Jason and the Argonauts (30 page)

1785 (1392)
and easing
Argo
from their sturdy shoulders.

Then like wild dogs they all ran off

scavenging for a spring. Persistent thirst

weighed on them, many aches and sufferings.

Nor was their search in vain. They soon discovered

1790
a sacred plain where only yesterday

the earthborn serpent Ladon had been guarding

pure-golden apples in the realm of Atlas

while the Hesperides, the local nymphs,

murmured delightful hymns to ease his watch.

1795
But, by the time the heroes reached the spot,

Heracles had already shot the serpent.

There beneath the apple tree it sprawled.

Only its tapered tip was still in motion—

everything from the coils to the head

1800 (1405)
lay lifeless. Flies had melted round the wounds

because the arrows had injected poison,

the acid taint of the Lernaean Hydra,

into its innards. The Hesperides

were nearby, with their silver hands held up

1805
before their golden faces, wildly keening

over the carcass.

When the heroes gathered

around the nymphs, they withered in an instant

and turned to dust. Orpheus recognized

the sacred sign and for his comrades' sake

1810
tried to appease the nymphs with winning words:

“Beautiful, gracious queens, divinities—

whether you rate among the goddesses

who live in heaven, dwell beneath the earth,

or bear the name of solitary nymphs,

1815 (1414)
be kind to us and come, O powers, appear

before our longing eyes and point us, please,

either to where a spring escapes from rock

or where some freshet rises from the ground.

Please, please show us something to relieve

1820
the fiery torture of our thirst. I vow

that, if we ever make it home to Greece,

we shall reward you there as we reward

the foremost goddesses, with countless gifts,

feasts, and libations.”

So he prayed to them,

1825
using a plaintive and beseeching voice.

They stood nearby invisibly and pitied

the heroes. First of all they made some grass

sprout from the sand and then, above the grass,

tall stalks arose and saplings soon enough

1830 (1427)
stood where there had been dunes: Hespera turned

into a poplar, Erytheis an elm,

Aegla a venerable willow's trunk.

Then
they emerged out of the trees and looked

just as they had before—prodigious wonders!

1835
Aegla addressed the men with gentle words

in answer to their looks of desperation:

“A mighty boon to you in your afflictions

already passed through here—a most rude man,

who soon deprived our guardian snake of life,

1840
picked all the goddess' pure-golden apples,

and went and left us here in grief and horror.

Yes, a man came yesterday, a man

most murderous in arrogance and bulk.

Eyes glowering beneath a savage brow,

1845 (1437)
he was a brute without a trace of pity.

He wore around his bulk the raw, untreated

hide of a lion, held a sturdy bow

of olive wood and used it to dispatch

this creature here.

The fellow had arrived

1850
on foot and, like the other guests we've seen,

ablaze with thirst. He dashed about at random

in search of water, which, to tell the truth,

he wouldn't have discovered in the dunes . . .

save for that bedrock outcrop over there

1855
beside Lake Triton. Either on his own

or at some god's suggestion, he decided

to kick its base, and water gushed, full force,

out of the rupture. Leaning on his hands,

with chest pressed to the ground, he swilled colossal

1860 (1448)
volumes out of the riven rock until,

bent forward like a grazing beast afield,

he had appeased his superhuman belly.”

Such was the tale she told them, and they all

burst into joy and ran like mad until

1865
they reached the place where she had pointed out

the spring. Imagine ants, earth excavators,

a dense gathering of them, how they swarm

around a narrow crack, or flies perhaps,

how they collect en masse around a sweet

1870
droplet of honey with voracious lust—

that's how the heroes pushed in tight around

the spring they found there gushing from a rock.

Without a doubt someone among them, lips

dribbling, shouted joyously:

“Amazing!

1875 (1459)
Even from far off, Heracles has saved

his friends when they were withering with thirst.

If only we could chance upon his footprints

while we are traveling across this land.”

So they were saying, and the men best suited

1880
to find their absent comrade rose in answer

and headed off in separate directions

because the nighttime winds had stirred the sand

and wiped out Heracles' deep impressions.

Calaïs, Zetes—Boreas' sons—

1885
took to their wings and sought him from the air.

Euphemus sprinted off on speed-blurred feet.

Lynceus set out fourth—he had the gift

of long-range sight. As for the fifth man, Canthus,

bravery and the gods' commandments urged him

1890 (1469)
to learn, firsthand, where Heracles had last seen

Polyphemus offspring of Eilatus.

Yes, Canthus burned to ask what happened to him,

but Polyphemus had already founded

a glorious town among the Mysians

1895
and later, longing for his home return,

set out across the continent to find

the
Argo
. When he reached the Chalybes

who live beside the sea, fate beat him down.

A monument was raised for him beneath

1900
a tall white poplar, very near the sea.

The day the heroes searched for Heracles

Lynceus thought that he had maybe caught

sight of him, all alone and far away

on that interminable continent.

1905 (1479)
Lynceus glimpsed him in the way one sees

(or thinks he sees) the moon behind the clouds.

So, once he had returned to his companions,

he broke the news that no one any longer

could hope of overtaking Heracles.

1910
The others came back, too—swift-foot Euphemus

and both the sons of Thracian Boreas.

The hunt had come to nothing.

Then, O Canthus!,

the doom of death took hold of you in Libya.

After you stumbled on a flock at pasture,

1915
the shepherd who was tending it could only

fight to defend the sheep you tried to steal

for your emaciated comrades. Yes,

he struck you with a stone and knocked you dead.

At least the man was not a slave but noble

1920 (1490)
Caphaurus, grandson of Lycorian Phoebus

and the respected maiden Acacallis.

Minos packed this maiden off to Libya,

his own daughter though she was, because

she had conceived a child by Apollo.

1925
Their splendid offspring, known as Amphithemis

and also Garamas, then bedded down

with a Tritonian nymph, who bore him sons:

Nasamon and intractable Caphaurus

who beat down Canthus to protect his flock.

1930
Soon as the heroes found the corpse, Caphaurus

did not escape harsh vengeance at their hands.

Then they took up their fallen comrade's body,

trundled it back, and laid it in the earth

with sighs and tears. They also took the sheep.

1935 (1502)
Then on the selfsame day relentless fate

claimed Mopsus, too, the scion of Ampycus.

No, he could not evade harsh destiny

for all of his prophetic prescience.

A person's death is fixed and unavoidable.

1940
There it was, lying in a sand dune, shunning

the midday heat—
the lethal sort of asp.

Too sluggish on its own to sink its fangs

in accidental passersby, this breed

would never launch itself against a person

1945
who spotted it in time and backed away.

However, once it has injected black

poison into any of the breathing

creatures the life-supporting earth sustains,

the path to Hades is a cubit long.

1950 (1512)
Yes, even if Apollo plied his drugs—

and may it not be sacrilege to say it—

death would still be certain once those fangs

had pumped their venom. When the godlike Perseus

(known to his mother as Eurymedon)

1955
flew over Libya to bring a king

the Gorgon's freshly severed head, the drops

of red-black blood that fell onto the ground

sprouted into this noxious breed of snake.

And Mopsus, well—he set his left foot down

1960
firmly upon the taper of its tail,

and it coiled up around his calf and shin

and tore some skin out of him when it bit.

Medea and her handmaids scampered off

in fear, but he, a hero, bravely stroked

1965 (1523)
the open wound—the bite did not distress him

much at all, poor man. Already, though,

Slumber the Loosener of Limbs was spreading

beneath his skin. Deep darkness doused his vision.

Soon he had strewn his heavy arms and legs

1970
along the ground and grown cold helplessly.

Jason and his companions gathered round

and stood there gaping at his grim demise.

Not even for a short time after death

could he be left out in the sun because

1975
the toxin right away had started rotting

the flesh within him, and the hair all over

his body thawed and dribbled off the skin.

They hurried with their bronze-wrought spades to dig

a deep grave for the corpse, and everyone,

1980 (1534)
females and males alike, tore out their hair

and mourned the man, the sorry way he died.

Then, after they had marched three times around

the body, and it had received full honors,

they raised a funerary mound above it.

1985
They boarded ship again and, with a wind

out of the south blowing across the sea,

sailed off to find a path out of the lake.

Hour after hour they lacked a course and drifted

idly the whole day through.
As when a serpent

1990
wriggles, hissing, on its crooked way

to slip from under a ferocious noon

and squints all round, its slits aglint with flickers

like little streaks of fire, until it finds

a crack and glides into a burrow—so

1995 (1546)
the
Argo
wandered for a long time seeking

a navigable outlet from the lake.

Orpheus then suggested they should lug

the tripod of Apollo off the ship

and set it on the shore, to leave a gift

2000
for any local power that might guide

their homeward journey. So they beached the ship

and placed Apollo's tripod on the sand,

and Triton, god of the unbounded ocean,

walked over, masquerading as a youth.

2005
He scooped a bit of mud up, formed a ball,

and gave it to them as a guest-gift, saying:

“Take this, my friends, since I don't have on hand

any appropriate gift to offer you.

Now, if you happen to be seeking outlets

2010 (1557)
into the sea (as sailors often are

when traveling in lakes), I can direct you.

Poseidon is my father, and he schooled me

thoroughly in the pathways of the sea,

and I am regent of the beaches. Maybe,

2015
even in your own country far away,

you've heard about Eurypylus, a man

brought up in Libya, home of wild beasts.”

Such was his greeting, and Euphemus held

his hands out gratefully and gave this answer:

2020
“If you, friend hero, are acquainted somewhat

with Apis and the Sea of Minos, please

help us by giving us an honest answer.

We wound up here by chance. After the northern

storm winds marooned us on this desert coast,

2025 (1568)
we picked our vessel up, a heavy burden,

and lugged it overland until we reached

this giant lake, and we have no idea

where there is passage to the sea, so that

we may sail homeward round the land of Pelops.”

2030
So he explained, and Triton stretched his hand out,

pointed toward a deep-blue estuary,

an outlet from the lake, and gave directions:

“There where the lake is calm and dark with depth,

a passage leads out to the sea. White breakers

2035
are churning there on one side and the other,

and there's a narrow channel set between them.

The effervescent sea beyond it stretches

past Crete to the exalted land of Pelops.

When you emerge among the open rollers,

2040 (1580)
cleave to port and skirt the coast so long