Jason and the Argonauts (38 page)

4.1989
As when a serpent
:
This simile may evoke the Egyptian belief that the arc of the sun passes from west to east at night, while a serpent threatens its nightly voyage. On the presence of Egyptian culture and beliefs in the
Argonautica,
see esp. Stephens 2003 ch. 4; on this particular passage, see Mori 2008 Introduction.

4.2070
As when a trainer
:
The simile encapsulates the previous events (a stallion's emergence from the sea at lines 1749–55; now for a second time salvation comes from the sea.

4.2158
Father Zeus, profound astonishment
:
One of the great interests of poets of this period was paradoxography, the study of strange and unexpected phenomena.

4.2216
Epiphany
:
This episode of Apollo at
Anaphe
(“radiance”), which occurs here toward the end of the
Argonautica,
is one of the earliest episodes of Callimachus'
Aetia,
again suggesting a close knowledge of both poets of each other's work.

4.2230
because of all this humor
:
Laughter and the ludicrous have a place in many Greek rituals, including, perhaps most famously, the initiations at the cult of the goddess Demeter at Eleusis.

4.2237–38
Euphemus happened to recall / a dream
:
Euphemus' dream looks to the future, when Thera will in return become the source of the great cities of Cyrene. There is a longer narrative of the clod of earth at the opening of Pindar's longest ode,
Pythian
4, which Apollonius places, significantly, toward the end of his own
Argonautica
narrative. The Hellenistic era took great interest in dreams and dream interpretation.

4.2289–90
To this day / the Myrmidons
:
The final
aetion
of Apollonius' poem. Like Callimachus' four-book
Aetia,
Apollonius'
Argonautica
is replete with
aetia,
and the two poems have many other shared features in common. Callimachus' elegiac poem, though, is not a linear narrative in the same way as Apollonius'
Argonautica
.

4.2293
O heroes, offspring of the blessed gods
:
The ending of the poem, like the opening line of the first book, is markedly hymnic. Here the poet addresses his heroes as figures of the distant past, and addresses them as objects of prayer themselves. It is they, the heroes, rather than the traditional Muses, whom the poet calls upon to watch over his song and its life in the future. In the ancient world heroes, such as Heracles or Jason, were themselves the objects of cult ritual as figures more than mere mortals but less than gods.