Jason and the Argonauts Read Online Free PDF Page A

Idmon’s doom.
    Already at the hour
    615 (450) when sunlight starts to slant toward evening
    and mountain ridges fill the fields with shadows,
    the men had heaped up leaf beds on the beach
    and lay there side by side above the surf.
    Abundant food was waiting near at hand,
    620 and, as the stewards poured them unmixed wine
    from jugs, they told each other different stories,
    the sort that young men tell to give amusement
    over a meal or at a drinking party
    when insult and offense are far away.
    625 Jason, however,like a man in sorrow,
    minutely scrutinized within himself
    all that might leave him feeling still more helpless.
    Idas leered at him awhile, then ribbed him
    in an obnoxious voice:
    â€œJason, what plan
    630 (464) is spinning in your mind? Come now and share
    what you are thinking. Has dismay, the monster
    that panics cowards, shambled up and mauled you?
    I’ll swear an oath and wager as a pledge
    the spear with which, above all other heroes,
    635 I win renown in combat (no, not even
    Zeus backs me up as well as my own spear):
    no trouble you encounter will be fatal,
    no task you try will go unfinished—no,
    not even if a god should block the path—
    640 so long as you have Idas on your side.
    Just such a champion you are bringing with you
    in me, your great salvation from Arene.”
    So he proclaimed and picked a full bowl up
    with both his hands and swilled the sweet neat wine.
    645 (474) He came up with his lips and black beard dripping.
    While others muttered curses in the background,
    Idmon called him out for all to hear:
    â€œIdiot, have you always cherished wicked
    presumptions such as these or is it rather
    650 the unmixed wine that has incensed your heart
    with recklessness and pushed you to offend
    the gods? There are a thousand heartening words
    a man can say to urge a comrade on,
    but you have blurted out offensive ones.
    655 They say Aloeus’ gigantic sons
    sputtered such stuff against the blessed gods,
    and you’re not half their valor. All the same,
    the two of them, courageous as they were,
    went down beneath the arrows of Apollo.”
    660 (485) As soon as Idmon finished speaking, Idas
    the son of Aphareus, burst out laughing,
    glared slantwise at the seer and answered sharply:
    â€œCome now andforecast with your prophet’s art
    whether the gods shall work the same destruction
    665 upon me as your father Phoebus wrought
    upon the offspring of Aloeus—stop
    and think, though, how you will escape my clutches
    when you are caught predicting utter nonsense.”
    So Idas raged and threatened, and the quarrel
    670 would certainly have come to blows, had Jason
    and all the others not rebuked and checked them.
    Orpheus also did his best to calm them.
    He took his lyre up in his left hand
    and played a song he had been working on.
    675 (496) He sang of how the earth and sea and sky
    were once commingled in a single mass
    until contentious strife divided each from other
    in ordered layers,
    how the stars and moon
    and sun’s advance consistently provide
    clear beacons in the firmament,
    680 and how
    the mountains rose, and roaring watercourses,
    each with a nymph, started into existence,
    and animals began to walk on land.
    He sang of how, back in the world’s beginning,
    685 Ophion and Eurynoma, the daughter
    of Ocean, ruled on snow-capped Mount Olympus
    till Ophion released the throne perforce
    to strong-armed Cronus, and Eurynoma
    gave way to Rhea, and the vanquished gods
    690 (507) went tumbling into the ocean waves,
    and the usurpers ruled the Titans, happy
    so long as Zeus was still a child, still growing
    in thought, still hidden in a cave on Dicte.
    The earthborn Cyclopes had not yet fashioned
    695 the lightning bolt, the source of Zeus’ power.
    So Orpheus intoned, then hushed his lyre
    at the same time as his ambrosial voice.
    Though he had ceased, each of his comrades still
    leaned forward longingly, their ears intent,
    700 their bodies