notes:
"Golden Fleece" and one sad love story:
Pelias was the son of Tyro and the sea god Poseidon. He overthrew Aeson (the rightful king) by killing him. Alcimede (wife of Aeson) already had an infant son, Jason who she sent to the centaur (half man, half horse), for fear that Pelias would kill him - she claimed that he had been killed. Pelias, still paranoid that he would one day be overthrown, consulted an oracle, which warned him to beware of a man coming forth from the people with only one sandal. Many years later, Pelias was holding games in honor of his father sea god, when Jason arrived in Iolcus and lost one of his sandals in the river, while helping an old woman (Goddess Hera in disguise) to cross. When Jason entered Iolcus, he was announced as a man wearing one sandal. Paranoid, Pelias sent Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece hoping that he would be killed in the attempt. (The legend of the Golden Fleece was based on a practice of the Black Sea tribes of placing a lamb's fleece at the bottom of a stream to entrap particles of gold being washed down from upstream.) Jason assembled a great group of heroes and a huge ship called the Argo. Together, the heroes were known as the Argonauts.
The isle of Lemnos is situated off the Western coast of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). The island was inhabited by a race of women, who had neglected their worship of Aphrodite, and as a punishment, the goddess made the women so foul in stench that their husbands couldn't bear to be near them. The men then took concubines from the Thracian mainland, and the spurned women, naturally angry, killed every male inhabitant. The Argonauts stopped off on the isle, and the women welcomed them warmly. Jason fathered twins with the queen, and many other Argonauts fathered children with the other women, thereby reintroducing a male population to the island. Heracles, one of the Argonauts was disgusted by the antics of the others and pressured them to leave. Soon Jason reached the court of Phineus in Thrace. Many years ago, Zeus sent Harpies, creatures with the body of a bird and the head of a woman; to prevent Phineus from eating any more than what was necessary to live. Jason took pity on the emaciated king, and killed the Harpies. In return for this favor, Phineus revealed to Jason the location of Colchis. The only way to reach Colchis was to sail through the Clashing Islands, huge rock cliffs that came together and crush anything that travels between them. Phineus told Jason to release a dove when approached this islands, and if the dove made it through, to row with all your might. If the dove was crushed, he was doomed to fail. Jason released the dove as advised, and as the rocks recoiled after the dove had passed, they rowed hard and made it through. Since the Argo, the first ship to pass through the cliffs stand still. Jason arrived in Colchis modern Black Sea coast to claim the fleece as his own. King of Colchis promised to give it to him only if he could perform certain tasks. Presented with the tasks, Jason became discouraged and fell into depression. However, Hera had persuaded Aphrodite to convince her son Eros to strike king’s daughter, Medea, with love for Jason. As a result, Medea aided Jason in his tasks. First, Jason had to plow a field with fire-breathing oxen that he had to yoke himself. Medea provided an ointment that protected him from the oxen's flames. Then, Jason sowed the teeth of a dragon into a field. The teeth sprouted into an army of warriors. Medea had previously warned Jason of this and told him how to defeat this foe. Before they attacked him, he threw a rock into the crowd. Unable to decipher where the rock had come from, the soldiers attacked each other and defeated each other. Although Jason had completed these tasks, King was not willing to give up the fleece. He began to plan the destruction of the Argonauts. Medea, aware of her father's plans, brought Jason to the fleece that night. When they approached the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece, Medea used her magic to put the dragon to sleep. Jason then took the fleece and sailed away with Medea. She distracted her father as they fled by killing her brother and throwing pieces of his body into the sea, which king Aeetes had to stop for and gather. Zeus, as punishment for the slaughter of Medea's own brother, sent a series of storms at the Argo and blew it off course.
Chiron had told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky islands called Sirenum scopuli and sang beautiful songs that enticed sailors to come to them, which resulted in the crashing of their ship into the islands. When Orpheus heard their voices, he withdrew his lyre and played his music more beautifully than they, drowning out their music.
The Argo then came to the island of Crete, guarded by the bronze man, Talos. As the ship approached, Talos hurled huge stones at the ship, keeping it at bay. Talos had one blood vessel, which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by only one bronze nail. Medea cast a spell on Talos to calm him; she removed the bronze nail and Talos bled to death. The Argo was then able to sail on.
When Jason returned with Golden Fleece Medea, claimed to Pelias' daughters that she could make their father younger by chopping him up into pieces and boiling the pieces in a cauldron of water and magical herbs. She demonstrated this remarkable feat with a sheep, which leapt out of the cauldron as a lamb. The girls, rather naively, sliced and diced their father and put him in the cauldron. Medea did not add the magical herbs, and Pelias was dead. Pelias' son drove Jason and Medea into exile for the murder, and the couple settled in Corinth. There he married Creusa, a daughter of the King of Corinth, to strengthen his political ties. Medea, angry at Jason for breaking his vow that he would be hers forever, got her revenge by presenting Creusa a cursed dress, as a wedding gift, that stuck to her body and burned her to death as soon as she put it on. Creusa's father burnt to death with his daughter as he tried to save her. Medea killed the children that she bore to Jason, fearing that they would be murdered, because of their mother's actions, and fled to Athens.
Because he broke his vow to love Medea forever, Jason lost his favor with Hera and he died a lonely and unhappy man with no friends. He was asleep under the stern of the Argo, which was rotten, and it fell on him, killing him instantly. It was said that the manner of his death was due to the gods cursing him for breaking his promise to Medea.
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