Complete Works of William Morris, page 332
With many children scattered there among,
All naked, and with unshorn yellow hair
Blowing about; and sooth we deem they were
Houseless and lawless, without town or king,
Knowing no Gods, and lacking everything.
So said he, but Medea spoke, and said:
O heroes, surely by all likelihead
These are the folk of whom I erst heard tell
In Aea, where to me it oft befell
To speak with many men from many lands,
Long ere ye crossed the Phasis’ yellow sands.
Of these I learned more tongues of speaking men
Than ye might deem men spoke, who told me then
Of such as these, that ye have seen but now.
And yet indeed some Gods these folk do know,
The Sun, the Moon, the mother of the earth,
And more perchance, and days they have of mirth
When these they honour; yea, and unto these
Within their temples, groves of ancient trees,
Clad but in leaves, and crowned in solemn wise,
They offer strangers up in sacrifice,
Which was your doom had not the Gods been kind,
Who for your bodies other graves will find.
BUT when they heard her, glad they were indeed
That they from such a bondage had been freed.
And, day being fully come, they loosed from shore,
And ‘gainst the stream all bent unto the oar.
All day they toiled, and every mile of way
Still swifter grew the stream, so on that day
Few leagues they made; and still the banks were fair,
But rising into scarped cliffs here and there,
Where screamed the great ger-falcon as they passed,
And whence the sooty swifts about the mast
Went sweeping, with shrill cries at that new sight.
Nought happed that day worth record, but at night,
When they were moored, and sound of splashing oars
Had ceased, and stiller grew the upland shores,
Another sound they heard besides the stream
That gurgled past them, that to them did seem
Like sound of feet of men who pass to war,
Rising and falling as the wind from far
Would bear it on, or drop it in the dark.
So, while with strained ears, they stood to hark
The murmur, as folk use, scarce sure they heard
That which already inward fear had stirred,
Erginus spoke: O heroes, fear ye nought,
This is not death, though ye to toil are brought;
This noise is but the river as it falls
Over its mountainous and iron walls,
Which, being once passed, both calm and deep will be
The pent-up stream, and Argo easily
Will stem it; but or ere we come thereto,
Needs must we heave her up and make her go
Over the hard earth, till the falls are past.
Eat therefore now, and sleep, that ye may last
Through this and other toils, and so may come
Through many labours, back unto your home.
So, landing, many a pine-torch did they light,
And made the dusky evening strange and bright,
And there a mighty feast-fire did they pile,
And set the flesh thereto, and in a while,
When all was ready, did they offer up
That which the Gods claimed, pouring out a cup
Of red wine to them from a new-pierced skin.
Then in that lonely land did they begin
Their feast, and first the flesh to Jason gave,
And next to her who all their souls did save
Far up the Phasis on that other day,
And then unto the swift Arcadian May
The guarded treasure of the trim-shod queen.
Then to the godlike singer, set between
The twin Laconian stars, and then to these;
And then to Arcas, haunter of the trees,
Theseus, Pirithous, Erginus true,
The north-wind’s sons, the cleavers of the blue;
And all the kings being satisfied in turn,
With vain desires ‘gan their hearts to burn,
So stirred within them wine and changing speech.
But unto him his harp did Orpheus reach,
And smote the strings, and through the ancient trees
Rang the heart-piercing honied melodies:
ALAS! for Saturn’s days of gold,
Before the mountain men were bold
To dig up iron from the earth
Wherewith to slaughter health and mirth,
And bury hope far underground.
When all things needful did abound
In every land; nor must men toil,
Nor wear their lives in strife to foil
Each other’s hands, for all was good,
And no man knew the sight of blood.
WITH all the world man had no strife,
No element against his life
Was sworn and bitter; on the sea,
Dry-shod, could all walk easily;
No fire there was but what made day,
Or hidden in the mountains grey;
No pestilience, no lightning flash,
No over-mastering wind, to dash
The roof upon some trembling head.
THEN the year changed, but ne’er was dead,
Nor was the autumn-tide more sad
Than very spring; and all unclad
Folk went upon the harmless snow,
For not yet did midwinter know
The biting frost and icy wind,
The very east was soft and kind.
AND on the crown of July days,
All heedless of the mid-day blaze,
Unshaded by the rosy bowers,
Unscorched beside the tulip flowers,
The snow-white naked girl might stand;
Or fearless thrust her tender hand
Amidst the thornless rose-bushes.
THEN, ‘mid the twilight of the trees
None feared the yellow beast to meet;
Smiling to feel their languid feet
Licked by the serpent’s forked tongue.
For then no clattering horn had rung
Through those green glades, or made afraid
The timid dwellers in the shade.
No lust of strength, no fear of death
Had driven men, with shortened breath,
The stag’s wide-open eyes to watch;
No shafts to slay, no nets to catch,
Were yet; unyoked the neat might play
On untilled meads and mountains grey;
Unshorn the silly sheep might rove.
NOR knew that world consuming love,
Mother of hate, or envy cold,
Or rage for fame, or thirst for gold,
Or longing for the ways untried,
Which ravening and unsatisfied,
Draw shortened lives of men to Hell.
ALAS! what profit now to tell
The long unweary lives of men
Of past days…threescore years and ten,
Unbent, unwrinkled, beautiful,
Regarding not death’s flower-crowned skull,
But with some damsel intertwined
In such love as leaves hope behind.
Alas, the vanished days of bliss!
Will no God send some dream of this,
That we may know what it has been?
OH, thou, the chapleted with green,
Thou purple-stained, but not with blood,
Who on the edge of some cool wood
Forgettest the grim Indian plain,
And all the strife and all the pain,
While in thy sight the must foams out,
And maid and man, with cry and shout,
Toil while thou laughest, think of us,
And drive away these piteous,
Formless and wailing thoughts, that press
About our hour of happiness.
LYAEUS, King! by thee alone
To song may change our tuneless moan,
The murmur of the bitter sea
To ancient tales be changed by thee.
By thee the unnamed smouldering fire
Within our hearts turns to desire
Sweet, amorous, half satisfied;
Through thee the doubtful years untried
Seem fair to us and fortunate,
In spite of death, in spite of fate.
HE ceased, and bent his head above the wine:
Then, as he raised his eyes they saw them shine
In the red torchlight with unwilling tears,
And their hearts too, with thoughts of vanished years
Were pensive, as at ending of his song
They heard the bubbling river speed along,
Nor did they miss that doubtful noise to hear
The rising night-wind through the branches bear,
Till sleep fell on them, and the watch alone
Waked in that place, and heard the distant moan
Grow louder as the dead night stiller grew,
And fuller of all fear, till daylight drew
A faint wan streak between the thinner trees,
And in their yellowing leafage the young breeze
Made a new sound, that through their waking dream
Like to the surging sea well-nigh did seem.
BUT the full day being come, all men awake,
Fresh hold upon the oars began to take,
Stemming the stream, that now at every mile
Swifter and shallower ran, and in a while
Above all noises did they hear that roar,
And saw the floating foam borne past the shore;
So but ten leagues they made upon that day,
And on the morrow, going on their way,
They went not far, for underneath their keel
Some once or twice the hard rock did they feel,
And looking on ahead, the stream could see
White with the rapids: therefore warily
Some mile or two they went at a slow pace
And stayed their course where they beheld a place
Soft-sloping to the river; and there all,
Half deafened by the noises of the fall
And bickering rapids, left the ashen oar,
And spreading over the well-wooded shore
Cut rollers, laying on full many a stroke,
And made a capstan of a mighty oak,
And so drew Argo up, with hale and how,
On to the grass, turned half to mire by now.
Thence did they toil their best, in drawing her
Beyond the falls, whereto being come anear,
They trembled when they saw them; for from sight
The rocks were hidden by the spray-clouds white,
Cold, wretched, chilling, and the mighty sound
Their heavy-laden hearts did sore confound;
For parted from all men they seemed, and far
From all the world, shut out by that great bar.
Moreover, when with toil and pain, at last
Unto the torrent’s head they now had passed,
They sent forth swift Aetalides to see
What further up the river there might be.
Who going some twenty leagues, another fall
Found, with great cliffs on each side, like a wall,
But ‘twixt the two, another unbarred stream
Joined the main river; therefore did they deem,
When this they heard, that they perforce must try
This smoother branch; so somewhat heavily
Argo they launched again, and gat them forth
Still onward toward the winter and the north.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XI.
The passage northward continued. Argo drawn over-land. The winter by the northern river.
NOW might the Minyæ hoist up to the breeze
Their well-wrought sail, for barren of all trees
The banks were now become, not rising high
Above the deep green stream that sluggishly
Strove with the strenuous Argo’s cleaving stem.
So after all their toil was rest to them
A little while, and on the deck they sat,
Not wholly sad, and talked of this and that,
Or watched the fish flit from the ship-side blind,
Or the slim kestrel hanging in the wind,
Or the wild cattle scouring here and there
About the plain; for in a plain they were,
Edged round with hills, with quaggy brooks cleft through,
That ‘mid their sedges toward the river drew,
And harboured noisome things, and death to man.
But looking up stream, the green river ran
Unto their eyes, from out the mountains high,
For ‘twixt no pass could they behold the sky,
Though at the mountain’s foot, far through the plain,
They saw the wandering water shine again,
Then vanish wholly, therefore through their ease,
With fear did they the jealous Gods appease.
NATHLESS, for two days did they speed along,
Not toiling aught, and cheered with tale and song;
But the third noonday, bringing them anear
The mountains, turned to certain grief their fear;
For now they saw the stream grown swift but deep
Come from a cavern in the mountain steep,
Nor would it help them aught upon that tide
To heave the swift ship out on either side,
For all that plain the mountain ridge bestrode,
And scarcely could a horseman find a road
Through any pass into the further land.
Then ‘mid the downcast men did Jason stand,
And lifting up his voice, said: Minyæ,
Why right and left upon this plain look ye,
Where dwell but beasts or beast-like men alone?
Look rather to that heap of rugged stone,
Pierced with the road that leadeth to the north.
Yea, if from very hell this stream run forth,
Let us go thither, bearing in our hands
This golden hard-won marvel of all lands.
Yet, since not death it bears, but living things,
Shall we not reach thereby the sea that rings
The whole world round, and so make shift to reach
Sunny Eubœa, and fair Argo beach
Before Iolchos, having lost no whit
Of all our gains? Or else here must we sit
Till hunger slays us on some evil day,
Or wander till our raiment falls away
From off our bodies, and we, too, become
Like those ye saw, not knowing any home,
Voiceless, desiring nought but daily food,
And seeking that like beasts within the wood,
Each for himself. And all our glory gone,
Our names but left upon some carven stone
In Greece, still growing fainter day by day.
And this work wrought within the sunny bay,
Nor yet without the help of Gods, shall lie
A wonder to the wild beasts passing by,
While on her fallen masts the sedge-birds sing,
Unseen of men, a clean forgotten thing.
So spake he, setting courage in their hearts
To try the unknown dark, and to their parts
All gat them swiftly, and they struck the mast,
And deftly steered from out the sunlight passed
Into the cold bat-haunted cavern low,
And thrusting out with poles, made shift to go
Against the stream, that with a hollow sound
Smote Argo’s stem. Then Jason, looking round.
Trembled himself, for now, indeed, he thought,
Though to the toiling heroes he said nought:
What do we, if this cavern narrows now,
Or over fails these burrowing waters flow,
And drive us back again into the sun,
Cursing the day this quest was first begun,
Or somewhat traps us here, as well it may,
And ends us all, far from the light of day?
THEREWITH he bade them light the torches up,
And to the mountain Gods to pour a cup,
And one unto the river Gods, and each
For the new daylight every God beseech,
And speedily to pierce the mountain through.
So from the torches trains of sparkles flew,
And strangely flashed their arms in that dark place,
And white and haggard showed each anxious face
Against those dripping walls of unknown stone.
But now in Jason’s hand the cup outshone,
Full of red wine, pressed by the Grecian sea,
And lifting high his hand, he cried: O ye,
Both Gods and nymphs who in this wild land dwell,
In hill or river, henceforth may ye tell
How through your midst have passed the Minyæ;
And if, ye helping, the cold northern sea
We safely reach, and our desired home,
Thither the fame and fear of you shall come,
And there a golden-pillared house shall stand,
Unto our helpers in this savage land.
Nor when we reach the other side of this
Grim cavern, due observance shall ye miss,
For whatso on the teeming plain we snare,
Slain with due rites shall smoke before you there.
So spake he, and twice poured the fragrant wine;
But they, well-pleased to have the gift divine,
And noting well his promises, took heed
Unto his prayers, and gave the heroes speed.
Then Jason straightway bade more torches light,
And Argo pushed along, flared through the night
Of the dank cavern, and the dull place rang
With Grecian names, as loud the heroes sang,
For hope had come into their hearts at last.
SO through the winding cave three days they passed.
But on the fourth day Lynceus gave a cry,
Smiting his palms together, who could spy,
Far off, a little white speck through the dark,
As when the lated traveller sees the spark
Of some fair-lighted homestead glitter bright.
But soon to all men’s eyes the joyous sight
Showed clear, and with redoubled force they pushed
Swift Argo forth; who through the water rushed
As though she longed for daylight too and air.
