Sophocles
explained
that Phrixus
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? CONTENTS OF BOOK SEVEN
PAGE
Jason and Medea . . . . . . . . . . 69
Aeson Rejuvenated . . . . . . . . . 97
Pelias and Medea's Flight to Athens . . . . . . 109
The Origin of Aconite . . . . . . . 120
Deeds of Theseus and Preparations of Minos . . . . 125
Creation of the Myrmidons . . . . . . . . 129
Cephalus and Procris . . . ? . . . . 142
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? JASON AND MEDEA
Jason and Medea
As Ovid had observed in the previous tale, the Argo was regarded
as the first ship ever launched on the sea. The name appears to have
meant originally Swift One, in allusion to the vessel's rapid motion. Af-
terwards the inventor of the ship was supposed to have been a certain
Argus inhabiting Iolcus, a port of Thessaly, and the Argo was thought
to have been named in his honor. The tradition of the voyage seems to
have originated with a prehistoric expedition undertaken by the people
of Iolcus about the middle of the thirteenth century B. C. King Pelias
made Jason commander of the Argo and sent him on a quest. The object
originally assigned is not clear, but probably it was some idea of finding
treasure or of obtaining wealth by trade. This voyage was regarded not
only as the first expedition by sea but as an ambitious and difficult one,
which passed the limit of the known world and encountered all the mys-
terious perils of sea and shore.
Jason went first to the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea, and
there Jason and Hypsipyle became parents of a son named Euneus.
Jason's visit was thought to account for an actual prehistoric settlement
made by Thessalians in the island of Lemnos. Proceeding from there,
Jason accomplished his mission and at length returned to Iolcus. At
least so much of the story had taken form earlier than the time of the
first recorded literature, for the Iliad spoke of Pelias as a former king
of Iolcus and of Euneus, son of Jason, as king of Lemnos at the period
of the Trojan War.
The Odyssey referred to the story of the Argo as well known to all
and noted many further circumstances. Pelias, it observed, was a son of
Neptune and of Tyro (cf. Arachne, Bk. 6), and Tyro later married
Cretheus, founder and first king of Iolcus, and became the mother of
Aeson. This implied that Pelias was a usurper and that Aeson ought
legally to have succeeded his father as king of Iolcus, an idea which later
authors mentioned explicitly. According to fairy lore popular in all
countries of the world, a young hero, going on a quest, visited the home
of a malevolent sorcerer and attained his object in spite of the sorcerer's
opposition. This, the Odyssey noted, was the case with Jason. He vis-
ited the home of Aeetes, child of the Sun and the Oceanid Perse, brother
of Circe the evil enchantress. And Aeetes himself was an evil enchanter.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Although subsequent authors did not repeat the statement that Aeetes
was an enchanter, they often implied that it was true.
While Jason was returning from the land of Aeetes, the Odyssey
continued, he encountered the Wanderers or Whirling Rocks (Planctae).
These were beetling cliffs, pounded by heavy waves and frequented by
storms of fire. Even the doves carrying ambrosia to Jupiter could not
pass this danger unharmed, for always the rock destroyed one of them
and Jupiter had to procure another in its place. Because Jason was spe-
cially favored by Juno, his vessel passed safely by; but other ships per-
ished with all on board. Circe afterwards informed Ulysses that the
Wanderers lay not far from her island and close to the home of the
Sirens, and she advised him to,choose a different route on which he would
meet the less formidable perils of Scylla and Charybdis.
Apollonius afterwards gave a clearer account of Jason's adventure.
The fire, he said, kept spurting out from the cliffs into a mist, which
always hid the sea; and great waves continually poured over sharp
ledges, which skirted the base of the rock. Juno persuaded Vulcan to
quench the fire while Jason was passing and she caused Thetis and other
nymphs to lift the Argo over the successive reefs, a labor so great that it
required an entire day in springtime. The Odyssey had not localized the
Wanderers definitely. Apollonius and other Alexandrian Greeks asso-
ciated them with the western Mediterranean and Sicily. In this region
were the mountainous Lipari Islands, still famous for Stromboli and
other active volcanoes.
Further details about Jason appeared in the Theogony. Pelias, it
seems, not only had usurped the throne of Aeson but had been guided by
an evil purpose when he sent Jason on the quest. This might have been
inferred from the account in the Odyssey, but the Theogony added much
that was new. According to popular fairy lore that suggested the ad-
venture with Aeetes, the enchanter had a beautiful daughter, and the
young hero loved her and carried her off. This was true in the tale of
Jason. Aeetes had married the Ocean nymph Idyia (Knowing One), and
they had a daughter Medea (Contriving One). Jason, aided by the gods,
carried off the fair-ankled Medea and at last brought her safely to
Iolcus. The Theogony added that Medea was distinguished by the bril-
liant eyes, which Apollonius later declared characteristic of all descend-
ants of the Sun. Medea bore a child, Medus, whom Chiron reared in the
mountains.
The Theogony seemed to imply that Medus was a child of Jason.
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? JASON AND MEDEA
Later authors thought ordinarily that he was the son of Aegeus of
Athens. They referred to him as founder of the race of Medes. The
Theogony did not speak of Medea as herself an enchantress. This idea
was recorded soon after in the epic called Returns, and it became an
essential part of the tale.
The evil enchantress Circe lived in an island so distressing for trav-
elers that it bore the name Aeaea (Oh Dear! Oh Dear! ). Her brother,
the evil enchanter Aeetes, inhabited a city so grievous for travelers that
it bore the similar name of Aea (Oh Dear! ). In fact the name Aeetes
appears to have signified "Man of Oh Dear. " Mimnermus, who first re-
corded the name of his residence, described the city as lying eastwards
by the margin of Ocean, where the flame of the Sun is stored in a treas-
ury. Presumably Aeetes lived near his father, the Sun, in the country of
the sunrise.
Meanwhile the Catalogues had mentioned other circumstances af-
fecting the voyage of the Argo. Chief among these was the tale of the
famous Fleece. A number of early peoples, after giving up the practice
of human sacrifice, have invented a myth to explain why human victims
were replaced by animals. In a noble Old Testament narrative God
tested the loyalty of Abraham by commanding him to offer his son Isaac
and then forbade the sacrifice of the child and accepted that of a ram.
In the Greek tale Jupiter commanded Athamas, ruler of Orchomenus in
Boeotia, to offer his son Phrixus but later directed that a ram should be
offered in his place.
The myth seems originally to have been as follows. Athamas and
his wife, the goddess Nephele (Cloud), became parents of a son Phrixus
and a daughter Helle. Jupiter for some reason devastated the country
with famine and inspired an oracle to the effect that he must be ap-
peased by the sacrifice of Phrixus. But he allowed Nephele to save her
child. From Mercury she obtained the supernatural ram which had been
the offspring of Neptune and Theophane (cf. Arachne, Bk. 6) and she
put on the creature's back both Phrixus and Helle. In Hindu mythology
the god Indra was once a ram which could travel by flight through the
air. A similar power was given the ram obtained by Nephele. Rising
from the ground, it proceeded in a northeasterly direction over land and
sea. As it flew above the strait leading from the Aegean to the Propontis,
Helle fell into the water and perished, giving the strait its historical
name, the Hellespont. Continuing to the eastern end of the Black Sea,
the ram descended to earth in the region called either Colchis or Colchos.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Then the animal, which was gifted with human speech, commanded
Phrixus to offer it as a sacrifice and in this way to free himself from the
requirement of Jupiter. Meanwhile the people of Orchomenus tried to
obey the oracle by sacrificing Athamas in place of his son, and, although
the king escaped, both Athamas and his descendants continued in dan-
ger of being sacrificed to Jupiter. They could be safe only if someone
should bring evidence that the god was appeased.
The Catalogues, Hecataeus, and Herodotus all alluded to the story.
Sophocles told it in his Athamas. But he was unwilling to admit that
Jupiter had commanded the sacrifice of a human being. Athamas, he
said, had neglected his wife and had courted Ino, princess of Thebes
(cf. Bks. 3 and 4). Marrying her, he became father of two other sons.
Then Ino, who desired to assure their inheriting the crown, scorched the
seed grain, caused a famine, and obtained a false oracle commanding
the sacrifice. Nephele, who had left Athamas in displeasure, returned to
save her children. Euripides and the Manual repeated the new version,
with some changes of detail. Greek authors and artists often treated the
myth, and Ovid told it in his Fasti, ending with a transformation of the
ram into the constellation of that name (Aries).
The ram that saved Phrixus was distinguished by a remarkable
fleece. According to some authorities, it was colored as brilliantly as if
it had been dyed in Tyrian purple. The Catalogues thought rather that
it was golden, and this became the usual opinion. An object so remark-
able as this would be in itself a treasure, and it was even more valuable
as evidence that Athamas and his family had appeased the wrath of
Jupiter. The Greeks, informed perhaps by Nephele, were aware of its
importance. But Phrixus had gone with the Fleece to the limits of the
known world, and he never was able to restore it. Almost all authorities
agreed that he had no further relations with Greece and spent the rest
of his life in Colchis.
The Argo had visited Aeetes in quest of treasure. It occurred to
the early Greeks that his quest might well have been for the treasure of
the Golden Fleece. The Catalogues implied the idea, Mimnermus stated
it clearly, and it became an essential part of the story. Hitherto Aeetes
had reigned over a kingdom in the region of sunrise. According to the
new idea, he must have been ruler of Colchis. Both the Catalogues and
Simonides implied this, and Pindar stated it clearly. Aeetes must also
have got possession of the Fleece.
Sophocles explained that Phrixus
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? JASON AND MEDEA
gave him the Fleece and received in return an older daughter of Aeetes
named Chalciope.
In the earliest accounts Jason appears to have chosen as his fol-
lowers only men from Iolcus. The Catalogues added that Hercules sailed
with Jason but continued with him only as far as Northern Greece.
Pherecydes and Herodotus repeated the idea. Theocritus imagined that
Hercules went as far as Mysia on the eastern shore of the Propontis and
that he was left there while seeking his beloved attendant Hylas. This
became the usual tradition, and some authors supposed that he continued
on foot from Mysia to Colchis. Other famous heroes were included in the
crew from time to time, until the Argo was said to have carried all those
living in the generation before the Trojan War. The Manual added even
the heroine Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus (cf. Bk. 10). In the begin-
ning, Jason's followers were pictured as remaining passive while Jason
performed the various exploits. Later they assumed more prominence:
often an adventure was transferred from Jason to one of them, so that
in the account of Apollonius, Jason himself became a relatively colorless
character.
The Catalogues mentioned another important incident of the
voyage. Prehistoric Greeks had referred to sudden, violent winds as
the Harpies (Snatchers). In the Iliad the West Wind and the Harpy
Podarge (Swift Foot) had been parents of two horses driven by Achilles.
In the Odyssey the Harpies were spoken of as carrying off any person
who vanished mysteriously. Both Telemachus and Eumaeus feared that
Ulysses had met this fate. Penelope told how the Harpies carried away
three daughters of Pandareos and made them servants to the Furies.
This event was portrayed later in the famous sculptured tomb of Xan-
thus. The Iliad and Odyssey said nothing about the form of the Harpies.
But in the following century the Greeks appear to have been influenced
by an Egyptian idea of the human soul as appearing after death in the
shape of a bird with a human head. The Theogony spoke of Thaumas
and the Oceanid Electra as parents of two Harpies, Aello (Stormwind)
and Ocypete (Swift Flyer), and described them as fair-tressed, winged
beings able to keep up with winds and birds. The Manual repeated this
account but named other Harpies also, without indicating their parent-
age. Aeschylus pictured the Harpies as hideous bird-like creatures, an
idea that was followed in most later accounts. Since it was characteristic
of violent winds to soil everything with dust, and characteristic of pred-
atory birds to be noisome and foul, Apollonius imagined the Harpies as
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
filthy creatures ruining what they did not carry away. Vergil, repeating
these ideas, described them as having the faces of pale, emaciated women
and having feathered bodies with claw-like hands; and he suggested
their being identical with the Furies.
Two of these creatures the Catalogues associated with a blind king
Phineus. Apparently Phineus was an enchanter, who employed the
Harpies for his evil purposes. They transported him to the region of
the Black Sea and appear to have acted as his agents in opposing
the Argonauts. The sons of Boreas, Zetes and Calais, vanquished the
Harpies and pursued them southwards through the air. One Harpy
perished in a river of southern Greece, which afterwards bore the name
Harpys. The other took refuge in a group of islands to the south. There
Mercury required the pursuers to turn back, and the islands were called
the Strophades (Turning Point) from this event. Meanwhile the van-
quished Phineus gave the other Argonauts information which was neces-
sary for the success of their voyage.
This adventure Aeschylus made the subject of his drama called
Phineus, and later authors included it regularly in the tradition of the
Argo. Vergil seems to have imagined at least three Harpies, for he
named as the eldest of them Celaeno (Dusky One). The country in which
the Argonauts met with Phineus was thought usually to have been
Bithynia, on the northeastern shore of the Propontis.
The Catalogues observed that Phineus had incurred blindness will-
ingly in order to enjoy length of days. But, according to the Great
Eoiae, the gods blinded him for telling matters which they desired to
conceal. This became the usual explanation. Apollonius and Vergil
supposed that Phineus had been himself a victim of the Harpies. As an
additional punishment the gods had assigned these creatures to plunder
and defile his food, so that he was reduced to extreme hunger and misery.
According to Apollonius, the gods allowed Zetes and Calais to drive off
the Harpies, and in return for the deliverance Phineus gave information
about the voyage.
The Catalogues offered also the earliest precise statement as to the
route by which Jason returned from the city of Aeetes. After arriving
at the shores of Colchis, a ship could enter the mouth of the Phasis River
and continue eastwards up the stream. Beyond this fact the author had
no definite information, but he had heard that in time the traveler would
reach a great body of salt water. And he imagined the Phasis as a strait
leading into the eastern part of the Ocean which was reported to encircle
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? JASON AND MEDEA
the known world. This route, he said, was followed by Jason and the
Argo. The mythographer Hecataeus added that, after proceeding south-
wards along the coast of Ocean, the Argo entered the upper course of
the river Nile and returned to the Mediterranean Sea. But, according to
Pindar, the Argo followed the coast of Ocean until it arrived at the
southern coast of Libya. Then the heroes transported their ship over-
land in a northerly direction for twelve days. Arriving at a certain Lake
Tritonis, they continued by water to the Mediterranean.
These accounts of a return by way of the east and south had as-
sumed that a ship could reach the Ocean by sailing up the Phasis. Shortly
after Pindar's time the Greeks learned that it could not. The situation
proved to be as follows. Travelers up the Phasis proceeded inland until
the stream became too shallow, continued on foot through a pass in the
mountains, and arrived at the salt Caspian Sea. From there an ancient
trade route led eastwards through Persia to unknown countries of Cen-
tral Asia. Checked by the new information, the Greeks fell back tem-
porarily on the idea that Jason must have returned by very nearly
the same route which he had followed on his outward voyage. And
both Sophocles and Callimachus told of his coming home through the
Propontis.
Aeschylus treated the early part of the voyage in three plays, which
now are lost. In the first of these he narrated the departure from Iolcus
and named at least a few of the Argonauts. Thereafter a list of this kind
appeared in almost every long account of the voyage. Even when the list
was supposed to be complete, the number varied somewhat with different
authors, but tradition gave the Argo a crew of fifty. The names of
Argus, Hercules, Zetes and Calais, Castor and Pollux, and Orpheus the
musician appeared in almost every account; but the rest varied consid-
erably.
In the other two plays Aeschylus dealt with Jason's adventure in
the island of Lemnos. Celtic tales of a voyage into unknown seas have
sometimes told how the voyagers came upon an island inhabited entirely
by women and were tempted to remain there instead of pursuing the
quest. Such an adventure befell Jason, and he yielded so far as to re-
main a year on the island. Most of the account which Aeschylus gave
has been lost, but Apollonius and the Manual recorded the story as fol-
lows. Originally the island was populated, both by men and women. The
men neglected Venus. To punish them, she afflicted the Lemnian women
with a stench, which caused the men to seek other women on the opposite
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
shore of Thrace. The Lemnian women then massacred all the men except
King Thoas, whom his daughter Hypsiplye allowed to escape, and they
established a community of women under the rule of Hypsipyle. The new
queen and her followers were at first in doubt whether they should allow
the Argonauts to land, but soon welcomed them cordially. Jason and
Hypsipyle became parents not only of Euneus but of another son Nebro-
phomus. When Jason and his followers departed, said Aeschylus, the
women tried by violence to detain them. But Apollonius and others
mentioned nothing beyond peaceful persuasion. In the Choephorae,
Aeschylus again referred to the massacre of the Lemnian men, charac-
terizing it as the most heinous crime of which women ever had been guilty.
The adventure with Hypsipyle was included regularly in later accounts
of the Argo and was told separately by Statius.
Simonides mentioned yet another adventure. As many savage peo-
ples have observed, the sky presents itself to men as the interior of a
great azure dome. Directly overhead, at the zenith, it appears to attain
its highest point above the earth, and from this region it appears to slope
downwards in every direction until at the horizon it rests on the ground.
With such firm contact between earth and sky, it would seem impossible
to pass the limit of the horizon. Yet at daybreak the sun appears to
glide upwards between the earth and the eastern sky, and the setting sun
appears to go down between the earth and sky in the west. To explain
this remarkable circumstance, a number of peoples imagined that in the
dim, almost invisible limits of the east and the west the sky does not re-
main stationary in contact with the ground but keeps rising and falling.
According to the Ottawas of Canada, the sky at the eastern horizon
moves continually up and down. Descending, it strikes the earth vio-
lently ; it rebounds to a considerable height; and then returns. By taking
advantage of this interval of rebound, the sun is able to rise in the morn-
ing. And in a similar manner the Ottawa hero Iosco was able to enter
the country of sunrise. According to the Karens of Burma, two strata
of rock, opening and closing in a vertical direction, mark the western
horizon.
Since for many peoples, the far west is the home of departed spirits,
such peoples often imagined the soul as required to pass between clashing
objects. Presumably these objects were at first the earth and the sky,
and presumably they were clashing in a vertical direction. But in time
the peril of the departing soul took a new and special form. The clashing
"Meets usually were described as being two mountains and as rushing
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? JASON AND MEDEA
horizontally together. The Aztec soul must pass between clashing moun-
tains on its way to the sunset land. So narrow was the traveler's escape,
in such tales, that often he incurred damage, though happily of a trivial
nature. The Eskimo Giviok, for example, found himself obliged to pass
between two enormous icebergs called the Sun Mountains, which closed
behind him so rapidly as to bruise the stern of his kayak.
According to some peoples, a similar peril attended any journey to
the region of death, regardless of the direction. Folk tales of modern
Greece and Albania often tell of a hero required to fetch water from the
springs of Life and Death and of his narrow escape. In one tale the
mountains shut so rapidly that his ally, a stork, lost the feathers of its
tail. Certain peoples imagined further that, if the hero could pass the
danger unharmed, the clashing objects would become fixed and in future
would leave the way always open. If the New Zealand hero Mawi had
passed through safely, the dead would have been able to return at will
and men would have been immortal. He failed, making death irrevocable.
A similar belief in clashing mountains was held by the early Greeks
and entered into the story of the Argo. Jason, it was thought, had in-
curred this peril on his way to the kingdom of Aeetes. The idea was ap-
propriate, if this kingdom lay eastwards in the land of sunrise. And it
was appropriate, also, if the kingdom lay northwards in Colchis. For in
the Black Sea the Greeks had imagined one country of the dead, the
White Island (Leuke). There Pausanias pictured the merry existence
after death of Achilles and his wife, the beautiful Helen of Troy. The
approach to the Black Sea, according to Simonides, led between clash-
ing mountains. Pindar referred to them as the Symplegades, which af-
terwards became their usual name, and he added that, after Jason's pas-
sage, the mountains became stationary and harmless. Later authors re-
ferred to the Symplegades as lying at the northern end of the Bosphorus
and stated that Phineus taught Jason how to pass in safety. Apollonius
added that Jason first sent a dove, which lost some tail feathers, and then
ventured with the ship, which lost an ornament of the stern. Originally
the Symplegades were described as wholly distinct from the Wanderers,
and afterwards the distinction usually was maintained. But, since in
both cases Jason had to pass by cliffs where the route was unsafe even
for doves, a few Greek authors regarded the Symplegades and the Wan-
derers as the same. This was the opinion of Ovid.
Pindar first recorded for us the circumstances under which Jason
began his voyage. When Pelias usurped the throne, he said, Aeson con-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
tinued living in Iolcus, but thought it safer to have Jason reared in the
mountains. At the age of twenty Jason revisited Iolcus. He was a tall
youth, with long yellow hair, a cloak of leopard skin, and a spear in
either hand. He was even more conspicuous for having only one sandal.
According to Thucydides and others, it was customary for certain
Greek tribesmen to wear a sandal on the right foot and leave the other
foot bare. Pindar and his readers may have assumed that Jason was one
of these tribesmen. But Pelias remembered an oracle warning him that
a descendant of Aeolus was to come with one sandal and be his death.
Questioned by Pelias, Jason replied at once that he was a descendant
of Aeolus and was come to obtain the throne. At the moment Aeson and
other relatives hastened to welcome him and gave Pelias a chance to
withdraw. Later Jason visited the usurper in the palace and courteously
but firmly repeated his claim. Pindar then alluded to the idea that Jason
was a kinsman of Athamas and his descendants, who still were in danger
of being sacrificed to Jupiter. Pelias offered to yield, he said, if Jason
would relieve them by obtaining the Golden Fleece. Such a quest Pelias
regarded as a sure way to rid himself of a dangerous man.
In this narrative Pindar gave the most striking and attractive of
all characterizations of Jason. He presented him as picturesque and
prepossessing in appearance and as simple, courteous, and direct in his
methods. Pindar's conception affected many later accounts, notably
that of Apollonius. But it was not easy to reconcile this characteriza-
tion with some of Jason's adventures, either in the course of the voyage
or after his return to Greece. His pleasing appearance and courteous
manner often were associated by later authors with a fickle and treach-
erous nature.
Although Pindar did not attempt to give an orderly account of the
voyage, he alluded to several hitherto unrecorded adventures in Colchis.
In the popular fairy tale the hero asked the evil enchanter for the object
of his quest, and the enchanter required him first to perform a seemingly
impossible task. This was true, said Pindar, in the case of Jason.
Among the Semitic peoples of Asia Minor it was a frequent practice to
represent the god Moloch by a hollow, brazen statue in the form of a
bull. At festivals of the god, a fire was kindled in the statue and victims
sometimes were cast into the flaming mouth. To the Greeks the practice
suggested the nature of the task assigned to Jason. He must yoke two
brazen, fire-breathing bulls and plow a certain field of Mars. In the pop-
ular fairy tale the enchanter's daughter not only returned the hero's
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? JASON AND MEDEA
affection but gave him the means of performing the task. This, Pindar
continued, was true of Medea. But her cooperation was not a matter of
chance. The Theogony had suggested that Jason won her by the aid of
the gods.
? CONTENTS OF BOOK SEVEN
PAGE
Jason and Medea . . . . . . . . . . 69
Aeson Rejuvenated . . . . . . . . . 97
Pelias and Medea's Flight to Athens . . . . . . 109
The Origin of Aconite . . . . . . . 120
Deeds of Theseus and Preparations of Minos . . . . 125
Creation of the Myrmidons . . . . . . . . 129
Cephalus and Procris . . . ? . . . . 142
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? JASON AND MEDEA
Jason and Medea
As Ovid had observed in the previous tale, the Argo was regarded
as the first ship ever launched on the sea. The name appears to have
meant originally Swift One, in allusion to the vessel's rapid motion. Af-
terwards the inventor of the ship was supposed to have been a certain
Argus inhabiting Iolcus, a port of Thessaly, and the Argo was thought
to have been named in his honor. The tradition of the voyage seems to
have originated with a prehistoric expedition undertaken by the people
of Iolcus about the middle of the thirteenth century B. C. King Pelias
made Jason commander of the Argo and sent him on a quest. The object
originally assigned is not clear, but probably it was some idea of finding
treasure or of obtaining wealth by trade. This voyage was regarded not
only as the first expedition by sea but as an ambitious and difficult one,
which passed the limit of the known world and encountered all the mys-
terious perils of sea and shore.
Jason went first to the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea, and
there Jason and Hypsipyle became parents of a son named Euneus.
Jason's visit was thought to account for an actual prehistoric settlement
made by Thessalians in the island of Lemnos. Proceeding from there,
Jason accomplished his mission and at length returned to Iolcus. At
least so much of the story had taken form earlier than the time of the
first recorded literature, for the Iliad spoke of Pelias as a former king
of Iolcus and of Euneus, son of Jason, as king of Lemnos at the period
of the Trojan War.
The Odyssey referred to the story of the Argo as well known to all
and noted many further circumstances. Pelias, it observed, was a son of
Neptune and of Tyro (cf. Arachne, Bk. 6), and Tyro later married
Cretheus, founder and first king of Iolcus, and became the mother of
Aeson. This implied that Pelias was a usurper and that Aeson ought
legally to have succeeded his father as king of Iolcus, an idea which later
authors mentioned explicitly. According to fairy lore popular in all
countries of the world, a young hero, going on a quest, visited the home
of a malevolent sorcerer and attained his object in spite of the sorcerer's
opposition. This, the Odyssey noted, was the case with Jason. He vis-
ited the home of Aeetes, child of the Sun and the Oceanid Perse, brother
of Circe the evil enchantress. And Aeetes himself was an evil enchanter.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Although subsequent authors did not repeat the statement that Aeetes
was an enchanter, they often implied that it was true.
While Jason was returning from the land of Aeetes, the Odyssey
continued, he encountered the Wanderers or Whirling Rocks (Planctae).
These were beetling cliffs, pounded by heavy waves and frequented by
storms of fire. Even the doves carrying ambrosia to Jupiter could not
pass this danger unharmed, for always the rock destroyed one of them
and Jupiter had to procure another in its place. Because Jason was spe-
cially favored by Juno, his vessel passed safely by; but other ships per-
ished with all on board. Circe afterwards informed Ulysses that the
Wanderers lay not far from her island and close to the home of the
Sirens, and she advised him to,choose a different route on which he would
meet the less formidable perils of Scylla and Charybdis.
Apollonius afterwards gave a clearer account of Jason's adventure.
The fire, he said, kept spurting out from the cliffs into a mist, which
always hid the sea; and great waves continually poured over sharp
ledges, which skirted the base of the rock. Juno persuaded Vulcan to
quench the fire while Jason was passing and she caused Thetis and other
nymphs to lift the Argo over the successive reefs, a labor so great that it
required an entire day in springtime. The Odyssey had not localized the
Wanderers definitely. Apollonius and other Alexandrian Greeks asso-
ciated them with the western Mediterranean and Sicily. In this region
were the mountainous Lipari Islands, still famous for Stromboli and
other active volcanoes.
Further details about Jason appeared in the Theogony. Pelias, it
seems, not only had usurped the throne of Aeson but had been guided by
an evil purpose when he sent Jason on the quest. This might have been
inferred from the account in the Odyssey, but the Theogony added much
that was new. According to popular fairy lore that suggested the ad-
venture with Aeetes, the enchanter had a beautiful daughter, and the
young hero loved her and carried her off. This was true in the tale of
Jason. Aeetes had married the Ocean nymph Idyia (Knowing One), and
they had a daughter Medea (Contriving One). Jason, aided by the gods,
carried off the fair-ankled Medea and at last brought her safely to
Iolcus. The Theogony added that Medea was distinguished by the bril-
liant eyes, which Apollonius later declared characteristic of all descend-
ants of the Sun. Medea bore a child, Medus, whom Chiron reared in the
mountains.
The Theogony seemed to imply that Medus was a child of Jason.
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? JASON AND MEDEA
Later authors thought ordinarily that he was the son of Aegeus of
Athens. They referred to him as founder of the race of Medes. The
Theogony did not speak of Medea as herself an enchantress. This idea
was recorded soon after in the epic called Returns, and it became an
essential part of the tale.
The evil enchantress Circe lived in an island so distressing for trav-
elers that it bore the name Aeaea (Oh Dear! Oh Dear! ). Her brother,
the evil enchanter Aeetes, inhabited a city so grievous for travelers that
it bore the similar name of Aea (Oh Dear! ). In fact the name Aeetes
appears to have signified "Man of Oh Dear. " Mimnermus, who first re-
corded the name of his residence, described the city as lying eastwards
by the margin of Ocean, where the flame of the Sun is stored in a treas-
ury. Presumably Aeetes lived near his father, the Sun, in the country of
the sunrise.
Meanwhile the Catalogues had mentioned other circumstances af-
fecting the voyage of the Argo. Chief among these was the tale of the
famous Fleece. A number of early peoples, after giving up the practice
of human sacrifice, have invented a myth to explain why human victims
were replaced by animals. In a noble Old Testament narrative God
tested the loyalty of Abraham by commanding him to offer his son Isaac
and then forbade the sacrifice of the child and accepted that of a ram.
In the Greek tale Jupiter commanded Athamas, ruler of Orchomenus in
Boeotia, to offer his son Phrixus but later directed that a ram should be
offered in his place.
The myth seems originally to have been as follows. Athamas and
his wife, the goddess Nephele (Cloud), became parents of a son Phrixus
and a daughter Helle. Jupiter for some reason devastated the country
with famine and inspired an oracle to the effect that he must be ap-
peased by the sacrifice of Phrixus. But he allowed Nephele to save her
child. From Mercury she obtained the supernatural ram which had been
the offspring of Neptune and Theophane (cf. Arachne, Bk. 6) and she
put on the creature's back both Phrixus and Helle. In Hindu mythology
the god Indra was once a ram which could travel by flight through the
air. A similar power was given the ram obtained by Nephele. Rising
from the ground, it proceeded in a northeasterly direction over land and
sea. As it flew above the strait leading from the Aegean to the Propontis,
Helle fell into the water and perished, giving the strait its historical
name, the Hellespont. Continuing to the eastern end of the Black Sea,
the ram descended to earth in the region called either Colchis or Colchos.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Then the animal, which was gifted with human speech, commanded
Phrixus to offer it as a sacrifice and in this way to free himself from the
requirement of Jupiter. Meanwhile the people of Orchomenus tried to
obey the oracle by sacrificing Athamas in place of his son, and, although
the king escaped, both Athamas and his descendants continued in dan-
ger of being sacrificed to Jupiter. They could be safe only if someone
should bring evidence that the god was appeased.
The Catalogues, Hecataeus, and Herodotus all alluded to the story.
Sophocles told it in his Athamas. But he was unwilling to admit that
Jupiter had commanded the sacrifice of a human being. Athamas, he
said, had neglected his wife and had courted Ino, princess of Thebes
(cf. Bks. 3 and 4). Marrying her, he became father of two other sons.
Then Ino, who desired to assure their inheriting the crown, scorched the
seed grain, caused a famine, and obtained a false oracle commanding
the sacrifice. Nephele, who had left Athamas in displeasure, returned to
save her children. Euripides and the Manual repeated the new version,
with some changes of detail. Greek authors and artists often treated the
myth, and Ovid told it in his Fasti, ending with a transformation of the
ram into the constellation of that name (Aries).
The ram that saved Phrixus was distinguished by a remarkable
fleece. According to some authorities, it was colored as brilliantly as if
it had been dyed in Tyrian purple. The Catalogues thought rather that
it was golden, and this became the usual opinion. An object so remark-
able as this would be in itself a treasure, and it was even more valuable
as evidence that Athamas and his family had appeased the wrath of
Jupiter. The Greeks, informed perhaps by Nephele, were aware of its
importance. But Phrixus had gone with the Fleece to the limits of the
known world, and he never was able to restore it. Almost all authorities
agreed that he had no further relations with Greece and spent the rest
of his life in Colchis.
The Argo had visited Aeetes in quest of treasure. It occurred to
the early Greeks that his quest might well have been for the treasure of
the Golden Fleece. The Catalogues implied the idea, Mimnermus stated
it clearly, and it became an essential part of the story. Hitherto Aeetes
had reigned over a kingdom in the region of sunrise. According to the
new idea, he must have been ruler of Colchis. Both the Catalogues and
Simonides implied this, and Pindar stated it clearly. Aeetes must also
have got possession of the Fleece.
Sophocles explained that Phrixus
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? JASON AND MEDEA
gave him the Fleece and received in return an older daughter of Aeetes
named Chalciope.
In the earliest accounts Jason appears to have chosen as his fol-
lowers only men from Iolcus. The Catalogues added that Hercules sailed
with Jason but continued with him only as far as Northern Greece.
Pherecydes and Herodotus repeated the idea. Theocritus imagined that
Hercules went as far as Mysia on the eastern shore of the Propontis and
that he was left there while seeking his beloved attendant Hylas. This
became the usual tradition, and some authors supposed that he continued
on foot from Mysia to Colchis. Other famous heroes were included in the
crew from time to time, until the Argo was said to have carried all those
living in the generation before the Trojan War. The Manual added even
the heroine Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus (cf. Bk. 10). In the begin-
ning, Jason's followers were pictured as remaining passive while Jason
performed the various exploits. Later they assumed more prominence:
often an adventure was transferred from Jason to one of them, so that
in the account of Apollonius, Jason himself became a relatively colorless
character.
The Catalogues mentioned another important incident of the
voyage. Prehistoric Greeks had referred to sudden, violent winds as
the Harpies (Snatchers). In the Iliad the West Wind and the Harpy
Podarge (Swift Foot) had been parents of two horses driven by Achilles.
In the Odyssey the Harpies were spoken of as carrying off any person
who vanished mysteriously. Both Telemachus and Eumaeus feared that
Ulysses had met this fate. Penelope told how the Harpies carried away
three daughters of Pandareos and made them servants to the Furies.
This event was portrayed later in the famous sculptured tomb of Xan-
thus. The Iliad and Odyssey said nothing about the form of the Harpies.
But in the following century the Greeks appear to have been influenced
by an Egyptian idea of the human soul as appearing after death in the
shape of a bird with a human head. The Theogony spoke of Thaumas
and the Oceanid Electra as parents of two Harpies, Aello (Stormwind)
and Ocypete (Swift Flyer), and described them as fair-tressed, winged
beings able to keep up with winds and birds. The Manual repeated this
account but named other Harpies also, without indicating their parent-
age. Aeschylus pictured the Harpies as hideous bird-like creatures, an
idea that was followed in most later accounts. Since it was characteristic
of violent winds to soil everything with dust, and characteristic of pred-
atory birds to be noisome and foul, Apollonius imagined the Harpies as
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
filthy creatures ruining what they did not carry away. Vergil, repeating
these ideas, described them as having the faces of pale, emaciated women
and having feathered bodies with claw-like hands; and he suggested
their being identical with the Furies.
Two of these creatures the Catalogues associated with a blind king
Phineus. Apparently Phineus was an enchanter, who employed the
Harpies for his evil purposes. They transported him to the region of
the Black Sea and appear to have acted as his agents in opposing
the Argonauts. The sons of Boreas, Zetes and Calais, vanquished the
Harpies and pursued them southwards through the air. One Harpy
perished in a river of southern Greece, which afterwards bore the name
Harpys. The other took refuge in a group of islands to the south. There
Mercury required the pursuers to turn back, and the islands were called
the Strophades (Turning Point) from this event. Meanwhile the van-
quished Phineus gave the other Argonauts information which was neces-
sary for the success of their voyage.
This adventure Aeschylus made the subject of his drama called
Phineus, and later authors included it regularly in the tradition of the
Argo. Vergil seems to have imagined at least three Harpies, for he
named as the eldest of them Celaeno (Dusky One). The country in which
the Argonauts met with Phineus was thought usually to have been
Bithynia, on the northeastern shore of the Propontis.
The Catalogues observed that Phineus had incurred blindness will-
ingly in order to enjoy length of days. But, according to the Great
Eoiae, the gods blinded him for telling matters which they desired to
conceal. This became the usual explanation. Apollonius and Vergil
supposed that Phineus had been himself a victim of the Harpies. As an
additional punishment the gods had assigned these creatures to plunder
and defile his food, so that he was reduced to extreme hunger and misery.
According to Apollonius, the gods allowed Zetes and Calais to drive off
the Harpies, and in return for the deliverance Phineus gave information
about the voyage.
The Catalogues offered also the earliest precise statement as to the
route by which Jason returned from the city of Aeetes. After arriving
at the shores of Colchis, a ship could enter the mouth of the Phasis River
and continue eastwards up the stream. Beyond this fact the author had
no definite information, but he had heard that in time the traveler would
reach a great body of salt water. And he imagined the Phasis as a strait
leading into the eastern part of the Ocean which was reported to encircle
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? JASON AND MEDEA
the known world. This route, he said, was followed by Jason and the
Argo. The mythographer Hecataeus added that, after proceeding south-
wards along the coast of Ocean, the Argo entered the upper course of
the river Nile and returned to the Mediterranean Sea. But, according to
Pindar, the Argo followed the coast of Ocean until it arrived at the
southern coast of Libya. Then the heroes transported their ship over-
land in a northerly direction for twelve days. Arriving at a certain Lake
Tritonis, they continued by water to the Mediterranean.
These accounts of a return by way of the east and south had as-
sumed that a ship could reach the Ocean by sailing up the Phasis. Shortly
after Pindar's time the Greeks learned that it could not. The situation
proved to be as follows. Travelers up the Phasis proceeded inland until
the stream became too shallow, continued on foot through a pass in the
mountains, and arrived at the salt Caspian Sea. From there an ancient
trade route led eastwards through Persia to unknown countries of Cen-
tral Asia. Checked by the new information, the Greeks fell back tem-
porarily on the idea that Jason must have returned by very nearly
the same route which he had followed on his outward voyage. And
both Sophocles and Callimachus told of his coming home through the
Propontis.
Aeschylus treated the early part of the voyage in three plays, which
now are lost. In the first of these he narrated the departure from Iolcus
and named at least a few of the Argonauts. Thereafter a list of this kind
appeared in almost every long account of the voyage. Even when the list
was supposed to be complete, the number varied somewhat with different
authors, but tradition gave the Argo a crew of fifty. The names of
Argus, Hercules, Zetes and Calais, Castor and Pollux, and Orpheus the
musician appeared in almost every account; but the rest varied consid-
erably.
In the other two plays Aeschylus dealt with Jason's adventure in
the island of Lemnos. Celtic tales of a voyage into unknown seas have
sometimes told how the voyagers came upon an island inhabited entirely
by women and were tempted to remain there instead of pursuing the
quest. Such an adventure befell Jason, and he yielded so far as to re-
main a year on the island. Most of the account which Aeschylus gave
has been lost, but Apollonius and the Manual recorded the story as fol-
lows. Originally the island was populated, both by men and women. The
men neglected Venus. To punish them, she afflicted the Lemnian women
with a stench, which caused the men to seek other women on the opposite
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
shore of Thrace. The Lemnian women then massacred all the men except
King Thoas, whom his daughter Hypsiplye allowed to escape, and they
established a community of women under the rule of Hypsipyle. The new
queen and her followers were at first in doubt whether they should allow
the Argonauts to land, but soon welcomed them cordially. Jason and
Hypsipyle became parents not only of Euneus but of another son Nebro-
phomus. When Jason and his followers departed, said Aeschylus, the
women tried by violence to detain them. But Apollonius and others
mentioned nothing beyond peaceful persuasion. In the Choephorae,
Aeschylus again referred to the massacre of the Lemnian men, charac-
terizing it as the most heinous crime of which women ever had been guilty.
The adventure with Hypsipyle was included regularly in later accounts
of the Argo and was told separately by Statius.
Simonides mentioned yet another adventure. As many savage peo-
ples have observed, the sky presents itself to men as the interior of a
great azure dome. Directly overhead, at the zenith, it appears to attain
its highest point above the earth, and from this region it appears to slope
downwards in every direction until at the horizon it rests on the ground.
With such firm contact between earth and sky, it would seem impossible
to pass the limit of the horizon. Yet at daybreak the sun appears to
glide upwards between the earth and the eastern sky, and the setting sun
appears to go down between the earth and sky in the west. To explain
this remarkable circumstance, a number of peoples imagined that in the
dim, almost invisible limits of the east and the west the sky does not re-
main stationary in contact with the ground but keeps rising and falling.
According to the Ottawas of Canada, the sky at the eastern horizon
moves continually up and down. Descending, it strikes the earth vio-
lently ; it rebounds to a considerable height; and then returns. By taking
advantage of this interval of rebound, the sun is able to rise in the morn-
ing. And in a similar manner the Ottawa hero Iosco was able to enter
the country of sunrise. According to the Karens of Burma, two strata
of rock, opening and closing in a vertical direction, mark the western
horizon.
Since for many peoples, the far west is the home of departed spirits,
such peoples often imagined the soul as required to pass between clashing
objects. Presumably these objects were at first the earth and the sky,
and presumably they were clashing in a vertical direction. But in time
the peril of the departing soul took a new and special form. The clashing
"Meets usually were described as being two mountains and as rushing
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? JASON AND MEDEA
horizontally together. The Aztec soul must pass between clashing moun-
tains on its way to the sunset land. So narrow was the traveler's escape,
in such tales, that often he incurred damage, though happily of a trivial
nature. The Eskimo Giviok, for example, found himself obliged to pass
between two enormous icebergs called the Sun Mountains, which closed
behind him so rapidly as to bruise the stern of his kayak.
According to some peoples, a similar peril attended any journey to
the region of death, regardless of the direction. Folk tales of modern
Greece and Albania often tell of a hero required to fetch water from the
springs of Life and Death and of his narrow escape. In one tale the
mountains shut so rapidly that his ally, a stork, lost the feathers of its
tail. Certain peoples imagined further that, if the hero could pass the
danger unharmed, the clashing objects would become fixed and in future
would leave the way always open. If the New Zealand hero Mawi had
passed through safely, the dead would have been able to return at will
and men would have been immortal. He failed, making death irrevocable.
A similar belief in clashing mountains was held by the early Greeks
and entered into the story of the Argo. Jason, it was thought, had in-
curred this peril on his way to the kingdom of Aeetes. The idea was ap-
propriate, if this kingdom lay eastwards in the land of sunrise. And it
was appropriate, also, if the kingdom lay northwards in Colchis. For in
the Black Sea the Greeks had imagined one country of the dead, the
White Island (Leuke). There Pausanias pictured the merry existence
after death of Achilles and his wife, the beautiful Helen of Troy. The
approach to the Black Sea, according to Simonides, led between clash-
ing mountains. Pindar referred to them as the Symplegades, which af-
terwards became their usual name, and he added that, after Jason's pas-
sage, the mountains became stationary and harmless. Later authors re-
ferred to the Symplegades as lying at the northern end of the Bosphorus
and stated that Phineus taught Jason how to pass in safety. Apollonius
added that Jason first sent a dove, which lost some tail feathers, and then
ventured with the ship, which lost an ornament of the stern. Originally
the Symplegades were described as wholly distinct from the Wanderers,
and afterwards the distinction usually was maintained. But, since in
both cases Jason had to pass by cliffs where the route was unsafe even
for doves, a few Greek authors regarded the Symplegades and the Wan-
derers as the same. This was the opinion of Ovid.
Pindar first recorded for us the circumstances under which Jason
began his voyage. When Pelias usurped the throne, he said, Aeson con-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
tinued living in Iolcus, but thought it safer to have Jason reared in the
mountains. At the age of twenty Jason revisited Iolcus. He was a tall
youth, with long yellow hair, a cloak of leopard skin, and a spear in
either hand. He was even more conspicuous for having only one sandal.
According to Thucydides and others, it was customary for certain
Greek tribesmen to wear a sandal on the right foot and leave the other
foot bare. Pindar and his readers may have assumed that Jason was one
of these tribesmen. But Pelias remembered an oracle warning him that
a descendant of Aeolus was to come with one sandal and be his death.
Questioned by Pelias, Jason replied at once that he was a descendant
of Aeolus and was come to obtain the throne. At the moment Aeson and
other relatives hastened to welcome him and gave Pelias a chance to
withdraw. Later Jason visited the usurper in the palace and courteously
but firmly repeated his claim. Pindar then alluded to the idea that Jason
was a kinsman of Athamas and his descendants, who still were in danger
of being sacrificed to Jupiter. Pelias offered to yield, he said, if Jason
would relieve them by obtaining the Golden Fleece. Such a quest Pelias
regarded as a sure way to rid himself of a dangerous man.
In this narrative Pindar gave the most striking and attractive of
all characterizations of Jason. He presented him as picturesque and
prepossessing in appearance and as simple, courteous, and direct in his
methods. Pindar's conception affected many later accounts, notably
that of Apollonius. But it was not easy to reconcile this characteriza-
tion with some of Jason's adventures, either in the course of the voyage
or after his return to Greece. His pleasing appearance and courteous
manner often were associated by later authors with a fickle and treach-
erous nature.
Although Pindar did not attempt to give an orderly account of the
voyage, he alluded to several hitherto unrecorded adventures in Colchis.
In the popular fairy tale the hero asked the evil enchanter for the object
of his quest, and the enchanter required him first to perform a seemingly
impossible task. This was true, said Pindar, in the case of Jason.
Among the Semitic peoples of Asia Minor it was a frequent practice to
represent the god Moloch by a hollow, brazen statue in the form of a
bull. At festivals of the god, a fire was kindled in the statue and victims
sometimes were cast into the flaming mouth. To the Greeks the practice
suggested the nature of the task assigned to Jason. He must yoke two
brazen, fire-breathing bulls and plow a certain field of Mars. In the pop-
ular fairy tale the enchanter's daughter not only returned the hero's
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? JASON AND MEDEA
affection but gave him the means of performing the task. This, Pindar
continued, was true of Medea. But her cooperation was not a matter of
chance. The Theogony had suggested that Jason won her by the aid of
the gods.
