Since the weather has turned colder, I have begun carrying a volume at a time of the Loeb Classical Library with me since their small size was originally designed "to fit in a gentleman's pocket." Currently, when I have a moment of downtime (usually a rarity), I have been able to reach in my coat pocket and pull out Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes. This, of course, is the story of Jason and the Argonauts and the quest for the golden fleece. Most folks, if they are familiar with the story at all, know it from the 1963 movie featuring the classic stop-motion animation effects by Ray Harryhausen.

Anyway, I was reading Argonautica yesterday while waiting in the dentist's office. Who wants to read months-old magazines anyway? Anytime I read ancient literature, I am always struck by how different it is in form from modern literature. We as a culture are too impatient, and if we read at all, a work like Argonautica would never--in its present form--hit the bestseller's list--if it even got past an editor's desk to begin with. However, I love it. I love the way the story is told in an ebb and flow style that gives far more detail than what I'm accustomed to before returning back to the main thrust of the story.

Case in point is found in Book 1:260-277 (Loeb numbering) when Jason is about to lead his throng of heroes on their extremely desperate journey. Jason, the ever-popular hero, is surrounded by slaves and freemen, women and men as he prepares to depart. Apollonius paints quite the picture of despair as Jason's mother, Alcimede, wails and throws her arms around him, perhaps as a mother today might do as her own soldier son is leaving for Iraq. "And even as the mother had thrown her arms about her son, so she clung, weeping without stint [limitation]... ." Now, really, we get the picture, don't we? The mother's in tremendous grief that her son is going away on a seemingly doomed journey, possibly never to return. That description alone should be enough, shouldn't it? But Apollonius does not stop there. He creates the most telling and heart-wrenching analogy to describe her grief.

And even as the mother had thrown her arms about her son, so she clung, weeping without stint, as a maiden all alone weeps, falling fondly on the neck of her hoary [aged, white-haired] nurse, a maid who has now no others to care for her, but she drags on a weary life under a stepmother, who maltreats her continually with ever fresh insults, and as she weeps her heart within her is bound fast with misery, nor can she sob forth all the groans that struggle for utterance; so without stint wept Alchimede straining for her son in her arms, and in her yearning grief spake as follows... .

What an incredible description--although I have to admit that if a student in one of my writing classes turned in something like that, I would probably strike through the entire metaphor as being too much and too overdone. But again, different writing styles were appropriate for different eras in history.

Of course, you still have to wonder why Apollonius described Alchimede's grief for her departing son as that of a hopeless young orphaned girl mistreated by her abusive stepmother. I read the passage to Kathy and it jumped out at her, too. She wondered if Apollonius wasn't making a point regarding a particular situation with which he was familiar. Perhaps, but it's all speculation at this point--2,300 years later. Regardless, it's still good stuff for the reader who's willing to be patient and let the story unfold at its own pace. They definitely don't write them like this anymore...