So that is what he thought, that I have lured oak trees from the forest to the seashore with my music? Well, people think many things of me. I do not confirm them; neither will I deny them. But most assuredly I know the art of calming angry men. So I unslung my lyre and whacked its sounding-board with my hand to get their attention, and struck a chord or two, and began to sing the first song that came to my lips.
What I sang was the song of the Creation, the song of that time before time when there was neither light nor darkness, but only the primordial dimness, and sky and earth and sea all were one. I sang of how they struggled mightily among themselves, each yearning to escape the others’ grip, until a forceful music arose out of the heart of the universe and they were sundered by it. I sang of the stars in the heavens, and how they travel their appointed courses, each making its own sweet sound as it moves, thereby bringing forth wonderful music as they sail above us, the great song of the cosmos. I sang of the primordial oneness of water and earth, out of which came Phanes, the creator of all, from whom the cosmos had its first origin. I told of how Phanes made the sun and the moon, and the first men, too, who were not of our race, and have long since vanished from the world. I sang then of how Phanes brought forth a daughter, Night, to whom he handed the supreme power when he grew weary of wielding it, and from whom came Gaia and Uranus, the earth and the heaven. From them, I told, came the race of Titans, Cronos, Rhea, and all the rest; and then I sang of how Cronos overthrew his father Uranus, and by Rhea brought forth the next generation of gods, Zeus and his brothers and sisters, and how there was increasing dissension among them until the cosmos was on the verge of degenerating into discord, until Zeus of the lightning-bolts came forth to overthrow his royal father Cronos and take his place atop snowy Olympus and bring the world under his wise rule. And at last I sang of the swallowing of the world-creator Phanes by Zeus, so that he would encompass all things within himself, both the beginning and the end, and could create all things anew, including the race of men that endures today. I might have sung some other version of the tale entirely, and then a different one from that, for there are many such stories of the succession of the eras of the gods, and no two of them are the same, but all of them are true. The one I sang was the proper one for that occasion. By the time I had reached the point in my song that told of the setting aside of Cronos by Zeus, the restoration of order in the world, and the engulfing of Phanes, the Argonauts had recovered from their fit of madness. The swords were sheathed, the spears were laid aside, and they were dancing drunkenly on the beach, even Jason capering nimbly, his arms over his head, his fingers snapping. And that was the end of it; but I had served my purpose. It would not be the last such time.
11
We built the rollers and fastened the ropes and hoisted the Argo to its track and hauled it down to the shore, putting our backs to it and straining to keep her moving forward. Smoke, dark and bitter-smelling, rose from the rollers under the weight of that mighty keel. I will not pretend it was anything but a horrendous struggle to get that ship to the sea. You will hear poets say that with a few chords of my lyre I magicked the vessel into gliding down to the water of her own accord, and it is, as I have made clear, my custom with these tales neither to confirm or deny; but if you are willing to believe that, you will believe anything. Soon enough, at any rate, the Argo approached the sea’s edge and we launched it into the gulf and set the mast and raised the sail; and our voyage to Colchis began.
It was at dawn we left, after sacrificing two robust oxen to Apollo, who presides over the embarkation of mariners. Tiphys of Siphae was our helmsman, a man exceedingly skilled in the ways of the winds and the stars and the signs by which a craft is steered, and he it was who took us eastward from Thessaly across the sea. The winds were contrary that day and we had to make our departure under the power of our oars alone. It was my task to beat time for the oarsmen with my lyre. I set them a good pace, for they were young men and vigorous ones, who sang to my music as they pulled, and the blades of their oars bit keenly into the foaming water. Each bench held two oarsmen, their places having been decided by lot—all but the place of Heracles, who because of his great size and overwhelming strength must of necessity sit amidships, since otherwise the great force of his giant oar would overbalance the vessel and make it difficult to hold her to a straight course. For his benchmate Jason gave him that massive man Ancaeus, one of the several among us who had sprung from the seed of the god Poseidon.
Soon a favorable wind came to us and we lifted the great mast into position and unfurled our broad sail of white linen from Egypt and tied its lines in place. It swelled in the breeze and we journeyed smoothly on beyond Mount Pelion, where the centaur Cheiron came down to the sea and waded out into the surf to wave to us. Cheiron was accompanied by his wife, the nymph Charicio. She carried in her arms their latest foster-child, Achilles, son of Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, and held the babe up so that his father might see him. The world would hear much more of Achilles in the generation to come.
We left the booming surf and the hissing combers behind and moved out into the open waters. I beat the time and the oarsmen pulled merrily at the oars and we sped along, though despite the strength and elegance of our smooth-sided vessel it was anything but easy work. The angry wind shrieked and roared overhead and the mainsail strained at its creaking ropes, and great waves loomed about us, mountain-high, crashing athwart our bow and sending fountains of cold white spume across our open deck. Now and again, as we headed farther out from shore, we moved through a cloud of low-hanging silvery mist so thick that we could barely see an oar’s length in front of us, and as we surged upward on the breast of a soaring wave some great black fang of rock, glossy with sea-foam, would rise abruptly before us out of the heaving waters; but Tiphys our master helmsman was ever adroit, and used his wits to steer us clear of danger.
The wind carried us well, though. Soon we moved past headlands sacred to Artemis, and I sang a hymn to her as we went by. A stiff breeze took us swiftly under the shadow of great Mount Athos in Thrace, but at dawn we were becalmed once more, and it was by the strength of our oarsmen alone that we were able to journey on to the isle of Lemnos. The women of this island, angered by the faithlessness of their men, had fallen upon them one night and slaughtered every one of them; but now they had grown weary of life without a man’s embrace, and when we appeared before them they turned to us with unseemly eagerness. Therefore, alas, we wasted much time on Lemnos because foolish Jason became entangled in a dalliance with the island’s voluptuous queen, and many another of us, seeing our captain so entranced by love, behaved in similar fashion, though not I, because for me there could be no woman after Eurydice. It seemed as though we would remain there forever, lost in this lustful idleness; but at last the anger of Heracles awakened Jason from his dream and led him back to his task.
Thence we went to Samothrace, an island holy to Persephone. Here I felt it needful to pause and take part in the Mysteries that are practiced there in her honor, not only in regard for the aid that Hades’ queen had offered me in my futile quest to regain Eurydice but also because I knew that my shipmates and I must do whatever we could to gain the love of the gods if we were to succeed in this perilous adventure.
So I clad myself in the white robe marked with a jagged streak of golden lightning that I had brought with me from Egypt and went ashore to meet with the priestess, who could tell immediately, from that robe, that I was an initiate. She agreed to my request, and I returned to the ship and gathered up ten of the Argonauts, those whom I felt would best be able to benefit from the rites in which they would take part. Jason was one of the ones I chose, but when the priestess saw him she hesitated, and seemed about to reject him from the group. Then she relented and let him stay, though plainly she perceived the great flaws in him that were beyond redemption and would lead eventually to his undoing.