The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles

Summary

The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles is Padraic Colum's retelling for young readers of the voyage of the Argo, with many other Greek myths woven into it as stories told by the heroes on the way. It was published in New York by Macmillan in 1921, with illustrations by Willy Pogány, and was named a Newbery Honor book in 1922. The library text is the complete Project Gutenberg text, without the illustrations. Part I, The Voyage to Colchis, begins on Mount Pelion, where a slave brings the infant Jason to the centaur Chiron to be raised in secret. Grown, Jason carries an old woman, the goddess Hera, across a flooded river, loses a sandal, and claims the kingdom of Iolcus from his usurping uncle Pelias, who sends him to fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis. The story of Phrixus, Helle and the golden ram explains the Fleece. Argus builds the ship with a beam from the oak of Dodona that can speak, and the heroes gather: Heracles, Orpheus, Castor and Polydeuces, Peleus, Theseus, Atalanta the huntress and many more. On the first morning Orpheus sings of the beginning of things. Polydeuces defeats King Amycus in a boxing match, Heracles loses his young companion Hylas, and the heroes free King Phineus from the Harpies and learn the way ahead. At Lemnos the women tell the story of Demeter and Persephone; leaving the island, the heroes hear of Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora's jar, from which Hope came last. After passing the Clashing Rocks they see Prometheus chained on Caucasus, and Heracles leaves them to free him. Part II, The Return to Greece, takes the heroes to King Aeetes, whose daughter Medea gives Jason a charm against the fire-breathing bulls and the earth-born warriors and lulls the dragon so that he can take the Fleece. The flight from Colchis brings the slaying of Medea's brother Apsyrtus, purification by Circe, refuge with King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians, who protect Medea from her father's soldiers, and a storm that drives the Argo onto the sands of Libya; the heroes carry the ship across the desert, Orpheus tells the story of Perseus at the garden of the Hesperides, and they pass the bronze giant Talos and reach Iolcus. Part III, The Heroes of the Quest, tells the earlier and later stories of the voyagers: Atalanta and the Calydonian boar, Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, Theseus and the Minotaur, the life and labours of Heracles with the comic Battle of the Frogs and Mice, Admetus and Alcestis, Orpheus's descent for Eurydice, and finally Jason and Medea at Corinth. In Colum's ending Medea flies away after the death of Glauce, and Jason returns to Iolcus, burns the Argo as an offering to Poseidon and hangs the Fleece in the temple, where it inspires the young men of later years.

Top Lessons

• Stories told on the rowing benches

  Colum makes the Argo a ship of storytellers. Orpheus sings of the beginning of things, the Lemnian women tell of Demeter and Persephone, the heroes hear of Prometheus and Pandora, and the daughters of Atlas tell of Perseus. The book shows how a people's myths fit together and how stories carry courage and memory on a long journey.

• Heracles calls the heroes back to their purpose

  At Lemnos the heroes, Jason too, nearly forget the Fleece in the comfort of the island, and Heracles reminds them of what they set out to do; Atalanta agrees. Later, at Caucasus, Heracles himself leaves the voyage for a greater labour. Colum shows that a quest needs companions who will remind each other of their purpose.

• Hope under the rim of Pandora's jar

  In the tale told after Lemnos, Pandora's jar spills sickness, war and strife among men, but Hope is caught under the rim and later carried into the houses of men by a weeping woman. Because of Hope, men and women rouse themselves in their afflictions and look toward gladness. Colum gives young readers a picture of hope as the gift that makes trouble bearable.

• Arete's counsel to Medea

  Queen Arete, a woman who knows nothing of enchantments but has much human wisdom, tells Medea to forget her witcheries and never to practise against anyone's life. In the last chapter Medea cannot keep that counsel, and sorrow follows at Iolcus and Corinth. The contrast teaches the difference between power and wisdom.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Medical themes are mythic and incidental. Medea's herbs are the book's pharmacology: a phial of juices from secret herbs protects Jason from the fiery bulls, and in the last chapter she gathers herbs on the mountains to brew a draught that removes the marks of age, a motif that goes back to Ovid's account of Aeson's rejuvenation and is turned into a trap for old, trembling Pelias. Heracles's youthful madness, sent by a goddess, leads to a killing he must be purified for at Delphi, an ancient picture of madness as divine affliction followed by guilt and sleeplessness. Blind Phineus, tormented and starved by the Harpies, and the chained, wounded Prometheus are images of chronic suffering. Pandora's jar releases sickness among men. Readings of these episodes in modern medical terms are interpretive.

• Part III, IV: The Life and Labors of Heracles

  A madness sent by a goddess drives the young Heracles to kill his brother's children; afterwards sleep and rest leave him, and he goes to Delphi to be purified.

• Part III, VII: Jason and Medea

  Medea gathers magic herbs and grasses, brews a draught and anoints herself so that the marks of age leave her; she then tempts the trembling old Pelias with the hope of restored health.

• Part II, II: Medea the Sorceress

  Medea mingles the juice of secret herbs in a phial as a charm to protect Jason against the fire-breathing bulls.

• Part I, VII: King Phineus

  The blind, aged king is starved by the Harpies, who snatch or foul his food until the sons of the North Wind drive them off.

• Part I, XII: The Mountain Caucasus

  The heroes hear Prometheus cry out as the vulture of Zeus descends on him each day.