Jason

"Right, guys? I mean, right? I mean, the, we can do that, right?" The crew just rolled their eyes and prepared for the Harpies to return.

Again, this wasn't exactly the behavior of a leader.

And with that, I think this is a good place for a commercial break.

I mean, not that there's ever really a good place for a commercial break, but if there was to be a good place, this would probably be it.

And they, uh, perform some impossible tasks to win the Golden Fleece.

Jason and Medea fall in love.

She is the princess and priestess of Colchis.

Her father, Aeëtes, is the king of Colchis.

His father is Helios, the sun god, so there's a, an intimate link in that family, uh, to the sun.

And, uh, Medea and Jason marry and elope, uh, and steal the Fleece, and then, um, they go on a kind of Bonnie and Clyde style crime spree, um, in the short term, uh, and then, um, turn on one another in the medium term, let us say.

Um, so there's obviously different versions of the myth, but it's most popularized by Euripides' version.

Yeah.

Welcome back to Greeking Out.

We're in the middle of our series all about Jason and his adventures in retrieving the Golden Fleece.

This is only the second of a four-part series about Jason's voyage.

Okay.

Well, technically you're right, but if you didn't listen to last week's episode, you can totally go back and check it out.

But as usual, you do you.

You can listen however you want.

And it's also worth pointing out that the first chapter of our new book, Greeking Out: Heroes and Olympians, is also a retelling of Jason's epic voyage, although we had to leave a lot of stuff out.

From Argos came Ptoleaus and Areus sons of Bias, and mighty Leudocus, all of whom Hiero daughter of Melias bare; on her account the Aeolid Melampus endured sore affliction in the steading of Iphiclus.

Nor do we learn that Heracles of the mighty heart disregarded the eager summons of Iason's son; but when he heard a report of the heroes' gathering, and had reached Lercaean Argos from Arcadia by the road along which he carried the boar alive that fed in the thickets of Lympia near the vast Erymanthian swamp, the boar bound with chains he put down from his huge shoulders at the entrance to the market-place of Mycenae, and himself of his own will set out against the purpose of Eurystheus.

And with him went Hylas, a brave comrade, in the flower of youth, to bear his arrows and to guard his bow.

Next to him came a scion of the race of divine Danaus, Nauplius; he was the son of Clytoneus son of Nobilus; Nobilus was son of Lernus; Lernus, we know, was the son of Prytus son of Nauplius; and once Amymone daughter of Danaus wedded to Poseidon bare Nauplius, who surpassed all men in naval skill.

Footnote.

This fine noose must not be confused with the fine noose who appears in Jason.

End footnote.

Noble.

You shall be hurt by no weapon.

I will give you a monument to last forever, and in the house of Sephus you shall always be seen, that my wife may comfort herself with the image of her betrothed.

Jason, of a dramatic version of Greek Myths and Hero Tales, by Fanny Amanda Comstock.

This is a Librox recording, or Librox recordings are in the public domain.

But the influence of the age was too strong.

Instead of the unity of an epic, we have merely a series of episodes, and it is the great beauty and power of one of these episodes that gives the poem its permanent value, the episode of the love of Jason and Medea.

This occupies the greater part of the third book.

The first and second books are taken up with the history of the voyage to Colchis, while the fourth book describes the return voyage.

The best-known earlier account that we have is that in Pindar's fourth Pythian ode, from which Apollonius has taken many details.

The subject was one for an epic poem, for its unity might have been found in the working out of the expiation due for the crime of Othamus, but this motive is barely mentioned by our author.

As we have it, the motive of the voyage is the command of Peleus to bring back the golden fleece, and this command is based on Peleus' desire to destroy Jason, while the divine aid given to Jason results from the intention of Hera to punish Peleus for his neglect of the honor due to her.

The learning of Apollonius is not deep, but it is curious.

Toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, about 407, Pherae was added to the list of leading cities by the energy of a man called Lycophron, who made himself tyrant and did his best, though without success, to subject all Thessaly to himself.

Iason, three seventy-four to three seventy, succeeded where Lycophron failed.

He was strong and active, bold and prudent.

He knew how to ensure the discipline and to secure the devotion of soldiers.

With all Thessaly at his back and elected tagos or generalissimo in three seventy-four, his dreams extended to a wide empire based upon the subjection of Epirus, Boiotia, Attica, and perhaps Lacedaemon, and lastly of Macedon.

And the object of this great power was to be the humiliation of no less a potentate than the great king himself, a far easier task, as he professed to think, than the subjection of Greece.

These ideas of Iason were no secret, and as might have been expected, his immediate neighbors began to be uneasy.

Boiotia no doubt had little to fear, while Epaminondas and Pelopidas were at the head of affairs at Thebes, and Athens was too far off to be in immediate danger.

So no one could get the golden fleece.

Wade, Jason, brave, party, rained, creek, bridge, shoestrings, invited.

Jason was a brave young man.

He lived a little way from the king's city.

One day the king gave a big party and invited Jason.

It was a very dark night, and it rained hard.

Jason had to go across a creek, but there was no bridge.

The creek was full of water, and Jason had to wade.