On Spells, Springs, and Tritogeneia

On Orpheus' Argonautika, Part Five

This is Part Five of an ongoing series in which we examine the Orphic Argonautika in great detail. Please click the respective links for Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and for This Post between three and four addressing the change in use of translation.

---

Last we left the Argonauts, they had just performed a binding oath-ritual symbolizing Mithraic (and by extension, Orphic) initiation, and they then proceeded to Kheiron’s (and Plato’s) cave, the threshold of being. From there, they depart, and they pass a few places before arriving to Samothrace, where we’re told Orpheus initiated them into the local Mysteries. I translate¹:

But when onto the shore and into the ship all went,
in the forward benches they were sitting; and in them each one
hands having stretched forth, then the brine they were striking with oars,
having turned away from Pelion, over the great gulf of the sea
foam seething was whitening the sparkling sea.
And were hidden the Tisaian peak and the Sepian shore;
and appeared Skiathos and of Dolops was revealed the tomb
and sea-girt Homole and the sea-mingled stream of Amyros,
who through much earth sends great-roaring water.
And Olympos’ deep-peaked steep promontories
the Minyans looked upon and Athos’ tree-clad slope
and broad Pellene and sacred Samothrace,
where also fearful mysteries of the Gods ineffable for mortals
gladly entered by my suggestions
the heroes: for afterwards it is beneficial for them, for mankind,
to encounter of this sacred-service for all sailors.²

Continuing initiatory themes from the previous essay, the Samothracian initiation is given only a few lines in the poem and hardly any detail. In fact, we are given less detail about this one than we are the previous. We are told only that they entered the Samothracian Mysteries by Orpheus’ suggestions, because those Mysteries are beneficial for everyone who has participated, and especially sailors.

Perhaps not much is known of the Samothracian Mysteries, but what is known shares much in common with what we’ve seen from Orpheus’ Argonautika thus far: they were concerned with the Kabeiroi and Kybele, Hekate (whom we’ll see toward the end of the poem), and Jason / the Dioscuri. Also, as hinted by our poet, initiation into the Samothracian Mysteries granted protection to sailors. This initiation, like the last, is in affirmation of everything so far and anticipation of everything to come.

Now protected, the Argonauts leave, this time toward Lemnos. There, Jason tames Hypsipyle, and Aphrodite rouses desire for the Argonauts in the local women, so much so that if not for Orpheus’ song, they would not have remembered the mission:

And at the Sintian eyebrows we beached the swift ship *
on most-holy Lemnos, where indeed evil deeds had been of concern to
the women: for they had destroyed their husbands
through their own recklessness, and the famous Hypsipyleia
them desiring it ruled over, the best of women in form.
But why to you concerning these things openly tell a long story,
how much desire she roused in the noble Lemnian women,
Kypris feeder-of-love, to mingle with the Minyans in marriage-beds?
With lovely charms Jason tamed Hypsipyle,
and with a different one another was mingled; and they forgot the voyage,
if not by averting shouts and by mind-charming hymn
of ours having been enchanted they went into the black ship,
longing for rowing, and they remembered the toil.³

Briefly before continuing, in Orphus’ Argonautika we are not given any kind of idea how long this episode is. In other versions of the myth, Jason spends years with Hypsipyle and fathers children with her. There is a Platonic notion that pursuit of Love / Beauty / The Good, even when misguided, is never truly a failure. So while they are distracted here, the Argonauts are still ascending higher in their quest for Godhood. By shortening this detour, our poet has Jason avoid this ‘noble trap’.

In both the English and the Greek, Jason tames Hypsipyle but Aphrodite rouses desire in the Lemnians and not the Argonauts. In the Roman Empire (when this was written), what we today might identify as “sexual dominance” or “sexual submission” was not so nuanced. Men were almost always viewed as the dominant or assertive force, and women as the passive or submissive part of intercourse. This viewpoint makes this distinction natural: while Aphrodite brings the lust out of the women, it is still the men who are dominant and thus “taming” the women.

This, however, is still an inversion for these Lemnian women: we’re told they previously destroyed their husbands. Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that Aphrodite roused the desire in the Lemnians and not the Argonauts. The Argonauts are now under the protection of a growing number of Mystery Gods, and since they have seen the truth of Plato’s cave, they can see the strings that control the world. Jason tames Hypsipyle with love-charms, perhaps theurgically co-authoring (with Aphrodite) the arousal of the women.

Lemnos then is a common trap: Jason, like a man with a new tool, sees only opportunities to use it. As they say, “if all you have is a hammer, all that you see are nails”. Jason tames Hypsipyle ‘because he can’, since now he possesses knowledge and protection above and beyond a ‘regular man’ (which the Lemnians would’ve killed).

That is, they’re distracted until Orpheus sees what’s happening. He then uses his music to align our fifty-two Argonauts again into a single, cohesive unit. When his music has them “longing for rowing, and they remembered the toil”, the poet continues: