Copy Book Archive

Jason and the Golden Fleece A political rival sends Jason on a hopeless errand, to fetch the golden fleece.

In two parts

Music: Richard Jones

Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source

About this picture …

The Argo as imagined by Konstantinos Volonakis (1837-1907), now regarded as the father of Greek seascape painting.

Jason and the Golden Fleece

Part 1 of 2

Jason has been denied the crown of Iolcus which is his by right. Nonetheless, he gamely agrees to win it back, by fetching the legendary golden fleece from the Kingdom of Colchis on the Black Sea.

WHEN Jason arrived in the Kingdom of Iolcus wearing one sandal, his uncle King Pelias was anxious. He had stolen the crown from Jason’s father, and had been told that a youth wearing one shoe would one day kill him.

So Pelias agreed to give up the throne in exchange for the legendary golden fleece of Colchis, an errand from which he felt sure Jason would not return.

Jason commissioned a magnificent ship, the Argo, and sailed for Colchis.

But Aetes, King of Colchis, refused to let the fleece go, unless Jason first ploughed a field behind two fire-breathing oxen, and sowed it with teeth belonging to a dead monster named the Ismenian Serpent, which would spring up as armed men.

Then, he must somehow get past another, unsleeping serpent which guarded the sacred grove where the fleece was kept.

Nonetheless, with the help of the King’s daughter Medea, Jason overcame every obstacle in his path, and left for Iolcus to claim his crown.

Jump to Part 2

Part Two

Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source

About this picture …

In this ceramic decoration from c240 to c330 BC, Jason brings the golden fleece back to Pelias, who had promised Jason his throne in exchange.

ON the journey out, Jason’s crew of fifty heroes, the Argonauts, had been agreeably delayed on Lemnos, an island populated entirely by women, and then less agreeably by six-armed giants near the Hellespont.

They had delivered the starving Phineus from the harpies, birds who stole every morsel of his food, and navigated the terrifying Symplegades, floating islands that continually bumped and ground against one another.

Their return was dogged by the pursuit of an angry Aetes, and when Jason did arrive home in Iolcus a very surprised Pelias refused point-blank to give up his throne.

Medea tricked the king’s daughters into murdering their father, so that prophecy came true; yet the crime brought no crown for Jason.

Banished to Corinth, he hoped to revive his fortunes by marrying the King’s daughter, but a jealous Medea murdered her, and as Jason sat brooding on the past in the rotten shell of the Argo, a piece of the prow broke off, and killed him.

the end

Copy Book

Source

Based on ‘Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome’, by E. M. Berens.

Suggested Music

1 2

Chamber Airs, Op. 2: Sonata No. 7 in E Minor

I. Allegro assai

Richard Jones (1680-1744)

Performed by Kreeta-Maria Kentala, Lauri Pulakka and Mitzi Meyerson.

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Chamber Airs, Op. 2: Sonata No. 1 in D Major

I. Preludio: Allegro

Richard Jones (1680-1744)

Performed by Kreeta-Maria Kentala, Lauri Pulakka and Mitzi Meyerson.

Media not showing? Let me know!

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