Metamorphoses

  to get myself a wife; I should have made

  Erectheus my kinsman—not just prayed!”

  And with these words (or words no less impressive)

  Boreas smartly clapped his wings together,

  which shook the earth and terrified the ocean;

  he trailed his dusty mantle over mountains

  and swept the plains below; concealed in darkness,

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  he gathered up the trembling Orithyia

  in his tawny wings; and as he flew, their action

  more fiercely fanned the fires of his love,

  nor did her captor check his flight

  until he reached the city of the Cicones;

  here the Athenian became the bride

  of the frigid tyrant, and in time became

  a mother too, when she delivered twins

  who had her features but their father’s wings,

  though not at birth: both boys were wingless then,

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  and beardless underneath their golden locks;

  but when their beards came in, the wings did too,

  sprouting on either side as bird’s wings do,

  and cheeks grew tawny with new facial hair.

  And so, when childhood passed and they were men,

  they sailed (together with the Minyans)

  over an unknown ocean in the first ship ever,

  to seek the brightly shining Golden Fleece.

  BOOK VII

  OF THE TIES THAT BIND

  Medea and Jason Medea and Aeson Medea and Pelias The flight of Medea Medea, Aegeus, and Theseus King Minos threatens war Cephelus arrives at Aegina The plague at Aegina Cephalus, Procris, and Aurora The plague at Thebes Cephalus, Aura, and Procris

  Medea and Jason

  Now they were plowing through the ocean’s waves,

  the Argonauts, in their Thessalian craft,

  and Phineus they had already seen,

  dragging his weary way through scant old age

  in never-ending night; and the young sons

  of the north wind had driven off the Harpies

  that snatched the food out of the poor man’s mouth;

  and after undergoing many trials

  at the command of their famous leader, Jason,

  they reached at last the swift and turbulent

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  brown waters of the river Phasis.

  There,

  while they present themselves and their demands

  for the fleece that had been given to the king,

  and he describes the great and terrible

  labors they must accomplish to attain it,

  the daughter of the king is overcome

  by a passion which she struggles to resist

  for a long time.

  But when her raging madness

  will not submit to reason, she cries out,

  “All your resistance is in vain, Medea;

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  what god opposes you, I do not know—

  I wonder if this isn’t love, so called,

  or something rather like it—for why else

  would these ordeals imposed upon the strangers

  by my own father seem too harsh to me?

  Because they are!

  “Why do I fear that one

  whom I have only just now seen will die?

  What is the power that can cause such fear?

  There is a fire in your untried heart,

  poor wretched girl! Dislodge it if you can!

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  I’d act more sanely, if I only could,

  but this new power overwhelms my will;

  reason advises this, and passion, that;

  I see the better way, and I approve it,

  while I pursue the worse.

  “O royal virgin,

  why is it that you blaze now for this stranger?

  Why dream of marriage in another world?

  You love this land: surely it can furnish

  a husband worthy of you?

  “This man’s fate—

  whether he lives or dies—is up to heaven.

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  May he live, then! It’s quite appropriate

  for me to offer such a prayer as that,

  even without my loving him at all.

  “But look at the heroic deeds of Jason!

  What heartless wretch could be indifferent

  to youth and breeding joined with manliness?

  Absent these qualities, who would not be

  moved by the beauty of his countenance?

  My heart was moved by it, most certainly.

  “And now, unless I come to Jason’s aid,

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  he will be scorched by fire-breathing bulls

  and clash with enemies sprung from the soil

  that he himself has seeded, or be given

  as sacrifice to sate the greedy dragon!

  “If I permit this, I’ll confess myself

  a tiger’s daughter with a heart of stone!

  But why can I not look upon his dying

  and not defile my eyes? Why can’t I urge

  his enemies against him, cheer on the bull,

  the earthborn warriors, the sleepless dragon?

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  Because the gods wish him a better fate!

  And yet not prayers are needed here, but deeds!

  “Will I betray the kingdom of my father,

  only to have the stranger whom I save

  set sail without me for another’s bed,

  leaving Medea to her punishment?

  If he could do that, leave me for another,

  let the ingrate die!

  “But no: that isn’t in him,

  not in his face, not in his noble spirit,

  not in a man as beautiful as he,

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  that I should fear duplicity from him,

  or his neglecting what I am deserved.

  “Besides, he’ll give his word to me beforehand,

  and I will call the gods as witnesses

  of our compact. Why fear, when all is safe?

  Prepare for action now, without delay;

  you will have Jason’s gratitude forever,

  he’ll join himself to you with solemn vows,

  and you’ll be praised as his deliverer

  by throngs of women throughout all of Greece!

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  “So shall I then sail off, abandoning

  my sister, brother, father, gods, and homeland?

  My father is cruel and my homeland crude;

  my brother is no more than a mere child,

  and my sister sides with me in this affair.

  Within my breast the greatest of all gods

  has found his residence! I do not leave

  greatness, but elope with him to seek it!

  “I will be called ‘Savior of Grecian Youth,’

  and come to know a better land, and cities

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  famous, even here, for art and culture;

  and that young man, whom I would not exchange

  for all the wealth of this world, at my side;

  and with him as my husband, in felicity,

  I’ll be considered heaven’s favorite,

  and with my forehead I will touch the stars.

  “But what of…oh, what are their names, those clashing

  mountains in midocean people speak of?

  And what of ship-devouring Charybdis,

  that sucks the sea in and then spits it out?

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  What of rapacious Scylla, surrounded by

  her savage dogs, baying off Sicily?

  “Nothing to me: holding the one I love,

  lying contentedly in Jason’s lap,

  I’ll make the long sea voyage in his arms,

  and nothing fear unless I fear for him.

  “Marriage you call it then, Medea, do you?

  Aren’t you merely covering your guilt

&nbs
p; with a deceptive name? Just look ahead:

  how great a sin it is you’re thinking of!

  Turn from this crime and flee while you are able.”

  She spoke: before her stood stern Rectitude,

  earnest Devotion, blushing Modesty;

  and Love, defeated, now prepared to fly.

  Then she went off to Hecate’s ancient altar,

  hidden deep in the forest’s deepest shades.

  Here she was resolute, and her impulsive

  ardor would appear to be extinguished—

  but broke out once again at sight of Jason:

  her cheeks reddened, and a suffusing glow

  spread across her countenance completely,

  as when a spark that has been hidden under

  a crust of ash is nourished by a breeze

  and comes to life again as it’s stirred up,

  regaining all the vigor it once had;

  just so her smoldering love, which you’d have thought

  was almost out, came blazing up anew,

  to see the young man standing in her presence,

  and—as it happened—looking even better

  than usual. You would have understood

  and pardoned her for her infatuation.

  And when he took her hand and spoke to her

  in a modest tone, and pleaded for her help,

  and gave his word that he would marry her,

  she wept profusely as she answered him:

  “I clearly see what I’m about to do:

  not ignorance beguiles me now, but love.

  Through my good offices, you will be saved;

  fulfill the promise you have made me then!”

  He swore by Hecate and by whatever other

  deities might dwell within that grove,

  and by the father of his own prospective

  father-in-law, the all-beholding Sun,

  and by the peril of his coming trials;

  so she believed him and at once passed on

  the magic herbs; from her, he learned their uses,

  then joyfully withdrew to his own tent.

  The flickering stars were scattered by the Dawn:

  the folk assembled on the field of Mars,

  then placed themselves on the surrounding heights;

  and in their midst, the king himself was seated,

  conspicuously clad in purple robes

  and holding a scepter carved from ivory.

  But look! Two fire-breathing, bronze-shod bulls,

  exhaling, scorch the grasses underfoot!

  And just as fiery furnaces resound,

  or limestone hisses in an earthen kiln

  and then ignites when sprinkled with fresh water,

  so those two rumbled with their pent-up blaze,

  and bellowed from scorched throats; nevertheless,

  the son of Aeson dares to stand against them.

  At his approach, they turn their dreadful faces

  to glare at him and drop their mighty horns,

  tipped with iron; now their cloven hooves

  pound the powdery earth, and now they fill

  the smoky air with bellowing that blazes!

  The Agonauts are paralyzed with fear;

  Jason ignores those flaming exhalations

  and presses on (what potent medications

  Medea has given him!), ever closer,

  until his right hand daringly caresses

  their dangling dewlaps.

  Now he yokes

  his team, and makes them draw the plow across

  that field unused to prior cultivation:

  the Colchians marvel, and the Argonauts

  raise a great cry that lifts up every spirit.

  Then, from a bronze helmet, Jason removes

  the serpent’s teeth and sows them in the field.

  Earth softens seed that had been steeped beforehand

  in virulent poison; and now, as growth begins,

  those scattered teeth commence to take new forms,

  as when an infant in its mother’s womb

  takes on a human shape, and not until

  its separate parts have been composed together

  does it emerge into the common air;

  so when their human forms had been accomplished

  in the quickened womb of pregnant Mother Earth,

  they rose up from that newly fertile field,

  and—an even greater miracle—the arms

  they bore to warfare had been born with them!

  But when the Greeks observed the men preparing

  to fling their sharpened spears at Jason’s head,

  their faces and their spirits fell together;

  and even she who’d made him safe was frightened

  at seeing one man set on by so many,

  and turning pale, she sat there cold and bloodless.

  And fearful that her magic herbs should prove

  ineffectual, she murmured incantations

  and summoned secret powers to his aid.

  He lifts a heavy rock and sends it flying

  into their midst, which redirects their rage

  against each other: those earthborn brothers

  die of mutual wounds in bitter civil war.

  The Greeks congratulate the winner then,

  eager to hold him warmly in embrace;

  you also wanted to embrace the winner,

  barbarian maiden, but restrained yourself

  out of your fear of what the folk would say.

  You did what was permitted you to do:

  gave joyful thanks in silence for the charms

  and for the gods who had accomplished this.

  All that remained was to deploy your herbs

  against the vigilant custodian

  whose elevated crest and thrice-forked tongue

  and curving fangs proclaim him as the dragon

  who guards the tree that holds the Golden Fleece.

  But after Jason doused the wakeful snake

  with juice of the plant that brings oblivion,

  and thrice recited words to summon sleep,

  the spell that pacifies the raging seas

  and stills the roaring brook, a slumber sealed

  those eyes that had not known its sway before.

  And now that haughty hero, Aeson’s son,

  obtained the golden trophy and—the one

  who’d made it possible—his trophy bride,

  and carried both off to Iolchos harbor.

  Medea and Aeson

  Delighted that their sons have all returned,

  Thessalian parents gratefully bring gifts

  and burn great heaps of incense on the pyre,

  as a dedicated bull with gilded horns

  falls to the blade.

  But Aeson absents himself

  from the solemnities of this thanksgiving,

  worn-out by the great weight of all his years

  and near to death.

  His son, the hero, says,

  “Dearest, to whom I must confess I owe

  my very life, although you’ve given all,

  and even though all that you’ve given me

  has far exceeded all my expectations,

  if by your spells you could accomplish this

  (and nothing is impossible for them!),

  I’d have you take some years from my own life

  and add the subtracted portion to my father’s!”

  He wept without restraint.

  Medea was moved

  by the great devotion shown in his request;

  the image of the father she’d abandoned

  came to her mind, so unlike her husband’s.

  Without revealing how she felt, she said,

  “Dearest, what blasphemy falls from your lips!

  Do you believe me able to take years

  from you and give them to another man?

  Why, Hecate will never grant me this—

 
you ask for what has never been permitted.

  “But Jason, I will nonetheless attempt

  to offer you an even greater gift:

  with my own feats of magic, I will try

  to lengthen your father’s life by many years,

  and not by revoking any years of yours,

  if Hecate will only aid me now,

  and nod assent to this great enterprise.”

  Three nights must pass before the moon’s horns close

  into a circle; now when it is complete,

  and in its fullness gazes down on earth,

  she sets out walking barefoot from her house,

  with garments loosened and with unbound hair

  cascading down her back, and makes her way

  without companion, straying through the deep

  silence of midnight, when men and birds and beasts

  are all released into profound repose,

  with not a peep or murmur from the hedgerow,

  and in the trees the leaves are stilly silent,

  and even the dewy air is motionless;

  she lifts her arms up to the brilliant stars,

  and spins around: once, twice, thrice;

  and thrice she pours branch water on her hair,

  and thrice she cries out wailing in the night,

  and then kneels down upon the earth to pray:

  “O Night,” she cries, “most faithful guardian

  of secrecies, and you, O golden Stars,

  who with the moon relieve the blazing sun;

  and you as well, three-headed Hecate,

  who are aware of our undertakings,

  and who assist the mage’s spells and arts;

  and you too, Earth, provider of potent herbs,

  you, Breezes, Winds, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes,

  you gods of every grove, and every god

  of night, be present now! For with your aid,

  when I have willed it, I have caused the streams

  to flow back in between their startled banks

  up to their sources; I’ve calmed the raging flood

  and I’ve enraged the calm seas with my spells;

  I drive the clouds off, and I bring them back;

  I chase the winds away, and I recall them;

  I break the jaws of serpents with my spells,

  I make whole forests move; by my command

  the mountains tremble, and the deep earth groans,

  and spirits of the dead come from their tombs.

  “You also, Moon, I draw you from the sky,

  though clattering bronze attempt to aid your labors;

  the chariot of my grandfather Sun

  grows pale at the power of my incantations,

  and Dawn grows pale from thinking of my poisons.

  “For me you dulled the sharp flames of the bulls,

  bending their fretful necks to bear the plow;

  you brought the serpent-born to slay themselves