Jason and the Argonauts (8 page)

moored in a harbor called the “Handsome Port.”

Here it was that, at Tiphys' suggestion,

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they cut
the stone that served as anchor loose,

dropped it into the stream Artacia,

and chose a larger one to suit their needs.

Years later, to fulfill Apollo's plan,

the sons of Neleus (that is, the ones

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that settled Asia Minor) set apart

the very stone abandoned by the heroes

as sacred in the temple of Athena,

Helper of Jason, and the gift, of course,

was quite appropriate.

The Doliones

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and Cyzicus their king received the heroes

and, after finding out their names and mission,

warmly invited them to stay as guests.

Cyzicus urged them please to row in farther

and make their mooring in the city harbor,

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and so they did and, after raising there

an altar to Apollo God of Landings,

busied themselves preparing sacrifices.

The king himself supplied what they required—

some sweet wine and a flock of sheep. You see,

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Cyzicus had received a prophecy

that claimed a godlike crew would land one day,

and he should rush warmly to welcome them

and take no thought of war. His beard was downy,

like Jason's, and had only lately sprouted,

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and fate had not yet graced him with a child.

Cleite, his plush-tressed, newly wedded wife,

daughter of Merops of Percota, shared

a chamber with him in the royal palace,

but labor pains were still unknown to her.

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Cyzicus only recently had led her

out of her home on the opposing coast,

and he had paid her father many gifts

to buy the right to wed her. Nonetheless,

he brought himself to leave the marriage chamber

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and bridal bed and entertain the heroes.

He had dismissed suspicion from his heart.

They asked each other questions at the feast—

Cyzicus learned of Pelias' bidding

and the objective of their quest. The heroes,

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in turn, inquired about the neighboring cities

and the whole basin of the vast Propontis,

but Cyzicus' knowledge ranged no further,

much as they wished to learn what lay beyond.

So half the heroes set about ascending

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Dindymum at dawn to see firsthand

what waters they would cross, and to this day

the path they took is known as
Jason's Way.

The other half, however, stayed behind

and rowed the
Argo
from her former mooring

over to Chytus Haven.

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All at once

the Earthborn ones came down around the mountain

and tried to block the exit from the harbor

by dropping countless rocks into the water,

the way men catch sea creatures in a pool.

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Heracles and the younger men, however,

had stayed back with the ship, and Heracles

nocked arrows nimbly on his back-bent bow

and dropped the giants freely one by one

since they had focused all their strength on heaving

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and hurling jagged rocks into the sea.

No doubt the goddess Hera, Zeus' consort,

had reared these horrid things as yet another

labor for Heracles. The other heroes

turned back before they reached the mountaintop

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and joined their comrades, and they all got down

to slaughtering the Earthborn Giants, routing

by shaft and spear their reckless, headlong charges

till each and every one of them was dead.

As woodcutters, once they have finished felling

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colossal old-growth trees, proceed to lay them

side by side along the surf to soak

and soften and receive the dowels, the heroes

laid out the Earthborn Giants one by one

along the shorefront of the choppy harbor—

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some headfirst in the brine, their tops and torsos

submerged, their legs protruding landward; others,

conversely, had their feet out in the deep

and heads out on the beach. Both groups were doomed

to serve as meals for fish and birds alike.

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After the men returned, unscathed, from battle,

they loosed the hawsers, and the wind came up,

and they pursued their quest across the swell.

All day the
Argo
coasted under sail.

At evening, though, the wind became unsteady.

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Gusts from the opposite direction seized her

and blew her back until she reached once more

the island of the kindly Doliones.

They disembarked at midnight, and the rock

to which they hastily attached a line

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is called the Sacred Outcrop to this day.

But none among them was astute enough

to notice they had stopped at the same island.

Since it was night the Doliones failed

as well to mark their friends come back again,

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no, they assumed Pelasgian invaders,

Macrian men, had breached their beach instead,

and so they took up arms and started fighting.

Their shields and ash-wood lances clashed as swiftly

as fire that has sparked on arid brushwood

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leaps aloft in crested conflagration.

Battle, horrible and unforgiving,

befell the Doliones. Cyzicus

was not permitted to escape his doom

or go home to enjoy his bridal bed.

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Just as he joined the battle, Jason ran up

and stabbed him in the center of the chest.

Ribs shattered round the spear tip, and he crumpled

upon the beach and met his destined end.

Mortals can never sidestep fate; the cosmic

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net is extended round us everywhere.

And so it was that, on the very night

Cyzicus had assumed that he was safe

from bitter slaughter at the heroes' hands,

destiny snared him, and he joined the fray.

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Many others on his side were slain:

Heracles clubbed the life from Megabrontes

and Telecles; Acastus slaughtered Sphodris;

Peleus vanquished battle-keen Gephyrus

and Zelys; and that mighty ash-wood spearman

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Telamon triumphed over Basileus.

Idas in turn disposed of Promeus; Clytius,

Hyancinthus; and the brothers Castor

and Polydeuces slew Megalossaces

and Phlogius. Beside them Meleager

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son of Oeneus dispatched Artaces

leader of men and bold Itymoneus.

Still today the locals venerate

the men who perished in that fight as heroes.

The remnants of the Doliones turned

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and fled like doves pursued by swift-winged hawks.

After they stumbled, hoarse and helter-skelter,

into the city, cries of lamentation

erupted—yes, its soldiers had retreated,

retreated from a dismal fight.

At daybreak

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both parties recognized the fatal error,

but nothing could be done to make it right.

Violent sorrow gripped the Minyans

once they had spotted Aeneus' son

Cyzicus lying, bloody, in the dust.

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Three days the heroes and the Doliones

tore out their hair and mourned the loss together.

Then, after putting on their bronze war gear,

they marched three times around the corpse, entombed it,

and filed away to the Leimonian plain

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to hold memorial games, as is the custom.

Cleite, however, Cyzicus' wife,

refused to stay behind among the living

now that her man was dead. She heaped a further

sorrow on top of what had gone before

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by
fastening a noose around her neck.

Even the woodland nymphs bewailed her passing.

In fact, these deities collected all

the tears that tumbled earthward from their eyelids

into a spring called Cleite—the “Renowned”

name of the ill-starred widow.

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Zeus had never

dropped a more heart-devastating day

upon the Dolionan men and women.

None of them could enjoy the taste of food

and, far into the future, sorrow kept them

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from working at the mill, and they subsided

on raw provisions. Still today, in fact,

when the Cyzician Ionians

make yearly sacrifices to the dead,

they always use the public stone, and not

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the stones they keep at home, to grind the meal.

And then stiff winds arose and blew, preventing

the heroes from departing, twelve nights, twelve days,

but on the thirteenth night, when all their comrades

had yielded to exhaustion and were sleeping

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heavily through the final watch, two men—

Ampycus' son Mopsus and Acastus—

were standing sentry, and a halcyon

appeared and fluttered round the golden hair

of Jason son of Aeson, prophesying

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with strident voice the calming of the gales.

As soon as Mopsus heard and apprehended

the seabird's joyous news, some higher power

dispatched it fluttering aloft again

to perch atop the
Argo
's sculpted stern post.

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Mopsus immediately ran to shake

Jason sleeping under soft sheep fleeces.

Soon as his captain was awake, he said:

“You, son of Aeson, must ascend to where

a temple stands on rugged Dindymum

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and soothe the
Mother of the Blessed Gods

upon her shining throne. Once you have done this,

the stormy gales shall cease. Such is the message

I heard just now. You see, an ocean-dwelling

halcyon fluttered round your sleeping head,

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revealing everything that must be done.

The winds, the ocean, and the earth's foundations

all depend upon the Mother Goddess,

as does the snow-capped bastion of Olympus.

When she forsakes the mountains and ascends

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the mighty vault of heaven, Zeus himself,

the son of Cronus, offers her his place,

and all the blessed gods bow before her power.”

Such were his words, and Jason welcomed them,

vaulted for joy out of his bed, and ran

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to rouse his comrades. Once they were awake,

he told them what the offspring of Ampycus,

Mopsus, had ascertained.

The younger heroes

hurried to drag some oxen from the stalls

and drive them all the way up Dindymum's

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precipitous ascent. After detaching

the hawsers from the Sacred Rock, the others

rowed into the so-called “Thracian Harbor,”

picked out some few to stay and guard the ship,

and went to scale the mountain.

From the peak

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the Macrian massifs and all the Thracian

coastline stretching opposite them seemed

almost within arm's reach. They also spotted

the misty entrance to the Bosporus,

the Mysian hills, and there, across the strait,

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Asepus River and its namesake city

and the Nepeian plain of Adrasteia.

There in the forest was an old vine stump,

stubborn and dry. They cut it out to make

a sacred image of the Mountain Goddess.

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Artful Argus carved it, and they set it

atop a rugged outcrop in the shade

of lofty oaks, which shoot their taproots deeper

than any other tree.

They built an altar

of fieldstone, garlanded their brows with oak leaves,

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and offered sacrifice, invoking Mother

Dindymena, Dweller in Phrygia,

and Queen of Many Names. They also summoned

Titias and Cyllenus who, alone

of all the Dactyls bred on Cretan Ida,

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have earned the titles “Destiny Assessors”

and “Confidants” of the Idaean Mother.

A nymph named Anchiala brought them forth

in the Dictaean Cave while squeezing fistfuls

of Oaxian earth to ease the pain.

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The son of Aeson poured libations over

the blazing victims and implored the goddess

with various prayers to turn the storms away.

Under the tutelage of Orpheus

the younger men performed the Dance in Armor,

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leaping and pounding swords on shields so that

any unlucky cry of grief the locals

might possibly be making for their king

would vanish in the din. From that day on

the Phrygians have always celebrated

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Rhea with tambourine and kettledrum.

These flawless sacrifices clearly won

the goddess' approval. Signs appeared,

conclusive proof: fruit tumbled from the trees

in great abundance, and beneath their feet

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the earth spontaneously sprouted flowers

out of the tender grass, and savage creatures

forsook their dens and thickets in the wild

to fawn and beg with wagging tails around them.