Book 8

8. The Argonautica of Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Book Eight.

But the Colchian girl, trembling in her chamber and now dreading her own deeds, the furies and the threats of her father, all alike, hold fast on every side; no longer is there fear of the dark sea before her, no land too far for the wretch; through whatever waves she longs to carry her flight, whatever ship to board, weeping she then gave her last kisses to her maiden fillets, and embracing the couches she flees, she plucked her hair and cheeks, and before . . . she snatched the traces of vanishing sleep, and, pitiable, she moaned thus upon the pressed bed: 'O if to me, a fugitive, you would now give your last embraces, Aeetes, my father, and would see, behold, my tears. Do not believe, father, that he is dearer, the one I follow; would I were overwhelmed at once by the swelling waves. You, I pray, may you soon bear in peace this scepter, safe through long old age, and may your other children be better to you.' She spoke, and from the death-bearing caskets brings forth the charms never to be scorned by a Haemonian husband, and entwines her maiden bosom and her very necklace with poisons, and added over all the savage sword. Then, roused as though by the Furies' twisted scourge, she leaps forth, as with frantic foot Ino leaps forth into the seas, and, terror-struck, does not remember her little son, whom she holds; her husband, in vain, strikes the farthest Isthmus. Already the hero had come first into the grove, urged on by his cares, and was hiding himself in the sacred night of the wood, then too shining from afar with the starry beauty of his youth. As, while still his companions' bands are scattered through the wilds, the Latmian hunter rests in the summer shade, worthy of a goddess's love, and now with veiled horns the Moon comes: such, through the clouds, the leader fills the grove with rosy glory and awaits such a lover. But behold, the maiden, after the manner of a frightened dove, which, surrounded by the vast shadow of the bird above, trembling falls upon whatever man she may—no otherwise she, driven by heavy fear, flung herself into his midst; but he caught her, and first thus spoke with coaxing words: 'O great glory, you who shall come into our home, and the only maiden found, not unworthy to be the cause of such great journeys for a leader, I now require no fleece at all, and it is enough that my keel has sought you. But come, add this too, since you can, to your so great gifts and services; for we were bidden to bring back the golden hide; that glory touches my comrades.' So he speaks, and a suppliant gives kisses to her first palms. In answer the maiden began again with fresh sobs: 'I leave my father's house for your sake, and the wealth of my kin; nor do I now speak as a queen, and, my scepter forsaken, I follow my vows: keep this faith for me, a fugitive—the faith you yourself gave first (you know it). The gods are present at our words, the stars too behold both you and me. With you the seas, with you I will try whatever roads, only let no day by chance bear me back here, dragged off, and thrust me before my father's eyes; this I beg of the gods above, this of you too, my guest.' This she says, and frenzied she is borne off with swift step through pathless places. He clings, her companion, and pities her as she goes, when suddenly he sees a vast flame amid the clouds, and the darkness quivering with cruel light. 'What is that redness of the sky? What so mournful a star has flashed?' he says. To his alarm the maiden answers thus: 'You see the very eyes and grim lights of the dragon; he shoots these flashes from his crests: patient, he sees me alone before him and calls of his own accord, as is his wont, and with coaxing tongue demands his food from me. Tell me now, whether you wish to carry off the spoils from one waking and seeing his foe, or whether we plunge his eyes in sleep and hand you the serpent tamed instead?' He is silent: so great a horror then came over the maiden. And now the Colchian had stretched her hand and her hair toward the stars, pouring out her chants in barbaric measure, and calling on you, Father Sleep: 'Sleep almighty, you the Colchian summons from all the world, and bids you now go to a single dragon, I who have often tamed the straits with your horn, and the clouds and lightnings and whatever flashes in all the upper air; but now, now come, greater, and most like to your brother Death. You too, most faithful guardian of the Phrixean ram, it is time at last to turn your eyes from this care. What treachery do you fear with me standing by? I myself will keep the grove a while; meanwhile, lay aside your long labor.' He, wearied, does not bear to depart from the Aeolian gold nor to give his face to the rest allowed him, however welcome; and, struck by the cloud of the first slumber, he shuddered and shook the sweet sleep from the tree. Against him the Colchian persists in foaming with Tartarean poisons and in shaking all the silence of the Lethean branch, and she overwhelms his struggling eyes with opposing chant, and wearies with tongue and hand all the Stygian power, until sleep at last seizes his burning rage. And now the high crests have fallen, and the head, compelled, now nods, and the huge neck droops outside its own fleece, as the Po flowing back, or the Nile flung out into its seven streams, or Alpheus coming into the Hesperian world. After Medea herself saw the head of her dear dragon upon the ground, flung about it with outstretched arms, cruel nursling, she wept for him and for herself at once: 'It was not thus that in the late night I used to see you, bringing you offerings and feasts, nor thus to your gaping mouth did I give honey and faithfully feed you with my poisons. How you lie now under a heavy bulk, how a sluggish breath holds you helpless; nor did I even slay you, poor wretch. Alas, you who must suffer the cruel day: now you will see no fleece, no shining gifts of yours beneath your shade. Yield then, and pass your old age now in other groves, forgetful, I pray, of me, and let not your hostile hisses drive me over all the sea. But you too, dismiss all delays, son of Aeson, and flee with the fleece snatched away. I, the guilty one, have quenched my father's bulls; I have given the earth-born to their fates; behold, you have the dragon's body laid low, and now, I hope, I have done with every crime.' Then to him, who asked the way by which the towering hero might bear himself to the head of the gold-bearing tree, 'Come, over the dragon himself climb,' she says, 'and set your steps upon his prone back.' There is no delay. Trusting her words, the offspring of Cretheus treads on it and, though it is high, is carried to the airy ash, whose branches still kept the ruddy hide, like clouds set alight, or as when, her robe ungirt, the daughter of Thaumas glides down to meet burning Phoebus. Aeson's son seizes the longed-for glory and his last labor, and the tree, borne by it through long years, scarcely gave back with a groan the memorials of Phrixus's flight, and grim darkness gathered over them. Having gone out, they retrace the fields and seek the topmost banks of the river. The whole field gleams, and now over all his limbs he spreads the hide shaggy with starry tufts, now draws it back to his neck, now wraps it about his left arm. Such, from the Inachian caverns of Nemea, the Tirynthian went, still fitting the lion's skin to his shoulders and head. But when to his comrades, who then held the appointed harbor, he appeared golden through the long shadows, a shout rises from the Haemonian band; the ship too, rejoicing, moves itself forward to the first banks to meet the youth. He drives his steps headlong, and first flung the golden hide aboard; then with the astonished maiden he leaps onto the ship and stands, a victor, leaning on his snatched spear. Meanwhile a savage horror came to her father's ears, bearing the fate of his house and grief, and the deceit and the flight of the maiden. From here the brother, in sudden arms . . .; the whole city too soon gathers; Aeetes himself flies, forgetful of his age, and the shores are filled with war in vain; for the ship flees with reins let loose. Still the mother stretched both her palms toward the seas, and the sister, and all the others, the matrons and the young wives of Colchis, and the girls your equals in age, Medea. The mother alone stands out and fills the air with her wailings. 'Stop your flight, bring back the ship here from the midst of the sea, daughter, you can. Where,' she cries, 'do you go? Here is all the throng of your own, and a father not yet angry; here is your land and scepter. Why do you trust yourself alone to Achaean lands? What place is there for you, barbarian, among the daughters of Inachus? Are these the vows of your house, the awaited marriage? For this did I, aged, long for this day? Would that with hooked claws, like a bird, I could go into the very face of the robber and over his ship, and with a clear cry demand back her whom I bore. This girl was promised to the Albanian tyrant, not to you; in nothing did her wretched parents make a pact with you, son of Aeson; Pelias does not bid you escape by this theft or lead away, you Colchian, any of our daughters. Take the fleece, and accept whatever is left from our temples. But why do I accuse anyone with undeserved complaints? She flees of herself, and (monstrous) of herself burns with so great a love. This it was, unhappy woman—for the details come back to my mind one by one— ever since the Thessalian kings came to the Colchian girl, that no feast, no time, gave you pleasure, daughter. You had then no color, and sick words, and wandering cheeks, and your joys were always in another's face. Why was so great a plague not disclosed to me, so that Aeson's son might settle as son-in-law in our hall and you not suffer such a flight; it would have been a shared crime, or at least every crime now; we would both go on whatever roads. It would have been a joy to seek together Thessaly and whatever is the city of the savage stranger.' So the mother, and the sister fills all with like complaint, shrieking aloud; the handmaids alike, with a last cry, give their words to the empty winds and call their mistress back by name; far off the winds and your fate were bearing you away. From there they fly a day and a night. To the returning men the breeze is more welcome, and known lands run past the Minyae, when suddenly Erginus speaks thus from the high stern: 'You,' he says, 'son of Aeson, content with the captured fleece, see neither what way remains nor what fortune. For tomorrow's day calls us to the borders of the savage sea and the Cyaneae, and I remember, O Tiphys, your toils among those rocks, father, I remember, O reverend one. Our course must be changed, O comrades; another way of the sea must be struggled through, and we must go by the course I shall tell. Not far from here the vast outlet of the Scythian Hister rushes, which, we are told, the rivers pour out by no single mouth; it issues by seven waters, opens seven mouths. Let us now seek the face of it, against the stream, and the wave that falls into the left side of the sea; from there we will follow the course of the river itself, until it carries us by a sure channel and gives us back into another sea. Come, let any delays be worth so much, son of Aeson, rather than to undergo again the cruel rocks, than to break through the Cyanean mountains; enough for me: behold, Argo does not return with all her garlands.' This he says, not knowing that the cliffs now stand fixed by a god's will and no longer clash with opposing rocks. Aeson's son answered: 'You too, most faithful steersman, no idle fears have touched, nor do I refuse to go farther and to show myself, returning, to all lands.' At once from there they turn aside to other kings and other places, and seek the sea familiar to migrating wagons. Far back on the stern, behind the watchful master, Medea had clung to the knees of golden Minerva; and there, sitting with her mantle drawn down over her eyes, she still wept, although she went with Haemonian kings, yet alone, and not secure of the marriage to come. The shores of the Sarmatian sea pity her, she passes, bewept, by the temple of Thoantean Diana. No marsh, no river of Scythia but mourns her going; seen, she stirred the Hyperborean frosts, she who but now held so many kingdoms; the Minyae themselves now lay aside their murmurs, now wish to bear her. Scarcely does she lift her face to the late feasts, if ever, which dear Jason himself was giving, signaling now that they pass cloud-bearing Carambis, now the realms of Lycus, and so often, as she groans, he beguiles her into rising at his urging toward the Haemonian mountains. The island Peuce stands, named for a Sarmatian nymph, where grim Hister, ever to be feared on either bank, descends into the straits through his savage nurslings. On this shore at last the leader resolved to loose his lingering cares, and first he dared to teach his comrades of his pact and the promised faith of marriage and the bond of wedlock. Of their own accord all gladly urge him on and confess she has deserved it. He himself now raises altars to unwilling Pallas, and begins not to scorn the godhead of the Idalian goddess, and beautiful above all, if ever, in the season of his own marriage, he stands out among the Minyae as never more: such as victorious Gradivus, from the bloody Hebrus, comes by stealth to Idalium or beloved Cythera, or when there is now leisure to visit the heavenly tables of Alcides, and Juno's Hebe sustains him when weary. With one mind Venus assents, and Cupid the encourager rouses Aeetes' daughter fixed in her sad cares; Cytherea herself clothes her in her own robes with saffron weft, herself gives her own double crown and gems that shall burn with another maiden too. Then a new grace filled her face, and her care was given back to her golden hair, and she walks forgetful of her ills. So when sacred Almo has washed away the Mygdonian beating of breasts, and Cybele is glad now, and the festal torches go through the towns, who would think that but now such savage blood flowed from the shrines? Or what ministers themselves now remember it? Then, when Aeson's son comes with his bride to the sacrificial altars, and they approach together and together begin to pray, Pollux carried before them the fire and the nuptial water, and together they turn into the right-hand circle. But neither did the bright flame then unfold itself through the rich air, nor does Mopsus see the incense in harmony, nor the promised faith stand firm, brief the time of their love. He hates both at once, and at once pities both, and wished you then no children, barbarian. Soon they prepare the feast and the rites; the woodland prizes won by easy hunting are left in plenty for the glad men; part foams on the spits, part in the seething cauldron. But then they recline on grassy couches, where once Hister had pressed panting Peuce in a cave. They themselves, among them all, with the rosy radiance of their youth, are spread higher, upon the gold of their own fleece. What new fear hindered the begun marriage, and troubled the couch, and broke off the warm rites? Absyrtus, headlong with his father's sudden fleet, is borne up, brandishing at the fugitive Greeks a hostile torch, and pressing his sister with dreadful outcry, and: 'After her, if you have any grief and wrath, Colchians, hasten your way; for it is no ravisher Jupiter who flees over the sea, nor do we follow the traces of a false bull. In a single ship (unspeakable) the robber carries off the Phrixean fleece; with the girl, as he pleased, he returns; to us (O shame) he has left both walls and standing houses. What then is enough for me? I neither seek the fleece nor accept you, sister, as given; nor will there be any hope of a treaty, or any measure to wrath. Then to return before my father's face in so short a time—how could that be right? Will it be enough, forsooth, to appease me that fifty lives and one ship be sunk? You, treacherous Greece, I pursue, and against your walls I shake this fire; nor do I, a brother, fail you for marriage worthy of you, sister, and behold, the first, I bear and brandish this torch for your wedding, the first I solemnize the dowry rites, as I was able; grant pardon, I pray, to my country's old age. Indeed all the others alike, both peoples and fathers, are present with me. That the royal maiden of the great Sun may not approach the chamber of a Haemonian husband, despised, it was fitting that so many ships should gather, so many torches blaze.' He had spoken, and praying again to the winds and the men, and a suppliant through the ships and to the masters of the oarage . . . the standards. But they whirl the water with leafy trunks, and the tree, which had been shaped hastily in a single day and only just cut down from its mountains (what could grief and the wrath of men of old not do?), is now divided from them by no long stretch of water, and the barbarian ship follows the flying Palladian one, until before the mouths of the Danube they see green Peuce before the mouths, and recognize the topmost horns of the Argonautic mast. Then indeed all raise a shout and hostile joy, then a heavier crash of oars, when from afar Argo is seen by the men, and all the prows make for the single ship. First Styrus seizes the ship's hook of knotted oak and looks out from the long wave toward the marriage, again inflamed with love of his betrothed. And now others make ready in their right hands the shields and beam-like weapons, others arm the flames with the smear of pitch; the spear quivers, impatient of delay, nor does more sea remain between them than what forbids the weapons. Meanwhile with cries they press on, and roaring they strike the decks with their feet. When they saw the sudden ships and the sea quivering with flames, the Minyae rise with no single fear, and first into the ship, the maiden deserted, the leader leaps, and, towering, snatches the helmet from the high spear; at once he flashes with sword and shield; nor did the rest of the band more sluggishly take their stand on the shore with snatched arms. But what was the face of your crimes, Medea? What shame, when you saw the Colchians again and your brother, and all that you had believed cut off and now safe in the vast deep? So she hid herself in an ill-omened cave, resolved on nothing but certain death, whether dear Jason or her brother should fall, conquered by a Greek spear. But not so: Juno sits, not idle, in the height of heaven, nor allows the Minyae to decide it in a final battle, since the Colchians are not equal in number nor in ships. So when the goddess sees the ships and the foe drawing near, she herself goes down into the earth and bursts open the homes of tempests and winds. The turbulent race of winged brothers breaks out; Saturn's daughter points out the fleet with her right hand. They saw it, and at once all together straightway into a single sea rush with hostile clamor, and against the Colchians they set the waters and the opposing waves from the shore. Styrus is lifted up and passes within the Minyae and the Argo's sails; again he sinks back in a vast chasm, rolled down by the torn-away water. And now the whole ship goes and returns to the stars, and, ebbing, with the falling wave descends. The whirlpool devours these, the gulf drives those in a whole column. At once on every side terror flashes in their faces; the frequent ruin of the sky loosens the heavenly thresholds. Yet the violence of burning Styrus does not yield; he urges on his comrades amid the battles of the gods: 'Will the Colchian girl then carry off my dowry to whatever towns she wishes? And shall a Haemonian adulterer succeed to me? Nor will the willing verdict of her father, who scarcely doubted, have profited me among so many great kings and suitors? Or was the man's valor preferred, and is he stronger, the one she follows? I will yoke the fire-bearing bulls without chant and pursue the savage seed of the Echionian serpent with the sword. Look, meanwhile, on the battles of us both from this shore: you shall be the victor's. Now you shall see worthy combats, now that dear head go bloody beneath the seas, and the half-man Achaean's body not with myrrh but with pitch, but with flames, and his hair stinking with sulphur. You only drive this one body out with the wave, father Aeetes, and you, great Sun, will not be ashamed of your son-in-law. Am I deceived? Or does she now herself stir these winds for us with magic chant, and raise the towering seas with her dreadful tongue? And is Aeson's son again, again defended by the art with which she is wont? His chant and futile murmur will not avail him. Go, ships, and break the maiden's wave.' He spoke, and with oars whirled, together with his soldier comrades, he leaps forth; but the ship, shaken by the wave flung back, breaks apart and pours out the men, and him too, still threatening even then, and seeking the shore with right hand raised. He went, the shipwrecked man, bearing his arms and his drawn sword, and begins to seek the oars and the benches of the broken, scattered ship, and to strain his mournful cries toward the high vessels; but amid such great waves no one can come to his aid, nor would he wish it, and as often as he draws near, then again another sea parts them. Yet now he drifts, and now is gone, and again, violent, from the lowest depth he is lifted up; but the wave is there, and beneath the high waters fixes him with a great whirlwind, and at last he yielded to the maiden. Absyrtus grieves, fixed in his bitter sight. Alas, what is he to do? By what force shall he seize the harbor and the first mouths? By what means can he attack the Minyae, whom he sees shut in and recognizes, roaring? Against him the seas and the cruel storm fight, and the whole sea in a whirlpool. At last he withdrew, and sank from his vain wrath and from so great a wreck of ships. Then to the left side and the opposite shore of Peuce far off he is borne with his comrades; for the island is split by the twin bend of the Danube. Here for a while the Minyae and the Pagasaean ship remain at their station; there the Aeetian hero besieges, with his fleet facing the Thessalian tents, impatient, and no power of battle is given. Night and day between them the sea with vast waves rages furiously, until Juno's counsels work themselves out and, anxious, she brings some end to the war. But the Minyae, weighing the outcome of so great a war, press, and all weary Aeson's son with prayers and with murmuring. Why should he, shut in for a foreign maiden, expose them, or force them to suffer such perils? Let him have regard for the more lives and greater fates of so many comrades, who followed him through the seas not from frenzy nor from unspeakable love, but by valor alone. Or was it truly that one man might indulge in marriage and a snatched union? For this is the time. The fleece is enough for the Greeks, and it is possible to settle the war by giving up the maiden. Let him allow each to go to his own home, nor let this first Fury join Europe and Asia in bloody war. For Mopsus, fearful and a suppliant, kept singing that this was granted by the fates, that those things should rather go to late descendants, and that another ravisher should pay for fires so dreadful. He, drawing a groan and unequal to such great words, although the rights of the gods and the scruple, conscious within him of the sacred pact, and the sweet beginnings of the marriage-torch move him, hesitates, and longs for death, and thinks of a companion in his peril . . . . . . no further does he go on to resist his comrades. When this is fixed by the men, they await a time and waves at rest: meanwhile they let the loving girl herself not know what remains, and keep their grim decrees. But love, wretched, as often turns false fears as true ones, and lets itself be deceived, nor does the maiden's youth deceive it. And she herself first perceived the deceits, and, however hidden, the signs of a man no longer faithful, and that all alike are too silent together. Yet she, never forgetful of herself, nor troubled by sudden threats, first takes Aeson's son aside alone, and draws him far off, then thus begins: 'Me too, husband, the Minyae move with you, the bravest youth, by night and day. Let it at last be allowed me to know, if only I am not a captive of the Pelian keel, nor, deceived, follow masters, and it is right that I hear your counsels. I fear nothing at all, most faithful husband; yet pity me and keep your promises, the marriage, at least as far as the Thessalian harbors, and scorn me in your own home. You know that surely it was to me, not to your comrades, that you swore. These perhaps may think it right to give me back, but to you the same power is not allowed, and I will drag you down together with myself; I am not the only guilty maiden demanded back, and in this ship alike we all flee. Or do my brother's wars and my country's biremes terrify you, and are you, unequal, hard pressed by a great foe? Imagine other ships, and still greater forces gathering: no faith? Am I worthy of no perils? Have I not deserved your death and your comrades'? I would indeed that they had touched my father's shores without you, and that any other had been their leader: now they return, and behold, can give even me back (monstrous), and no hope is left. No, look at least to my counsels, and do not yield to your comrades' excessive fear. Who believed then that you could yoke the burning bulls? Who that you would come to the temple of the savage dragon? O would then that my love could not do everything for you and would hesitate at something. Indeed even now I ask what you command.—Alas, hard man, you are silent, and that shame of yours threatens I know not what great thing? Was it right that I, once best son of Aeson, that I should bear prayers and a suppliant's face? Your father does not think this now, nor that I pay the penalty already for my crime and endure a master.' So saying, as he made ready to give back words, she fled from the man with frenzied mind, crying out. As when Bacchus lifts a Bacchant up to the Ogygian heights and dashes her against the Aonian trunks, such she was, and such the maiden bore herself over the ridges, dreading all things: she flees the earth-born, hostile with quivering spears, she flees the burning bulls, terror-struck. If only she could here at last behold Pagasae or the Peliac clouds, and Tempe gleaming with thin smoke, content with this sight to die. Then the whole day is poured out in complaints and lament, and the same things, beneath the stars, she stirs alone, as though that night sounded, filled with mournful wolves, and fierce lions, fasting, shook their jaws, or bereft cows drew their sighs. She comes forth: no honor of her race, no image of her grandfather the Sun remains, none of that grace of her barbarian youth such as it was, when, with the fleece radiant from the Chaonian trunk, she carried it exulting, and among the great names of the Greeks the maiden stood, a second figure, on the Palladian prow. She clings, and on this side present shame, on that the harsh decrees of his own people press him. Yet somehow he tries to soothe the grieving girl, and himself groaning . . . tempers his words: 'Do you think I have deserved anything? That I wished such things ...'