A—
The Active Heroism of Heracles in Perspective (1153–1272)
a—
The Loss of Hylas (1153–1239)
Unable to use their sail because of the absence of wind as they leave Cyzicus, the Argonauts decide to have a rowing contest in which the winner will be the last crewman to give up. In the midst of the contest, the men succeed in driving the ship at such a speed that, in the words of the narrator, not even the horses of Poseidon would have overcome it (1157–58). Then, toward late afternoon, one by one they give up until Heracles rows alone and
drives the Argo forward by himself, even causing the timbers of the ship to shake because of his massive strength. Thus Heracles can claim victory in the contest. But just as they are passing the Rhyndacus River and the tomb of Ægæon, the victor's oar breaks in two. With his oar now broken, the hero is reduced to a state of shock because, as the narrator tells us, his hands were unused to inactivity (1170–71).
Apollonius calls attention to the tomb of Ægæon not merely to parade his knowledge of local landmarks but because the tomb bears a thematic relevance to the loss of Heracles' oar and its consequences. The mythic figure Ægæon is not the Hesiodic Uranid here (cf. Th. 147–53, 617–20). According to Lucillus Tarrhæus (apudSad 1.1165c, d [= fr. 11a Linnenkugel]), a first-century-A.D. commentator, Apollonius's Ægæon was the giant who fled from Euboea[*] and died near Phrygia. Tarrhæus draws his information from the Heracleia of Cinæthon (Davies p. 142 a),[7] who tells how Poseidon drowned Ægæon for competing against him.[8] Recognition that this is the Ægæon whose tomb the Argonauts pass is important for the understanding of events in this episode; for Ægæon and Heracles have something in common. Although it may not be immediately apparent, the contest that leads to Heracles' abandonment indirectly involves Poseidon. When the Argonauts get their vessel up to full speed, as mentioned just above, Apollonius states that not even the horses of Poseidon could have caught up with it (1157–58). Even after the rest of the men give up from exhaustion, Heracles continues to row the ship by himself. The authorial comment, in conjunction with the reference to Ægæon's tomb, suggests that the contest has gone too far: the Argonauts—and Heracles in particular—appear to be competing with Poseidon, a very risky challenge. The reader can find confirmation of the fact that the rowing contest has involved the god of the sea in that the Argonauts recognize the absence of Heracles just after they pass the Cape of Poseidon (cf. 1279), a notice that the poet has set at the center of the episode.
There are other indications in the text that Heracles' behavior courts divine disfavor. In his amusing depiction of Heracles after he broke his oar, Apollonius alludes to an Odyssean episode in which Poseidon plays a central role. When Heracles holds on to one half of his oar as the other slips into the sea, he sits and stares in silent disbelief at what has happened to him:
One piece he held
in both his hands as he fell sideways; the sea, carrying away
the other piece , swallowed it in its surf. He sat up , silently
looking around; for his hands were unused to inaction.
The wording recalls the demise of the lesser Ajax in Book 4 of the Odyssey . After Poseidon had saved Ajax from the storm that wrecked so many ships of the Greek fleet, the arrogant boaster insisted that he had saved himself. The enraged god then split the rock on which he sat in two, one piece remaining fixed and the other falling into the sea:[9]
He [sc. Ajax] said that he had escaped the great depth of the sea
in spite of the gods.
Poseidon heard him utter this hybristic boast
and immediately upon taking his trident in his massive hands ,
he struck the Gyræan rock, splitting it in half.
One part remained there, but the other slipped into the sea ,
the part on which Ajax was seated when he made his deluded
comment;
this carried him down within the swollen, boundless sea.
By inviting us to think of Ajax's hybristic defiance in Heracles' rowing of the Argo and in the breaking of his oar, Apollonius calls this remarkable feat into question. Comparison with the demise of Oilean Ajax encourages us to view Heracles' rowing as arrogant competition with the god of the sea.
Heracles broke his oar in the early evening ( 
, 1160). The Argonauts pull into the land of the Mysians around the dinner hour, as Apollonius makes clear in a simile:
At the time when a gardener or 
eagerly goes from the
field toward his hut, 
,
and there at the entrance bends his worn 
,
caked with dust, and looking at his gnarled hands
utters many a curse against his stomach,
at that time the heroes reached the towns of the Cianian land
around Mount Arganthoneion and the mouth of the Cius River.
The simile is a contaminatio of two Homeric similes: Il. 11.86–89 and Od. 13.31–35.[10] In the Iliadic simile, the Greek army breaks through the Trojan line at the time when a weary lumberjack has his lunch:
At the time when a lumberjack prepared his dinner
in the mountain glens, after wearing out his hands
cutting tall trees and feeling within that he had had enough,
and 
overcomes his thoughts,
at this time the Danaans courageously broke through the enemy
lines.
In the Odyssean simile, the poet likens Odysseus, who longed for his last day on Phæacia to end, to a tired plowman who desires to go home for dinner:
As when a man 
, a man for whom all day long
a pair of dusky steers pulled his sturdy 
through the fallow
land,
and the light of the sun set 
for him
so that he can go to prepare his dinner, his 
aching as he
walked,
just so welcome was sunset for Odysseus.
In both Homeric similes, the occupation of the laborer and his sense of hunger, although poignant details, are of secondary importance to the issue of time. Apollonius, however, has heightened the importance of these details by making them equally relevant to the narrative, as will be seen below.[11]
Some have seen the gardener and plowman of the Apollonian simile as representing all the Argonauts, who likewise are weary and hungry from their rowing.[12] On the contrary, the one
Argonaut whom the poet highlights in the contest is also the main focus of the simile. In his description of Heracles' rowing, Apollonius says that the hero creates furrows in the water ( 
, 1167), and when his oar breaks, he sits and gazes silently. Although we are not told the object of his stare, the following comment gives us an idea: 
(1171b). Heracles, then, appears to stare at his hands.[13] In the simile that follows, the gardener or plowman, whose work entails the digging of furrows, like the Iliadic lumberjack stares at his hands (1175–76). Thus the Argonautic simile would appear to keep the reader's attention on Heracles. Besides occupation, weariness, and the time of day of their work, a more telling point of contact between Heracles and the laborers of all three similes is their hunger.[14] Heracles traditionally had an enormous appetite to match his great size, and this, as the reader will soon observe, is the source of his imminent troubles.
While the Argonauts prepare to eat their dinner, Heracles orders them to begin while he goes off to secure another oar. Fränkel has seen in his willingness to put off eating an indication of Heracles' Stoic commitment to duty.[15] Yet Heracles' frenzied response to the loss of Hylas belies such a philosophical stance. Although Apollonius does not make Heracles' feelings about his dinner explicit, the previous simile suggests that Heracles, like the agricultural laborers with whom he is compared, is not altogether pleased with having to work before his meal. In this case, the work will consist of finding and uprooting a small tree out of which to fashion his new oar. One can now better appreciate how thoroughly and successfully Apollonius "contaminated" the two Homeric similes. In the Iliad the hungry worker was a
lumberjack,[16] and in the Odyssey he was a plowman; in the Argonautica , Heracles digs furrows in the sea and then afterwards uproots a tree on land.
In describing the tree that Heracles plans to use for his oar, Apollonius imitates a line from an episode of the Odyssey in which another club-wielding figure of legend played a central role, the Cyclops Polyphemus. The Argonautic description runs as follows:
Then in his wanderings he [sc. Heracles] found a pine tree, neither
laden
with too many branches nor excessively leafy,
but that was like the stock of a slender poplar;
it appeared equal in length and thickness to the eye .
When Odysseus and his men were inside Polyphemus's cave, they discovered his club, which Odysseus describes to his Phæacian audience in these words:[17]
For along the pen lay the Cyclops's great club,
made from the green branch of an olive tree that he had cut to
carry
after it dried out. Upon seeing it we said it looked like
the 
of a black twenty-oared 
,
a wide freighter, which sails the deep sea;
it was equal in length and thickness to look at .
In addition to imitating Od. 9.324, a few lines later Apollonius also borrows the Odyssean ship simile; but instead of having it qualify the size of the tree (Homer has his simile qualify the size of Polyphemus's club). he applies it to Heracles' uprooting of the tree ( 
, 1201ff.), thereby equating the violence that Heracles uses to uproot the tree with the force of the sudden squall that tears out a ship's mast. Much like the allusion to Ajax, this Odyssean reference introduces a subtext that provides an inauspicious parallel for Heracles; for the huge and powerful Polyphemus was blinded by Odysseus, whom he describes insultingly as one lacking in stature ( 
, Od. 9.515). In point of fact, the great hero was soon to experience intense pain at the loss of the young Hylas, whom one might well style 
. What is more, both Heracles and Polyphemus owe their suffering to their excessive appetites.
Reference to the Polyphemus episode continues in the third section of this first ring (a ). When we first meet Hylas, he, like Heracles, also goes off to fetch something, in his case water for his master's dinner:
In the meantime Hylas, taking a pitcher of bronze, set off apart
from
the group in search of the holy stream of a fountain, so that he
might
draw water for dinner and have all the other things
ready and in order before Heracles returned.
Before Apollonius, there are only three extant occurrences of the word 
: at Od. 9.234 and 249, and in a parody of these lines by Matron of Pitane, quoted by Athenæus (4.136f):[18]
He [ sc. Polyphemus] carried a huge bundle
of dried wood so that it might be available to him for his dinner .
He brought it within his cave and threw it down with a crash.
And [the other] half he poured into vessels, so that it might be
at hand
to drink when he wanted and be available to him for his dinner .
He was as hungry as a lion and took in his hand the leg of a lamb,
so that it might be available to him for his dinner when he returned
home.
Imitation of the Homeric 
is particularly clever; for in the first instance, Polyphemus is bringing home wood for his dinner (» Heracles returning with the tree for his new oar), and in the second, he places milk in a vessel to drink with his dinner (» Hylas fetches a beverage for Heracles' dinner). I quote the parody by Matron not because I suppose that Apollonius necessarily had it in mind, but because the fourth-century-B.C. satirist uses the word when talking about the gluttonous parasite Chærephon. From its celebrated context in Homer, this word would appear to have become associated with men of voracious appetites.
To sum up what we have seen thus far: in the rowing contest Apollonius implicitly compared Heracles to Ægæon and Ajax, both of whom dared to rival Poseidon, and explicitly to a hungry farmer. In the securing of a new oar and in the preparation for Heracles' dinner, allusion to the cannibalistic Polyphemus, whose cave is filled with all sorts of foods, brings to mind a well-known Homeric figure who is characterized by his excessive hunger and irreverence toward the gods (cf. Od. 9.273–78). All three suffered as a result of their folly: both Ægæon and Ajax were killed at sea for daring to rival Poseidon, and Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, was blinded by his own club because of his cruelty and appetite. These three figures provide the backdrop against which the story of how Heracles acquired Hylas should be read. They offer eloquent comment on why Heracles loses him.
Apollonius explains the speed and care of Hylas's preparations for Heracles' dinner in a brief digression. Heracles had trained the youth well in his duties ever since the time he had taken him from his father, Theiodamas, whom the hero killed over a draft ox.[19] The narrator informs us, however, that this was merely a pretext for initiating a war against the unjust Dryopians (1207–20). Apollonius's sketchy telling of the tale conflicts in several points with that of Callimachus, who many agree was Apollonius's model.[20] In the Ætia fr. (fr. 22–25 Pf.), Callimachus combined two stories involving Heracles 
: the sacrifice of Lindos and the tale of Theiodamas. In the former, Heracles took the draft ox (cf. Ætia fr. 22 Pf.) of an unnamed Lindian and consumed it in toto ; while he did so, the innocent plowman hurled curses at him, a fact that explains why the people of Lindos continue the practice of sacrificing to Heracles with curses.[21] In the latter of the two
stories, the victim of Heracles' 
is not innocent. Heracles asks the Dryopian Theiodamas if he would give him some food from his lunch bag for his hungry son, Hyllus, which the cruel Theiodamas arrogantly refuses (cf. Ætia fr. 24.13 Pf.). As Vian observed, Apollonius's version is a contaminatio of the two Callimachean accounts: the wicked Theiodamas of the Dryopian tale in the Argonautica becomes the innocent plowman of the Lindian.[22] The Apollonian Theiodamas is not a brute but a noble man ( 
, 1213), beset with troubles ( 
, 1216) and pitilessly killed by Heracles ( 
, 1214).[23] Heracles uses his encounter with the wretched Theiodamas—there is no mention of a hungry Hyllus—as a grim pretext ( 
) for war against the unjust Dryopians. Even granting the low moral status of the Dryopians, Heracles' instigation of the war nonetheless evinces an equal disregard for justice; for he took it upon himself to begin a war by murdering an innocent plowman over a draft animal that, in fuller accounts of this story, he then ate. Apollonius stops short of mentioning this detail with a statement that he is digressing too far from his narrative (1220). Thus the simile comparing Heracles who plowed the sea and the hungry plowman of the simile who curses his hands, set in the section corresponding to this (Aa » Aa ), assumes greater significance once one thinks of it in connection with Heracles' encounter with Theiodamas. The structural and thematic linkage invites us to see that in the rowing contest Heracles, the maritime plowman, has assumed the occupation of his victim, the wretched Theiodamas.[24] The simile of the plowman, then, is ironic and ominous, to say the least; for the rowing contest on which it comments will ultimately result in Heracles' loss of the plowman's son. Accordingly, all the indications in the narrative prior to the abduction of Hylas, textual and subtextual, show Heracles as an arrogant, violent, and gluttonous figure who will suffer some misfortune; for the great
Heracles, this will be the painful loss of the son of the man he piteously killed.
In describing the rape of Heracles' young page, Apollonius focuses on the numinous setting and, within it, the reaction of the water nymph to Hylas's beauty. In doing so, he imitates certain features of the episode in the Odyssey in which Nausicaa fell in love with Odysseus.
When Hylas approaches the fountain into which he will eventually be drawn, the nymphs of the area are dancing in honor of Artemis:
Just then choruses
of nymphs were beginning to form; for it was the duty of all
the nymphs who lived thereabout on the lovely mountain
to celebrate Artemis forever with nightly songs.
Those whose allotted homes were the peaks of mountains or
the streams
and those living in the forest were arranging themselves in lines
far away.
But the nymph of the fair-flowing fountain just then rose up
to the surface of the water and saw Hylas nearby,
a flush of 
ornamenting his face.
Apollonius has in mind the moment when Odysseus, after his exhausting swim to Phæacia, is roused from sleep by the voices of Nausicaa, who has just been compared to Artemis (Od. 6.102–9; cf. 149–52), and her servants:[25]
Alas! Who are the people to whose land I have come?
Are they arrogant, savage, unjust?
Or do they welcome strangers and fear the gods?
The sound of girl's voices has reached me,
like those of nymphs who inhabit the lofty peaks of mountains,
and the river springs , and the grassy dells .
Apollonius has adapted the Odyssean division of nymphs into groups of three. He then describes the effect that Hylas has on the nymph in a way that recalls the effect that Odysseus had on Nausicaa after his bath:[26]
Then, going apart, he sat down upon the seashore
glistening with 
. The young girl stared
in amazement.
In his reference to this famous episode, the poet would seem to urge the reader to compare Hylas and the nymph to Odysseus and Nausicaa, and upon comparison we observe a significant inversion of the Homeric model: the young and effeminate[27] Hylas is cast in
Odysseus's role, and the aggressive nymph is placed in that of the demure Nausicaa.
Hylas is a passive young man who, when fetching water, causes a young nymph to fall desperately in love with him; he is also the antithesis both of the Homeric hero, with whom he is subtly compared, and his master, who has just rowed the Argo by himself and uprooted a tall tree. In the second half of this episode (A ), Apollonius will turn his attention to Jason, another young man who, like Hylas, causes young women to fall desperately in love with him as he searches for the golden fleece. Like Hylas, Jason too stands in strong contrast with Heracles by virtue of his passive mode of action. But as will be seen in the second half of the episode, Jason's passivity and skills of leadership prove effective and, what is more, essential for an expedition without Heracles. One other point of comparison between Jason and Hylas emerges: like Hylas, the passive Jason will have a captivating effect on Medea, the key to the success of the expedition;[28] and like the nymph, Medea will not let go.
b—
Reaction to the Loss of Hylas (1240–72)
As I pointed out in the previous chapter, Apollonius has a remarkable talent for forging elements from diverse and even contradictory traditions into a unified and convincing story line. Here too in his account of the loss of Hylas, the poet has successfully blended several divergent accounts,[29] aided, perhaps even influenced, by his predilection for the ring format. According to Autocharis (FGrHist 249 F 1), who provides us with the earliest extant tradition of the events in Mysia, Polyphemus the Argonaut founded the city of Cius,[30] and Hylas was a local divinity. Later
versions (e.g., Euphorion fr. 76 Powell, Socrates 
FGrHist 310 F 15) combined these two elements of Mysian legend by making Polyphemus the lover of Hylas, and not Heracles as in the tradition followed by Apollonius and Theocritus.[31] Apollonius deals with this discrepancy by having Polyphemus hear the cry of Hylas as he is drawn into the nymph's pool and by having him report the disappearance of the youth to Heracles and share in the latter's hysterical response to the boy's unexplained disappearance. Apollonius articulates this doubling of Hylas's lovers neatly and economically through the ring structure. The reaction of each hero to Hylas's disappearance and an accompanying animal simile (ba , ba ) frame the moment when Polyphemus meets Heracles and informs him of the situation (bb ).
In addition to incorporating a reference to the tradition in which Polyphemus was Hylas's lover, the ring format also invites a comparison between the reactions of the two heroes to the loss of Hylas; and just as he contrasted the different roles that Heracles and Jason played in the battles on Oros Arkton, here too Apollonius highlights the different reactions to Hylas's disappearance through animal similes. In this way, the poet uses Hylas's other lover as a foil for Heracles, who is clearly the main focal point of the first half of the episode.[32] While Polyphemus awaits Heracles' return,[33] he hears Hylas's shout and runs to the fountain like a wild and hungry animal ( 
, 1245) that searches for the sheep whose voices he heard from afar, bellowing as long as he can. Apollonius thus makes Polyphemus's association with Heracles in this episode all the closer by connecting him with the
hunger motif seen above; because of his "hunger" to find Hylas he, like Heracles, will be left behind.[34] The manner in which he responds to the emergency, however, differs significantly from Heracles'. In his frantic search for the boy, Polyphemus at least has a plan of action and gives some thought to what might have happened to Hylas. His constant shouts are meant to get a response from the boy; he believes that Hylas may be the prey of an animal or of some pirates, and for this reason draws his sword (ba , 1240–52). He is not, then, completely undone by the situation.
Heracles' response to the news is quite different. At the center of this ring, Polyphemus meets Heracles, informs him about Hylas, and offers his erroneous opinion about what has happened. In the following section, which corresponds to that giving the reaction of Polyphemus (ba , 1261–72),[35] Heracles does not act so logically. He begins to sweat and experience nausea, and then bolts off with no particular place in mind. Apollonius compares him to a bull stung by a gadfly who now runs and now stops to howl out of pain.[36] Like the bull, Heracles runs helter-skelter and every now and then stops to shout—not because he is calling out to locate Hylas, but because of the pain that the boy's loss has caused. Moreover, he describes the bull as 
(1269). Apollonius has just before stated that Hylas's father, Theiodamas, was 
(1216) when Heracles encountered him. Much as the hungry-plowman simile in the context of Heracles' maritime plowing connected Heracles with Theiodamas, so too the significant recurrence of 
in the bull simile drives home the fact that Heracles has suffered a loss comparable to that experienced by his victim, whose son Heracles too now loses. The striking repetition in the phrases that sum up the emotional experiences of Theiodamas (Hylas's father) and Heracles (Hylas's lover) heightens our awareness of the mutual bond of suffering between the
two and points to the ironic justice of Heracles' predicament. In short, Apollonius has Heracles reenact the occupation and suffering of the man he victimized. Comparison with Polyphemus the Argonaut underscores Heracles' complete inability to deal with the situation. Like Jason in the ensuing conflict arising over his abandonment, Heracles can well be described as 
(1286).