The Golden Fleece Read online

  ‘Yet Apollo has commanded it,’ said Helle, sobbing.

  Ino answered: ‘Apollo has always been a trouble-maker. He commands the sacrifice in the hope of making Zeus a laughing-stock for our tribe and yours: he knows that though a whole hecatomb of girls and boys may be sacrificed on the rugged shoulder of Pelion, not one blade of barley will sprout until your father has humbled himself before the Goddess and restored the ancient purity of her worship.’ And Ino added, using an ancient formula: ‘It is not my word, but my Mother’s word.’

  Though Helle would have gone to the death-trench without a thought of disobedience had Zeus so ordered it, yet Ino’s review of the matter encouraged her to hope that her fate might somehow be averted. She sought out Phrixus, whom the news of the impending sacrifice had stunned into a miserable apathy. He had never disobeyed his father in the least thing, and held Zeus in the profoundest awe: whenever there was thunder and lightning on the hills, he would stop his ears with beeswax, and bandage his eyes with a linen cloth, and creep away under a pile of blankets until his servants assured him that the sky was clear again. But Helle asked him privately: ‘Brother, why should we consent to give up our lives in this senseless fashion? Or why, because our father Athamas has committed sacrilege, should we be made the instruments of embittering the ill-feeling already existing among the Immortal Gods?’

  Phrixus, pale and thin from fasting, replied: ‘Who are we to question our fate? We can do nothing but submit.’

  Helle smiled and stroked his cheeks. She told him: ‘Fasting has weakened your resolution. Our loving stepmother Ino will find us a legitimate means of escape.’ So insistent was Helle that at last Phrixus consented to be guided by her, and thus saved his life.

  Ino further reasoned with them both that neither had Zeus ordered the sacrifice nor had Athamas wished to perform it. ‘Nor yet,’ said she, ‘has either of you been warned by your father himself of his intention. Nothing would please him better, when he returns from Delphi, travelling as slowly as possible, than to find you both gone: for with all his faults he is a most affectionate father, as I am bound to admit.’

  ‘But where are we to flee?’ asked Phrixus. ‘Our father Athamas is a man of importance in Greece, and wherever we go he will certainly fetch us back. He must obey the Oracle of Delphi, whether he likes it or not; and if we take refuge at Athens, or Thebes, or Argos, the city governors will voluntarily send us back to Iolcos as soon as they hear that Apollo has demanded our deaths.’

  ‘Greece is not the whole world,’ said Ino. ‘The power neither of Apollo nor of Zeus extends beyond Greece and its colonies. The Triple Goddess alone has universal power. If you consent to put yourself under her protection, she will find a safe and pleasant home for you beyond the seas. But, children, you must hasten your decision, for your father, however slowly he may travel, must already be well on his way home.

  It happened that Nephele, the Boeotian wife of Athamas, arrived at Iolcos that very day, on a visit to her children Phrixus and Helle. Ino treated her with exemplary courtesy, and by feigning solicitude for the fate of the children, convinced her that they should throw themselves on the mercy of the Goddess and obey her divine orders implicitly, whatever they might be. Nephele mistrusted the genuineness of the Delphic Oracle and agreed that the Goddess, though slighted by Athamas, might pity his children if they approached her piously. Ino tempted her into coming with the Fish nymphs on their next moonlight orgy over Pelion. Nephele wreathed her head with an ivy garland, took a fir-cone wand in her hand and, clad only in a fawn-skin, went raging across the mountain-side with the rest of the rout, doing great things. Her feet seemed to be furnished with wings, and never in all her life had she experienced such holy rapture. Athamas had slighted her by his marriage with Ino, and this was her revenge; for she found among the Centaurs several more attentive lovers than he.

  Between them, Ino, Nephele, and Helle overcame the religious scruples of Phrixus. One man, unless he resorts to violence, cannot long resist the reiterated arguments of three women. That evening he and Helle ritually purified themselves, and Ino gave them an infusion of sacred herbs which caused them to sleep; and in their sleep a voice, which they took for the Goddess’s own, offered them their lives on condition that they obeyed certain orders. When they awoke, each reported to the other what the voice had said, and the two messages tallied exactly. These were the words:

  ‘Children of Athamas, why should you die for your father’s sin? It is I alone who have blasted the barley-fields and made them barren. No rain, no sun, no dew can restore them to fertility. I am offended by the intrusion of my son Zeus into my ancient sanctuary on Mount Pelion, and by the removal of my mare-headed image. I am the Triple Mother of Life, the mistress of all the Elements, the original Being, the Sovereign of Light and Darkness, the Queen of the Dead, to whom no God is not subject. I rule the starry skies, the boisterous green seas, the many-coloured earth with all its peoples, the dark subterrene caves. I have names innumerable. In Phrygia I am Cybele; in Phoenicia, Ashtaroth; in Egypt, Isis; in Cyprus, the Cyprian Queen; in Sicily, Proserpina; in Crete, Rhea; in Athens, Pallas and Athena; among the pious Hyperboreans, Samothea; Anu among their dusky serfs. Others name me Diana, Agdistis, Marianaë, Dindymene, Hera, Juno, Musa, Hecate. And in the Stables of the Sun in Colchis, at the further end of the Black Sea, under the shadow of the towering Caucasus, where I propose to send you, I am named “The Bird-headed Mother” or “Brimo”, or “The Ineffable”. It is I who have inspired the sentence of the Delphic Oracle. Your mother does wrong to doubt its authenticity; but it is uttered with the intention of bringing ruin upon your father rather than upon yourselves.

  ‘Tonight you must both climb together in the moonlight up the steep path which winds to the shoulder of Pelion, until you come to my sacred enclosure. Phrixus shall enter first, wearing the ritual mask of a horse, and finding the guardians of the shrine asleep he shall cry without fear: “In the name of the Mother!” He shall then unhook the sacred Fleece from the Ram’s image and wrap it in a dark-coloured blanket and go out. Next Helle shall enter, wearing a similar mask and, finding the blanket but not unwrapping it, shall convey it out of the shrine. Then both of you shall reenter and together drag out the guardians by their feet and daub their hair with horse-dung and leave them lying outside the enclosure. Then you shall return together and take out the naked image itself and lay it upside-down, with its trotters in the air, between the sleeping guardians. Next, you shall spill a skinful of wine over the image, and cover it with your cloaks. Then, standing apart, you shall watch my mare-headed image restored to the shrine, in a solemn procession of my Centaur people, with waving of torches, with pipe and drum. When the door of the shrine is shut, you shall return in haste to Iolcos, carrying the Fleece by turns.

  ‘Outside the gate, a messenger with a white wand will meet you and you shall say to him no more than this: “In the name of the Mother!” He will conduct you both to the sandy beach of Pagasae, where the ship-yard is, and put you aboard a Corinthian galley which is bound for the City of Cyzicus by the Sea of Marmora. You must preserve a holy silence throughout the voyage, and when you are within a day’s sail of my holy island, Samothrace, Phrixus shall hook the glittering Fleece across the bows of the ship. From Cyzicus you shall go by land to the kingdom of the Mariandynians on the southern coast of the Black Sea, and there demand, in my name, a sea passage to Colchis. When you are at last set ashore at Colchian Aea you shall together present the Fleece to Aeëtes the Colchian King and say to him: “A gift from the Mother, the Ineffable. Guard it well.” Your lives will thereafter be free and happy so long as you continue to be my servants. If Aeëtes by any chance fears the wrath of Zeus and asks you: “Did you steal the Fleece from the shrine of Zeus?” you, Phrixus, shall answer, “By the power of the Goddess, I swear that I did not steal the Fleece out of the shrine, nor did I prevail on anyone else to do so for me.” And you, Helle, shall answer, “By the power of the Goddess, I swear that I never so much
as saw the Fleece until we came within a day’s sail of Samothrace.” Thus by telling the exact truth you shall yet deceive him.’

  These instructions Phrixus and Helle unswervingly obeyed, though not without fear and heart-searching. It was Cheiron the wise Centaur, son of Philara the priestess of the oracular shrine of Ixion, who led the triumphal procession of the returning Goddess. Afterwards, concealed among the rocks, he watched the drugged guardians awake and saw the horror on their faces when they found the Ram God lying naked and drunken between them on the stony bed outside the enclosure. They hastily sprang up, fetched water and washed the image clean. They dried it with their own garments and were for bringing it back again to the shrine; but there the Mare-headed Goddess sat in her old place and a neighing voice came from her mouth: ‘Guardians,’ she said, ‘take away my drunken Son, and let him not return until he is clothed and sober.’ The priests abased themselves before her in terror, ran off groaning and between them brought the image down to Iolcos on a rough litter of pine branches, covered. with their cloaks. There they explained to the Minyan chieftains that the God had invited them to drink wine with him, which they had at first refused, since he customarily drank only water, or water mixed with honey; but that he had overcome them by his importunity. They remembered no more until they found themselves lying with him in one bed, their heads aching and wine soaking their garments.

  There was a hue-and-cry after the Fleece, even before Athamas returned. When it was known that Phrixus and Helle had disappeared at about the same time, it was rumoured that, going up the mountain to worship the God (for a shepherd had seen them setting out along the path), they had come upon the Fleece lying on the ground where the God had discarded it in his drunkenness, and had thought to restore it to the shrine; but that there they had received orders from the Goddess to dispose of it in some other way.

  A further rumour that they had been seen making their way northward in the direction of Mount Ossa was put about by Ino to set the pursuers on a false scent. The truth was that Phrixus and Helle, coming down the mountain with the Fleece just as the moon set, and avoiding discovery, had met the man with the white wand. He had guided them to Pagasae, and there put them into the Corinthian ship, which was to sail at dawn. The master had welcomed them in the name of the Goddess, and they kept a holy silence; and on the third day, as they coasted by the headland of Actaean Athos with a favouring wind, Phrixus took the Golden Fleece from the dark blanket in which it was wrapped and hooked it across the bows, to the amazement of the master and the crew.

  Then they sailed on and entered the narrow strait, once called the Dardanian Strait, which leads from the Aegean Sea into that of Marmora. It was a windless day, and they were rowing with all their might against a strong current, which nevertheless pressed the ship back. Here Helle, seated in the bows, forgot her instructions. She leaped to her feet and, breaking silence, cried out: ‘O Phrixus, Phrixus, we are lost!’ For she saw that the ship was heading directly for the Dardanian rocks. A sudden flaw of wind struck the ship, heeled her over and bellied out the sail; they were saved from the rocks and sailed on. But Helle was flung overboard by the sudden tossing of the ship and carried off by the tide beyond hope of rescue, and drowned. The strait is called by the Greeks the Hellespont, or the water of Helle, to this day.

  Phrixus by a closer observance of the Goddess’s desires reached Colchis in safety, presented the Fleece to King Aeëtes, and answered his questions in the manner prescribed. Aeëtes suspended the Fleece from a cypress-tree in a sacred enclosure, the home of an immense oracular python. In this python resided the spirit of the ancient Cretan hero Prometheus, who is said to have first discovered and explained to mankind how to make fire by the moon-wise twirling of a fire-wheel, or fire-drill, and thus to have originated the arts of pottery, metallurgy and the rest, besides becoming the first cook and the first baker. He was held in high esteem in Attica and Phocis; but his navel-string and jaw-bone and other wonder-working relics had been for many years laid up at Corinthian Ephyra, from where his descendant Aeëtes removed them when he emigrated to Colchis. There was a long-standing dispute between the worshippers of Zeus and the worshippers of Prometheus; for the lightning of Zeus was held by the Greeks to be the original source of fire, and the priests at Dodona accused Prometheus of having stolen a spark of it from one of the other sanctuaries of Zeus, and put it to smoulder unseen in the pith of a fennel-stalk. And indeed there is a sort of giant fennel, as tall as a man, in the dried stalk of which a spark can be carried for a mile or more and afterwards blown to a flame with the mouth. Whichever story was true, the committing of the Golden Fleece of Zeus to the charge of Cretan Prometheus was a further sign of the White Goddess’s implacable mood. But Phrixus was hospitably entertained by Aeëtes, who allowed his daughter Chalciope to marry him and ask for no bride-gift in return. He lived prosperously in Colchis for many years.

  When Athamas returned to Iolcos and learned what had happened in his absence he considered himself hated by all the Gods. He lay down on his couch, covered his head with the skirt of his robe and groaned. Ino came to console him. ‘Husband,’ she said, ‘one of the Centaurs, who still range Mount Pelion in sportive defiance of your orders, has reported that very early in the morning of that fatal day he saw your son and daughter climbing slowly towards the shrine of the Ram God, from which proceeded loud sounds of drunken revelry. He saluted them and ran on. What may have happened when they reached the enclosure and found the debauched Son lying naked between his guardians, and the Mother in sober possession of the shrine, who can tell? They may have been converted by her into rocks or trees in punishment of some unconsidered words that they spoke. Or they may have touched the Fleece as it lay on the ground, and been converted by the Son into bats or weasels. Or they may have run mad and, catching up the Fleece at the instigation of the Mother, have run down the further slope of Pelion and plunged with it into the sea. These are enigmas, and have as yet no solution.’

  Athamas did not answer, but continued to groan.

  Ino continued: ‘Dearest of men, this is my advice to you. First make your peace with the White Goddess, abasing yourself before her in her shrine on Pelion, and offering her the richest sacrifices possible, in the hope of averting her wrath and then return to this room and behave as one already dead. Unless you do this your people, who believe that you have smuggled away your children in defiance of Apollo’s oracle, will demand your own sacrifice. Be dead until the next sowing season, when my women and I will plant what barley-seed we have saved, with the customary rites, and all will be well. Meanwhile, let your brother Cretheus act as your regent in military and naval matters, while I rule the land again in all else, as formerly. Though we may go hungry, the Goddess will doubtless preserve us from starvation.’

  Athamas was too low-spirited to dissent. While he was visiting Pelion and making abject supplications to the Goddess, Ino called a conference of Minyan chieftains and acquainted them with his decisions. The disgrace that had overtaken their Ram God weighed so heavily on their minds that whatever Ino told them in the name of the Goddess seemed ungainsayable. They swore to obey Cretheus as their war king and as priest of Zeus during the temporary death of Athamas, and to obey Ino as their law-maker and Governess. This Cretheus was an easy-going, feeble-bodied man, over whom Ino had perfect ascendancy.

  The Centaurs were then invited to return to Mount Pelion and promised indemnification for the slaughter of their kinsmen, as well as restoration to all their ancient privileges. The White Goddess smiled on them with her mare’s teeth; but the naked image of the Ram God was reclothed in a plain black fleece and conducted quietly back to his former shrine on Mount Laphystios. Cretheus did not punish the guardians for their negligence, since they pleaded that they had merely obeyed the God when he offered them wine to drink and that his excesses were no fault of theirs.

  As for Athamas, as soon as he returned to the royal mansion under cover of darkness, he died and remained dead for a full year;
eating only the red food of the dead, which living men may not eat except on certain solemn occasions: lobster, crayfish, blood pudding, boiled bacon and ham, the pomegranate, and barley-cakes soaked in the juice of berries. When he came to life again, after the autumn sowing had been conducted by Ino with the full ritual, he was found to be deranged in his wits. Three years later he killed Learchus, one of the two infant sons born to Ino and himself, shooting him with bow and arrow from a window that overlooked the courtyard. The Minyans then decided to depose him and grant the priesthood and kingship to Cretheus.

  But Ino was already dead. The madness of Athamas had entered into her when she saw Learchus dying in the courtyard: she had caught up her other son, Melicertes, from the harvest basket in which he was cradled and, dressed all in white, had rushed yelling triumphantly up the slopes of Pelion. There at the shrine of the Goddess she tore her child in pieces, and hastening onwards and upwards, with a light froth on her lips, she crossed the topmost ridge of Pelion and ran down the opposite slope. She came at last to a sea-cliff and flung herself into the sea. The crew of a Corinthian ship found both bodies floating in the water, and brought them to Corinth for burial, where King Sisyphus instituted the Isthmian Games in honour of Melicertes. Ino, because of her suicide and murder of her son, became one with the Goddess whom she had served, and was worshipped both in Corinth and Megara as the White Goddess, Ino, thus adding yet another name to the countless others with which the Mother of All Things is honoured. But Athamas was ordered by the Goddess to travel towards the sunset and settle wherever he should be entertained by wild beasts. He travelled to the mountains behind Halos, where he fell in with a pack of wolves devouring a flock of sheep. They fled at his approach and left the carcases for his eating. So there he settled and called the place Athamantia, and raised a new family; but he was dead before ever the Argo sailed to Colchis.