Jason and the Argonauts: An Enduring Myth

The tale of Jason and the Argonauts has been told roughly since the time of Homer. The myth itself comes out of Thessaly where a tradition of Greek Epic Poetry began in about 800 BCE. The tale of Jason and the Argonauts is set one generation before the events of the Trojan War, but is believed to have been written at about the same time as Homer's epics The Iliad and the Odyssey.

The story of Jason and the Argonauts starts out with a young prince who was denied his brith right by his Uncle Pelias. Pelias of a small Greek city state called Iolkos. The young prince would be be raised by a centaur named Cheiron on Mount Pelion near his home. Jason's uncle, Pelias spent the time of Jason's youth living in dread of a man with one shoe. An oracle had told the usurper years before the action begins in Jason and the Argonauts that he should be wary if he even should he ever meet such a man.

Jason, who would later lead the Argo on its famous voyage, set out to reclaim his birthright when he reached twenty years of age. On his way to make his claim on Iolkos's throne, Jason would lose a sandal while helping a disguised Hera. When Jason arrived in the Iolkos court and demanded that he be given what was his by right, Pelias balked and informed his nephew that if Jason wanted the kingdom, the future leader of the Argonauts would have to go on a quest.

The golden fleece that would be the object of the quest Jason and the Argonauts once belonged to Zeus. Along the way Jason and the Argonauts would incur many adventures and many towns in Greece include parts of the myth as their founding stories. According to the BBC's history section this is not because of a historical basis of the events, but rather because their town gets mentioned in the tale of Jason and the Argonauts.

Other adventures of Jason and the Argonauts the way to the fleece would include repopulating the Island of Lemnos whose inhabitants were cursed by Aphrodite and killed off all the men, rescuing a blind prophet from the harpies Zeus had sent to torment him, and of course recovering the golden fleece. During the adventures of the Argo, Jason would eventually fall in love with a sorcerer named Medea and be required to perform a number of superhuman tasks by the King of Colchis.

Jason and the Argonauts remains one of the classic tales of seafaring adventure today and themes contained in the Jason and the Argonauts myth would be handed down and even get replayed today on the big screen. As the tale comes to its end we find out that Pelias has murdered his wife and Medea murders Pelias by tricking him into drinking poison. During their exile in Corinth because of the murder, Jason ends up marrying another woman and Medea gets her revenge by murdering the children the couple had together. The tale of Jason and the Argonauts ends when Jason returns to the beach where the Argo had wrecked and is killed by beam from the wreckage of his former ship.