harsh lot and dare to trust in my realms, the brother of Amycus still mourning his death, and all the throng of the gods would roar, whose sons have fallen and shall fall. Nay, let each have his own day, and I will deny to all what I deny to myself.' Thus speaking, he heaps the last honours on the wretched one and fills him with great spirit, about to die. He flies over the fields and mingles measureless deaths through the wedges, as the rain, burst from the wintry bow, driving rocks and the ruins of woods and of works, until, having raged from the huge peak of the mountain, it is broken and little by little fails into a new river. Such is the offspring of Jove, flashing in his last hour, and now he marks the great-hearted Hypetaon and Gessithous, now Arines and Olbus; now, wounded Apres and, deserted by his horse, Thydrus on foot he dispatches with the spear, Phasiades, whom Caucasus, guardian of his father's flock by custom, begot at the first waves of Phasis; hence the boy had his surname, and his parents called him the servant of Phasis with his uncut hair, in vain. And now he pressed fiercely on others, when the unjust goddess breaks his last distaff, and victorious Jason comes. He receives him, speaking thus with savage voice, Colaxes: 'You, wretches, have you come hither to glut the Scythian dogs and the Scythian birds?' he says, and a rock he seized, the burden of his right hand and of that age, he heaves up from the shaken earth, which royal Juno turned aside to the unknown head and the unwept fate of Moneses. Headlong he falls; Jupiter did not turn the blow from his son, but the fatal wound of the Aesonian spear goes through the shield, through the breast, and to him fallen the bloody son of Aeson flies and embitters the dying man's death. He is scattered hence, and now known comes to the wretched Alani.

But the queen pursues the man (for the god does not remove the fire), gazing, and clings with burning eyes; and now less glad at the image of the present fight, she chides her fears and the cares she fosters unknowing, looking back, whether her sister be true; nor does she dare, fierce, to believe the false face, and again into the same joys she slides and is drawn by the sweetness of the savage flame. And as the light south wind plays before the leaves and the topmost tops of the wood with gentle breaths, but the wretched keels straightway felt it monstrous, so is Medea driven to the utmost furies. Sometimes she handles the necklaces torn from the alluring goddess and fits them, blazing, to her wretched neck, and wherever the maddening gold gave through her tender limbs, she faints; and the maiden returns the goddess's adornments, troubled not by the gems, not by the light metal, but by the torches, by the mass of the god, whom now with all her breast she holds; the last modesty wanders on her rosy face. And first to her: 'Do you believe, O sister, that the father will give the promises, to whom the Argolic guest came with the gods more kindly? Or how much of the bitter war now remains? Alas, to what perils for an unknown race he flings himself.' To her speaking thus in the midst of her words Juno left, now powerful in her enterprise and secure of her guile.

The shameless maiden leans more boldly from the high walls and does not follow the sister borne off, nor seek her. But as often as the hard force of the leaders and the men, dense, suddenly pressed the son of Aeson, and when all the shower went against one, so often is he beaten with rocks and spears: and first at hostile Lexanor's bow she shuddered, but the arrow goes high over the Aesonian head and seeks you, Caicus; the pitiable wife is left to Caicus and the home unfinished at its first bridal. Royal Myraces, an interpreter, had come from the eastern shores, to join the Colchians, far off, and the Aeetian covenants with the Parthians, not in vain, with gold given. Then the Fates held the youth in the Cytaean lands and the love of sudden Mars. With him went his armour-bearer, a half-man, bearing an unripe and barren youth. He himself, sitting on Euphratean carpets at the reins, now light runs forward into the lines in his hostile car, now in flight scatters his feigned, turned arrows. But green with gems and the thread of the eastern wood he binds his father's tiara at the very edge of his neck, notable for his sleeves, notable for the scimitar on his right; the wanton coverings of the barbarian foot run forward. Nor long did those spoils escape savage Syene, and through the smooth tiger, stained with much purple, the driven point goes; sudden blood from her mouth the wounded tiger drives and pours out her master's life; the boy himself, his bow broken, twines his head bowed down. Then with black blood the fiery cloak, with blood the face and the heavy locks grew wet, which with Sabaean flower his parent had nourished and marked with liquid gold. As one whom by waters and the richness of fertile earth rears, and fills with favouring winds, an olive, and neither his constant labour nor his hope fails the nourisher, and now he sees the first leaf from the tender crown, when suddenly headlong, with storm-clouds let loose, the northern winter comes and stretches it, torn up, on the black sand: not otherwise before the city Myraces and before the very face of the maiden falls; but she is moved no more, sick with fear for the one, than she sees you, Meleager, raging, than Talaus, or marvels at the fights of Acastus; but enough did the very races and the fields see these in like storm press upon the routed squadrons: before her eyes is the late flight of the leaders and the abundant blood of the falling, and the chariots emptied of their huge masters.

Perses did not bear these groans and the slaughter of his own and the turned backs, and fills heaven with these complaints: 'Why now, cast out from my native seats, that I might raise these fights and move Scythia to war, you gods, you have mocked me with an empty augury? What did your omens, Jupiter, promise me of my brother's deserved end? For me you were preparing, forsooth, the Argive help and to join such great strength. Cruel indeed is the delay of light to the wretched; yet let the fates, I pray, give me that one day, on which I may see the Achaeans who deserved the fleece so, and this man too, proud in valour, the son of Aeson, weeping his so great labours without honour.' He had spoken, and beats his breast with his own arms and fills his helmet with weeping, his helmet with sobs; and he was going headlong into the fires of the mid-battle, had not Pallas first seen him from the opposing arms and to herself: 'Lo, fierce Perses rushes into death, whom his father has now resolved to set over the Colchians and the throne of his brother. I fear lest, slain by our guile, he upbraid us and repay this fault with great terror.' Saying this, she spreads a mist with her black mantle and removes the hissing spears from about the man's head. He, over his allied races, is lifted in a gentle whirlwind and, snatched a little into the light air, now at last is borne down to the farthest edges of the fight, where by chance the late Iberian and the Issedonian phalanxes lack Mars and aid the line with shouts alone.

Night at the same time, longed for, brings forth her star-bearing shades; and at once the crash of war falls, and sick from the walls the maiden departs, having long endured a lengthy fear. As the wild Thyiads pause a little amid the rites of Nyctelius, then snatched the god, now now ready for whatever, with no other tumult does Medea return, and amid the Greek lines and the native phalanxes ever with unsatisfied cares she recognizes Jason and his arms and whatever face is left from the hollow helmet.