The Myth: Tales of Ancient Persia! Kings! Princes! Heroes! Demons! Giant birds! Battles! Conquest! Divine kingly radiance! The grandest sweep of history!
The Book: Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings
The Author: Abolqasem Ferdowski, some time in the tenth century.
This text: a 2006 translation by Dick Davis.
Price: This one cost me $29.99 from Dymocks, and it was money well spent. Seems to be pricier on the internet, though.
So the Shahnameh is enormous fun. It covers the grand scope of the Persian empire, from its mythical beginnings to its fall to Arab conquest. The kings and heroes are magnificent characters, well drawn and vivid. There are champions of justice, dodgy viziers, kings foolish and wise, beautiful princesses, terrible demons, shifty wizards and treacherous siblings. It covers the whole world, including distant China, exotic India, and glamorous Rome, all ruled from Iran in the centre of the world.
The translation is a prose one and abridged, but it's mellifluous and engaging. This is such a beautiful book, with rough cut pages and lovely illustrations throughout.
There are three main periods covered by the Shahnameh: the mythic era, where kings spoke thirty languages and rode demons as horses; the heroic era, where the mighty, invincible Rostam defends Persia from every threat, including his own king's foolishness; and the historic era, from the reign of Sekander through to the fall of the Empire.
To start: the Mythic Kings.
Kayumars
The first man to ever become king of the world - and to glow with divine kingly radiance, the mark of the wise Persian king - is Kayumars, who rules from the mountains and teaches his people how to prepare food and how to make clothes out of leopard skins.
Kayumar's son, Siamak, is killed by the Black Demon, son of the Arch-demon Ahriman. Kayumars joins forces with his grandson Hushang on a mission of vengeance, with an army of fairies, leopards, wolves, tigers, birds, and domestic animals. Hushang defeats the Black Demon, and Kayumars fades from the world, leaving Hushang king.
Hushang
Hushang's reign is marked by the discovery of fire (he throws a piece of flint at a dragon, and it sparks as it bounces off) and, shortly afterwards, blacksmithing. He also invents irrigation and agriculture, and separates the beasts into domestic animals for farming and wild animals for hunting.
Hushang is a tireless, industrious king, but he eventually leaves the world.
Tahmures, the Binder of Demons
Hushang's son is Tahmures, known as the Binder of Demons. Tahmures teaches people how to shear sheep and weave wool, and how to train cheetahs for hunting, and how to breed chickens and hawks.
Tahmures is kept on the straight and narrow by his vizier, Shahrasb, who provides wise and careful advice. Because of this, Tahmures is purified of all evil and is able to bind Ahriman with spells, and ride him as a mount to tour the world. This makes all the other demons nervous, and they plot to overthrow him. They gather in a large army, led by the black demon - possibly the Black Demon, last seen being bifurcated by Hushang. Tahmures gets wind of this and is able to ambush them. He single-handedly defeats the entire army, subduing two-thirds with spells and a third with his huge mace. The demons beg for mercy, offering all their secrets. They teach him how to write - in thirty scripts - and he becomes suffused with knowledge, glowing like the sun.
He passes on this knowledge, and eventually leaves the world.
Jamshid
Tahmures is mourned greatly, but his son Jamshid has learned well and is a just and wise king. Jamshid spends fifty years inventing ways to make weapons and armour, and teaching his warriors. Then he spends another fifty developing the textile trade - spinning and weaving, dyeing and sewing. After that, another fifty years arranging his society, separating out the priests and the warriors and the farmers and the tradesmen, and teaching them their roles. Then he orders demons to build him public baths and a castle, and then spends another fifty years developing mining and gemcraft, perfumery, medicine and shipbuilding, revealing his secrets to his people as he goes.
In the end, Jamshid rules for three hundred glorious years, with no death or evil, and with everyone having their own personal demon-slave. But in the end he grows vain and arrogant, and loses his divine kingly radiance.
Zahhak the Demon King
While this is going on, the king of the Arabs, Merdas, has just sired a son, Zahhak. Merdas is pretty just and honest as Arabs go - he's no Persian, but he's not a bad guy. Zahhak, on the other hand, is ambitious and evil. The demon Eblis persuades him to murder his father and take his throne.
In secret, Eblis signs on as Zahhak's cook. Kuyamars taught people how to eat, but eating meat is not really a thing yet, so the menu of chicken and lamb kebabs, and veal cooked with saffron, rosewater, wine and musk, is pretty damn impressive. Zahhak offers him anything his heart desires. Eblis says he really just wants to nuzzle Zahhak's kingly shoulders.
Sure, says Zahhak, that's not at all weird.
Where Eblis's icky secretions touch each of Zahhak's shoulders, a snake erupts, and then Eblis vanishes. Zahhak spends a couple of years tormented by poisonous snakes biting him from his shoulders. Then Eblis turns up disguised as a wise man and convinces Zahhak that to pacify the snakes he needs to feed them a human brain every day. This seems to work regarding the snakes, but is less than effective in not ushering in a thousand year reign of terror.
Jamshid has lost his heavenly mandate at this stage and no longer glows with divine kingly radiance. Zahhak defeats him and moves in. He takes Jamshid's two sisters as concubines and advisors, and the aforementioned millennial reign begins.
Nine-hundred and some years later, Zahhak starts getting dreams of Feraydun the Persian, who is going to end his reign. The wise men of the court are extremely reluctant to tell their demon king that his time is up, but in the end they point out that everyone's reign ends someday, and that Feraydun - when he's born - will be motivated by the death of his father at Zahhak's hands, and also the death of the magical cow that raised him.
So Zahhak tries really hard not to kill any descendants of Persian kings and/or magic cows, and fails on both counts. The prophecy is fulfilled. Feraydun raises an army in India and invades while Zahhak is out of the palace. He takes the demon king's concubines as his queens, because they are thousand-year-old sorceresses and also beautiful and also he may not actually know they're his great-great-great-etc. aunts.
Zahhak's people turn against him and his army is defeated. Finally, he sneaks alone into the palace to murder his treacherous concubines, but is captured and imprisoned. Feraydun intends to murder him, but is advised by the angel Sorush to show mercy. Zahhak is therefore bound in chains in a cave for all eternity, with nails piercing his vital organs and his blood spilling on the floor.
Feraydun
Feraydun rules for five hundred years, guided by his ageless sorceress aunt/wives, 'and not a day was given over to evil.' He is well loved by his people, and not just because he isn't feeding their brains to his shoulders. His reign is mostly defined by his relationship with his three sons, Salm, Tur and Iraj. After observing his boys, he puts Salm in charge of the Western parts of the world, Tur in charge of China and the land of the Turks, and Iraj, the youngest, in charge of Iran, which is the important bit in the middle. Salm and Tur resent this. They murder Iraj and send his head to his father as a way of demonstrating how put out they are.
Iraj left his wife pregnant, and she gives birth to a daughter. Feraydun takes back the throne and raises Iraj's daughter, and then her son, who is called Manuchehr. (The daughter is not named, but the poet notes that she resembles her father closely.)
Salm and Tur hear of the birth of Manuchehr and are worried that he might take vengeance for the murder of his grandfather. They send an envoy to Feraydun laden with gifts, and offer to swear fealty to the boy. Feraydun suspects a ruse, and scornfully refuses. He tells the envoy that they are entirely correct: Manuchehr will indeed be coming in force to exact vengeance. The two evil brothers gather the entire forces of China and the West, and march on Persia in the hopes of getting in first. Manuchehr's forces smash through Tur's army and kill him, then after a series of battles Salm is also cornered and killed.
Feraydun places Manuchehr on the throne of Persia, and leaves the world.
Manuchehr rules well and wisely, but what's more interesting is what happens to the son of his vassal, Sam.
Next: The coming of Rostam.
Saturday, 25 July 2015
Sunday, 12 July 2015
The Voyage of the Argo II: ...and Back Again
The Myth: The Argo! Jason! Heracles! Heroes! Gods! Goddesses!
Monsters! Sorceresses! Dragons! Rocks! Sea travel! Countless screaming
Argonauts!
The Book: The Argonautica
The Author: Apollonius of Rhodes (some time in the 3rd century BCE)
This text: An etext of an 1912 prose translation by R. C. Seaton, R. C. My version is the Charles Rivers Editors version.
Price: This one cost me 81 cents from Amazon, but there are free versions available.
(Previously...)
Book III: Still There.
The Argonauts arrive in Colchis, completely unobserved - except by the goddesses Hera and Athena. Hera asks Athena what her plan is.
Athena, goddess of wisdom, says, "Dunno. I thought we'd wing it."
Hera scoffs and says that she has a plan: romance. They head back to Olympus to enlist Cypris, goddess of love and sarcasm - or, more particularly, her son.
Meanwhile, Jason explains his plan to the Argonauts:
Aeetes assumes that a shipful of heavily armed godlings can only be after his throne. He sets Jason a test: he's to harness the two fire-breathing bulls of bronze, use them to plough the field of Ares, sow the field with dragon's teeth, and kill all the armed men that grow from them. Aeetes does this all the time, and he won't give the fleece to someone who won't.
This all sounds a bit too hard and complicated for Jason, so he goes off for a sulk. He explains the trial to the Argonauts, and sighs and says that it's impossible. The typical Argonaut response to this is, "Pfff. No it's not. I'll do it."
Other Argus chimes in at this point and says that, no, actually, Jason has to do this himself. He goes on to explain that he has a brilliant and not at all totally wussy plan: he'll ask his Aunt Medea to use magic to cheat. This plan is met with general Argonaut approval, with one or two dissenters.
It turns out that Chalciope is way ahead of him, on the grounds that if anything happens to Jason her sons will probably be the next to face Aeetes' wrath. She heads to Medea's chambers herself.
Medea is a bit of a mess at this point: she's having terrifying/exciting dreams about being dragged away from Colchis by Jason, which he can't do if he's dead. Although, since she's a terrifying black sorceress, it's more that he can't do it as easily if he's dead. But Medea is completely lovelorn and is not thinking clearly. She comes upon Chalciope and Other Argus arguing about the best way to win her over. She asks them what's up and they tell her: we need some black magic to save Jason.
Ok, says Medea. Go away now.
Jason and Medea meet for the first time in the doom-shrouded Temple of Hecate. Medea gives him the ointment and a spell for his weapons, and they flirt shamelessly until dawn. Medea asks what Iolcus is like, and Jason says that she'll love it.
Jason heads back to his comrades and enacts the rituals Medea has given him, making his weapons irresistable and his skin invulnerable.
Aeetes releases the bulls. Jason is able to resist their onslaught thanks to Medea's magic, and binds them to the yoke. He spends much of the day ploughing the field. He sows Aeetes' dragon's teeth and stops for a drink, then releases the bulls. The Earthborn men start sprouting, and Jason spends the late afternoon and early evening chopping them up.
Aeetes is not pleased.
Book IV: ...and Back Again.
Aeetes, far from honouring his bargain, aims to take vengeance on Jason, and also on his treacherous daughters, and also on his presumably treacherous grandsons. Medea, not unwisely, flees.
In the Temple of Hecate, she prays for guidance. Hecate's guidance is not comforting.
Aeetes learns of this and gives chase. Unfortunately, he gives chase in a chariot. That doesn't work very well, so he sends out his fleet instead. (To be fair, his horses are pretty awesome.)
Medea makes the ship stop so that she can offer a secret sacrifice to Hecate. The poet once again says that he's not allowed to say what the sacrifice was, but says that the altar still stands today. This may no longer be the case, since "today" was more than two thousand years ago.
At a loss for a direction, Original Argus suggests that they head to Orchomenus, which was where Phineus the Seer told them they'd go. This suits Other Argus, because that's where he and his brothers were originally heading.
The Colchians, led by Aeetes son Apsyrtus, manage to outmaneuvre the Argo and corner them on an island. They let Jason know that he can keep the fleece - he did both win and successfully steal it - but Medea has to come back until her father says she can go. Jason considers this for exactly as long as it takes for Medea to find out about it. Jason is swayed by her tender feelings, and also her vicious curses and her threats to burn the ship to the waterline.
Jason points out that the only other option is to trick and kill her brother.
At this point we learn that the Greeks had a ritual to atone for a treacherous murder, which is to cut off the extremities of the dead man, thrice lick up the blood and thrice spit it out.
The Argo sidles up to Apsyrtus' ship and the Greek heroes massacre the Colchians. The crew collects Jason and Medea, and they sail off. The Colchians, incensed at the murder of their commander, start to pursue, but Hera scares them off with a lightning show.
Zeus is similarly incensed, pronouncing the crew of the Argo cursed until they can be cleansed of their evil deeds. However, since no-one tells them, they blithely continue on their journey.
The curse doesn't actually last very long. After sailing around for a bit they come to the island of Circe, the sorceress sister of Aeetes. Circe recognises her niece, and notices Zeus' curse on Jason. She performs a cleansing ritual. Medea explains what's going on, leaving out the bit about getting her brother murdered. Circe twigs anyway. She tells her niece that she's being a complete idiot, but frightening black sorceresses have to stick together and she's not going to kill her with death magic. She lets them go, with a parting shot that this is not to say that she approves, young lady.
By now Hera has realised that the Argo's current course will take them past the sea monster Charybdis and the rock Scylla, and so she organises a posse of gods to still the monster and steer the ship past the rock. Before the ship gets there they are serenaded by sirens, whose song is irresistable. The quick-thinking Orpheus pulls out his harp, and twangs loudly until the ship is safe. They lose only a single Argonaut: Butes, who leaps overboard but is saved by Cypris and taken away to a heavenly mountain.
Held by the sea goddess Thetis, the Argo is guided safely past Charybdis and past several gods, to arrive at the island Drepane, ruled by Alcinous and his wife Arete. Here they are met by a party of angry Colchians, who demand that Medea be handed over to them. Medea begs Arete not to let her go. Alcinous is keen to resolve the matter without bloodshed, and comes up with a solution: if Medea is still a virgin then she shall go back to her father, but if she's married she should go with her husband.
Alcinous then goes off to bed, and Arete sneaks out to tell Jason what the verdict will be. He tells the Argonauts, who arrange an impromptu wedding ceremony.
Next morning, Alcinous passes his sentence. Good thing we just got married, says Jason. The Colchians weigh up the prospect of returning to Aeetes without Medea, and decide to stay with Alcinous.
The Argo once again sets sail, and is promptly caught in a storm that blows them off course for nine days, to the coast of Libya. They find themselves caught in a flood tide and beached on a barren shore. They leave the ship and wander off along the beach. Eventually, they collapse into an exhausted sleep.
Jason is wakened at noon the next day by a party of nymphs, who take pity on him and on Medea. By means of a cryptic prophecy, the nymphs advise the Argonauts to carry the ship across land until they find the Tritonian Lake. Here they find a mostly dead serpent and some apple trees with no fruit. The local spirits tell them that some lout has come through and killed the guardian and stolen the golden apples. The Argonauts recognise Heracles from the description, but he is no longer around.
Two more Argonauts are lost in Libya: Canthus is killed by a shepherd defending his flock (the Argonauts kill the shepherd and take the sheep) and Mopsus is bitten by a poisonous snake.
The Argo sets sail on the lake, but they soon realise that this doesn't help them. They pray to the gods, and Triton turns up. He gives them a lump of dirt and shows them how to get back to the Mediterranean through the lake's marshy entrance.
Nearly home, the Argo sails by Crete, which is guarded by Talos, the man of bronze, so that the ship can't approach. Leave this to me, says Medea, and zots him with death magic from the open sea.
And then the story ends abruptly: "No more adventures, you're home!"
I'll just assume that Jason and Medea lived happily ever after...
--
I feel like I haven't done Medea a lot of justice in this summary. She's an incredibly vivid character - a precise, mathematical split between lovelorn teenager and terrifying dark sorceress. There are long passages sumptuously describing her magic rituals, and long passages detailing her lovesick torment. As she and Jason flee Colchis, she reminisces about the place where she used to gather corpse parts for her spells. But it's only when Jason is thinking of handing her back to her brother that he realises just how terrifying she can be...
The Book: The Argonautica
The Author: Apollonius of Rhodes (some time in the 3rd century BCE)
This text: An etext of an 1912 prose translation by R. C. Seaton, R. C. My version is the Charles Rivers Editors version.
Price: This one cost me 81 cents from Amazon, but there are free versions available.
(Previously...)
Book III: Still There.
The Argonauts arrive in Colchis, completely unobserved - except by the goddesses Hera and Athena. Hera asks Athena what her plan is.
Athena, goddess of wisdom, says, "Dunno. I thought we'd wing it."
Hera scoffs and says that she has a plan: romance. They head back to Olympus to enlist Cypris, goddess of love and sarcasm - or, more particularly, her son.
"Hera. Athena. To what do I owe this overwhelming pleasure? I am so rarely visited by such powerful goddesses."Cypris has some difficulty with this, because Eros is a little shit-
"Cut the crap, Cypris, we need your kid."
"It would be my greatest honour to humbly serve the great Queen of the Gods."
"I said cut the crap. Go get Eros."
"That's because you're a crap mother."-and needs to be bribed with a shiny thing. Cypris finds him cheating at dice with Ganymedes, and produces the shiniest thing there is: a golden sparkly ball that Zeus played with as a child. Eros accepts this commission, and heads off to Colchis to shoot Aeetes' daughter, Medea.
"Fuck off, Hera. My real mum is way prettier than you."
Meanwhile, Jason explains his plan to the Argonauts:
"I'll go into the city and ask Aeetes if he'll give the fleece to me."So Jason heads off to the city with his cousins, the sons of Phrixus. Here he meets his cousins' mother, Chalciope, and her much younger sister, Medea. Medea doesn't normally spend a lot of time in the city, preferring to do dark magic at the Temple of Hecate. However, she's here in time to be shot by Eros, and to fall utterly in love with Jason. Aeetes hears the commotion and asks what's going on, and why his grandsons have come back so early. Other Argus explains that their ship sank, and they were rescued by their Greek cousin on their father's side, who has an awesome ship.
"That's brilliant! But what if it doesn't work?"
"We'll wing it."
Aeetes assumes that a shipful of heavily armed godlings can only be after his throne. He sets Jason a test: he's to harness the two fire-breathing bulls of bronze, use them to plough the field of Ares, sow the field with dragon's teeth, and kill all the armed men that grow from them. Aeetes does this all the time, and he won't give the fleece to someone who won't.
This all sounds a bit too hard and complicated for Jason, so he goes off for a sulk. He explains the trial to the Argonauts, and sighs and says that it's impossible. The typical Argonaut response to this is, "Pfff. No it's not. I'll do it."
Other Argus chimes in at this point and says that, no, actually, Jason has to do this himself. He goes on to explain that he has a brilliant and not at all totally wussy plan: he'll ask his Aunt Medea to use magic to cheat. This plan is met with general Argonaut approval, with one or two dissenters.
It turns out that Chalciope is way ahead of him, on the grounds that if anything happens to Jason her sons will probably be the next to face Aeetes' wrath. She heads to Medea's chambers herself.
Medea is a bit of a mess at this point: she's having terrifying/exciting dreams about being dragged away from Colchis by Jason, which he can't do if he's dead. Although, since she's a terrifying black sorceress, it's more that he can't do it as easily if he's dead. But Medea is completely lovelorn and is not thinking clearly. She comes upon Chalciope and Other Argus arguing about the best way to win her over. She asks them what's up and they tell her: we need some black magic to save Jason.
Ok, says Medea. Go away now.
"That was easier than I expected."Medea, despite being unwilling to betray her father, spends the night conjuring dark sorceries and preparing a magic ointment for Jason, and heads off to the Temple of Hecate to finish off the ritual. She sends her handmaidens to secretly send Jason there, but she needn't have bothered since her nephews are spying on her, and also Hera's crows have a message for Mopsus, Jason's seer.
Jason and Medea meet for the first time in the doom-shrouded Temple of Hecate. Medea gives him the ointment and a spell for his weapons, and they flirt shamelessly until dawn. Medea asks what Iolcus is like, and Jason says that she'll love it.
Jason heads back to his comrades and enacts the rituals Medea has given him, making his weapons irresistable and his skin invulnerable.
Aeetes releases the bulls. Jason is able to resist their onslaught thanks to Medea's magic, and binds them to the yoke. He spends much of the day ploughing the field. He sows Aeetes' dragon's teeth and stops for a drink, then releases the bulls. The Earthborn men start sprouting, and Jason spends the late afternoon and early evening chopping them up.
Aeetes is not pleased.
Book IV: ...and Back Again.
Aeetes, far from honouring his bargain, aims to take vengeance on Jason, and also on his treacherous daughters, and also on his presumably treacherous grandsons. Medea, not unwisely, flees.
In the Temple of Hecate, she prays for guidance. Hecate's guidance is not comforting.
"Honestly, kid, you did a stupid thing for stupid reasons. Some other god was messing with you. Suck it up: the only way is forward."She heads to the Argo, where she finds her nephews, and Jason. She pleas to be taken with them back to Hellas. Jason agrees, saying that he will marry her when they get home. She leads Jason to the temple where the golden fleece rests, and sings the dragon guarding it to sleep. They return to the ship with the sheep.
Aeetes learns of this and gives chase. Unfortunately, he gives chase in a chariot. That doesn't work very well, so he sends out his fleet instead. (To be fair, his horses are pretty awesome.)
Medea makes the ship stop so that she can offer a secret sacrifice to Hecate. The poet once again says that he's not allowed to say what the sacrifice was, but says that the altar still stands today. This may no longer be the case, since "today" was more than two thousand years ago.
At a loss for a direction, Original Argus suggests that they head to Orchomenus, which was where Phineus the Seer told them they'd go. This suits Other Argus, because that's where he and his brothers were originally heading.
The Colchians, led by Aeetes son Apsyrtus, manage to outmaneuvre the Argo and corner them on an island. They let Jason know that he can keep the fleece - he did both win and successfully steal it - but Medea has to come back until her father says she can go. Jason considers this for exactly as long as it takes for Medea to find out about it. Jason is swayed by her tender feelings, and also her vicious curses and her threats to burn the ship to the waterline.
Jason points out that the only other option is to trick and kill her brother.
"Why the hell was that not Plan A?"Medea sends to Apsyrtus that she is willing to surrender herself, having, she says, been taken by force by the sons of Phrixus. She takes many of Jason's treasures to distract him. Apsyrtus, trusting his sister, goes alone to the rendezvous, and Jason leaps out and thwacks him, mortally.
"Well, he's your-"
"Just get on with it. No, let me do it. You'll only screw it up."
At this point we learn that the Greeks had a ritual to atone for a treacherous murder, which is to cut off the extremities of the dead man, thrice lick up the blood and thrice spit it out.
The Argo sidles up to Apsyrtus' ship and the Greek heroes massacre the Colchians. The crew collects Jason and Medea, and they sail off. The Colchians, incensed at the murder of their commander, start to pursue, but Hera scares them off with a lightning show.
Zeus is similarly incensed, pronouncing the crew of the Argo cursed until they can be cleansed of their evil deeds. However, since no-one tells them, they blithely continue on their journey.
The curse doesn't actually last very long. After sailing around for a bit they come to the island of Circe, the sorceress sister of Aeetes. Circe recognises her niece, and notices Zeus' curse on Jason. She performs a cleansing ritual. Medea explains what's going on, leaving out the bit about getting her brother murdered. Circe twigs anyway. She tells her niece that she's being a complete idiot, but frightening black sorceresses have to stick together and she's not going to kill her with death magic. She lets them go, with a parting shot that this is not to say that she approves, young lady.
By now Hera has realised that the Argo's current course will take them past the sea monster Charybdis and the rock Scylla, and so she organises a posse of gods to still the monster and steer the ship past the rock. Before the ship gets there they are serenaded by sirens, whose song is irresistable. The quick-thinking Orpheus pulls out his harp, and twangs loudly until the ship is safe. They lose only a single Argonaut: Butes, who leaps overboard but is saved by Cypris and taken away to a heavenly mountain.
Held by the sea goddess Thetis, the Argo is guided safely past Charybdis and past several gods, to arrive at the island Drepane, ruled by Alcinous and his wife Arete. Here they are met by a party of angry Colchians, who demand that Medea be handed over to them. Medea begs Arete not to let her go. Alcinous is keen to resolve the matter without bloodshed, and comes up with a solution: if Medea is still a virgin then she shall go back to her father, but if she's married she should go with her husband.
Alcinous then goes off to bed, and Arete sneaks out to tell Jason what the verdict will be. He tells the Argonauts, who arrange an impromptu wedding ceremony.
Next morning, Alcinous passes his sentence. Good thing we just got married, says Jason. The Colchians weigh up the prospect of returning to Aeetes without Medea, and decide to stay with Alcinous.
The Argo once again sets sail, and is promptly caught in a storm that blows them off course for nine days, to the coast of Libya. They find themselves caught in a flood tide and beached on a barren shore. They leave the ship and wander off along the beach. Eventually, they collapse into an exhausted sleep.
Jason is wakened at noon the next day by a party of nymphs, who take pity on him and on Medea. By means of a cryptic prophecy, the nymphs advise the Argonauts to carry the ship across land until they find the Tritonian Lake. Here they find a mostly dead serpent and some apple trees with no fruit. The local spirits tell them that some lout has come through and killed the guardian and stolen the golden apples. The Argonauts recognise Heracles from the description, but he is no longer around.
Two more Argonauts are lost in Libya: Canthus is killed by a shepherd defending his flock (the Argonauts kill the shepherd and take the sheep) and Mopsus is bitten by a poisonous snake.
The Argo sets sail on the lake, but they soon realise that this doesn't help them. They pray to the gods, and Triton turns up. He gives them a lump of dirt and shows them how to get back to the Mediterranean through the lake's marshy entrance.
Nearly home, the Argo sails by Crete, which is guarded by Talos, the man of bronze, so that the ship can't approach. Leave this to me, says Medea, and zots him with death magic from the open sea.
"...you can do that?"In the last stretch the clod of earth that Triton presented turns out to be his daughter, who seduces Euphemus and then becomes an island.
"Yes."
And then the story ends abruptly: "No more adventures, you're home!"
I'll just assume that Jason and Medea lived happily ever after...
--
I feel like I haven't done Medea a lot of justice in this summary. She's an incredibly vivid character - a precise, mathematical split between lovelorn teenager and terrifying dark sorceress. There are long passages sumptuously describing her magic rituals, and long passages detailing her lovesick torment. As she and Jason flee Colchis, she reminisces about the place where she used to gather corpse parts for her spells. But it's only when Jason is thinking of handing her back to her brother that he realises just how terrifying she can be...
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