Literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages - Summary - 2019
Argonavia
Apollonios Rhodios (approx. 295 - approx. 215 BC e)
In Greece, there were many myths about the exploits of individual heroes, but only four - about such exploits that the heroes from different parts of the country came across. The last was the Trojan War; the penultimate one is the campaign of Semerius against Thebes; before this - Kalidonskaya hunting for a giant boar headed by the hero Meleagr; and the very first one is a sailing for a golden run to the far Caucasian Colchis on the Argo ship, led by the hero Yason. "Argonauts" - means "floating on" Argo ".
The Golden Fleece is the skin of the sacred golden ram, sent by the gods from heaven. One Greek king had a son and a daughter named Frix and Gell, an evil stepmother planned to destroy them and spoke the people to sacrifice them to the gods; but the indignant gods sent them a golden ram, and he carried away his brother and sister far beyond the three seas. Sister drowned in the way, by the name of which she called the strait, the present Dardanelles. And the brother reached Colchis on the eastern edge of the land where the mighty king, Aet, son of the Sun, ruled. The Golden Sheep were sacrificed to the Sun, and their hide was hung on a tree in a sacred grove under the protection of a terrible dragon.
06 This golden fleece recalled this case. In northern Greece there was the city of Iolk, for the power over him argued two kings, evil and kind. The evil king overthrew the good. The good king settled in silence and obscurity, and gave his son Yason a training for the wise centaur Hirou, a semi-human, a half-god, the educator of a whole series of great heroes up to Achilles. But the gods saw the truth, and Jason was taken under his protection by the goddess, the queen of Hera and the goddess of the Athena. The king's evil was predicted: a man who was shabby on one leg would be destroyed. And such a man came - it was Jason, They said that he met the old woman in a way and asked him to transfer her through the river; he carried her, but one of his sandals remained in the river. And the old woman was the goddess Hera himself.
Jason demanded that the invading king return the kingdom to the lawful king and to him, Jason-heir. "Well," said the king, "but prove that you deserve it. Frix, who fled to Colchis on a zoological ram, is our distant relative. Get out of the Colchis a golden fleece and take it to our city - then reign! "Jason took the challenge. Master Arg, headed by Athena himself, began to build a ship of fifty oars, named after his name. And Jason threw a cry, and from all over Greece began to gather her, ready for swimming. Their lyrics begin with a poem.
Almost all of them were sons and grandchildren of the gods. The sons of Zeus were the twins of Dioscurus, Cavalry Castor, and the fist Polidevik fighter. The son of Apollo was the songwriter Orpheus, capable of singing to stop the rivers and lead the roundabout of the mountain. The sons of the Northern Wind were twins of Boread with wings behind their shoulders. The son of Zeus was the savior of the gods and people of Hercules, the greatest of heroes, with the young armor-bearer, Gilas. The grandsons of Zeus were the hero Peley, the father of Achilles, and the hero of Telamon, the father of Ajax. And behind them went the Argkrobel, and Tifi-Kormchy, and Ankei-sailor, dressed in bear's skins - his father hid his armor, hoping to hold his home. And behind them - many, many others. The main ones were proposed to become Heracles, but Heracles replied: "We have assembled Jason - he will lead us." They brought sacrifices, prayed to the gods, fifty shoulders moved the ship from shore to the sea, Orpheus rang with a song about the beginning of heaven and earth, the sun and stars, gods and titans - and, fluttering waves, the ship moves in the path. And after him, the gods look from the slopes of the mountains, and the centaurs with the old Chiron, and the baby, Achilles, in the arms of his mother.
The path lay through three seas, one unknown to the other.
The first sea was Aegean. On it was the fiery island of Lemnos, the kingdom of criminal women. For the unknown sin, the gods sent to the inhabitants madness: husbands threw their wives and took concubines, their wives killed their husbands and healed the women's kingdom, like the Amazon. The strange huge ship scares them; wearing the armor of their husbands, they are going to the shore, ready to repulse. But the wise queen says: "Let's take the sailors welcome: we will give them rest, they will give us children." Madness is over, women bring guests, breed them at home - Yason takes the queen himself, her myths will still be stacked - and for a long time they hold their Argonauts. Finally, the industrious Hercules announces: "It's time for a fun hour!" - and raises everyone in the way.
The second sea was Marble: wild forests on the coast, the wild mountain of the furious Mother of God over the woods. Here, Argonauts had three parking lots. At the first parking, they lost Hercules, the young friend of his Guilas went to the water, bowed down to the vessel over the brook; the nymphs of the stream crept, admired by his beauty, the eldest of them rose, raised his hands to his neck and dragged him into the water. The Hercules rushed to seek him, the Argonauts waited vainly for him for the whole night, the morning Jason ordered sail. The indignant Telamon shouted: "You just want to get rid of Hercules, so that its glory will not be eclipsed by yours!" A quarrel started, but here from the waves raised a huge, shaggy head, God-fearing, Marine Old Man. "You fate to float further," he said, "and to Hercules, return to those works and exploits that nobody else will do."
On the next stop, a wild hero, a barbarian king, son of the sea Poseidon, came out to meet them: he called for all those who were passing on a fist fight, and no one could withstand him. From the Argonauts, Dioscurus Polidevck, son of Zeus against his son Poseidon, opposed him. The barbarian is strong, the Hellen said - the cruel battle was short-lived, the king collapsed, his men rushed to him, there was a battle, and the enemies ran away, defeated.
Having learned the haughty, I had to come to the aid of the weak. At the last station in this sea, the Argonauts met with the faint king, the forerunner Phineas. For the old sins - and which no one remembers, they say in different ways - the gods sent on him stinky monstrous birds - harpies. As soon as Finey will sit at the table, harpies will run over, they will be thrown into food, that they will not eat, then they will be cut off, and the king extinguishes from starvation. The winged Boreads, the children of the wind, came out to help him: they run over the harpies, chase them in the sky, drive them to the edge of the world - and the grateful elder gives the Argonauts wise advice: how to swim, where to stay, how to escape from the dangers. And the main danger is already near.
Third sea before Argonauts - Black; the entrance to it - the boundaries of floating Blue rocks. Surrounded by boiling foam, they are shaken and diverge, crushing everything that falls between them. Finey said:
"Do not rush forward: first release the bird-throat - if flying, then you too will swim, if it will crush its rocks, then turn back." They released a throat - she slipped between the rocks, but not quite, the cliffs snapped and pulled out a few white feathers from her tail. Though it was once, the Argonauts were clinging to the oars, the ship was flying, the rocks were already shifting to crush the stern - but here they feel a powerful push; it was the Athena itself pushing the ship with an invisible hand, and now it was already in the Black Sea, and the rocks behind them stopped forever and became the banks of the Bosporus Strait.
Here their second loss has come to pass: the typhus is dying; instead Ankhya takes it in the bear's skin, the best sailor from the survivors. He drives the ship further along the completely strange waters, where the god Apollo himself is walking from the island to the island in front of people where the Artemis-Moon baths before he climbs to heaven. Float past the banks of the Amazons, who live without husbands and cut their right breast to make it easier to beat from the bow; past the houses of the Blacksmith's shore, where the first iron pieces on the earth live; past the mountains of the Bumpy Bank, where men and women converge like livestock, not in houses, but in the streets, and unwanted kings are dumped into dungeons and starved; past the island over which copper birds rush, snatching deadly feathers, and from them you need to defend shields over your head, like tiles. And here the Caucasus mountains are already visible in front, and the groan of Prometheus crucified on them is heard, and the wind blowing from the wings of the tormenting titan of the eagle is bigger than the ship itself. This is Colkhida.
The path has been passed, but the main test is ahead. Heroes do not know about it, but they know Hera and Athena and think how to save them. They go for help to Aphrodite, the goddess of love: let her son Efort inspire a Colchian princess, Madame Medea, a passion for Jason, let her help her lover against her father. Erote, a winged boy with a golden bow and festive arrows, squatting in the garden of the celestial palace and playing with grandmother with a friend, a young winemaker Zeus: cheating, winning and wicked. Aphrodite puts him in the service of a toy - a miracle-ball of golden rings played by the once infant Zeus when hiding in Crete from the evil father of his Crown. "Give it at once!" - asks Eroth, and she stroked him by the head and says: "First, do your thing, but I will not forget." And Eroth flies to Colchis. Argonauts already enter the palace of King Aeth - he is huge and. At its corners its four sources - with water, wine, milk and butter. The mighty king comes to meet guests, beyond him is the queen and princess. Arriving at the threshold, little Eroth pulls his bow, and his arrow hits the heart of Medea without a blow: "The flood of her flooded - / The boom burned right under her heart, and the breast was excited, / The soul melted in sweet sweat, forgetting everything, / Visions, gleaming, striving for Jason, and gentle cheeks / Against her will, they were pale, then blushed again. "
Jason asks the king to return the golden fleece to the Greeks - if necessary, they will serve him against any enemy. "With my enemies, I can do one," the son of the Sun answers humbly. - And for you I have another test. I have two bulls, meadbulls, melee-dogs, fire-breathing ones; there is a field dedicated to Ares, the god of war; there are seeds - dragon teeth, from which grow like eels, warriors in copper armor. At the dawn I harness the bulls, in the morning I am harvesting harvest in the evening, - do the same, and your fleece will be. " Jason accepts the challenge, even though he understands that he is death. And then, a wise Arg tells him: "Ask Medeya for help, she is a sorceress, she is a priestess of the underground Hecate; her secret potions are led to her: if she does not help you, then nobody will help."
When the Argonauts' ambassadors come to Medea, she sits without sleep in her tower: scary to betray her father, terribly destroy the beautiful guest. "Shame keeps her, and a daring passion to go makes" to meet her beloved. "The heart in her chest often knocked with excitement, / Beat like a sunshine reflected in the wave, and tears / Were in the eyes, and the pain was poured by the fire over the body: / That she said to herself that the magic potion / Dust, then again , that will not give, but also to live will not remain also ".
Medea met with Jason in the temple of Hekata. Its potion was called "Prometheus root": it grows where the drop of Prometheus falls on the ground, and when it is cut off, the earth shudders, and the titan on the rock emit moan. From this root she made an ointment. "Narris her," she said, "and the fire of the bulls does not burn you." And when from coppery teeth grow out of dragon teeth in the furrows, take a stone clay, throw them into their thicket, and they will roll over and beat each other. Then take the fleece, rather go away - and remember Medea. " "Thank you, princess, but I will not go alone - you will go with me and you will become my wife," answered Yason.
He obeys the Medea commandment, becomes mighty and invulnerable, drives the bulls under the yoke, sows a field that is not touched by copper or fire. Warriors appear from the grooves - first spears, then helmets, then shields, the glitter rises to heaven. He throws a stone in their thickets, large, like gravestones, not to raise four, - between warriors a battle begins, and survivors he sets himself as a reaper in the harvest. Argonauts triumphantly win, Jason is waiting for his reward - but Medea feels: rather the king will cut off guests, than give them a treasure. At night, she runs to Jason, taking only her miraculous herbs with her: "We are going for a rune - only we are two, you can not do it!" They enter the sacred forest, a fleece shines on an oak, a sleepless dragon swirled around the rings, his serpent's body walks in waves, a groove is carried to distant mountains. Medea singing spells, and the waves of his whirlwinds are getting quieter, more calm; The medaeum of the juniper branch touches the eyes of the dragon, and its eyelids are closed, the mouth falls to the ground, the body stretches out to the distance between the trees of the forest. Jason tears off a fleece of wood, shining like lightning, they land on a ship hidden from the shore, and Jason chopped off the berths.
The run-off begins - by roundabout way, along the Black Sea, along the northern rivers, to knock down the path. At the head of the chase is the brother of Medea, the young heir of Aeth; He catches the Argonauts, he cuts off the path to them, he demands: "Runo - to you, but to the prince! To us!" Then Medea calls his brothers into negotiations, he goes out alone - and perishes by the hand of Jason, and the Greeks crush the Colchians who are deprived of the leader. Dying, he splashed blood on the clothes of his sister - now on Yason and Argonauts, the sin of a perilous murder. The gods are angry: the storm falls to the ship, and finally the ship speaks to swimmers in a human voice: "There will be no path to you until you cleanse you from the evil queer queer, Kirk, the daughter of the Sun, the western sister of the eastern colonial king." Tsar Eet ruled where the Sun ascends, Queen Kirk - where it is rolling: Argonauts float to the opposite edge of the world, there, where a generation later Odysseus will visit. Kirk makes a purge - sacrifices a pig, brushes the blood of the murdered with blood from her killers - but refuses to help: she does not want any brother to angry nor forget her nephew.
Argonauts are wandering through the unknown western seas, on the future Odysseus places. They swim the Aeolians of the island, and the king of the winds of Aol at the request of Gera sends them a passing wind. They swim to Skill and Charybde, and the sea goddess Fetid - the mother of Achilles, the wife of the Argonaut Peleia - springs the ship on a wave and throws it through the sea shoal so high that neither one or another monster can reach them. They hear the charming singing of Sirens from afar, luring sailors to the cliffs, but Orpheus strikes the strings, and when they hear him, the Argonauts do not notice the singing predators. Finally, they swim to the happy country of the fairies - and unexpectedly encounter here with the second Colchis chase. "Give us Medea!" - the persecutors demand. The wise king of the Phoenix replies: "If Medea is the bled daughter of Aeth, then she is yours. If Medea is the legal wife of Jason, then she belongs to her husband, and only him. " Immediately, secretly following the persecutors, Jason and Medea make a long-awaited wedding - in the feaque sacred cave, on a bed lit by a golden run. Argonauts go farther, and chase is left with nothing.
Already quite a bit remained to the native shores, but here on Argonauts the last, the most difficult test falls. The storm rages for nine days; it carries the ship over all the seas and throws it into a dead bay on the edge of the desert off the coast of Africa, where there is no way out of the ships: the way blocks rivers and currents. Having overcome the sea and got used to the water, the heroes managed to get out of the land - even the tug Ankei, who carried the ship through all the storms, does not know the way from here. The path is indicated by the gods: from the waves a sea horse with a golden mane is carried out and rushes through the steppe to the unknown shore, and after him, taking the ship on his shoulders, hunted, tugging, exhausted Argonauts. Twelve days and nights the transition lasts - here more heroes died, than in all the way: from hunger and thirst, in encounters with nomads, from poison of sand snakes, from the heat of the sun and the severity of the ship. And suddenly, on the last day after the sandy hell, a blossoming paradise opens: a fresh lake, a green garden, golden apples and virgin nymphs crying over the dead huge snake: "The hero came here in a lion's skin, killed our snake, our apples stole, split the rock, let the stream flow from it to the sea ". Argonauts were pleased: they saw that, even leaving them, Hercules saved the comrades from thirst and pointed them the way. First along the stream, then through the lagoon, and then through the strait into the open sea, and a good sea god pushes them into the feed, with a flounder with a scaly tail. Even leaving them, Heracles saved his comrades from thirst and pointed them to the road. First along the stream, then through the lagoon, and then through the strait into the open sea, and a good sea god pushes them into the feed, with a flounder with a scaly tail. Even leaving them, Heracles saved his comrades from thirst and pointed them to the road. First along the stream, then through the lagoon, and then through the strait into the open sea, and a good sea god pushes them into the feed, with a flounder with a scaly tail.
Here is the last race, here is the threshold of the native sea - the island of Crete. He is being guarded by a copper giant, disposing of the ships with stone blocks - but Medea approaches the board, stumbles in the giant with a dazzling glance, and he dies, stumbles, stumbles with a copper heel about a stone and collapses into the sea. And, stocking up in Crete with fresh water and food, Jason and his comrades finally reach their native shores.
This is not the end of the fate of Jason and Medea - that which was with them later, wrote the terrible tragedy of Euripides. But Apollonius did not write about one or two heroes - he wrote about the general case, about the first All-Greece great hike. Argonauts go to shore and diverge in their homes and cities - the poem "Argonautka" is over.