and haul
our tackle on, and cast lots for the rowing benches.’ They all agreed at once and I turned, ahead of them
all—
to show my fitness as a leader, I suppose, or escape
their eyes—
and threw myself into the work. They leaped to their
feet and followed.
“We piled our clothes on a smooth rock ledge which
long ago
was scoured by seas but now stood high and dry. Then, at Argus’ suggestion, we strengthened the ship by
girding her round
with tough new rope, which we knotted taut on
either side
so her planks couldn’t spring from their bolts but would
stand whatever force
the sea might hurl against them. We hollowed a runway
out,
wide enough for the Argo’s beam, and we gouged it into the sea as far as the prow would reach, deeper and
deeper
as the trench advanced, below the level of her stem.
Then we laid
smooth rollers down, and tipped her up on the first of
the logs.
We swung the long oars inside out — the whole crew
moved
like a single man with a hundred legs — and we lashed
the handles
tight to the tholepins of bronze, leaving nearly a foot
and a half
projecting, to give us a hold. We took our places then on either side, and we dug in with our feet and put our chests to the oars. Then Tiphys, king of all
mariners, leaped
on board, and when he shouted, ‘Heave; we echoed
the shout
and heaved, putting our backs into it, pushing till
our necks
were swelled up like a puff-adder’s, and our thick legs
shook
and our groins cried out. ‘Ah!; the Argo whispered. ‘Ah!’ At the first heave we’d shifted the ship from where
she lay,
and we strained forward to keep her on the move.
And move she did!
Between two files of huffing, shouting Akhaians,
the craft
ran swiftly down to the sea. The rollers, ground and
chafed
by the mighty keel, wheezed like oxen at the ship’s
weight
and sent up a pall of smoke. The ship slid in and gave a cry and would have been off on her own to that
land of promise
if Herakles hadn’t leaped in and seized her, the rest of
us shouting,
straining back on the hawsers with all our might.
She rocked,
gentle on the tide, singing, and we watched that
gentle roll,
and my heart was hungry for the sea.
“No need to tell you more.
We piled up shingle, there on the beach, working
together
like one man with a hundred hands, and we made
an altar
of olive wood. The herdsmen came to us, driving
the oxen
and we hailed them, praising their choice. A few of us
dragged the great
square beasts to the altar, and others came with
lustral water
and barleycorns, and I called to Apollo, god of my
fathers,
as I would have called to a man I knew — that’s how
I felt
that morning, with the Argo singing, the men all
watching me,
arm in arm — I’d completely forgotten my resentment
now;
‘O hear us, Lord, Great God Apollo, you that dwell in Pegaisai, in Aison’s city, you that promised to be my guide! Lord, bring our ship to Kolchis and back, and my friends all safe and sound! We’ll bring you
countless gifts,
some in Pytho, some in Ortygia. O, Archer King, accept the sacrifice we bring you, payment in advance
for passage
safe to the fleece and home! Give us good luck as
we cast
the ship’s cable; and send fair weather and a gentle
breeze.’
“I sprinkled the barleycorns in the fire, and Herakles and mighty Ankaios girded themselves for their work
with the beasts,
the child Ankaios, twelve feet tall, still wearing his
bearskin.
The first ox Herakles struck on the forehead with his
club, and it fell
where it stood. Dark blood came dribbling from its nose
and mouth. The second
Ankaios smote with his huge bronze axe — blood sprayed
and steamed—
and the ox pitched forward onto both its horns. The
men around them
slit the animals’ throats, and flayed them, chopped
them up
with swords, and carved the flesh. They cut off the
sacred parts
from the thighs and heaped them together and, after
wrapping them
in fat, burned them on the faggots. I poured libations
out,
old unmixed wine. And Idmon the seer, with Mopsos
at his back,
both of them wise in the ways of the gods, watching
intently,
smiled and nodded, agreeing as surely as two heads
ruled
by a single mind, for the flames were bright that
surrounded the meat,
and the smoke ascended in dark spirals, exactly as it
should.
‘All’s well for you,’ they said, ‘though not for us all,
and not
without some troubles, and terrible dangers later.’ It was enough, God knows, for the moment. The crew was
jubilant.
“We finished our duties to the other gods in the
same spirit.
It seemed to us that they all stood around us smiling,
unseen,
like larger figures of ourselves, all arm in arm, as
we were,
some with their hands on our shoulders, sharing our
joy. Great Zeus,
the very sea and hills, it seemed, locked arms and
shared
our joy, our eagerness to go! I wouldn’t have given
much
that moment for the holy hermit’s life in his sullen
woods
or stalking the barren island conversing with gulls
and snakes
praying, clenching his teeth against the civilities of man!
“Then we all cast lots for the benches, choosing our
oars—
or all of us but Herakles, for the whole crew said, and rightly, that a giant like that should take the midships seat, and the boy Ankaios
beside him;
and Tiphys, they all agreed, should be our helmsman,
the man
who knew when a swell was coming from miles away.
It was settled.
“The time of day had come when, after his midday
rest,
the sun begins to stretch out shadows of rocks over
fields,
and trees are dark at the base but bright above. We’d
spent
too long at our preparations. But no use fretting now. We strewed the sand with a thick covering of leaves
and lay
in rows, above where the surf sprawled, gray in the
dark. We ate,
and we drank the mellow wine the stewards had drawn
for us
in jugs. The men began telling stories, the way men will when things are going well and there’s no more work,
and the wine
has made them conscious of the way they feel toward
friends, old times,
and the rest. There was nobody there, you’d have
thought, who could work up a mood
for quarrelling. I lay a little apart from the others, looking at the sky with my hands behind my head and
thinking,
hardly listening to the talk. And after a while, a strange malaise came over me. All was well for me, the seers had said, but not for all of us. I thought, briefly, of my mother. I might never see her again. I wondered