WEARIED were
the heroes now. They would have fain gone upon the island of Circe
to rest there away from the oars and the sound of the sea. But the
wisest of them, looking upon the beasts that were men transformed,
held the Argo far off the shore. Then Jason
and Medea came aboard, and with heavy hearts and wearied arms they
turned to the open sea again.
No longer had
they such high hearts as when they drove the Argo
between the Clashers and into the Sea of Pontus. Now their heads
drooped as they went on, and they sang such songs as slaves sing in
their hopeless labor. Orpheus grew fearful for them now.
For Orpheus
knew that they were drawing toward a danger. There was no other way
for them, he knew, but past the Island Anthemœssa in the Tyrrhenian
Sea where the Sirens were. [pg 143] Once they had been nymphs and had tended
Persephone before she was carried off by Aidoneus to be his queen
in the Underworld. Kind they had been, but now they were changed,
and they cared only for the destruction of men.
All set around
with rocks was the island where they were. As the Argo
came near, the Sirens, ever on the watch to draw mariners to their
destruction, saw them and came to the rocks and sang to them,
holding each other’s hands.
They sang all
together their lulling song. That song made the wearied voyagers
long to let their oars go with the waves, and drift, drift to where
the Sirens were. Bending down to them the Sirens, with soft hands
and white arms, would lift them to soft resting places. Then each
of the Sirens sang a clear, piercing song that called to each of
the voyagers. Each man thought that his own name was in that song.
“O how well it is that you have come
near,” each one sang, “how well it
is that you have come near where I have awaited you, having all
delight prepared for you!”
Orpheus took up
his lyre as the Sirens began to sing. He sang to the heroes of
their own toils. He sang of them, how, gaunt and weary as they
were, they were yet men, men who were the strength of Greece, men
who had been fostered by the love and hope of their country. They
were the winners of the Golden Fleece and their story would be told
forever. And for the fame that they had won men would forego all
rest and all delight. Why should they not toil, they who were born
[pg 144] for great
labors and to face dangers that other men might not face? Soon
hands would be stretched out to them—the welcoming hands of the men
and women of their own land.
So Orpheus
sang, and his voice and the music of his lyre prevailed above the
Sirens’ voices. Men dropped their oars, but other men remained at
their benches, and pulled steadily, if wearily, on. Only one of the
Argonauts, Butes, a youth of Iolcus, threw himself into the water
and swam toward the rocks from which the Sirens sang.
But an anguish
that nearly parted their spirits from their bodies was upon them as
they went wearily on. Toward the end of the day they beheld another
island—an island that seemed very fair; they longed to land and
rest themselves there and eat the fruits of the island. But Orpheus
would not have them land. The island, he said, was Thrinacia. Upon
that island the Cattle of the Sun pastured, and if one of the
cattle perished through them their return home might not be won.
They heard the lowing of the cattle through the mist, and a deep
longing for the sight of their own fields, with a white house near,
and flocks and herds at pasture, came over the heroes. They came
near the Island of Thrinacia, and they saw the Cattle of the Sun
feeding by the meadow streams; not one of them was black; all were
white as milk, and the horns upon their heads were golden. They saw
the two nymphs who herded the kine—Phæthusa and Lampetia, one with
a staff of silver and the other with a staff of gold. [pg 145]
Driven by the
breeze that came over the Thrinacian Sea the Argonauts came to the
land of the Phæacians. It was a good land as they saw when they
drew near; a land of orchards and fresh pastures, with a white and
sun-lit city upon the height. Their spirits came back to them as
they drew into the harbor; they made fast the hawsers, and they
went upon the ways of the city.
And then they
saw everywhere around them the dark faces of Colchian soldiers.
These were the men of King Æetes, and they had come overland to the
Phæacian city, hoping to cut off the Argonauts. Jason, when he saw
the soldiers, shouted to those who had been left on the Argo,
and they drew out of the harbor, fearful lest the Colchians should
grapple with the ship and wrest from them the Fleece of Gold. Then
Jason made an encampment upon the shore, and the captain of the
Colchians went here and there, gathering together his men.
Medea left
Jason’s side and hastened through the city. To the palace of
Alcinous, king of the Phæacians, she went. Within the palace she
found Arete, the queen. And Arete was sitting by her hearth,
spinning golden and silver threads.
Arete was young
at that time, as young as Medea, and as yet no child had been born
to her. But she had the clear eyes of one who understands, and who
knows how to order things well. Stately, too, was Arete, for she
had been reared in the house of a great king. Medea came to her,
and fell upon [pg 146]
her knees before her, and told her how she had fled from the house
of her father, King Æetes.
She told Arete,
too, how she had helped Jason to win the Golden Fleece, and she
told her how through her her brother had been led to his death. As
she told this part of her story she wept and prayed at the knees of
the queen.
Arete was
greatly moved by Medea’s tears and prayers. She went to Alcinous in
his garden, and she begged of him to save the Argonauts from the
great force of the Colchians that had come to cut them off.
“The Golden Fleece,” said Arete,
“has been won by the tasks that Jason
performed. If the Colchians should take Medea, it would be to bring
her back to Aea and to a bitter doom. And the maiden,” said
the queen, “has broken my heart by her
prayers and tears.”
King Alcinous
said: “Æetes is strong, and although his
kingdom is far from ours, he can bring war upon us.” But
still Arete pleaded with him to protect Medea from the Colchians.
Alcinous went within; he raised up Medea from where she crouched on
the floor of the palace, and he promised her that the Argonauts
would be protected in his city.
Then the king
mounted his chariot; Medea went with him, and they came down to the
seashore where the heroes had made their encampment. The Argonauts
and the Colchians were drawn up against each other, and the
Colchians far outnumbered the wearied heroes.
Alcinous drove
his chariot between the two armies. The [pg 147] Colchians prayed him to have the
strangers make surrender to them. But the king drove his chariot to
where the heroes stood, and he took the hand of each, and received
them as his guests. Then the Colchians knew that they might not
make war upon the heroes. They drew off. The next day they marched
away.
It was a rich
land that they had come to. Once Aristæus dwelt there, the king who
discovered how to make bees store up their honey for men and how to
make the good olive grow. Macris, his daughter, tended Dionysus,
the son of Zeus, when Hermes brought him of the flame, and
moistened his lips with honey. She tended him in a cave in the
Phæacian land, and ever afterward the Phæacians were blessed with
all good things.
Now as the
heroes marched to the palace of King Alcinous the people came to
meet them, bringing them sheep and calves and jars of wine and
honey. The women brought them fresh garments; to Medea they gave
fine linen and golden ornaments.
Amongst the
Phæacians who loved music and games and the telling of stories the
heroes stayed for long. There were dances, and to the Phæacians who
honored him as a god, Orpheus played upon his lyre. And every day,
for the seven days that they stayed amongst them, the Phæacians
brought rich presents to the heroes.
And Medea,
looking into the clear eyes of Queen Arete, knew [pg 148] that she was the woman of
whom Circe had prophesied, the woman who knew nothing of
enchantments, but who had much human wisdom. She was to ask of her
what she was to do in her life and what she was to leave undone.
And what this woman told her Medea was to regard. Arete told her
that she was to forget all the witcheries and enchantments that she
knew, and that she was never to practice against the life of any
one. This she told Medea upon the shore, before Jason lifted her
aboard the Argo.
