Jason, Medea,

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Jason, Medea,

• and the Argonauts

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The Golden Fleece
A golden ram given by Hermes saved the young
prince Phrixus from a wrongful human sacrifice.
It carried him to Colchis, where king Aeetes (son
of Helius, brother of Circe and Pasiphae) took
him in. Phrixus sacrificed the ram and gave the
golden fleece to Aeetes.
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Jason and Pelias

• Pelias is the villain of the piece
• he usurped the throne that rightfully belonged to
  Jasons father
• he slighted Hera by refusing to sacrifice to her
• he knew from a prophecy to beware the man with
  one sandal

• Jason is the hero
• like Achilles, he was raised by Chiron though
  in exile from his rightful kingdom
• when returning home, he helped an old woman
  across the stream, losing a sandal in the process
• the old woman was Hera, working with and through
  Jason as his immortal mentor.

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Jason and Pelias
Pelias promised to give Jason the throne if he
returned from Colchis with the Golden Fleece. As
with the evil king of the Perseus story, Pelias
could expect the mission to be fatal.
Jason set about building a ship for the mission
the Argo which had a talking figurehead which
relayed advice from Hera. Athena too supported
the mission, and is shown here helping build the
phenomenal ship.
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The Argonauts

• Orpheus

Jason gathered together a group of young heroes
to assist him on the mission

• Heracles

• Castor and Pollux

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The Argonauts
Also included were the fathers of many Trojan war
heroes (Achilles, Ajax, etc.), and many other
heroes from the generation before the Trojan
war. Some of these had magical powers for
example, Zetes and Callais, sons of the North
Wind, who had wings . . .
The roster of Argonauts is different in the
different stories, and this is one of the myths
(like the Trojan War and the Calydonian Boar
Hunt) which tended to bring local heroes together
into a shared national narrative a unifying
function of some Greek myths.
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Sources

• The Argonaut story changed over time . . .
• Homer mentions Jason, the Argonauts, and the
  Golden Fleece (but not Medea)
• Pindar (early 5th c. BCE) tells about Jason
  winning the fleece and escaping with Medea, and
  that Medea destroys Pelias
• Euripides play Medea (431 BCE) tells about Medea
  and Jason, with some mention of the mission to
  Colchis
• Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd c. BCE) tells about the
  whole mission, in an often melodramatic way
  Jason is somewhat less than heroic
• Ovid (BCE/CE) tells the story of Jason in a
  heroic way, and also writes of Medeas passions

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The Argonauts

• The Argonauts had several adventures before they
  reached Colchis, losing Heracles along the way.
• The Lemnian women, who had killed their husbands,
  greeted them kindly . . .

• They saved the prophet Phineas from the Harpies
• Thetis helped them through the Symplegades
  (clashing rocks), which were fixed forever after

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The Argonauts

• Jason had to harness fire-breathing bulls, plow a
  field, sow a field with dragons teeth, and when
  supernatural warriors were born (as from the
  teeth Cadmus sowed in Thebes), he had to defeat
  them. Medea gave him ointment to protect and
  strengthen him.
• Who gets the credit? Versions vary
• Jason bravely killed the serpent and took the
  fleece
• or he drugged it with more of Medeas potions
• or Medea was responsible

In Colchis, Aeetes offered to give Jason the
fleece if he could defeat the dragon guarding
it. As with Theseus and Ariadne, the kings
daughter fell in love with the foreign hero and
helped him against her own father. Medea,
practiced in magic (in some accounts more than in
others) gave Jason knowledge and weapons to
defeat the dragon.
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Jasons Quest
Medea speaks I saved you . . . I killed the
serpent, which unsleeping guarded the golden
fleece, and I brought you the light of
salvation! Euripides, Medea
This vase painting shows another tradition Jason
is defeated by the serpent, but Athena makes it
cough him up.
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The Argonauts Flee

• Jason seizes the golden fleece (again, with
  Athena supervising). What happens next varies
• Jason leaves with Medea, and Aeetes pursues him
• Aeetes goes back on his word. Medea helps the
  Argonauts escape with the fleece, and goes with
  them.
• Medeas role can be terrible e.g., she kills her
  younger brother and throws his limbs over the
  side so Aeetes has to stop to pick them up.

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Pelias Death
Jason and Medea returned to Iolcus, where Pelias
had vowed to return the kingdom to Jason. Now he
refused. Medea used her magic to rejuvenate a ram
by cutting him up and boiling him with herbs in a
cauldron. She told Peliasdaughters that they
could rejuvenate their father the same way.
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Pelias Death
They cut him up and cooked him, but all they got
was soup. Jason and Medea were tainted with
miasma and were driven out of Iolcus. They fled
to Corinth. Other stories give a very different
account of Medea they define her as hereditary
queen of Corinth, which was affiliated with
Colchis.
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Medea
Queen Medea had resisted the advances of Zeus,
and Hera offered to reward her by making her
children immortal. But when Medea left her
children in Heras sactuary, they died. OR Medea
was the enemy of King Creon, and killed him, then
fled to Athens, leaving her children in Heras
sanctuary. The Corinthians killed them in
revenge. There was an altar to Medeas children
in Corinth in historical times. Both stories
agree that Medea went to Athens, where she became
the mother of Medus (future king of Persia) by
Aegeus.
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Medea
The playwright Euripides tells a far more
frightening story, and one which has become the
classic version of the Medea story That Medea
killed her own children for revenge on Jason.
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Medea
In exile, Jason and Medea struggle. When they
settle in Corinth, Jason has the opportunity to
marry the princess and establish himself.
Euripides presents Jason as self-serving and
Medea and genuinely wronged. The children are an
issue Jason says they
will benefit by their future step-brothers Medea
thinks they will be worse off whether they go
with her into exile, or stay in Corinth. She
sends them to the princess with a gift . . .
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Medea
a poisoned garment which begins to dissolve her
flesh when she puts it on. Creon tries to save
his daughter and is also killed by the poison.
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Medea
Medea has already planned her escape but what
about the children?
Women, my task is fixed to kill my children
quickly, and leave this land, and not, by wasting
time, let my children be killed by a hand less
kindly to them. Force every way will have it
that they must die . . . Arm yourself in steel,
my heart! Do not hang back from doing this
fearful and necessary wrong. Do not be a coward,
do not think of them, how sweet they are weep
afterward . . .
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Medea
Having killed her children, and having gotten her
terrible revenge on Jason, Medea shows her divine
(and therefore inhuman) side and flies away on
her dragon chariot. Jason, like many heroes, has
a less than heroic death the prow of the Argo
rots off and falls on him while he is sitting
underneath it.
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Zeus in Olympus is the overseer of many doings.
Many things the gods achieve beyond our judgment.
What we thought is not confirmed and what we did
not think, god contrives. And so it happened in
this story. Euripides, Medea
finis