The Last Song of Orpheus

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.

I cannot, of course, sing of the Mysteries except in the most superficial way. Like all Mysteries, they tell of birth and life and death and resurrection. I can tell you that we acted out the rite of Creation first, building the circular mound of earth and surrounding it with a water-filled trench and dancing on it and saying the Words of Coming Forth, and then the serpent was brought out and the gong was sounded and the flutes played, and after that came the rite of the dove and the crab, and the ceremonies of Priapus. At last the acolytes, with faces and bodies powdered with gypsum so that they were snowy white, brought out the little bull-calf for the sacrifice, and shed its blood and sprinkled it on Jason and his companions, after which came the ritual ablution, and the rite of rebirth and the anointing with oil, and then the final rite whose very name cannot be spoken. The men were solemn and silent as we made our way back to the Argo, and I heard none of them speak of what they had witnessed that night, though I knew they had been profoundly shaken by it. In my solitude aforedeck I sang the songs of my love for Eurydice again, softly singing for myself alone, telling myself once more how I had won her and lost her and won her again by Persephone’s favor, and had lost her the second time because that was the path that the gods had made a necessary part of the toilsome journey that is my life. Necessary, yes; but the pain of it will always be with me.

Our next landfall was along the coast of Mysia as we made our way northward and eastward toward the Hellespont strait that would admit us to the sea where Colchis lay. The wind had been slack for several days, but we were making good headway along that coast by the use of our oars alone, with the prodigious indefatigable Heracles setting an unmatchable pace. Only Jason was able to equal him for a time; and then even Jason fell forward over his oar and collapsed in exhaustion. At that same moment Heracles’ mighty oar snapped in half from the force of his exertions. He glared at the stump of it in fury and disgust. We had no alternative but to put ashore to allow him to search out a tree from which he could make a new one.

We made camp on the shore. Within a couple of hours Heracles returned from the interior, dragging behind him a colossal fir tree that he set about trimming to shape. Meanwhile, though, Heracles’ squire Hylas, had gone off toward a nearby pool to fetch water, and had not returned. This Hylas was a pretty young man whom Heracles, who had taken him as a lover, had insisted that we bring with us on the voyage. Jason had sent staunch Polyphemus the Arcadian, one of our most sober and reliable men, to find him, and he had not returned either.

After a while Heracles noticed that Hylas was not in the camp, and when someone told him where he had gone and how long he had been absent, Heracles went rushing off into the forest, frantically shouting his name. What happened after that I learned many years later, when I encountered Heracles in Thrace. In the forest he found only Polyphemus, who had been to the pool and discovered Hylas’ water-pitcher lying abandoned beside it. Of Hylas himself there was no trace, and Polyphemus suggested that the pretty boy had been carried off by nymphs of the pool or forest who had taken a fancy to him. Heracles, with a great roar of rage, cried that they must search until they found him, and so they did, for when dawn came there was no sign in camp of either man, let alone the one for whom they had gone in search.

Meanwhile a fair breeze had sprung up at last, and to the astonishment of everyone Jason gave the order for us to resume the voyage. “But where is Heracles?” Admetus of Pherae asked, as we settled into our places aboard the Argo. “Where is Polyphemus?” Others—Peleus, Acastus—took up the cry. Jason, glowering, merely shrugged and said the gods wished us to be on our way, and that he was not going to offend them by waiting any longer for Heracles and Polyphemus. Nor did we, though there was a noisy quarrel first, Admetus claiming that Jason was marooning Heracles out of jealousy, because Heracles had humiliated him by rowing so vigorously that Jason had been outmanned at the oars. To this accusation Jason made no answer, but simply went about directing the raising of the mast and the hoisting of the sail. In the end Mopsus the Lapith, who had the powers of a soothsayer, ended the wrangling by going into a trance, or pretending to do so, and announcing that it was the will of Zeus that Heracles and Polyphemus be left behind, for great-thewed Heracles was so rash that he would endanger the expedition when it came to the land of the Golden Fleece, and Polyphemus was needed for some task in another place. So we went on, having lost the services of two of our most valuable shipmates.

We were to have yet another such unhappy landing farther along. In the land of the Doliones we were given a warm welcome by Cyzicus, their king, but when we took our leave a contrary gale seized hold of us in the night, swinging us about in the sea and sending wild waters spilling across our deck, and carrying us back all unawares to the harbor from which we had just set out; and Cyzicus, thinking his city was being attacked by pirates, led an armed force out against us as we came ashore. In the darkness and confusion we slew our former host and a great number of his stalwart men. I watched the carnage from one side, for I am not a warrior and the taking of life is not what the gods meant me to do; but I knew that this tragic error could not be prevented, and though I did not slay, neither did I do anything to intervene.

Afterward we held funeral games in Cyzicus’ honor, and sacrificed many a beast in atonement for the bloodshed we had unwittingly brought about, but even so we were kept in harbor for twelve days by foul weather before we could at last depart from that sorry land. Great was my own regret that I could not have averted this sad mistake; but I knew that I had to let events unfold, for King Cyzicus, despite his kindness to us, had been marked for death by the goddess Rhea, whose sacred lion he had slain on Mount Dindymum. We are eternally caught up, mortals and demigods alike, in the larger patterns that the gods have decreed.

Nor did we bring great joy to our next port of call. The isle of Bebrycos was ruled by the savage King Amycus, who fancied himself a great boxer and would give us neither food nor water until one of our men fought a contest with him. We learned that Amycus invariably won these matches and put the loser to death, and that any voyagers who refused to meet his challenge were summarily flung over the side of a cliff into the sea. Well, we sent our gallant Polydeuces against him, he who had been the victor time and again in the Olympic Games, and although Amycus was as strong as a bull and a ferocious boxer besides, Polydeuces was more skillful and struck him such a blow that he fell down dead. This led us into a battle with the infuriated Bebryceans, and once again our swordsmen were forced to slay many of them in our own necessary defense. You who live after us will say that was a cruel age, our age, and indeed it was: many good men fell in such needless quarrels, for when strife arose our heroes looked upon the shedding of blood as unavoidable. Since Amycus was said to be yet another son of Poseidon, we placated that god by sacrificing twenty red bulls to him that we found in the city, and put to sea the next day.

Now we were approaching the Hellespont. We had been warned that the watchful men of Troy maintained a close surveillance over its eastern shore and would attack any vessel that approached their territory, so we took the precaution of painting our handsome white sail with the black ink of cuttlefish ink, which royal Peleus had brought along to be used in flavoring our stews and porridges. It was a sad thing to expend that delectable stuff for such a purpose as this, but we feared that the Trojan watchmen would see the glint of moonlight on our bright sail as we passed by; and so we mixed the cuttlefish ink with water and painted our sail until it was an ugly muddy hue. And by such a deception we went safely past the vigilant guardians of the great city of Troy and entered into the Hellespont.

Beyond that strait lay a second and larger strait, the Bosphorus, that narrow stretch of swift water that would carry us into the Euxine Sea. But legend had it that at the upper end of the Bosphorus the way was barred to navigators by the Clashing Rocks, two floating islands that constantly tossed and heaved. When—so it was said—any ship began to enter the passage, the rocks would come together as though they had been endowed with malice, grinding and crushing the unfortunate craft that was passing between them. It was King Pelias’ hope that that fate would befall the ship of Jason and his comrades and put an end to whatever threat Jason posed to his own reign; and so he had compelled Jason to take the sea route to Colchis, knowing it must inevitably send him through the Clashing Rocks.

Many of our Argonauts believed in miracles and never doubted that the Argo would safely reach Colchis or that the Golden Fleece would fall readily into Jason’s hands, and they gave little thought to the difficulties that these rocks presented. “Can you charm them into holding still as we go past?” more than one of them asked me. I simply smiled. I know what power my music holds, but also I know what it cannot achieve, and there was no way that the sounds of my lyre could keep those huge rocks from bobbing as they wished on the breast of the tossing water. But Jason, for all his valor, was a brooding fearful man, and although he had forced himself not to think about the Clashing Rocks in the early days of our voyage, he quite openly began to wonder now what chance we had of surviving that fearful passage.

Our shrewd helmsman Tiphys, it was, who set his mind at rest. Pointing ahead along the coast of Thrace, he said calmly, “Before us lies Salmydessus, whose king is Phineus, the son of Agenor. He knows the secret of the rocks and will tell us how to get ourselves safely through their jaws.”

That unhappy king’s land lay on the western shore of the Bosphorus close by the water, not very far beyond the mouth of the Hellespont. It once had been a prosperous realm, and Phineus, aspiring to the wisdom of the gods, had accordingly been endowed by Zeus with the gift of prophecy. But he had grievously misused it, widely and carelessly sharing the confidences that the Great Father offered him without tact or forethought, and in the end he was visited with an awful punishment. He had been allowed to live on into old age, but his sight and strength had been taken from him, and food had become devoid of all savor for him, so that he could eat next to nothing. One splendid dish after another would be placed before him, but after a nibble or two Phineus turned aside, shuddering and waving the food away, and therefore in the prime of his manhood he had become a feeble, shrunken, trembling yellowed thing, more dead than alive, tottering about with the aid of a gnarled crooked staff.

Phineus still was able to see into the future, though, and so he knew that the gods had ordained that relief from his torment would come when a sturdy black-sailed ship with blue and gold and crimson timbers, with fifty renowned heroes aboard, pulled into his harbor. He greeted us, therefore, with such joy and gladness as his withered body could muster, and we performed the rites necessary to purify him and cleanse him of his sin, and for the first time in many years he was able to taste his victuals without revulsion. In return he shared with us those secrets of the Bosphorus and the great sea behind it that we needed to know if we were to complete our voyage to Colchis. He was shrewd enough to know that he dared not tell us all that Zeus had in store for us on our voyage, having learned his lesson in that regard, but he could at least recompense us in some measure for the service we had performed for him.

“The Bosphorus,” he told us, “is nearly twenty miles long from end to end, but in places is less than half a mile wide between its banks; and thus it is more like a swift river than like an ordinary strait. Above it lies the mighty Euxine Sea, five hundred miles broad and nearly a thousand miles long. Before you enter it, though, you must pass between the Clashing Rocks, and that is no easy matter. Indeed, no ship has ever succeeded.”

“They are not a legend, then,” said Jason soberly.

“Not a legend at all,” Phineus replied. And he confirmed all that we had heard of those deadly rocks, telling us how they guarded the narrows at the upper end of the Bosphorus, indeed moving one against the other whenever the spirit moved them, grinding to splinters any vessel unfortunate enough to be between them when they came together.

But, he said, there was a way to outwit even such malign rocks as those. If we found them quiescent and apart as we approached them, that meant that they were lying in wait for some victim to present itself, holding themselves poised on the verge of their next movement toward each other. It was possible then to deceive them and keep them from the goal that they sought, the destruction of ships. As we lay before them we should send out a dove to go ahead of us. The bird would fly between the rocks and very likely the rocks would close upon it, out of their sheer noxious eagerness to do harm. If the gods favored it, the bird would safely negotiate the dire passage; or perhaps the poor creature would be caught and crushed. Either way, though, the rocks would withdraw for a time to restore their baneful energies before making their next inward approach, and in that span we must use all our energy to thrust ourselves between them and move on into the sea beyond.

And so it came to pass. We traveled up the swift Bosphorus, fighting against the eddies and counter-currents as the strait narrowed, and narrowed and narrowed again. More than once we felt sure we would be swept against the treacherous rocks that lined its shore, but the skill of Tiphys took us past every peril, with, I must say, some aid from me, for I beat the time in an ever-increasing pace to push our oarsmen to the greatest effort. And then at last we were beyond the worst of the currents and nothing more remained between us and the Euxine except the Clashing Rocks themselves, which we knew, from the way the dark water was surging and hissing and boiling before us, lay just ahead.

They were two craggy menacing fangs, towering high above the ship. But we tried to look upon them as no more than a pair of ordinary rocky masses, one to our left, the other to our right, with a clear space between them for our passage. We did not make the mistake of underestimating the danger that they posed, however, and we followed the advice of Phineus in every degree. We had with us aboard the Argo some caged doves trained to aid us in our navigation, and skillful Euphemus of Tainaron, our birdmaster, selected one and set it free. Up it soared, and went straightaway toward the opening between the two rocks.

At once there was a groaning sound as one sometimes hears at the outset of an earthquake, and the rocks began to move toward each other with frightening speed. It was a horrific thing to behold. Onward sped the dove, undaunted. Then, from nowhere, a hawk dropped down out of the sky and lunged toward it in an attempt to seize it in midair, but in that same moment quick-witted Phalerus the archer, of the royal house of Attica, seized his bow and put a shaft through the hawk’s heart. The hawk fell to our deck; the dove continued on; the rocks crashed together with a deafening sound like that of ten thunderbolts at once, throwing up a great surge of spray and rocking our ship to one side and the other until we thought she would capsize; and as the rocks parted again and the agitated sea grew calmer, we caught sight of our dove winging onward toward the Euxine, while a single tail feather came drifting down and was lost in the sea.

We wasted no time. The rocks had moved back, but who knew for how long? I took up my lyre and began a hearty song that set the strongest of rhythms, Tiphys clung to his steering-oar with all his might, our oarsmen rowed so hard their oars were nearly bending in the water, and sturdy Argo went pressing forward. As we passed between the rocks we heard the groaning sound again, and the beginning of the thunder, and when I made so bold as to look behind me I saw the two great cliffs starting to move inward a second time. But the men rowed like demons and we went plunging forward and came safely through, though the rocks came clashing together just behind us with a sound like that of a herald announcing the end of the world. Just as our dove had lost one of her feathers, we lost a piece of our stern ornament when the rocks clashed for that second time, but we sustained no other harm.

So we left the Bosphorus and its Clashing Rocks behind, and entered onto the bosom of that great sea at whose farther end lay Colchis and the Fleece. And the tale is told among men that the Clashing Rocks, now that they had been outwitted by the Argo, grew roots in the sea and never again moved from their places.