Part 9 (2/2)

Epimetheus was troubled by the hard looks and the cold words of the men who once had reverenced him. He turned from the houses and went away. In a quiet place he sat down, and for a while he lost sight of Pandora. And then it seemed to him that he heard the voice of his wise and suffering brother saying, ”Do not accept any gift that Zeus may send you.”

He rose up and he hurried away from that place, leaving Pandora playing by herself. There came into his scattered mind Regret and Fear. As he went on he stumbled. He fell from the edge of a cliff, and the sea washed away the body of the mindless brother of Prometheus.

Not everything had been spilled out of the jar that had been brought with Pandora into the world of men. A beautiful, living thing was in that jar also. This was Hope. And this beautiful, living thing had got caught under the rim of the jar and had not come forth with the others. One day a weeping woman found Hope under the rim of Pandora's jar and brought this living thing into the house of men. And now because of Hope they could see an end to their troubles. And the men and women roused themselves in the midst of their afflictions and they looked toward gladness. Hope, that had been caught under the rim of the jar, stayed behind the thresholds of their houses.

As for Pandora, the Golden Maid, she played on, knowing only the brightness of the suns.h.i.+ne and the lovely shapes of things. Beautiful would she have seemed to any being who saw her, but now she had strayed away from the houses of men and Epimetheus was not there to look upon her.

Then Hephaestus, the lame artisan of the G.o.ds, left down his tools and went to seek her. He found Pandora, and he took her back to Olympus. And in his brazen house she stays, though sometimes at the will of Zeus she goes down into the world of men.

When Polydeuces had ended the story that Castor had begun, Heracles cried out: ”For the Argonauts, too, there has been a Golden Maid-nay, not one, but a Golden Maid for each. Out of the jar that has been with her ye have taken forgetfulness of your honor. As for me, I go back to the _Argo_ lest one of these Golden Maids should hold me back from the labors that make great a man.”

So Heracles said, and he went from Hypsipyle's hall. The heroes looked at each other, and they stood up, and shame that they had stayed so long away from the quest came over each of them. The maidens took their hands; the heroes unloosed those soft hands and turned away from them.

Hypsipyle left the throne of King Thoas and stood before Jason. There was a storm in all her body; her mouth was shaken, and a whole life's trouble was in her great eyes. Before she spoke Jason cried out: ”What Heracles said is true, O Argonauts! On the Quest of the Golden Fleece our lives and our honors depend. To Colchis-to Colchis must we go!”

He stood upright in the hall, and his comrades gathered around him. The Lemnian maidens would have held out their arms and would have made their partings long delayed, but that a strange cry came to them through the night. Well did the Argonauts know that cry-it was the cry of the s.h.i.+p, of _Argo_ herself. They knew that they must go to her now or stay from the voyage for ever. And the maidens knew that there was something in the cry of the s.h.i.+p that might not be gainsaid, and they put their hands before their faces, and they said no other word.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Then said Hypsipyle, the queen, ”I, too, am a ruler, Jason, and I know that there are great commands that we have to obey. Go, then, to the _Argo_. Ah, neither I nor the women of Lemnos will stay your going now.

But to-morrow speak to us from the deck of the s.h.i.+p and bid us farewell.

Do not go from us in the night, Jason.”

Jason and the Argonauts went from Hypsipyle's hall. The maidens who were left behind wept together. All but Hypsipyle. She sat on the throne of King Thoas and she had Polyxo, her nurse, tell her of the ways of Jason's voyage as he had told of them, and of all that he would have to pa.s.s through. When the other Lemnian women slept she put her head upon her nurse's knees and wept; bitterly Hypsipyle wept, but softly, for she would not have the others hear her weeping.

By the coming of the morning's light the Argonauts had made all ready for their sailing. They were standing on the deck when the light came, and they saw the Lemnian women come to the sh.o.r.e. Each looked at her friend aboard the _Argo_, and spoke, and went away. And last, Hypsipyle, the queen, came. ”Farewell, Hypsipyle,” Jason said to her, and she, in her strange way of speaking, said:

”What you told us I have remembered-how you will come to the dangerous pa.s.sage that leads into the Sea of Pontus, and how by the flight of a pigeon you will know whether or not you may go that way. O Jason, let the dove you fly when you come to that dangerous place be Hypsipyle's.”

She showed a pigeon held in her hands. She loosed it, and the pigeon alighted on the s.h.i.+p, and stayed there on pink feet, a white-feathered pigeon. Jason took up the pigeon and held it in his hands, and the _Argo_ drew swiftly away from the Lemnian land.

XI. The Pa.s.sage of the Symplegades

[Decorative first letter]

_T_HEY came near Salmydessus, where Phineus, the wise king, ruled, and they sailed past it; they sighted the pile of stones, with the oar upright upon it that they had raised on the seash.o.r.e over the body of Tiphys, the skillful steersman whom they had lost; they sailed on until they heard a sound that grew more and more thunderous, and then the heroes said to each other, ”Now we come to the Symplegades and the dread pa.s.sage into the Sea of Pontus.”

It was then that Jason cried out: ”Ah, when Pelias spoke of this quest to me, why did I not turn my head away and refuse to be drawn into it?

Since we came near the dread pa.s.sage that is before us I have pa.s.sed every night in groans. As for you who have come with me, you may take your ease, for you need care only for your own lives. But I have to care for you all, and to strive to win for you all a safe return to Greece. Ah, greatly am I afflicted now, knowing to what a great peril I have brought you!”

So Jason said, thinking to make trial of the heroes. They, on their part, were not dismayed, but shouted back cheerful words to him. Then he said: ”O friends of mine, by your spirit my spirit is quickened. Now if I knew that I was being borne down into the black gulfs of Hades, I should fear nothing, knowing that you are constant and faithful of heart.”

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