LP0084 -X ARGONAUTS- Crete & Calliste, from The Argonautica

Legendary Passages #0084 -X ARGONAUTS- Crete & Calliste, from The Argonautica. Previously, Jason & Medea took the Golden Fleece and set sail for Iolcus. This passage recounts their final adventures before returning home: the bronze giant Talos, the Island of Anaphe, Calliste (also known as Thera), and finally their return to Iolcus. After getting lost in Libya, where Triton gave them directions and a clod of earth, the Argonauts came to the Island of Crete. Unfortunately, Talos, a giant man of bronze, threw huge boulders at them and drove them off. Medea used her magical incantations to kill Talos, then the argonauts resupplied and sailed on. Adrift in a starless night, Phoebus Apollo answered their prayers with a distant gleam, and they sailed to the Island of Anaphe. They offered what they had in grateful sacrifice, despite the laughter of Medea's handmaids. The argonaut Euphemus had a dream about that clod of earth, and Jason told him to drop it into the sea. There rose up the islands of Calliste, also known today as the super-volcano Thera. After a brief race to fetch water, the Argonauts sailed home to Iolcus. But while their journey ends here, the story is far from over.... http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius4.html Crete & Calliste, a Legendary Passage from, APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, ARGONAUTICA BOOK 4, trans. by R. C. SEATON. [1601] - [1773]       And rugged Carpathus far away welcomed them; and thence they were to cross to Crete, which rises in the sea above other islands. And Talos, the man of bronze, as he broke off rocks from the hard cliff, stayed them from fastening hawsers to the shore, when they came to the roadstead of Dicte's haven. He was of the stock of bronze, of the men sprung from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods; and the son of Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the island thrice a day with his feet of bronze. Now in all the rest of his body and limbs was he fashioned of bronze and invulnerable; but beneath the sinew by his ankle was a blood-red vein; and this, with its issues of life and death, was covered by a thin skin. So the heroes, though outworn with toil, quickly backed their ship from the land in sore dismay. And now far from Crete would they have been borne in wretched plight, distressed both by thirst and pain, had not Medea addressed them as they turned away: "Hearken to me. For I deem that I alone can subdue for you that man, whoever he be, even though his frame be of bronze throughout, unless his life too is everlasting. But be ready to keep your ship here beyond the cast of his stones, till he yield the victory to me." Thus she spake; and they drew the ship out of range, resting on their oars, waiting to see what plan unlooked for she would bring to pass; and she, holding the fold of her purple robe over her cheeks on each side, mounted on the deck; and Aeson's son took her hand in his and guided her way along the thwarts. And with songs did she propitiate and invoke the Death-spirits, devourers of life, the swift hounds of Hades, who, hovering through all the air, swoop down on the living. Kneeling in supplication, thrice she called on them with songs, and thrice with prayers; and, shaping her soul to mischief, with her hostile glance she bewitched the eyes of Talos, the man of bronze; and her teeth gnashed bitter wrath against him, and she sent forth baneful phantoms in the frenzy of her rage. Father Zeus, surely great wonder rises in my mind, seeing that dire destruction meets us not from disease and wounds alone, but lo! even from afar, may be, it tortures us! So Talos, for all his frame of bronze, yielded the victory to the might of Medea the sorceress. And as he was heaving massy rocks to stay them from reaching the haven, he grazed his ankle on a pointed crag; and the ichor gushed forth like melted lead; and not long thereafter did he stand towering on the jutting cliff. But even as some huge pine,