Argo is a constellation that is not so
much disused as dismantled. It was one of the 48 constellations
known to Greek astronomers, as listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest, but
astronomers in the 18th century found it large and unwieldy and
so divided it into three parts: Carina, the Keel or body,
Puppis, the Poop (i.e. stern), and Vela, the Sails.
Argo Navis represents the 50-oared galley
in which Jason and the Argonauts sailed to fetch the golden
fleece from Colchis in the Black Sea. Jason entrusted the
building of the ship to Argus, after whom it was named. Argus
built the ship under the orders of the goddess Athene at the
port of Pagasae, using timber from nearby Mount Pelion. Into
the prow Athene fitted an oak beam from the oracle of Zeus at
Dodona in north-western Greece. This area, like the island of
Corfu nearby, was once noted for its forests of oak, before
later shipbuilders stripped them bare. Being part of an oracle,
this oak beam could speak and it was crying out for action by
the time the Argo left harbour.
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Argo Navis dominates this crowded scene in the southern celestial hemisphere in the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801). On the blade of one of the steering oars lies the bright star Canopus, now part of the constellation Carina.
The prow of the ship was usually imagined
as disappearing between the Clashing Rocks or vanishing into
the mists of the Milky Way, but here the rocks are replaced by Charles’s
Oak (Robur Caroli II), a
now-obsolete constellation invented by Edmond Halley. Unlike
other depictions of Argo, this version has no main mast rising
from the body of the ship. The spar around which the sail is
wrapped appears to emerge from the stern, but this may be an
artistic error.
Because of Argo’s considerable size,
cartographers struggled to depict it successfully on a single
chart. The attempt by Bode above is perhaps the best, but for
some alternative views click here.
Jason took with him 50 of the greatest
Greek heroes, including the twins Castor and Polydeuces, the
musician Orpheus, as well as Argus, the ship’s builder.
Even Heracles interrupted his labours to join the crew.
Apollonius of Rhodes, who wrote the epic
story of the ship’s voyage to Colchis and back, described
Argo as the finest ship that ever braved the sea with oars.
Even in the roughest of seas the bolts of Argo held her planks
together safely, and she ran as sweetly when the crew were
pulling at the oars as she did before the wind. Isaac Newton
thought the voyage of the Argo was commemorated in the 12 signs
of the zodiac, although the connections are hard to see.
Among the greatest dangers the Argonauts
faced en route were the Clashing rocks, or Symplegades, which
guarded the entrance to the Black Sea like a pair of sliding
doors, crushing ships between them. As the Argonauts rowed
along the Bosporus, they could hear the terrifying clash of the
Rocks and the thunder of surf. The Argonauts released a dove
and watched it fly ahead of them. The Rocks converged on the
dove, nipping off its tail feathers, but the bird got through.
Then, as the Rocks separated, the Argonauts rowed with all
their might. A well-timed push from the divine hand of Athene
helped the ship through the Rocks just as they slammed together
again, shearing off the mascot from Argo’s stern. Argo
had become the first ship to run the gauntlet of the Rocks and
survive. Thereafter the Clashing Rocks remained rooted apart.
Once safely into the Black Sea, Jason and
the Argonauts headed for Colchis. There they stole the golden
fleece from King Aeëtes, and made off with it back to
Greece by a roundabout route. After their return, Jason left
the Argo beached at Corinth, where he dedicated it to Poseidon,
the sea god.
Eratosthenes said that the constellation
represents the first ocean-going ship ever built, and the Roman
writer Manilius concurred. However, this attribution must be
wrong because the first ship was actually built by Danaus,
father of the 50 Danaids, again with the help of Athene, and he
sailed it with his daughters from Libya to Argos.
Only the stern of Argo is shown in the
sky. Map makers attempted to account for this either by
depicting its prow vanishing into a bank of mist, as Aratus
described it, or by passing between the Clashing Rocks. Robert
Graves recounts the explanation that Jason in his old age
returned to Corinth where he sat beneath the rotting hulk of
Argo, contemplating past events. Just at that moment the rotten
beams of the prow fell off and killed him. Poseidon then placed
the rest of the ship among the stars. Hyginus, though, says
that Athene placed Argo among the stars from steering oars to
sail when the ship was first launched, but says nothing about
what happened to the prow.
Argo was first divided into three parts by
the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in his
catalogue of the southern stars published in 1763 and it now
lies permanently dismembered.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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