Gods and Heroes; or, The Kingdom of Jupiter

by R. E. Francillon

The news was true: Medea was so passionately in love with Jason that she had forgotten her father and her country, and was even now guiding the Greeks back to where the Argo lay. But, great enchantress though she was, she was not all-powerful, and she knew that her spells would be in vain against her own people. And her father and her brother knew this too.

Her ears were quick, however; and while the Greeks were still far from the shore, she heard the footsteps of Absyrtus swiftly tracking them; and what was worse, she heard, further off, a tramp and clash, which told her that the whole Colchian army was in pursuit at full speed.

“Hasten on,” she said to Jason. “I will wait here.”

So, while he and the Greeks pressed forward, she faced round and stood in the middle of the path until Absyrtus came up with her. Before he could utter a word, she plunged a dagger into her brother’s heart, cut off his head and limbs, and then slowly followed Jason, dropping a bleeding limb in the path every few yards.

Things happened just as she intended. When King Æetes, riding fast at the head of his horsemen, saw his son’s head lying in the path before him, he threw himself from his horse with a cry of grief; and seeing what lay further along the ground, forgot everything else, even the Golden Fleece, in his sorrow. The cruel witch, Medea, had foreseen that her father would never leave the remains of his dead son ungathered and unburied by the wayside, for the advancing horses to trample and for the vultures to devour. King Æetes was so long in seeking for the last limb that, by the time it was found, Jason and the Greeks had reached their ship and had set sail, and Medea with them.

But the murder of Absyrtus seemed to cling like a curse to the Argo, and to keep her from coming home. Driven out of her course by storms and contrary winds, she wandered into unknown oceans, drifting even so far as the wild and desolate islands of Britain, in the mysterious Northern Sea. The Argonauts narrowly escaped being devoured, ship and all, by the horrible sea-fiend Scylla, with twelve feet, six hideous heads, each with three rows of teeth, and a body made of barking dogs, who sits upon a rock and watches for sailors. And, just avoiding her jaws, they nearly fell into the whirlpool of Charybdis, another sea-fiend, so close to Scylla that it was hardly possible to escape one without being destroyed by the other. They passed the island of the Sirens, of whom you read in the story of Neptune, and would have fallen victims to their singing had not Orpheus made such music on his lyre that the Sirens ceased their own song to listen, and let the ship pass by.

I do not know what Medea was doing all this while. Perhaps she was powerful only on land; perhaps she could do nothing without her magic herbs; perhaps her passion for Jason had made her weak; perhaps she felt some touch of remorse; perhaps her wicked witchcraft was of no effect in the presence of Æsculapius, who, knowing more magic even than she, used his knowledge for helping and healing. But I do know that Jason was beginning to suffer sorely because of the vow he had made of his faith and life to Medea, and to feel that murder and black magic, and a wife whom he dreaded and did not love, were too high a price to pay even for glory. He was not like Perseus, who had warred against evil with the weapons of the gods: Jason had sought only his own glory, and had gained it by means hateful to gods and men.

But his comrades knew nothing of all this—to them he was a hero of heroes, and they made the wanderings of the Argo famous for something better than narrow escapes from peril. They cleared the sea of pirates—a work in which Castor and Pollux especially distinguished themselves; and they righted many wrongs, and carried the knowledge of the gods among far away barbarian tribes. And at last they saw once more the coast of Greece; at last they touched the land of Calydon, where the father of Meleager, one of the Argonauts whom I have already named, was king.

Now this Meleager had a charmed life. The three Fates had been present at his birth—the first had given him courage; the second, strength; but the third had decreed that he should live only so long as a log of wood, then burning upon the hearth, should remain unconsumed. So his mother, Althæa, had forthwith snatched the brand from the burning, and had kept it with care, because upon it depended the life of her son. Meleager welcomed Jason and his companions to Calydon: but they no sooner landed than they heard evil news. The whole country was being laid waste by a huge boar, which not even armies could kill.

Here was another adventure for the Argonauts. They proclaimed a great hunt, and tracked the boar, through mountains and forests, to his very den. In front of the hunters was Meleager; but next to him came Atalanta—that famous huntress, swift-footed as Diana, who had sailed with the Argonauts in the disguise of a man, and had betrothed herself to Meleager while they were homeward bound. Then followed the rest, vying with each other which should be foremost; and besides the Argonauts were the princes and nobles of Calydon, led by the two brothers of Althæa, who still kept the fatal fire-brand secure.