Argonautes

Myth

Jason was the son of Éson, which was the legitimate king of Iolcos, current the Volos in Magnésie (area of Thessalie), but the throne had been usurped by the half-brother of Éson, Pélias.

Jason had been put at the shelter at the Centaure Chiron, which dealt with its education. An oracle had predicted with Pélias that it would be killed by a descendant of Éole (the son of Hellen) which would be presented in front of him fitted of only one sandal. This prophecy was carried out when Jason, become adult, returned in Iolcos to claim its heritage; it had lost a sandal by helping an old woman (the goddess Héra disguised) to cross the river. Pélias promised to return its throne to him provided that it finds initially the Golden Fleece.

Jason embarked on the Argo in Pagases with fifty of the large heroes of the Greece. At the origin, they were to come from Thessalie, fatherland of the Minyens, but of the late storytellers added of the hero pertaining to different times and traditions, such as Héraclès. Among the heroes who would have taken share with forwarding were Orphée, Pélée, Télamon, the Dioscures (Beaver and Pollux), the Boréades (Calais and Zétès), Idas and Lyncée, Euphémos, Tiphys the pilot, Argos wire of Phrixos and Argos wire of Arestor (which built the ship according to the traditions), Admète, Augias, and the son of Nélée, Périclyménos. Acaste joined it at the last time. Other sources still quote like members of forwarding Amphion, Tydée, Thésée, Amphiaraos, Atalante (the single woman of forwarding), Méléagre, Astérion, Deucalion, Actor,…

Many legends describe the dangers which Argonautes overcame thanks to the particular virtues of each one.

When forwarding arrived in Colchide, the king Éétès declared himself ready to give the fleece if Jason carried out some apparently impossible exploits. He was for example to harness with a plow two bulls with the shoes of bronze and whose naseaux blew fire, to plow a field and to sow it with the teeth of the dragon of Cadmos; from its teeth would emerge from the armed men who would attack Jason. Thanks to the magic capacities of Médée, the girl of the king, who had fallen in love with Jason, the hero overcame all these tests. Jason, Médée and Argonautes returned in Iolcos with the Golden Fleece.

The account of forwarding presents several alternatives then describing the adventures of Argonautes in various parts of the the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

In certain legends, Argonautes return to Greece by joining the Océan, either in north, or in the south, and they penetrate in the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules.

Interpretation

The history of Argonautes is one of the Greek sagas oldest which incorporates many elements of the popular tales, whose broad essential topics are: to send a hero in a dangerous voyage to get rid of to impose him, and him difficult tasks for which an unforeseen ally brings its assistance to him. Jacques Lacarrière, in his Dictionnaire In love with Greece gave a modern version of the myth: “To be Argonaute, it is to be collector on the seas and beyond the seas of the treasure symbolic system ensuring the man the capacity on the things and itself”.

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