Cyzicus

Πέλαγος δὲ τὸ μὲν καθύπερθε λέλειπτο ἦρι, τὸ δ᾽ ἐννύχιοι Ῥοιτειάδος ἔνδοθεν ἀκτῆς μέτρεον, Ἰδαίην ἐπὶ δεξιὰ γαῖαν ἔχοντες. Δαρδανίην δὲ λιπόντες ἐπιπροοσέβαλλον Ἀβύδῳ, Περκώτην δ᾽ ἐπὶ τῇ καὶ Ἀβαρνίδος ἠμαθόεσσαν ἠιόνα ζαθέην τε παρήμειβον Πιτύειαν. Καὶ δὴ τοί γ᾽ ἐπὶ νυκτὶ διάνδιχα νηὸς ἰούσης δίνῃ πορφύροντα διήνυσαν Ἑλλήσποντον. A.R. 1.928-35 In the early morning the lower sea was left behind, and by night they were traversing the sea within the headland of Rhoeteum. Leaving Dardania, they flung forward to Abydos, and after that, they passed Percote and the shore of Abarnis and holy Pityeia. And so with the ship going between the two sides in the night, they completed the Hellespont and its surging eddy. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 2]]?

Ἔστι δέ τις αἰπεῖα Προποντίδος ἔνδοθι νῆσος, τυτθὸν ἀπὸ Φρυγίης πολυληίου ἠπείροιο εἰς ἅλα κεκλιμένη ὅσσον τ᾽ ἐπιμύρεται ἰσθμὸς, χέρσῳ ἐπιπρηνὴς καταειμένη· ἐν δέ οἱ ἀκταὶ ἀμφίδυμοι· κεῖται δ᾽ ὑπὲρ ὕδατος Αἰσήποιο· Ἄρκτων μιν καλέουσιν Ὄρος περιναιετάοντες. A.R. 1.936-41 Now there is in the Propontis, a steep island, sloping to sea, apart from the corn-rich mainland of Phrygia by the short distance, by a wave-washed isthmus which inclines sharply to the mainland. And on the island there are two shores, and they lie beyond the Aesepus river. Those who live in the area call the island Bear Mountain. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 3]]?

Καὶ τὸ μὲν ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι ἐνναίεσκον Γηγενέες, μέγα θαῦμα περικτιόνεσσιν ἰδέσθαι· ἓξ γὰρ ἑκάστῳ χεῖρες ὑπέρβιοι ἠερέθονται, αἱ μὲν ἀπὸ στιβαρῶν ὤμων δύο, ταὶ δ᾽ ὑπένερθεν τέσσαρες αἰνοτάτῃσιν ἐπὶ πλευρῇς ἀραρυῖαι. A.R. 1.942-46 And a violent and savage race lived there, the Earthborn, a great wonder for their neighbours to see. Six arms each one flailed, arms of incredible strength, two fixed from sturdy shoulders and underneath those, four attached to their terrible sides. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 4]]?

Ἰσθμὸν δ᾽ αὖ πεδίον τε Δολίονες ἀμφενέμοντο ἀνέρες· ἐν δ᾽ ἥρως Αἰνήιος υἱὸς ἄνασσε Κύζικος ὃν κούρη δίου τέκεν Εὐσώροιο Αἰνήτη. Тοὺς δ᾽ οὔ τι, καὶ ἔκπαγλοί περ ἐόντες, Γηγενέες σίνοντο, Ποσειδάωνος ἀρωγῇ· τοῦ γὰρ ἔσαν τὰ πρῶτα Δολίονες ἐκγεγαῶτες. A.R. 1.947-52 And yet living around the isthmus and the plain were men, the Doliones, and among them the hero son of Aeneus ruled, Cyzicus, whom the daughter of godlike Eusorus bore, Aenete. And though the Earthborn were violent, they harmed them in no way due to the help of Poseidon, for originally the Doliones were born of him. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 5]]?

Ἔνθ᾽ Ἀργὼ προύτυψεν ἐπειγομένη ἀνέμοισι Θρηικίοις· Καλὸς δὲ Λιμὴν ὑπέδεκτο θέουσαν. Κεῖσε καὶ εὐναίης ὀλίγον λίθον ἐκλύσαντες Τίφυος ἐννεσίῃσιν ὑπὸ κρήνῃ ἐλίποντο, κρήνῃ ὑπ᾽ Ἀρτακίῃ· ἕτερον δ᾽ ἔλον, ὅς τις ἀρήρει, βριθύν· ἀτὰρ κεῖνόν γε θεοπροπίαις Ἑκάτοιο Νηλεΐδαι μετόπισθεν Ἰάονες ἱδρύσαντο ἱερόν, ἣ θέμις ἦεν, Ἰησονίης ἐν Ἀθήνης. A.R. 1.953-60 There the Argo pressed on, driven by the Thracian winds, and Fair Harbour welcomed the running vessel. And there at the suggestion of Tiphys, they unfastened the small stone being used as an anchor and left it beneath a spring, beneath the spring of Artacie, and took up another, one heavy and better fitted. Nevertheless, the small stone the Ionian sons of Neleus later on placed as an offering in accordance with the prophecies of the Far-Shooter, as was proper, in the temple of Athena, protector of Jason. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 6]]?

Τοὺς δ᾽ ἄμυδις φιλότητι Δολίονες ἠδὲ καὶ αὐτὸς Κύζικος ἀντήσαντες, ὅτε στόλον ἠδὲ γενέθλην ἔκλυον οἵ τινες εἶεν, ἐυξείνως ἀρέσαντο· καί σφεας εἰρεσίῃ πέπιθον προτέρωσε κιόντας ἄστεος ἐν λιμένι πρυμνήσια νηὸς ἀνάψαι. Ἔνθ᾽ οἵ γ᾽ Ἐκβασίῳ βωμὸν θέσαν Ἀπόλλωνι εἱσάμενοι παρὰ θῖνα θυηπολίης τ᾽ ἐμελοντο. A.R. 1.961-7 All together and in friendship the Doliones and Cyzicus himself met them and when they heard about the expedition and their lineage, about who they were, they appeased them with their hospitality and persuaded them to row further into the city's harbour to make fast the ship's stern. Here they placed an altar to Apollo Ecbasius, setting it beside the strand, and began to engage in sacrificing. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 7]]?

Δῶκεν δ᾽ αὐτὸς ἄναξ λαρὸν μέθυ δευουένοισι μῆλά θ᾽ ὁμοῦ· δὴ γάρ οἱ ἔην φάτις, εὖτ᾽ ἂν ἵκωνται ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖος στόλος, αὐτίκα τόν γε μείλιχον ἀντιάαν μηδὲ πτολέμοιο μέλεσθαι. A.R. 1.968-71 The king himself gave sweet wine to them who lacked it, along with sheep, for an oracle had told him that when a godlike expedition of heroic men arrived, to go to meet it straightaway in amicable manner and have no design on battle. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 9]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 8]]?

Ἁρμοῖ που κἀκείνῳ ἐπισταχύεσκον ἴουλοι· οὐδέ νύ πω παίδεσσιν ἀγαλλόμενος μεμόρητο, ἀλλ᾽ ἔτι οἱ κατὰ δώματ᾽ ἀκήρατος ἦεν ἄκοιτις ὠδίνων, Μέροπος Περκωσίου ἐκγεγαυῖα Κλείτη ἐυπλόκαμος. Τὴν μὲν νέον ἐξέτι πατρὸς θεσπεσίοις ἕδνοισιν ἀνήγαγεν ἀντιπέρηθεν· ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς, θάλαμόν τε λιπὼν καὶ δέμνια νύμφης, τοῖς μέτα δαῖτ᾽ ἀλέγυνε, βάλεν δ᾽ ἀπὸ δείματα θυμοῦ. A.R. 1.972-9 Just like Jason his beard was sprouting, and it had not yet been ordained for him to glory in children, but at home his wife was still untouched by birth pains, the daughter of Merops of Percote, fair-haired Cleite. He had recently led her from her father's house on the land opposite for a wondrous bride-price. But even so he left the bridal chamber and the bed of his bride and was sharing a meal with them, casting fear from his heart. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 9]]?

Ἀλλήλους δ᾽ ἐρέεινον ἀμοιβαδίς· ἤτοι ὁ μέν σφεων πεύθετο ναυτιλίης ἄνυσιν Πελίαό τ᾽ ἐφετμάς· οἱ δὲ περικτιόνων πόλιας καὶ κόλπον ἅπαντα εὐρείης πεύθοντο Προποντίδος· οὐ μὲν ἐπιπρὸ ἠείδει καταλέξαι ἐελδομένοισι δαῆναι. A.R. 1.980-4 They questioned one another in turn; he learned of the aim of the voyage and the command of Pelias, and they learned the cities of the neigbouring people and the entire gulf of the broad Propontis. But beyond that point he did not know enough to tell for all that they were eager to learn. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Restart -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Credits -> BibCyzicus]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 1]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 1]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 1]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

For the reader linearly following the voyage there is an intratextual model for the Argonauts' encounters on Cyzicus: Lemnos. A second landfall and a second encounter following a summary description of the intervening sailing invites the reader to make comparisons as the Cyzican episode unfolds. The threat of martial conflict or at any rate the tension that was initially intimated on Lemnos is on Cyzicus replaced by open exchange and offer of assistance. Yet this apparent frankness has an opposite outcome to the manipulations of the Lemnian women when the Argonauts find themselves unwittingly engaged here in two battles, the only such conflicts in Book One, with both the Doliones and first their neighbours, the Earthborn. [[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 1i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

Μέλανος διὰ βένθεα Πόντου (922) identified as the Gulf of Saros (so e.g. Mooney 1912 ad loc, Race 2008: 77 n.93). Σ ad 1.922 notes //Il//. 24.79, ἔνθορε μείλανι πόντῳ. Those black waters into which Iris sprang to give Zeus’ message to Thetis are in the same area, μεσσηγὺς δὲ Σάμου τε καὶ Ἴμβρου παιπαλοέσσης (//Il//. 24.78). [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 1b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

Κεῖθεν δ᾽ εἰρεσίῃ Μέλανος διὰ βένθεα Πόντου ἱέμενοι, τῇ μὲν Θρῃκῶν χθόνα, τῇ δὲ περαίην Ἴμβρον ἔχον καθύπερθε. Νέον γε μὲν ἠελίοιο δυομένου Χερόνησον ἐπὶ προύχουσαν ἵκοντο. Ἔνθα σφιν λαιψηρὸς ἄη Νότος, ἱστία δ᾽ οὔρῳ στησάμενοι κούρης Ἀθαμαντίδος αἰπὰ ῥέεθρα εἰσέβαλον. A.R. 1.922-28 From there they sped on under oar across the depths of the Black Sea, keeping on one side the land of the Thracians, and on the opposite, Imbros. Under a sinking sun, they reached the headland of Chersonesus. There a swift south wind was blowing for them, and setting their sails to the fair wind they entered the steep waters of the daughter of Athamas. [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]] or [[explore -> ExCyzicus 1]]?

'I know this place from somewhere.' [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 1]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 2]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 2]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 2]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story-> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

‘Ὡς ὄφελεν καὶ Φρίξον, ὅτ᾽ ὤλετο παρθένος Ἕλλη, κῦμα μέλαν κριῷ ἅμ᾽ ἐπικλύσαι· ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐδὴν ἀνδρομέην προέηκε κακὸν τέρας, ὥς κεν ἀνίας Ἀλκιμέδῃ μετόπισθε καὶ ἄλγεα μυρία θείη.’ A.R. 1.256-9 'Would that when the maiden Helle perished, the dark wave flooded over Phrixus too, along with the ram. But the evil monster uttered human speech as well that afterwards it bring to Alcimede grief and incalculable suffering.' The only prior mention in the text of Helle and the Hellespont. The women of Iolcus lament the imminent departure of the heroes and wish Phrixos and the ram had perished along with Helle in this analepsis on the expedition's origin. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 2b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

'Day after day we tarried in Lemnos and I lost track of time. Now sunset, morning, night - the clock is ticking again.' [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 2]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 1b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

Several of these cities and regions are mentioned in close proximity in the Catalogue of Trojan heroes at //Iliad// 2.819ff. (Dardanians 2.819; Ida 2.821, 824; Pityeia 2.829; Percote 2.831, 835; Abydos 2.836; Thracians 2.844; Hellespont 2.845 and the Pelasgi whom the narrator will mention v.1024 at //Il.// 2.840). All these peoples and cities follow immediately on from Hector and the Trojans themselves at the head of the list, //Il.// 2.816-9. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 2c]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

The narrative shape of the Cyzican narrative shares structural similarities with Homeric models, inviting connections which in the process of reading both direct and misdirect expectations. Aeolus: //Odyssey// 10 opens with Odysseus’ character-narration of his encounter with Aeolus. He and his men are received hospitably and assistance given for their safe and speedy return to Ithaca (//Od//. 10.1-30). However, when within sight of home, his comrades open the bag of winds (10.47-55) and their ships are blown back to Aeolus’ island where a second and unfriendly encounter takes place (an important difference here is that at this stage the Argonauts’ voyage is //outbound// and not a //nostos//). No further offer of aid is extended and they are dismissed with some hostility (10.72-5). Their next encounter, on the seventh day of sailing, is with the Laestrygonians. Likewise, the Argonauts are greeted hospitably, sail away, are blown back and on their return met with hostility. Odysseus’ return to Aeolus was a direct result, he tells us, of folly, αὐτῶν γὰρ ἀπωλόμεθ’ ἀφραδίῃσιν (10.27, his crew speculating the bag contained riches open the bag of winds). The Argonauts’ return to Cyzicus in the night is due we are told simply to contrary winds (A.R. 1.1016-7). [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 1i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

The transitional passage through the Hellespont is rapid. The locations passed along the route from Lemnos to Cyzicus are marked off in sequence with almost no expansion or ornament. Pityeia is given the epithet ‘holy’ and the Hellespont referred to by a genealogical allusion to Helle’s father. The brevity of description and clustering of names adds to the sense of momentum achieved first by their strenuous rowing and then bolstered by a felicitous wind. The pace of the narrative has picked up as the reader is sped to the next episode. Despite the increased speed, there is again, following the vague time-keeping of the Lemnian episode, a renewed attention to detailed accounting. They reach the headland of Chersonesus at sunset (Νέον γε μὲν ἠελίοιο | δυομένου, 924-5), by early morning (ἦρι, 929) they have navigated the Gulf of Saros and into (ἐννύχιοι, 929) and on through the following night (ἐπὶ νυκτὶ, 934) they traverse the Hellespont. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

'Who is the daughter of Athamas?' [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 3]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 3]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 3]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story-> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 4]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 4]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 4]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 5]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 5]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 5]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 6]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 6]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 6]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 7]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 7]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 7]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 8]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 8]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 8]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 8]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 8]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 9]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 9]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 9]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 9]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

[[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 10]] [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 10]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 10]] [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

ἔστι δέ τις νῆσος μέσσῃ ἁλὶ πετρήεσσα, μεσσηγὺς Ἰθάκης τε Σάμοιό τε παιπαλοέσσης, Ἀστερίς, οὐ μεγάλη· λιμένες δ᾽ ἔνι ναύλοχοι αὐτῇ ἀμφίδυμοι· τῇ τόν γε μένον λοχόωντες Ἀχαιοί. //Od//. 4.844-47 There is a craggy island in mid-sea, half-way between Ithaca and rocky Samos, called Asteris - not a big island, but there are two harbours in it with anchorage for ships. Here the Achaeans stopped to lay wait for him [Telemachus]. (trans. Hammond). The final verses of //Odyssey// 4 before the narrative focus switches to Odysseus provides an ominous parallel for the Argonauts on their approach to Cyzicus. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 3i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

'They call it Bear Mountain. I know where we are but not when.' [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 3b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

With the introductory formula Ἔστι δέ τις αἰπεῖα... νῆσος (936) the pace slackens. The narrator zooms in on the ship's second port of call. Clauss (1993, p.156) notes the allusion to //Od//. 4.844-47, an island also having two shores where the suitors plan to wait in ambush for Telemachus. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 3]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

ἤ ῥ’ οἵ γ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι, ἦε φιλόξεινοι καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής; //Od//. 6.120-1. 'Oh, whose land have I come to this time? Are they violent,savage and lawless people - or hospitable folk with a god-fearing habit?' (trans. Hammond) Upon waking in Phaeacia, Odysseus speculates as to what kind of men inhabit the land. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 4b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

'Monsters and marvels. There are many creatures described as wonders.' [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 4i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

There is a change of pace following the breakneck dash through the Hellespont. The narrative is suddenly becalmed as the narrator describes the island’s location, layout and inhabitants. Geographical details now cede to anthropological and the reader is offered a first taste in the poem of the fantastical with the introduction of the Earthborn, the six-armed savages that potentially lie in wait for the Argonauts. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

Οἴη δ’ ἐκ πασέων γεραροῦ περιφείσατο πατρός Ὑψιπύλεια Θόαντος ὃ δὴ κατὰ δῆμον ἄνασσε· A.R. 1.620-1 But she alone out of all the women saved her aged father, Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas who ruled the people. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 5b]] [[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 5b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

'Poseidon had other children, other descendants. And he is a wrathful god.' [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 5bi]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 5b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

The narrator provides a genealogical explanation of their entente with the Earthborn: the Doliones have a divine ancestor, Poseidon. The mention of the god so prominently opposed to Odysseus’ homecoming should alert the reader that the Argo is steering from Iliadic into Odyssean waters and encourage further connections. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 5b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

Unlike on Lemnos where our focus remained with the Lemnian women following the initial exposition, here we revert to the Argonauts’ perspective as they anchor. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

ἔνθ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἐς λιμένα κλυτὸν ἤλθομεν, ὃν πέρι πέτρη ἠλίβατος τετύχηκε διαμπερὲς ἀμφοτέρωθεν, ἀκταὶ δὲ προβλῆτες ἐναντίαι ἀλλήλῃσιν ἐν στόματι προύχουσιν, ἀραιὴ δ᾽ εἴσοδός ἐστιν, ἔνθ᾽ οἵ γ᾽ εἴσω πάντες ἔχον νέας ἀμφιελίσσας. //Od//. 10.87-91 'We came into a fine harbour, surrounded by cliffs running sheer on both sides, with two opposing headlands jutting close at the mouth, so the entrance is narrow. The crews steered their balanced ships in here, and they were then moored side by side within the enclosure of the harbour - there was no swell inside, great or small, but calm clear water throughout.' (trans. Hammond) Odysseus narrates his own arrival, on the seventh day after leaving Aeolus for a second time, to the land of the Laestrygonians - the giants who destroy all but one of his ships. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 6i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

'The Earthborn are violent and only Poseidon’s protection keeps the Doliones safe. What hides in Fair Harbour?' [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 6]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 6b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

Having mapped out the terrain and its inhabitants, an island untouched by Argonauts, the narrator begins the process of colonising it. The placing of the old anchor by the spring triggers a temporal jump to a time post-//Argonautica// but pre-narrator in referencing a future colonisation of the island by the Νηλεΐδαι Ἰάονες. The reader is dislocated, taken away from any expectations of conflict by a scholarly narrator consulting sources and relating the future story of stone’s relocation. The stone itself is a //sēma//, a visible marker of the Argonauts’ passing. It is the first of a succession of markers – a temple (960), a path (988), a rock (1019). And then, following their return visit, there are further markers; a burial-mound (1061-2), a fountain (1068-9), two rituals (1075-7, 1138-9) and a spring (1148-9). A stopping-off to change anchor and get directions leaves Cyzicus littered with traces of their passing. ‘The Argonauts were here’ is written all over the island. The first //sēma// is moved inside a second //sēma//, the temple of Athena ‘Helper of Jason’ by these Ionian settlers, ἣ θέμις ἦεν (960). There is blurring of temporal levels - the Argonauts leaving the stone and the Ionian settlers moving it. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

Potential conflict is averted when the Argonauts do not encounter the Earthborn but instead they are met in friendship by the Doliones whose genial disposition contrasts with the apprehension of the Lemnian women in the preceding episode. As the Argonauts were about to arrive at Lemnos (Λῆμνον ἵκοντο, 608), the narrator switched focus, giving background material of events that had occurred on Lemnos. The Lemnian men had come to prefer Thracian women captured in raids to their own wives. In response, the Lemnian women killed their husbands, the captured women and the entire male population. Ἔνθ’ ἄμυδις πᾶς δῆμος ὑπερβασίῃσι γυναικῶν νηλειῶς δέδμητο παροιχομένῳ λυκάβαντι. A.R. 1.609-10 There, the entire people had been killed without pity all together by the transgressions of the women, in the previous year. On Lemnos, ἄμυδις emphasised the totality of destruction, on Cyzicus it emphasises the unanimity of Dolionian good-will. Unlike the Lemnians, the Doliones have nothing to fear and nothing to hide. Except that, and this is something anyone familiar with a hospitality type-scene will see, they are doing something wrong. ὅτε στόλον ἠδὲ γενέθλην | ἔκλυον οἵ τινες εἶεν, ἐυξείνως ἀρέσαντο – asking questions about identity and //then// extending their hospitality. Why do the Doliones need to know who these strangers are before extending hospitality according to //xenia//? There is no immediate explanation for the inversion but what might make the reader (but not the Argonauts) more circumspect about these friendly Doliones is that we arrive at Cyzicus straight from Lemnos. There we had access (and the Argonauts did not) to the narrator’s backstory and the Lemnian Assembly. The reader acquired some information about the women that for the crew never came to light. At Cyzicus, there is no opportunity to go ‘backstage’ but that does not mean there is nothing there to be seen. Removing those two key sections of the Lemnian episode would have made for a very different reader experience. At Cyzicus our reader experience (in so far as understanding the motivation of the island’s inhabitants) moves closer to that of the Argonauts on Lemnos. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 7b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

'It is right to give thanks to the gods.' [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 7d]] [[Ask Guide -> GuiCyzicus 7b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

An expectation of the violent conflict was suspended as the narrator moved forward in time to provide an //aition// on the anchor-stone and when he returns to the story-time, the expectation dissipates as he narrates instead the Doliones coming to meet the Argonauts in friendship. The signs were there to be read but set in the wrong place. The Argonauts will fight the Earthborn, but not yet. The pattern turns out to be chiastic: Earthborn (942-6) + Doliones (947-52) [Intermission in which the crew disembarks and switches anchors] – Doliones (961-84) – Earthborn (985-1011). The former pairing are the introductions of inhabitants to the reader, the latter reversed pairing those inhabitants encountering the Argonauts. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 7c]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

Cyzicus appears before the Argonauts in the manner he was introduced to the reader, as a king. αὐτὸς ἄναξ reiterates the initial exposition ἥρως Αἰνήιος υἱὸς ἄνασσε | Κύζικος (948-9). The king plays the good host gifting wine and sheep, but there is a recent (and troublesome) intratextual echo. “Ὦ φίλαι, εἰ δ’ ἄγε δὴ μενοεικέα δῶρα πόρωμεν ἀνδράσιν, οἷά τ’ ἔοικεν ἄγειν ἐπὶ νηὸς ἔχοντας, ἤια καὶ μέθυ λαρόν, ἵν’ ἔμπεδον ἔκτοθι πύργων μίμνοιεν, μηδ’ ἄμμε κατὰ χρειὼ μεθέποντες ἀτρεκέως γνώωσι, κακὴ δ’ ἐπὶ πολλὸν ἵκηται βάξις, ἐπεὶ μέγα ἔργον ἐρέξαμεν· οὐδέ τι πάμπαν θυμηδὲς καὶ τοῖσι τό γ’ ἔσσεται, εἴ κε δαεῖεν.” A.R. 1.657-63 ‘Friends, come then, let us give gifts agreeable to the men, the sort they ought to have and take on a ship, provisions, and sweet wine, so that they stay firmly outside the walls, lest through need they visit us and perceive us truly, and an evil report travel far; for we have done a great deed, and it will not be at all cheering to them, if they learn of it.’ The sweet wine Cyzicus gives to his guests recalls Hypsipyle’s suggestion in the Lemnian Assembly to give the Argonauts provisions and sweet wine to keep them out of the city - λαρὸν μέθυ (968) ~ ἤια καὶ μέθυ λαρόν (659). The Lemnian ruler was explicit in voicing her own motivation, μηδ’ ἄμμε κατὰ χρειὼ μεθέποντες | ἀτρεκέως γνώωσι (660-1). Maybe the Doliones and their own ruler do have something to hide. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 8b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 8]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 8]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 9]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 8]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 8]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 9]]

For Mori (2008, p.180), Cyzicus' provisioning of the Argonauts with wine and sheep for sacrifice marks him as a good ruler, and she draws a contrast with Phineus: ‘the sudden death of the young ruler who dies prematurely out of ignorance is opposed to the protracted age of a far-seeing king who long outlives his reign.’ [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 8]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 8]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 9]]

ἀκήρατος ἦεν ἄκοιτις | ὠδίνων (974-5). Here we find the explicit mention that the new wife had not yet had children. Following an episode in which an island of women has been impregnated and the Lemnian future secured, comes a parallel with the young bride yet to go into labour (or indeed conceive). [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

In //Iliad// 11, in a passage beginning with an appeal to the Muses (Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι, //Il//. 11.218), we are told the story of the Thracian youth Iphidamas, son of Antenor. He went to Troy with twelve ships, γήμας δ’ ἐκ θαλάμοιο (11.227). His story is related just before he fights Agamemnon and dies. ὣς ὃ μὲν αὖθι πεσὼν κοιμήσατο χάλκεον ὕπνον οἰκτρὸς ἀπὸ μνηστῆς ἀλόχου, ἀστοῖσιν ἀρήγων, κουριδίης, ἧς οὔ τι χάριν ἴδε, πολλὰ δ’ ἔδωκε· //Il//. 11.241-3 So he fell where he was and slept the bronze sleep - pitiable man, far from the wife he had won, bring help to his countrymen - far from the bride of his marriage: had had known no benefit of her, though he had given much to win her... (trans. Hammond) There can be no mistaking the similarities of circumstances. The following verses proceed to list the particulars of the bride-price (cattle, goats, sheep) which our narrator here summarises as θεσπέσιος ‘divinely sweet’ (977). The verses are also remarkable for the evaluative comment on Iphidamas as οἰκτρὸς ‘pitiable,’ which is found only here in Homer though later recurrent in Tragedy. Cyzicus is not going to fight the Argonauts, he is going to have a meal with them yet he goes shadowed by this other young groom going to die. Additional points of contact: the twelve ships Iphidamas moored (or will moor) at Percote (home of Cyzicus’ father-in-law. Merops), the sons of Merops are killed by Diomedes in the same passage of fighting (//Il//. 11.328f.) and Cyzicus is the grandson of Eusorus, another Thracian (Σ ad 936-49r). [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 9i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

'What was the source of the oracle? Why this mention of Merops?' [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 9b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

Coming after the revelation of the oracle, this is a wonderfully rich and exemplary passage, both full of suggestion and devoid of any explicit confirmations. The reader is painted a picture. Cyzicus is, like Jason, a young man and his beard just sprouting. Unlike Jason, he has a wife but no children yet. They have just been wed. He paid her father Merops a wondrous bride-price and rightly so. She is beautiful (Κλείτη ἐυπλόκαμος, 976). Following on the heels of an oracle about not fighting heroes, an image is conjured of a handsome young couple just starting their lives together that concludes with the new husband leaving the honeymoon suite to meet the newcomers βάλεν δ᾽ ἀπὸ δείματα θυμοῦ. This might not end well. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 9ii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

What did Jason tell Hypsipyle on Lemnos? In his short reply to her expansive and personal account of the Lemnian plight, he told her he was under a trial. At their departure scene, she made reference to the fleece in her speech and hoped for his success in returning it to the king. The reader was thus left to infer that this information was related to her by Jason in the vague time period between the Argonauts accepting Lemnian hospitality and Heracles deciding it was time to move on. From the reported exchange vv.980-4, we might infer that Jason told Cyzicus much the same thing, ‘We’ve been sent by Pelias to fetch the fleece from Colchis.’ When the Argonauts come to meet Lycus, king of Mariandynians in Book 2, the narrator relates that Jason gives the same information to him (2.762ff.) along with an account of their voyage to that point, including all that they did around Cyzicus. Jason is not reticent to share any and all information with the characters he encounters. The problem for the reader is that it is not being shared with us, or rather, the narrator offers us no more than brief reported summary despite our own eagerness to learn. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

There is nothing more to see here. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

'Why now this mention of Pelias? What instigated this voyage?' [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 10b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

A Homeric model for narrative shape is recalled when Argonauts and Cyzicus question one another in turn. As related by Odysseus, Aeolus asked for all the details of Troy and his //nostos// to that point and Odysseus told him all before requesting help for his onward journey (//Od//. 10.14-18). de Jong (2001, p.251) notes the summarising treatment and how the ‘brevity is due to the fact that this scene forms an anticipatory doublet of the much more dramatic second visit (59-76).’ Observing that narrative shape, suggests a return to Cyzicus and a second more dramatic encounter with the young king. Unlike Aeolus, whose refusing Odysseus nothing ‘characterises him as a perfect host’, the mortal Cyzicus here offers limited assistance. In contrast to an Aeolus or to the //Odyssey//’s Circe or Tiresias (the latter’s Argonautic substitute Phineus awaits the reader in Book 2), Cyzicus lacks the knowledge to help, prompting the Argonauts to investigate the landscape for themselves. Cyzicus cannot see further than his own surrounds. We might draw a parallel here with his similar ignorance of his future and make further general comment on the wider theme of ignorance (and the limits of knowledge) of both characters and readers. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

Ardizzoni, A. (1967) //Le Argonautiche: libro I//. Rome. Clare, R. J. (2002) //The Path of the Argo//. Cambridge. Clauss, J.J. (1993) //The Best of the Argonauts//. Berkeley, Calif. de Jong, I. J. F. (2001) //A Narratological commentary on the Odyssey//. Cambridge. Griffin, J. (1980) //Homer on Life and Death//. Oxford. Hopkinson, N. (1988) //A Hellenistic Anthology//. Cambridge. Knight, V. (1995) //The Renewal of Epic//. Leiden. Levin, D. (1971) //The Argonautica Re-examined//. Leiden. Mooney, G. W. (1912) //The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius//. London. Mori, A. (2008) //The Politics of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica//. Cambridge. Morrison, A. D. //Clio and Calliope//. Forthcoming. Race, W. (2008) Apollonius Rhodius: //Argonautica//. Harvard. Thalmann, W. G. (2011) //Apollonius of Rhodes and the spaces of Hellenism//. Oxford. Vian, F. (1974) //Apollonios de Rhodes: Argonautiques//. Paris. Wendel, C. (1935) //Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera//. Berlin.

The speech of the women of Iolcus is the second in a burst of four speeches (A.R. 1.240-305) following the Catalogue of Heroes. With the conclusion of the list (a transition from narrative past and exposition to narrative present), the crowd reacts to the sight of them assembled and now heading to the ship. The focus of the crowd’s speech is the voyage (242-6) but when the women within that crowd speak, their focus is upon Jason’s mother, Alcimede (251-259). Whilst more particular in narrowing its focus on Alcimede’s personal suffering due to the expedition, the speech is also generalising, ἄλλη δ᾽εἰς ἑτέρην (250). The women are speaking to one another, not to Alcimede, despite her being the addressee of the speech’s opening line, Δειλὴ Ἀλκιμέδη, καὶ σοὶ κακὸν ὀφέ περ ἔμπης | ἤλυθεν (251). Theirs is the first reference in the poem to the myth of Phrixos, Helle and the ram coming about in a wish that it had all ended in the Hellespont. Their negative tone is bolstered by evaluative language. The women proclaim that κακός has come to Alcimede (251), the trials are likewise κακός (255) and they describe the ram as κακὸν τέρας (258). For the reader, there is little exposition. We are not told where Helle drowned, how she was related to Phrixos, where the two were going or why or how the speaking ram was involved. No mention has been made of the golden fleece of the poem’s proem (1.4) until these women mention the monster. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

These lands then which the Argonauts rush by are the lands of future and principal Trojan allies. The Argo is passing through potentially hostile territory. The next generation of Greek heroes will fight the men of these regions. Is the haste of narration intertextually motivated? Through its rapid passage, the Argo avoids contact here with dangerous inhabitants of ‘future’ epic. Passing beyond the Hellespont can be read as passing out of the sphere of the //Iliad//. Entering the Propontis and continuing beyond brings new encounters. The verses acknowledge the relevance of these locations to epic whilst the absence of expansion indicates that those are associations for another time. We might here recall the image as the Argo set sail of Chiron’s wife holding the infant Achilles on the shore (A.R. 1.557-8) and the programmatic point it made: the //Argonautica// is its own Hellenistic epic. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 2]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 2]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 3]]

'There is the time before the Argo was built and before our story. There is the time of the story. There is the time after the story but before now. And there is the now, the time of the narrator. Who calls this place Bear Mountain?' [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

ἤ ῥ’ οἵ γ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι, ἦε φιλόξεινοι καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής; //Od//. 9.175-6. 'Oh, whose land have I come to this time? Are they violent,savage and lawless people - or hospitable folk with a god-fearing habit?' (trans. Hammond) In his own story of his encounter with the Cyclops, he repeats the question. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 4c]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

ἤ ῥ’ οἵ γ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι, ἦε φιλόξεινοι καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής; //Od//. 13.201-2. 'Oh, whose land have I come to this time? Are they violent,savage and lawless people - or hospitable folk with a god-fearing habit?' (trans. Hammond) And again he repeats the formula on his return to Ithaca, not realising he is home. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 4b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

de Jong (2001, p.157) notes that these expressions mark Odysseus as the much-travelled man of //Od//. 1-3. The expression is formulated as two alternatives followed by a decision to find out for himself. Here, however, transferred to indirect discourse, the Argonautic narrator gives a statement not a question, Καὶ τὸ μὲν ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι ἐνναίεσκον. The discovering has been done for us. ‘Watch out for Monsters!’ reads the sign. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

In the strict female versus male dichotomy that the Argonautic narrator mapped out in the Lemnian backstory, Hypsipyle bridged the divide. The Odyssean Nausicaa was depicted as exceptional amongst her handmaidens in her beauty, but amongst the Lemnian women Hypsipyle was exceptional in action: ‘She alone out of all saved her aged father.’ The subject there initially suspended then introduced in enjambment and, for the briefest moment, the reader invited to reflect on the nature of her uniqueness before the narrator named daughter and father together - Hypsipyle and Thoas. Just as the principal woman was singled out from the rest in the narrator’s analepsis as the Argo neared Lemnos, here, after turning to the regular human inhabitants in a verse on the general population, the focus narrows onto Cyzicus. The same compressed information though differently ordered - ancestry, status, name - ‘the hero, the son of Aeneus, ruled | Cyzicus’. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

Ναυσίθοον μὲν πρῶτα Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων γείνατο καὶ Περίβοια, γυναικῶν εἶδος ἀρίστη, ὁπλοτάτη θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος Εὐρυμέδοντος, ὅς ποθ᾽ ὑπερθύμοισι Γιγάντεσσιν βασίλευεν. ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν ὤλεσε λαὸν ἀτάσθαλον, ὤλετο δ᾽ αὐτός· τῇ δὲ Ποσειδάων ἐμίγη καὶ ἐγείνατο παῖδα Ναυσίθοον μεγάθυμον, ὃς ἐν Φαίηξιν ἄνασσε· Ναυσίθοος δ᾽ ἔτεκεν Ῥηξήνορά τ᾽ Ἀλκίνοόν τε. τὸν μὲν ἄκουρον ἐόντα βάλ᾽ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων νυμφίον ἐν μεγάρῳ, μίαν οἴην παῖδα λιπόντα Ἀρήτην: τὴν δ᾽ Ἀλκίνοος ποιήσατ᾽ ἄκοιτιν, καί μιν ἔτισ᾽, ὡς οὔ τις ἐπὶ χθονὶ τίεται ἄλλη, ὅσσαι νῦν γε γυναῖκες ὑπ᾽ ἀνδράσιν οἶκον ἔχουσιν. //Od//. 7.56-68 In the first place Nausithoos was born to Poseidon the earthshaker and Periboia, most beautiful of women, the youngest daughter of great-hearted Eurymedon, who was once king of the over-proud Giants: but he destroyed his reckless people, and was destroyed himself. Poseidon lay with his daughter, and the child she gave birth to was great-hearted Nausithoos, who was king among the Phaiacians: and Nausithoos fathered Rhexenor and Alkinoos. Rhexenor, new-married and still sonless, was shot down in his house by Apollo of the silver bow, leaving just one daughter, Arete. Alkinoos made her his wife, and honoured her as no woman on earth is honoured, more than any wife in this world who keeps house for her husband. (trans. Hammond) Poseidon is ancestor to the Phaeacians (//Od//. 7.56ff.) and father of the Cyclops, Polyphemus (//Od//. 9.519). [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 5bi]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

τοῦ γὰρ ἐγὼ πάϊς εἰμί, πατὴρ δ᾽ ἐμὸς εὔχεται εἶναι. αὐτὸς δ᾽, αἴ κ᾽ ἐθέλῃσ᾽, ἰήσεται, οὐδέ τις ἄλλος οὔτε θεῶν μακάρων οὔτε θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων. //Od//. 9.519-21 'I am his [Poseidon's] son, and he my proud father. And he alone will heal me, if that is his wish - no other blessed god or mortal man can do so.' (trans. Hammond) [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 5bii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

οἳ πρὶν μέν ποτ’ ἔναιον ἐν εὐρυχόρῳ Ὑπερείῃ, ἀγχοῦ Κυκλώπων ἀνδρῶν ὑπερηνορεόντων, οἵ σφεας σινέσκοντο, βίηφι δὲ φέρτεροι ἦσαν. //Od//. 6.4-6 In earlier times they had lived in broad Hypereia, near the Cyclopes - an aggressive people who were stronger than them and kept doing them harm. (trans. Hammond) //Odyssey// 6 opened with Athena’s visit to the Phaeacians and an analepsis providing exposition for the Phaeacians' relocation. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 5bii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

Parallels can be made between Doliones and Phaeacians, between Earthborn and Cyclopes. The Phaeacians and Cyclopes once lived in proximity but whereas the Cyclopes’ plundering tendencies (//Od//. 6.6) caused Phaeacian relocation, on Cyzicus there is an uncomfortable co-existence maintained by Poseidon. ἤ ῥ’ οἵ γ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι, ἦε φιλόξεινοι καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής; //Od//. 6.120-1. 'Oh, whose land have I come to this time? Are they violent,savage and lawless people - or hospitable folk with a god-fearing habit?' (trans. Hammond) Monsters do live on the island but so too do civilised men. On Cyzicus both Odyssean options are represented. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

'A second landfall imminent and a second character singled out.' [[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 5]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

ὣς ἐφάμην, τοῖσιν δὲ κατεκλάσθη φίλον ἦτορ μνησαμένοις ἔργων Λαιστρυγόνος Ἀντιφάταο Κύκλωπός τε βίης μεγαλήτορος, ἀνδροφάγοιο. κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντες· ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γάρ τις πρῆξις ἐγίγνετο μυρομένοισιν. //Od//. 10.198-202 So I spoke, and their hearts broke within them - they were thinking of what was done by the Laistrygonian Antiphates and the great man-eating brute, the Cyclops. They wept loud, letting the heavy tears fall: but no good came of their lamentation.(trans Hammond) On the island of Aiaia, Odysseus' surviving crew link memories of both traumatic encounters with monsters. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 6ii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν πόλιος ἐπιβήομεν, ἣν πέρι πύργος ὑψηλός, καλὸς δὲ λιμὴν ἑκάτερθε πόληος, λεπτὴ δ᾽ εἰσίθμη· νῆες δ᾽ ὁδὸν ἀμφιέλισσαι εἰρύαται: πᾶσιν γὰρ ἐπίστιόν ἐστιν ἑκάστῳ. ἔνθα δέ τέ σφ᾽ ἀγορὴ καλὸν Ποσιδήιον ἀμφίς, ῥυτοῖσιν λάεσσι κατωρυχέεσσ᾽ ἀραρυῖα. //Od//. 6.262-67 Then we shall reach the city, There is a high wall round it, and a fine harbour on either side. A narrow isthmus leads in, with balanced ships drawn up on the road: each and every man has his own slipway. There, next to the temple of Poseidon, they have their meeting-place, set round with quarried stones bedded deep in the earth. (trans. Hammond) The princess Nausicaa sketches for Odysseus the layout of the Phaeacian city on Scheria. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 6i]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

Καλὸς δὲ Λιμήν (A.R. 1.954) ~ ἐς λιμένα κλυτόν (//Od//. 10.87) ~ καλὸς δὲ λιμήν (//Od//. 6.263). Fair harbour, fine harbour, fair harbour - who or what lies in wait on the island? Men, monsters, both? Help or slaughter? [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 6b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

κούρῃ δὲ ξύμβληντο πρὸ ἄστεος ὑδρευούσῃ, θυγατέρ᾽ ἰφθίμῃ Λαιστρυγόνος Ἀντιφάταο. ἡ μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἐς κρήνην κατεβήσετο καλλιρέεθρον Ἀρτακίην· ἔνθεν γὰρ ὕδωρ προτὶ ἄστυ φέρεσκον· οἱ δὲ παριστάμενοι προσεφώνεον ἔκ τ᾽ ἐρέοντο ὅς τις τῶνδ᾽ εἴη βασιλεὺς καὶ οἷσιν ἀνάσσοι· //Od//. 10.105-110 Just outside the town they met a girl drawing water - a strong girl, the daughter of Antiphates, king of the Laistrygonians. She had come down to the fine-flowing spring Artakie, where they drew their water for town. The men approached and spoke to her, asking who was king in this country and who the people under his rule... (trans. Hammond) [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 6b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

The Argonauts land and switch anchors, placing the old and lighter stone κρήνῃ ὑπ᾽ Ἀρτακίῃ (957). The spring’s name is the name of the spring in the country of Laestrygonians. Who should the //Odyssey//'s reader expect at the spring? The daughter of Alcinous or the daughter of Antiphates? [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

Levin (1971, p.92) raises the Homeric reader's objection here to the Doliones’ behaviour: ‘Homer’s hosts prefer to feed the stranger-guest before asking who he is, whence he has come, and what business has brought him hither.’ And Irene de Jong (2001, p.17, see ibid., pp.21-3) has analysed the common elements of the type-scene (a welcome, invitation, seating, meal, after-meal talk) which is itself a component of a ‘visit’ type-scene: ‘“visit” scenes are to [the //Odyssey//] what the “battle” scenes are to the //Iliad//.’ ‘Improper’ ‘visit’ scenes do occur in the //Odyssey//, e.g. Circe drugs her guests (//Od//. 10.314-7) and the Cyclops eats his (//Od//. 9.273f.), but it is recognising the model that allows the reader to note the subversions. Circe is able to manipulate her guests because they expect //xenia// and the reader, having already witnessed examples of the standard type-scene, sees the common elements (the welcome, the invitation to sit) and then notices the divergence (drugging the wine). The Cyclops claims to not care less about what is expected of him and eats his ‘guests.’ The Argonautic hospitality scenes might not all follow Homeric practice but they do depend on an awareness of the standard from which to note the differences (as with any intertext). Whilst Clauss (1993, p.160 n.28) points out Vian’s objections to Levin in light of how such scenes play out in the //Argonautica//, the rewrites are, I think, always demanding to be read against the model. Cf. the audience with Aeetes at A.R. 3.299f. The king is livid that he has fed his guests first before questioning them and now cannot kill them. He’s angry with himself for dutifully observing Homeric practice! [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

Character motivation. Cyzicus acts in obedience to an oracle. From friendly greeting to questioning to accommodating to explanation – the critical information has been saved for last. What was the oracle that Cyzicus heard? There is no source given and no direct quotation, only an indirect report. Was it simply as reported, ‘Be friendly to heroes and do not fight them’? This is sound advice but it is not especially oracular. Is there a missing ‘or else’ to be inferred? ‘Fight with heroes and you will die.’ Was the oracle ‘You will meet your death at the hands of an expedition of heroes’? If this is closer to the original expression, then the indirect report is in fact a combination of actorial motivation and a strategy for avoiding Fate. On this reading, Cyzicus opts to be friendly not because that is his natural disposition but because he is motivated by self-preservation. What were the circumstances in which Cyzicus received this oracle? Did he seek an oracle out asking if he would have a long life? From whom did he receive it? These questions are all prompted by an incomplete and reported motivation. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 8]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 8]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 9]]

Or grooms. οἳ δ᾽ εἶχον Φυλάκην καὶ Πύρασον ἀνθεμόεντα Δήμητρος τέμενος, Ἴτωνά τε μητέρα μήλων, ἀγχίαλόν τ᾽ Ἀντρῶνα ἰδὲ Πτελεὸν λεχεποίην, τῶν αὖ Πρωτεσίλαος ἀρήϊος ἡγεμόνευε ζωὸς ἐών· τότε δ᾽ ἤδη ἔχεν κάτα γαῖα μέλαινα. τοῦ δὲ καὶ ἀμφιδρυφὴς ἄλοχος Φυλάκῃ ἐλέλειπτο καὶ δόμος ἡμιτελής: τὸν δ᾽ ἔκτανε Δάρδανος ἀνὴρ νηὸς ἀποθρῴσκοντα πολὺ πρώτιστον Ἀχαιῶν. //Il//. 2.695-702 Those who held Phylake and Pyrasos full of flowers, the precinct of Demeter, and Iton the mother of flocks, and Antron by the sea and the deep meadows of Pteleos, these were led by the warrior Protesilaos, while he lived; but by then the black earth held him under. He had left a wife in Phylake, her cheeks torn with grieving, and a house half-finished. A Dardanian man killed him as he jumped from his ship, by far the first to land of the Achaians. (trans. Hammond) To Iphidamas, we can add the first of the Greeks to die at Troy, Protesilaus, whose death is here related in a narratorial analepsis - ‘the most famous example of this mythological topos (Knight 1995, p.87 citing ibid. n.16 Griffin 1980, p.131-4).’ Knight acknowledges the Iphidamas model as the fullest treatment but fills out the briefer Iliadic treatment of Protesilaus (//Il//. 2.700-1) with details from tradition, ‘he had only one day of married life before going to Troy (Knight 1995, p. 87 citing Euripides’ Protesilaus (Σ ad Aristidem 671f.).' [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 9ii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

δείματα puzzled Levin (1971, p.95-6) who observes the lack of explicit reference and the need to infer that Cyzicus' fear relates to the oracle. He strains to reconcile a conflict between two oracles, one to be friendly to strangers and another to not fear them, the latter motivated by warlike neighbours (the Pelasgians/Macrians) who occur nowhere in the text until the Doliones’ mistaken supposition when the Argonauts return (see Levin 1971, p.93-5). When the narrative is deliberately suppressive, every reader is forced to negotiate doubts, make inferences, and find compromises. My reading is that vv.976-9 are an analepsis. Cyzicus and the Doliones meet the Argonauts and ask who they are. Only then do they invite them to a meal. The king is generous because of the oracle. Description of the king transitions to description of his queen who is not present. This is now exposition that has slipped back temporally to their wedding then to him leaving the bridal chamber apprehensively (because of the oracle and because he hasn’t met the Argonauts yet) then back to the narrative present on the shore with the Argonauts ready for the after-meal talk element of the ‘visit’ type-scene. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

These doomed Homeric grooms share similar backgrounds but no attendant prophecies. However, an attempt to circumvent Fate calls to mind another recently married man: the account of the demise of Croesus’ son Atys in Herodotus, a young man whose death by an iron weapon Croesus foresaw in a dream (Hdt. 1.34.2). Despite attempts to remove all threat, he reluctantly allowed his son (νεόγαμός τε γὰρ ἐστί, 1.36.3) to join a boar-hunt during which he was killed by friendly fire, an erroneous spear-throw from the Phrygian Adrastus, a guest in his house (οἰκίοισι ὑποδεξάμενος τὸν ξεῖνον φονέα τοῦ παιδὸς ἐλάνθανε βόσκων, 1.44.2). Observing guest-host relations is no guarantee of survival. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 9b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

ἔνθ᾽ ἑλέτην δίφρόν τε καὶ ἀνέρε δήμου ἀρίστω υἷε δύω Μέροπος Περκωσίου, ὃς περὶ πάντων ᾔδεε μαντοσύνας, οὐδὲ οὓς παῖδας ἔασκε 330 στείχειν ἐς πόλεμον φθισήνορα· τὼ δέ οἱ οὔ τι πειθέσθην· κῆρες γὰρ ἄγον μέλανος θανάτοιο. //Il//. 11.328-32 Then they caught a chariot and the men in it, leading men of their district, the two sons of Merops of Perkote, who had knowledge of seercraft beyond all others, and kept trying to stop his sons from going to war which takes men's lives. But they would not listen to him, as the fates of black death were leading them on. (trans. Hammond) The sons of Merops, Cyzicus's new father-in-law, are killed by Diomedes. Merops was a prophet who foresaw their deaths at Troy. They would not listen to him and went to war. At v.975 of our text, there is the explicit mention of Merops. In the intertext, Merops and his two dead sons are located eighty-five verses after Iphidamas dies. Μέροπος Περκωσίου is in the same //sedes// in both text and intertext. A plausible source emerges for Cyzicus’ oracle and one might infer that the prophecy similarly foretold his death (albeit making Merops’ prophetic utterances gloomily one-note in the process). Merops’ sons did not listen to his prophecies and die at Troy (or will die there in the chronology of the story-time). See Σ ad 1.977, Vian 1974, p.96 n.3, Mooney ad loc, Ardizzoni ad loc (who noted the //sedes//). Clauss (1993, p.155) speculates that Apollonius might have got the idea of a prophecy from //Il//. 2.830-34 but not that Merops himself presents an obvious source in the narrative. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 9b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

The Argonauts will ascend Dindymum to assess the route ahead because Cyzicus we are told does not know. Is that lack of knowledge the narrator’s comment or what Cyzicus actually said? The very first direct speech of the poem is anonymous, an expression of the thoughts of the crowd and the very first line is a question: Ζεῦ ἄνα, τίς Πελίαο νόος, v.242. What is the intention of Pelias? [[Read Journal -> LogCyzicus 10b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

Τοίην γὰρ Πελίης φάτιν ἔκλυεν, ὥς μιν ὀπίσσω μοῖρα μένει στυγερή, τοῦδ᾽ ἀνέρος, ὅν τιν᾽ ἴδοιτο δημόθεν οἰοπέδιλον, ὑπ᾽ ἐννεσίῃσι δαμῆναι. A.R. 1.5-7 For such was the oracle Pelias heard, how a hateful fate awaited him in the future, that he would be killed through the designs of that man whom he would see coming from the people, wearing one sandal. Apollo's oracle is reported indirectly. The reader is not privy to the wording. What the reader receives is a character’s interpretation of them since the account that follows, vv.5-7, is focalised through Pelias. The king, we are told, fears he will perish at some unknown future point through the designs of the one-sandalled man, ὑπ᾽ ἐννεσίῃσι τοῦδ᾽ ἀνέρος. αἶψα δὲ τόνγ᾽ ἐσιδὼν ἐφράσσατο, καί οἱ ἄεθλον ἔντυε ναυτιλίης πολυκηδέος, ὄφρ᾽ ἐνὶ πόντῳ ἠὲ καὶ ἀλλοδαποῖσι μετ᾽ ἀνδράσι νόστον ὀλέσσῃ. A.R. 1.15-17 As soon as he saw him [Jason], he made a plan and arranged the trial of a grievous voyage. so that either on the sea or amongst men he would destroy his homecoming. Jason does not know that the motivation he offers Cyzicus now for the quest is not the motivation of Pelias in ordering it. The intention of Pelias is to avoid a prophecy and destroy Jason’s //nostos//. What is the intention of Cyzicus? [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 10]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

It is not the first time these two sons have been mentioned in the //Iliad//. They appeared by name in the Catalogue, Adrastus and Amphius amongst the leaders of the Trojan allies (//Il//. 2.830). //Il//. 11.329-4 is a verbatim repetition of //Il//. 2.831-4. Within a transitional passage through the Hellespont which recalled a Trojan catalogue, one crucial echo has been omitted which when it now occurs both confirms the earlier Catalogue intertext and explains the prophet’s (suspended) absence until now. The suspension of the mention of Merops might be read as a comment on the correct placement of a passage. This interpretation can be corroborated by viewing the narrator’s arrangement of the locations. He has collected and corrected the geography of the region. The Argonauts passed through an updated and revised Homeric Catalogue (e.g. the inclusion of Abarnis, found in Hecataeus (//FrGH// 1 F220) but not in Homer). See Clauss 1993, p.154. And in an episode which has a fondness for doubling, we now have an Iliadic Adrastus to join the Herodotean Adrastus in the context of oracular allusions. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 9]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 9]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 10]]

After explaining their presence there, the Argonauts carry on with marking the moment. Just as at v.402f. they built an altar to Apollo Actius and Embasius before setting out, now they build an altar to Apollo Ecbasius. If passage beyond the Hellespont is viewed as a transition, a move into new and unknown territory, then the altar to Apollo here marks the beginning of a second stage of the voyage as the narrative pushes on beyond any recognisably Greek territories. For Thalmann, who has brought spatial theory to bear on the Argonautic narrative, putting down markers is symbolic of their conquest of space, a making the Other into the Greek. Regarding this altar, he discusses the importance of stories of friendly encounters to a colonial narrative and considers the altar a marker that ‘commemorates contact between the Greek newcomers and the local people (Thalmann 2011, p.95).’ In recalling the altar at Pagasae, it can be read as establishing a link back to mainland Greece. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 7ci]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

Mori (2008, pp.156f.) has documented and tabulated an impressive ‘thirty sacrifices, libations, and offerings’ in the poem, and eight more possibles. This sacrifice would be the fifth performed by the Argonauts in the narrative thus far; the first being the one to Apollo mentioned above, the second to Zeus (vv.516-7), the third to Dolops (vv.587-8), and the fourth the joint sacrifice with the Lemnian women to all the gods. There will be another fourteen before the Argonauts reach Colchis as ‘the narrator marks the Argo’s progress with a fairly inclusive record of sacrifices at landings and embarkations, funerals, purifications, celebrations of thanksgiving, as well as simple meals (Mori 2008, p.161).’ Repetition becomes pattern and there is comfort in routines. For a moment there is a lull in the narrative - the crew engage in sacrifice and the reader who had feared an Earthborn attack is made a more relaxed observer). [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

The Laestrygonians: Also in //Odyssey// 10 is Odysseus’s narration of the encounter with the Laestrygonians. On the approach, Odysseus gives an expansive description of the harbour which has a narrow entrance and is protected either side by sheer cliffs (//Od//. 10.87-93). All the ships moor there save his own which he moors just outside. He then scales an outlook point to survey the surroundings (10.96-7) and sends three of his men into the city (10.100-2). At the spring of Artacie, they encounter the daughter of the Laestrygonian Antiphates who takes them to her father’s house (10.104-11). The Laestrygonians themselves are akin to giants (10.120), violent and cannibalistic. All the ships moored in harbour are pelted with boulders and crushed, their crew speared for food. In the meantime, Odysseus and his own crew make their escape. [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 1ii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

Aeolus and the Laestrygonians: The general parallels between inhabitants are clear. In place of Aeolus and his family, in the Argonautic episode we find Cyzicus and the Doliones. The first encounter is friendly and the Doliones give what aid they can. The second encounter, following a similarly inadvertent return to the island, results in battle much as Odysseus receives an inhospitable albeit not violent response in his second encounter with Aeolus. In place of the Laestrygonians, it is the Earthborn who attack the ship moored in safe harbour. The Earthborn, like the Laestrygonians are physically imposing (ἀπὸ στιβαρῶν ὤμων δύο, A.R. 1.945), and aggressive (ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι, 942 and ἔκπαγλοί, 950). Notably, however, the Argonauts negotiate their encounter with savages unscathed, whereas the Laestrygonians accounted for the loss of eleven of Odysseus’ twelve ships and their crews (an encounter which reduces Odysseus to one ship and makes the //Odyssey// an even better parallel for the //Argonautica//). However, and importantly, the two successive Odyssean models are merged. The Doliones and the Earthborn are separated not by seven days’ sailing but by a narrow isthmus and within this close geographical proximity, their narratives are intertwined (Earthborn - Doliones - Earthborn – Doliones). Recognising the models, and reading them into the narrative, can thus confound the intertextual reader’s expectations. What promises to become a violent encounter with ‘Laestrygonians’ turns out to be a pleasant encounter with ‘Aeolus’ only for the ‘Laestrygonians’ to show up and after a fight and quick getaway becomes a return visit to ‘Aeolus.’ [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

What we do not find in the episode is any direct speech. This is a marked contrast with the previous episode in which the reader had access to the Lemnian Assembly, to Jason’s audience with Hypsipyle, to Heracles upbraiding the group and to Jason and Hypsipyle’s farewells: all in character speech. On Cyzicus, the reader is being excluded. The privileges granted on Lemnos are suddenly denied. On Lemnos, the narrator both left gaps and made ambiguous statements that forced the reader to infer and build interpretations on those inferences. Character-speech in some instances (e.g. Polyxo’s) confirmed inferences, in others (Hypsipyle’s rewriting Lemnian history) challenged the reader with assessing what was true or what mattered as truth. When the narrator’s manner on Cyzicus continues to be both gap-riddled and oblique, the reader’s difficulties arise not from having to reconcile different evidence presented in the story but how to construct sense when given too little. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 1]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 1]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 2]]

Other Homeric instances show the formula to be a common way to begin a description when telling a tale. Other instances are //Il//. 2.811 (‘There is in front of the city, a steep mound...’), 11.711 (‘Now there is a city, Thryoessa...’ Nestor’s tale), 722 (‘Now there is a river, Minyeius...’ Nestor again), 13.32 (‘There is a wide cave... halfway between Tenedos and rocky Imbros’), //Od//. 3.293 (‘There is a smooth cliff, steep towards the sea...’). The formula is employed by the Argonautic narrator on four more occasions to set the scene, 2.360 (Phineus giving directions), 3.927, 4.282, 982 (all narrator). The use of the formula at //Il//. 2.811, Ἔστι δέ τις προπάροιθε πόλιος αἰπεῖα κολώνη, precedes the Trojan catalogue and concerns a mound known by two names. Men call it Batieia but the immortals call it the grave-mound of Myrine, σῆμα πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης (//Il//. 2.814). By the close of this episode, Cyzicus too will have a sēma. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 3]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 3]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 4]]

In Homer, the phrase μέγα θαῦμα mainly occurs in character-text; in the //Iliad// in the repeated line, ὢ πόποι ἦ μέγα θαῦμα τόδ’ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι (//Il//. 13.99, 15.286, 20.344, 21.54) and once in the //Odyssey// in the slight variant, ὦ πάτερ, ἦ μέγα θαῦμα τόδ’ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι (//Od//. 19.36). Whilst on the look-out for monsters, another being considered a wonder by Odysseus was Polyphemus himself (//Od//. 9.190). [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 4ii]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

The monstrous Typhon of //Pythian// 1 spurting fire from Aetna is a wonder to see and a wonder to hear about, θαυμάσιον προσιδέσθαι, θαῦμα δὲ καὶ παρεόντων ἀκοῦσαι (Pi. //P//. 26). These six-armed creatures in the //Argonautica// are certainly monsters and for the language used to describe them, the narrator turns to Hesiod and the description of the Hundred-Handers (Hes. //Th//. 150-3, 671-3). [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 4]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 4]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 5]]

The description of Cyzicus’ parentage has the same sheen of Homeric grandeur used to describe Sicinus, progeny of Thoas and the nymph Oenoe (625-6). The phrase κούρη τέκεν has already been employed twice in the Catalogue of Heroes for the offspring of mortal women and gods, v.55 (Aethalides) and v.136 (Nauplius). It occurs once more in Jason’s account of Ariadne’s lineage: ἥν ῥά τε Πασιφάη κούρη τέκεν Ἠελίοιο (3.999). The narrator is introducing Cyzicus as a man of sound stock. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 5]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 5]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 6]]

'//Themis// is doing what is right.' [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 6c]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

This first occurrence of //themis// in the episode is the narrator’s comment on the actions of later settlers, doing what was ‘right.’ Its first occurrence in the //Iliad// is in the speech of Agamemnon to the commanders concerning making trial of the men ‘as is customary’ (//Il//. 2.73), after which 9.33 (Diomedes to Ag.), 9.134 (Agamemnon speaks of not having slept with Briseis as is customary), 9.276 (repeated to Achilles by Odysseus, and again 19.177), 11.779 (Nestor speaks of Achilles’ hospitality), 23.44 (Achilles will not wash away the blood until Patroclus is buried), 23.581 (Antilochus told to take an oath), 24.652 (Achilles speaks of the habit of the Achaean commanders). All these instances are character-text. The narrator then is again taking the character-language of the Homeric hero, and here extracting it as a model of proper usage to be then applied by himself to the actions of historical Ionian settlers. This is an example of what Morrison has termed ‘ethnographic themis’: ‘In Homer it was the characters who employed terms such as //themis// in order to articulate their ethics to one another (and by extension, to the audience), but in Apollonius such terms are employed by the primary narrator adopting an external point of view as to what is correct in heroic society.’ [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 6]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 6]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 7]]

'These Doliones are //very// friendly.' [[Visit Seer -> ComCyzicus 7e]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

The Doliones persuade (πέπιθον) the Argonauts to move the ship from its initial anchorage into the city harbour. On the surface this is a friendly suggestion. When the Earthborn reappear and make their assault, the first thing they do is seek to seal in the Argo (989). All the preceding conversations between Doliones and Argonauts are related indirectly and the Earthborn have dropped out of the narrative. As the episode advances, the lack of any direct access becomes increasingly problematic. The reader already knows the Earthborn are out there but do the Argonauts have any idea prior to the assault? Do the Doliones mention them at all? If they do, the narrator does not relay that on to the reader. The Doliones are described as φιλότητι (961), ἐυξείνως (963) and later ἐυξείνοισι Δολίοσιν (1018) although that last citation is just prior to battling the Argonauts. Maybe, perhaps, possibly it could be inferred that these people are //too// welcoming. The Argonauts, of course, have less reason for suspicions. They had a very different Lemnian experience to the reader. [[Consult Scrolls -> TextsCyzicus 7b]] [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

In the Laestrygonian model, the harbour is the ambush site. It is only the fact that Odysseus stayed back and moored his own ship outside of it (as do the Argonauts initially here) that saved him from the Laestrygonians. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

Will future viewers of the altar will be reminded of two people meeting in friendship? Stories change. In the immediately preceding narrative, it is the narrator who focalises the Dolionian greeting and it is his evaluation ‘friendly’ (961) that is presented in the story. This then is the evaluation encoded into the altar at the time of construction – a sēma of a friendly encounter between Greeks and foreigners. It provides an actorial motivation for the altar’s construction. It is built to commemorate that amicable event, to relate a moment of contact and friendship. However, if in the process of reading the episode, that narratorial evaluation (encoded into the sēma) is called into question, the message on the altar is destabilised and subject to revision. If I, as a reader, become suspicious of the Doliones and whilst reading begin to suspect some insincerity (or irony) in the narratorial qualification of v.961, then the story of the sēma is no longer ‘friendly’ in any straightforward way. Or if, on reaching the end of the episode, I interpret the deaths of Cyzicus and Cleite as entirely accidental and avoidable then the positivity the altar’s construction was intended to represent to future observers, to be triggered by me as viewer/reader, is nuanced by my reflections on what unfolded that I evaluated as a senseless tragedy. The sēma is encoded at a specific point in the narrative but the message is not stable. It is modified by interpretation and subsequent revision of interpretations. [[Explore -> ExCyzicus 7]] [[Return to Story -> Cyzicus 7]] [[Continue Story -> Cyzicus 8]]

A reader experiment using Apollonius of Rhodius' //Argonautica// 1.922-984 as the sample text (hereafter cited A.R.). The sample relates the Argonauts' approach to Cyzicus and their meeting with the people there and the king (also Cyzicus!). I’ve made the structure and syntax for the experiment straightforward. The sample has been split into ten ‘chunks’ and the quickest route through is simply to click ‘Continue Story’ and read along. ‘Continue Story’ always advances you to the next ‘chunk’ of the text and ‘Return to Story’ always takes you back to the last one. The ‘Explore’ option opens four additional options, summarised as follows: ‘Read Journal’ – the place to find citations of any (potentially) relevant information found in the text so far (A.R. 1.1-921). ‘Consult Scrolls’ – the place to find citations of any (potentially) relevant intertexts (here restricted to Homer). ‘Ask Guide’ – the place for occasional reading prompts. ‘Visit Seer’ – the pompously titled place for (my) commentary on the passage. It's essentially an experiment in how additional information modifies the straightforward reading process of clicking 'Continue' from 1-10, trying to always give the option to return to the story from any tangential path. Translations of the //Argonautica// are my own. Translations of the //Iliad// and the //Odyssey// those of Martin Hammond (1987, 2000). [[Start Story -> Cyzicus 1]]

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A reader experiment using Apollonius of Rhodius' Argonautica 1.922-984 as the sample text (hereafter cited A.R.). The sample relates the Argonauts' approach to Cyzicus and their meeting with the people there and the king (also Cyzicus!).

I’ve made the structure and syntax for the experiment straightforward. The sample has been split into ten ‘chunks’ and the quickest route through is simply to click ‘Continue Story’ and read along.

‘Continue Story’ always advances you to the next ‘chunk’ of the text and ‘Return to Story’ always takes you back to the last one.

The ‘Explore’ option opens four additional options, summarised as follows:

‘Read Journal’ – the place to find citations of any (potentially) relevant information found in the text so far (A.R. 1.1-921).
‘Consult Scrolls’ – the place to find citations of any (potentially) relevant intertexts (here restricted to Homer).
‘Ask Guide’ – the place for occasional reading prompts.
‘Visit Seer’ – the pompously titled place for (my) commentary on the passage.

It's essentially an experiment in how additional information modifies the straightforward reading process of clicking 'Continue' from 1-10, trying to always give the option to return to the story from any tangential path.

Translations of the Argonautica are my own. Translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey those of Martin Hammond (1987, 2000).

Start Story