Jason

Aeson announced that his newborn son Jason was dead. In secret, he removed the child from Iolcus and entrusted him to the centaur Chiron. Chiron raised Jason in the countryside, away from Pelias and the danger posed by his rule. Some accounts place Jason in the forest during this concealment.

Aeson had a claim to the throne. He was the son of Cretheus and might have succeeded him as king of Iolcus. Pelias, Aeson’s half-brother, had seized the throne instead. Pelias was the son of Tyro and Poseidon, so his position was disputed. In accounts that describe Pelias as a usurper, Jason’s concealment protected the child who stood in the line of succession.

Jason remained with Chiron until he reached manhood. Other heroes were also counted among Chiron’s pupils. When Jason was grown, he left the centaur and travelled towards Iolcus to claim his father’s throne.

On the journey, Jason reached the River Anauros. An old woman stood there, unable to cross without help. Jason carried her over the river on his shoulders. She was Hera in disguise, although he did not know this. The current swept away one of his sandals. Hera then became his protector.

Pelias had received a prophecy that a stranger wearing one sandal would cause him to lose his kingdom. When Jason appeared before him, Pelias recognised the danger. He sought to remove the young man without killing him and sent him to fetch the Golden Fleece from the grove sacred to Ares in Colchis.

A table was set before Phineus, but the Harpies immediately swooped down with loud cries. They snatched away most of the food and left the rest foul-smelling and impossible to eat. Phineus, an old and blind prophet, suffered this punishment whenever he tried to dine. Apollo had given him the power to foretell the future. Zeus punished him because he revealed what the god intended to keep hidden. The Harpies were female winged creatures known as the hounds of Zeus.

The Argonauts had come to Phineus for directions on their voyage to Colchis. He agreed to advise them if they freed him from the Harpies. He knew that two members of the crew could defend him, Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of Boreas, the North Wind. When the Harpies returned, the brothers drew their swords and pursued them through the air. The Harpies fled across the sky, driven away by the sons of Boreas.

Phineus was then able to eat. He thanked Jason and the Argonauts by telling them about the dangers ahead. The Clashing Rocks lay across their route. These enormous rocks moved apart and then crashed together, destroying anything caught between them. Phineus said that the Argonauts should first send a bird through the passage. If it survived, the Argo could follow its course. He gave them a dove, and the crew returned to their ship with his instructions.

When they reached the Clashing Rocks, Jason released the dove as the rocks shifted and churned the sea. The bird flew through the opening, and the Argonauts followed its path with the Argo.

Phineus told the Argonauts what route to take and warned them about the Symplegades, the Clashing Rocks. The rocks were enormous and were driven together by the winds. They closed the passage through the sea, while thick mist swirled around them and the crash of their collision filled the air. Anything caught between them would be destroyed. Phineus said that it was impossible even for birds to pass through safely.

He advised Jason to release a dove between the rocks. If the bird passed through unharmed, the Argonauts could follow its path. If it was destroyed, they were to make no attempt to force the passage. Phineus gave them a dove, and the Argonauts returned to the Argo. When the ship came close to the rocks, Jason watched the boulders move and churn the water around them. He released the dove from the prow.

The dove flew between the Clashing Rocks as they came together. Only the tips of its tail feathers were cut off. Jason and the crew waited until the rocks had drawn apart again. Then they rowed the Argo through the opening with all their strength. The ship followed the dove’s course and passed safely between the rocks. The rocks closed behind it, leaving the Argo beyond the dangerous passage. Phineus’s advice allowed Jason and the Argonauts to continue their voyage towards Colchis.

The guardian dragon hissed and sizzled as Jason approached the tree. Its crested head, hooked claws, and triple tongue guarded the Golden Fleece. Medea came to his side and used her sorcery against it. One account says that she sang a spell. Another says that she sprinkled the dragon with herbs and drugs, then spoke words that brought sleep. The creature’s head sank down, its coils relaxed, and its eyes closed. Jason climbed over it, seized the fleece, and returned with Medea to the Argo.

They had reached Colchis after sailing past the River Thermodon and the Caucasus to the River Phasis. Jason had come because Pelias had ordered him to bring the fleece to Iolcos. Aeetes, its keeper, agreed to surrender it only if Jason first yoked two huge bulls with bronze hooves and fire breathing mouths. The bulls were a gift from Hephaestus. Jason then had to plough the field of Ares and sow it with dragon’s teeth. Armed men would spring from the earth and attack him.

When Jason was at his wit’s end, Medea, the daughter of Aeetes and Eidyia, fell in love with him. She feared that the bulls would kill him, so she secretly offered her help. Jason completed the tasks, but Aeetes still refused to give up the fleece and planned to burn the Argo with its crew. Medea therefore guided Jason to the tree by night. Her brother Apsyrtus joined them. The Argonauts sailed away during the night, carrying the fleece and Medea, while Aeetes pursued them.

The Colchian ships overtook the Argo after Jason and Medea had escaped with the Fleece. The accounts of what followed differ. In one, Medea killed her half-brother Apsyrtus and threw his dismembered body into the sea. The pursuers stopped to gather the remains for burial. In another, Apsyrtus followed in one of the pursuing ships. Medea persuaded him that Jason had abducted her and drew him ashore. Jason then killed him from ambush. Without Apsyrtus, the Colchians were defeated and the Argonauts escaped.

The Argo passed between Scylla and Charybdis. It then reached the land of the Phaeacians, where some Colchians found the ship and demanded that King Alcinoos surrender Medea. Alcinoos decided that she should remain with Jason if she had already slept with him, but should be returned to Colchis if she had not. Jason and Medea were therefore married before the decision was carried out. In one account, they had first been purified of Apsyrtus’s murder by Circe. Another places their marriage and purification on the island of the Phaeacians.

The voyage continued. As the Argo passed the Sirens, Orpheus sang against their song. Boutes alone swam towards them, but Aphrodite carried him away and settled him at Lilybaeum. Thetis guided the ship past the Wandering Rocks with the help of the Nereids, after Hera summoned her. The Argonauts also skirted Thrinacia, the island of the Sun’s cattle.

On the return to Iolcus, the Argo was attacked by Talos, the bronze guardian of Crete. Medea drugged him and removed the pin from his ankle, allowing the fluid to drain from his single vein. In another account, Hades caused Talos to graze his ankle against a rock. Jason and Medea reached Iolcus together. There, Medea helped Jason take revenge on Pelias, who had refused to surrender the throne and had caused the deaths of Jason’s family. She deceived Pelias’s daughters into killing and dismembering him. A torch signal brought the Argonauts from hiding, and they captured the city.

The Argive army halted outside a forest at Nemea, which was governed by King Lycurgus. The army had been divided among seven leaders: Adrastus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Capaneus, Polynices, Tydeus, and Amphiaraus. The soldiers were short of water and searched for a spring. They saw a majestic woman seated on a tree trunk with an infant in her arms. Her noble appearance led them to think that she was a goddess. She told them that she was Hypsipyle, queen of the Lemnians. She had been carried away by pirates and sold as a slave to Lycurgus. She was serving as nurse to his infant son.

When the warriors asked for water, Hypsipyle laid the child in the grass and led them to a hidden spring in the forest. This meeting places her captivity in Nemea, during the Argives’ march, and identifies Lycurgus as her owner. It also gives her a role at his court, where she cared for his infant son.

The same account gives a different ending for her story. After her actions on Lemnos were discovered, Hypsipyle was exiled. Pirates then captured her and sold her to Lycurgus. She was later rescued, bringing her enslavement to an end. The sources differ over the events that led to her exile, the fate of Thoas, and the manner in which she entered Lycurgus’s possession. One version presents her as sold by pirates before the Argives found her in Nemea. Other versions preserve different details, so the sequence after her exile is not identical in every account.

At Jason's request, Medea agreed to restore the youth of his father, Aeson. Jason offered to give some years of his own life to lengthen Aeson's, but Medea refused to take them from him. She said that her art might extend Aeson's life without shortening Jason's. At the next full moon, she went out alone while all creatures slept and the leaves remained still. She addressed the stars and the moon, then invoked Hecate, Tellus, and the gods of the woods. She called on the powers connected with the earth and with plants used in enchantments.

Medea then ordered Aeson to be brought out. She put him into a deep sleep with a charm and had him laid on a bed of herbs, as if he were dead. Jason and everyone else were kept away so that no uninitiated person could see the rites. With her hair streaming, Medea moved three times around the altars. She dipped burning twigs in blood and placed them on the altars to burn.

She prepared a cauldron and filled it with magical herbs, seeds, flowers with sharp juices, stones from the distant East, and sand from the shore of the ocean. She added frost gathered by moonlight, the head and wings of a screech owl, the entrails of a wolf, pieces of tortoise shell, the liver of stags, and the head and beak of a crow. She also put in many other substances that the account does not name. She boiled everything together and stirred it with a dry olive branch.

After the ritual, Medea used the prepared mixture in her work on Aeson. The old man was restored to youth, and his life was lengthened without any years being taken from Jason.

Aeson secretly removed his infant son Jason from Iolcos after Aeson’s half-brother Pelias seized the throne. Pelias feared that Jason, the rightful heir, would threaten his rule. Aeson made it known that the child was dead, then brought him to the centaur Chiron to be raised. Chiron educated Jason in medicine, warfare, and the skills expected of a hero. Jason grew to adulthood among Chiron’s pupils, who included other heroic figures.

When Jason was of age, he left Chiron and returned to Thessaly to claim his father’s throne. On the journey, he reached the raging River Anauros. An old woman asked him to carry her across because she lacked the strength to cross alone. She was Hera in disguise. Jason carried her on his shoulders but lost one sandal in the current. Hera then became his protector.

Pelias had been warned by a prophecy that a stranger wearing one sandal would cause him to lose the kingdom. When he saw Jason, he feared that the prophecy had come true. Rather than kill him, Pelias sent him to Colchis to fetch the Golden Fleece, which hung in a grove sacred to Ares. Another account says that Pelias agreed to return the throne if Jason brought back the fleece.

Jason gathered a crew of heroes and sailed on the Argo, a ship built with Athena’s help. In Colchis, King Aeetes promised the fleece if Jason completed a series of impossible tasks. With help from Aeetes’ daughter Medea, who knew magic, Jason completed them. Aeetes then refused to surrender the fleece, so Jason stole it and fled with Medea. He later became impure in the eyes of the gods after the murder of Medea’s brother, Apsyrtus, and did not ascend the throne of Thessaly.