The myth of Jason and the Argonauts - Iseult Gillespie
Hercules,
the strongest man alive
with a mighty heart to match.
Orpheus,
charmer of nature and master of music.
Castor and Pollux,
the twin tricksters hatched from an egg.
The Boreads,
sons of the North Wind
who could hurtle through the air.
For untold times
these heroes had roamed ancient Greece,
creating new legends wherever they went.
But none of their adventures
was so great as when they joined forces
for the sake of a young man named Jason.
Years before,
Jason’s uncle Pelias
had ruthlessly usurped
the throne of Thessaly
from Jason’s grandfather.
When Jason returned
to his father’s stolen court,
the cowardly king
set him a seemingly impossible task:
cross the teeming seas to Colchis,
and steal
the golden fleece of a flying ram
under King Aeetes’ nose.
If Jason retrieved the Fleece,
Pelias promised to relinquish the throne.
Touched by his heroic mission,
the Gods spread Jason’s call for help,
and soon
he had assembled a not-so-motley crew.
These heroes,
alongside countless sailors,
soothsayers, and rebel demigods,
named themselves
the Argonauts after their sturdy ship.
But the path ahead
was marked with untold terrors–
enough to test even the fiercest heroes.
Their first stop was Lemnos,
an isle of women
who had killed all the island’s men.
As punishment,
Aphrodite had cursed them
with a sickening stench–
but that didn’t stop Jason
fathering twins with the queen.
The rest of the crew also found themselves
embroiled in new romances;
until Hercules chastised them
for not behaving like heroes.
Eventually,
they sailed on to the Mount of Bears,
an island where a group of ancient,
six-armed monsters
lived alongside the peaceful Doliones.
While the clan welcomed
the Argonauts with open arms,
the monsters surged down
from the mountains
and hurled rocks at the docked ship.
Hercules held them off single-handedly,
before his comrades joined the fray.
Bolstered by their victory,
the triumphant heroes sailed onward–
only to be blown back
to the island several stormy nights later.
In the tempest,
the Doliones
thought these new arrivals invaders.
The Argonauts were similarly unaware
of their surroundings,
and fought blunderingly in the dark,
slaying wave after wave of foe.
But the morning light
revealed a horrible truth:
their victims
were none other than their previous hosts.
Yet again,
Jason had allowed the crew
to be distracted,
this time at a terrible cost.
Ashamed at his conduct,
he resolved
to focus only on the Fleece,
but even this haste proved ruinous.
When Hercules’ squire
was abducted by a water nymph,
Jason sailed on–
oblivious to the absence
of his most powerful crewmate.
The remaining Argonauts
continued their quest,
until stopping at the sight
of an old man
surrounded by a swirl of harpies.
This was Phineas,
a seer cursed by Zeus
to endure
old age, blindness, and endless torture
for giving away
his prophecies.
Moved by his plight,
the wind brothers set upon the flock,
providing Phineas
with a brief respite from his punishment.
In return,
the seer told them how to overcome
the terrifying trial that lay ahead:
the Symplegades,
a pair clashing rocks
that reduced ships to splinters.
But first,
the Argonauts would have to maneuver
past the mouth of hell,
around the island
of the bloodthirsty Amazons,
and under psychedelic skies.
These adventures cost the crew
both in men and morale–
and some feared
they might be losing their minds.
Upon reaching the clashing rocks,
the exhausted crew quaked with fear.
But Phineas’ advice rang in their heads.
The Argonauts released a single dove
and sped through in its wake
to emerge unscathed.
With this narrow escape,
the Argonauts
finally had Colchis in their sights.
Yet while Jason rested
and celebrated with his crew,
he could feel his time
among them was drawing to a close.
As the fleece gleamed in his mind,
he knew
he would have to retrieve it alone.
But he could not guess
that this final task
would have the most horrible price of all.
