The Golden Fleece and The Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles - The Original Classic Edition. Padraic ColumЧитать онлайн книгу.
with black jaws and glittering eyes, twelve heads such as might affright any man.
And on other parts of the shield were shown the horses of Ares, the grim god of war. The figure of Ares himself was shown also.
He held a spear in his hand, and he was urging the warriors on.
Around the inner rim of the shield the sea was shown, wrought in white metal. Dolphins swam in the sea, fishing for little fishes
that were shown there in bronze. Around the rim chariots were racing along with wheels running close together; there were men
fighting and women watching from high towers. The awful figure of the Darkness of Death was shown there, too, with mournful
[pg 24] eyes and the dust of battles upon her shoulders. The outer rim of the shield showed the Stream of Ocean, the stream that encircles the world; swans were soaring above and swimming on its surface.
All in wonder the heroes gazed on the great shield, telling each other that only one man in all the world could carry it--Heracles the son of Zeus. Could it be that Heracles had come amongst them? They went into the feasting hall and they saw one there who
was tall as a pine tree, with unshorn tresses of hair upon his head. Heracles indeed it was! He turned to them a smiling face with
smiling eyes. Heracles! They all gathered around the strongest hero in the world, and he took the hand of each in his mighty hand.
V. The Argo
THE heroes went the next day through the streets of Iolcus down to where the ship lay. The ways they went through were crowded;
the heroes were splendid in their appearance, and Jason amongst them shone like a star.
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The people praised him, and one told the other that it would not be long until they would win back to Iolcus, for this band of heroes was strong enough, they said, to take King AEetes's city and force him to give up to them the famous Fleece of Gold. Many of the bright-eyed youths of Iolcus [pg 25] went with the heroes who had come from the different parts of Greece.
the Argo
As they marched past a temple a priestess came forth to speak to Jason; Iphias was her name. She had a prophecy to utter about the voyage. But Iphias was very old, and she stammered in her speech to Jason. What she said was not heard by him. The heroes went on, and ancient Iphias was left standing there as the old are left by the young.
The heroes went aboard the Argo. They took their seats as at an assembly. Then Jason faced them and spoke to them all.
"Heroes of the quest," said Jason, "we have come aboard the great ship that Argus has built, and all that a ship needs is in its place or is ready to our hands. All that we wait for now is the coming of the morning's breeze that will set us on our way for far Colchis.
"One thing we have first to do--that is, to choose a leader who will direct us all, one who will settle disputes amongst ourselves
and who will make treaties between us and the strangers that we come amongst. We must choose such a leader now."
Jason spoke, and some looked to him and some looked to Heracles. But Heracles stood up, and, stretching out his hand, said:
"Argonauts! Let no one amongst you offer the leadership to me. I will not take it. The hero who brought us together and made all
things ready for our going--it is he and no one else who should be our leader in this voyage." [pg 26]
So Heracles said, and the Argonauts all stood up and raised a cry for Jason. Then Jason stepped forward, and he took the hand
of each Argonaut in his hand, and he swore that he would lead them with all the mind and all the courage that he possessed. And he prayed the gods that it would be given to him to lead them back safely with the Golden Fleece glittering on the mast of the Argo.
They drew lots for the benches they would sit at; they took the places that for the length of the voyage they would have on the
ship. They made sacrifice to the gods and they waited for the breeze of the morning that would help them away from Iolcus.
And while they waited AEson, the father of Jason, sat at his own hearth, bowed and silent in his grief. Alcimide, his wife, sat near him, but she was not silent; she lamented to the women of Iolcus who were gathered around her. "I did not go down to the ship," she said, "for with my grief I would not be a bird of ill omen for the voyage. By this hearth my son took farewell of me--the only son I ever bore. From the doorway I watched him go down the street of the city, and I heard the people shout as he went amongst them, they glorying in my son's splendid appearance. Ah, that I might live to see his return and to hear the shout that will go up
when the people look on Jason again! But I know that my life will not be spared so long; I will not look on my son when he comes
back from the dangers he will run in the quest of the Golden Fleece." [pg 27]
Then the women of Iolcus asked her to tell them of the Golden Fleece, and Alcimide told them of it and of the sorrows that were upon the race of AEolus.
Cretheus, the father of AEson and Pelias, was of the race of AEolus, and of the race of AEolus, too, was Athamas, the king who
ruled in Thebes at the same time that Cretheus ruled in Iolcus. And the first children of Athamas were Phrixus and Helle.
"Ah, Phrixus and ah, Helle," Alcimide lamented, "what griefs you have brought on the race of AEolus! And what griefs you your-
selves suffered! The evil that Athamas, your father, did you lives to be a curse to the line of AEolus!
"Athamas was wedded first to Nephele, the mother of Phrixus and Helle, the youth and maiden. But Athamas married again while
the mother of these children was still living, and Ino, the new queen, drove Nephele and her children out of the king's palace.
"And now was Nephele most unhappy. She had to live as a servant, and her children were servants to the servants of the palace. They were clad in rags and had little to eat, and they were beaten often by the servants who wished to win the favor of the new queen.
"But although they wore rags and had menial tasks to do, Phrixus and Helle looked the children of a queen. The boy was tall, and
in his eyes there often came the flash of power, and the girl looked as if she would grow into a lovely maiden. And when Athamas,
their father, would meet them by chance he would sigh, [pg 28] and Queen Ino would know by that sigh that he had still some love for them in his heart. Afterward she would have to use all the power she possessed to win the king back from thinking upon his children.
"And now Queen Ino had children of her own. She knew that the people reverenced the children of Nephele and cared nothing
for her children. And because she knew this she feared that when Athamas died Phrixus and Helle, the children of Nephele, would
be brought to rule in Thebes. Then she and her children would be made to change places with them.
"This made Queen Ino think on ways by which she could make Phrixus and Helle lose their lives. She thought long upon this, and
at last a desperate plan came into her mind.
"When it was winter she went amongst the women of the countryside, and she gave them jewels and clothes for presents. Then
she asked them to do secretly an unheard-of thing. She asked the women to roast over their fires the grains that had been left for
seed. This the women did. Then spring came on, and the men sowed in the fields the grain that had been roasted over the fires. No
shoots grew up as the spring went by. In summer there was no waving greenness in the fields. Autumn came, and there was no grain
for the reaping. Then the men, not knowing what had happened, went to King Athamas and told him that there would be famine in
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the land.
"The king sent to the temple