The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles (23 page)

T
HE
sun sank; then that star came that bids the shepherd bring his flock to the fold, that brings the wearied plowman to his rest. But no rest did that star bring to the Argonauts. The breeze that filled the sail died down; they furled the sail and lowered the mast; then, once again, they pulled at the oars. All night they rowed, and all day, and again when the next day came on. Then they saw the island that is halfway to Greece—the great and fair island of Crete.

It was Theseus who first saw Crete—Theseus who was to come to Crete upon another ship. They drew the
Argo
near the great island; they wanted water, and they were fain to rest there.

Minos, the great king, ruled over Crete. He left the guarding of the island to one of the race of bronze, to Talos, who had lived on after the rest of the bronze men had been
destroyed. Thrice a day would Talos stride around the island; his brazen feet were tireless.

Now Talos saw the
Argo
drawing near. He took up great rocks and he hurled them at the heroes, and very quickly they had to draw their ship out of range.

They were wearied and their thirst was consuming them. But still that bronze man stood there ready to sink their ship with the great rocks that he took up in his hands. Medea stood forward upon the ship, ready to use her spells against the man of bronze.

In body and limbs he was made of bronze and in these he was invulnerable. But beneath a sinew in his ankle there was a vein that ran up to his neck and that was covered by a thin skin. If that vein were broken Talos would perish.

Medea did not know about this vein when she stood forward upon the ship to use her spells against him. Upon a cliff of Crete, all gleaming, stood that huge man of bronze. Then, as she was ready to fling her spells against him, Medea thought upon the words that Arete, the wise queen, had given her—that she was not to use spells and not to practice against the life of any one.

But she knew that there was no impiety in using spells and practicing against Talos, for Zeus had already doomed all his race. She stood upon the ship, and with her Magic Song she
enchanted him. He whirled round and round. He struck his ankle against a jutting stone. The vein broke, and that which was the blood of the bronze man flowed out of him like molten lead. He stood towering upon the cliff. Like a pine upon a mountaintop that the woodman had left half hewn through and that a mighty wind pitches against, Talos stood upon his tireless feet, swaying to and fro. Then, emptied of all his strength, Minos’s man of bronze fell into the Cretan Sea.

The heroes landed. That night they lay upon the land of Crete and rested and refreshed themselves. When dawn came they drew water from a spring, and once more they went on board the
Argo
.

    A day came when the helmsman said, “Tomorrow we shall see the shore of Thessaly, and by sunset we shall be in the harbor of Pagasæ. Soon, O voyagers, we shall be back in the city from which we went to gain the Golden Fleece.”

Then Jason brought Medea to the front of the ship so that they might watch together for Thessaly, the homeland. The Mountain Pelion came into sight. Jason exulted as he looked upon that mountain; again he told Medea about Chiron, the ancient centaur, and about the days of his youth in the forests of Pelion.

The
Argo
went on; the sun sank, and darkness came on. Never was there darkness such as there was on that night. They called that night afterward the Pall of Darkness. To the heroes upon the
Argo
it seemed as if black chaos had come over the world again; they knew not whether they were adrift upon the sea or upon the River of Hades. No star pierced the darkness nor no beam from the moon.

After a night that seemed many nights the dawn came. In the sunrise they saw the land of Thessaly with its mountain, its forests, and its fields. They hailed each other as if they had met after a long parting. They raised the mast and unfurled the sail.

But not toward Pagasæ did they go. For now the voice of
Argo
came to them, shaking their hearts: Jason and Orpheus, Castor and Polydeuces, Zetes and Calais, Peleus and Telamon, Theseus, Admetus, Nestor, and Atalanta, heard the cry of their ship. And the voice of
Argo
warned them not to go into the harbor of Pagasæ.

As they stood upon the ship, looking toward Iolcus, sorrow came over all the heroes, such sorrow as made their hearts nearly break. For long they stood there in utter numbness.

Then Admetus spoke—Admetus who was the happiest of all those who went in quest of the Golden Fleece. “Although we may not go into the harbor of Pagasæ, nor into the city of Iolcus,” Admetus said, “still we have come to the land of Greece. There are other harbors and other cities that we may go into.
And in all the places that we go to we will be honored, for we have gone through toils and dangers, and we have brought to Greece the famous Fleece of Gold.”

So Admetus said, and their spirits came back again to the heroes—came back to all of them save Jason. The rest had other cities to go to, and fathers and mothers and friends to greet them in other places, but for Jason there was only Iolcus.

Medea took his hand, and sorrow for him overcame her. For Medea could divine what had happened in Iolcus and why it was that the heroes might not go there.

    It was to Corinth that the
Argo
went. Creon, the king of Corinth, welcomed them and gave great honor to the heroes who had faced such labors and such dangers to bring the world’s wonder to Greece.

The Argonauts stayed together until they went to Calydon, to hunt the boar that ravaged Prince Meleagrus’s country. After that they separated, each one going to his own land. Jason came back to Corinth where Medea stayed. And in Corinth he had tidings of the happenings in Iolcus.

King Pelias now ruled more fearfully in Iolcus, having brought down from the mountains more and fiercer soldiers. And Æson, Jason’s father, and Alcimide, his mother, were now dead, having been slain by King Pelias.

This Jason heard from men who came into Corinth from Thessaly. And because of the great army that Pelias had gathered there, Jason might not yet go into Iolcus, either to exact a vengeance, or to show the people
THE GOLDEN FLEECE
that he had gone so far to gain.

1
A
talanta the
H
untress

T
HEY
came once more together, the heroes of the quest, to hunt a boar in Calydon—Jason and Peleus came, Telamon, Theseus, and rough Arcas, Nestor and Helen’s brothers Polydeuces and Castor. And, most noted of all, there came the Arcadian huntress maid, Atalanta.

Beautiful they all thought her when they knew her aboard the
Argo
. But even more beautiful Atalanta seemed to the heroes when she came amongst them in her hunting gear. Her lovely hair hung in two bands across her shoulders, and over her breast hung an ivory quiver filled with arrows. They said that her face with its wide and steady eyes was maidenly for a boy’s, and boyish for a maiden’s face. Swiftly she moved with her head held high, and there was not one amongst the heroes who did not say, “Oh, happy would that man be whom Atalanta the unwedded would take for her husband!”

All the heroes said it, but the one who said it most feelingly was the prince of Calydon, young Meleagrus. He more than the other heroes felt the wonder of Atalanta’s beauty.

Now the boar they had come to hunt was a monster boar. It had come into Calydon and it was laying waste the fields and orchards and destroying the people’s cattle and horses. That boar had been sent into Calydon by an angry divinity. For when Œneus, the king of the country, was making sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving for a bounteous harvest, he had neglected to make sacrifice to the goddess of the wild things, Artemis. In her anger Artemis had sent the monster boar to lay waste Œneus’s realm.

It was a monster boar indeed—one as huge as a bull, with tusks as great as an elephant’s; the bristles on its back stood up like spear points, and the hot breath of the creature withered the growth on the ground. The boar tore up the corn in the fields and trampled down the vines with their clusters and heavy bunches of grapes; also it rushed against the cattle and destroyed them in the fields. And no hounds the huntsmen were able to bring could stand before it. And so it came to pass that men had to leave their farms and take refuge behind the walls of the city because of the ravages of the boar. It was then that the rulers of Calydon sent for the heroes of the quest to join with them in hunting the monster.

Calydon itself sent Prince Meleagrus and his two uncles, Plexippus and Toxeus. They were brothers to Meleagrus’s mother, Althæa. Now Althæa was a woman who had sight to see mysterious things, but who had also a wayward and passionate heart. Once, after her son Meleagrus was born, she saw the three Fates sitting by her hearth. They were spinning the threads of her son’s life, and as they spun they sang to each other, “An equal span of life we give to the newborn child, and to the billet of wood that now rests above the blaze of the fire.” Hearing what the Fates sang and understanding it Althæa had sprung up from her bed, had seized the billet of wood, and had taken it out of the fire before the flames had burnt into it.

That billet of wood lay in her chest, hidden away. And Meleagrus nor any one else save Althæa knew of it, nor knew that the prince’s life would last only for the space it would be kept from the burning. On the day of the hunting he appeared as the strongest and bravest of the youths of Calydon. And he knew not, poor Meleagrus, that the love for Atalanta that had sprung into his heart was to bring to the fire the billet of wood on which his life depended.

As Atalanta went, the bow in her hands, Prince Meleagrus pressed behind her. Then came Jason and Peleus, Telamon,
Theseus and Nestor. Behind them came Meleagrus’s dark-browed uncles, Plexippus and Toxeus. They came to a forest that covered the side of a mountain. Huntsmen had assembled here with hounds held in leashes and with nets to hold the rushing quarry. And when they had all gathered together they went through the forest on the track of the monster boar.