Free Jason and the Argonauts by Apollonius of Rhodes Page A

horizon,
    lit the dewy hills and roused the shepherds,
    210 (166) the heroes lugged aboard the spoils that seemed
    most useful, loosed the cables from the laurel,
    and coasted with a friendly wind behind them
    into the roiling Bosporus.
    There wave
    on wave, like heaven-climbing mountains reaching
    215 above the clouds, shoot up before a ship’s prow,
    hover a while and then come crashing down.
    One would assume no vessel could endure
    so dire a doom suspended like a savage
    storm cloud above the mainmast. But these threats
    220 are navigable to a hardy helmsman.
    So, guided by the skillful hands of Tiphys,
    they coasted onward, frightened but alive,
    and lashed their cables on the following day
    to Thynia on the opposing coast.
    225 (178) Phineus the son of Agenor
    was living in a house there near the shore,
    suffering more than any man alive
    because of the prophetic skill Apollo
    had granted him some years before. You see,
    230 he never paid due reverence to the gods,
    not even Zeus himself, since he divulged
    their sacred will too thoroughly to mortals.
    Zeus smote him, therefore, with a long old age
    and plucked the honeyed sunlight from his eyes.
    235 Still worse, he never could enjoy the lavish
    banquets the locals heaped up in his house
    when they arrived to ask their fortunes.Harpies
    would always swoop down with rapacious maw
    and snatch the food out of his hands and lips.
    240 (189) Sometimes they left behind no food at all
    and sometimes just a morsel, so that he
    might go on living in despair. Still worse,
    they left a foul stench on the leftovers,
    and no one dared to lift them to his mouth
    245 or even stand nearby, because they reeked
    so hideously.
    As soon as Phineus
    discerned the heroes’ footsteps and halloos,
    he knew what men had come—those at whose coming
    the oracle of Zeus had prophesied
    250 he would again be able to enjoy
    comfortable meals. He struggled out of bed
    like an ethereal dream and then, propped on
    a walking stick, tapped over to the door
    by fingering his way along the walls.
    255 (200) His joints were trembling with age and weakness
    as he divined the exit. Scabrous skin
    coated in dirt was all that held his bones
    together. Once he reached the door, his knees
    buckled. He crumpled on the courtyard threshold.
    260 Dark dizziness enveloped him. The ground,
    it seemed, was spinning, and he slipped away
    into a torpor, helpless, speechless, still.
    Soon as the heroes spotted him, they gathered
    around in awe. After a while he sucked
    265 a rasp up from the bottom of his lungs
    and uttered prophecy unto them:
    â€œHear me,
    bravest of the Hellenic heroes—that is,
    if you are actually the men whom Jason
    leads in the
Argo
questing for the fleece
    270 (210) under the orders of a ruthless king.
    Yes, it is you. My mind has grasped the fact
    through divination. Racked by miserable
    afflictions though I am, I still shall give
    Apollo son of Leto proper credit.
    275 By Zeus the guardian of suppliants
    and sternest judge of sinful men, by Phoebus,
    by Hera, too, who most of all the gods
    protects your quest, I beg you, help me please!
    Save an accursed man from degradation.
    280 Please, oh, please, do not just sail away
    and with indifference leave me as I am.
    Not only has a Fury dug her feet
    into my eyes, not only must I drag out
    old age interminably day by day,
    285 (222) but, in addition to these woes, a still
    more bitter evil lurks above me: Harpies
    swoop down from some exotic nest of spite
    and rip the food out of my mouth. I know
    no way I can relieve myself of them.
    290 When famished for a meal, more easily
    could I escape from my own mind than them,
    so swiftly do they plummet through the air.
    And even when they leave some scrap behind,
    it breathes an odor putrid and unbearable.
    295 No mortal could endure approaching it,
    not even if his heart were forged of iron.
    But bitter, cruel necessity compels me
    to stay there all the same and, while I’m