When was jason and the argonauts written

This task is supposed to result in his death, and was given him by one King who wanted him dead. By securing the fleece he is to secure release from the King; and in doing so, engage the wrath of another King. The Argonautica is a story that was writ From the mists of ancient days long past, comes the tale of the Greek hero Jason and his 56 heroic friends. The Argonautica is a story that was written by one of the librarians of the famed library of Alexandria of ancient times.

Though Apollonius of Rhodes was no Homer, he does not disappoint with this adventure-filled journey. I found this part much more interesting than I should have… probably. Just those little glimpses of the time, like that of Pelius, who had been living in exile from his home city, as had his brother. Telamon dwelt in the Attic island; but Peleus departed and made his home in Phthia. And, great are the number of witnesses who are there to say goodbye.

Idmon already knew of his coming death by augury. But, Tiphys the Helmsman's death doesn't seem to be foretold, and die he will. As they sail away from the shores of home, we catch a glimpse of a Centaur and his wife on the beach. They are waving to the ship, with the son of the exile in hand.

It seems they made their way to the mainland when they heard that the exiled young father would be departing, just to allow him to catch a glimpse of his son Achilles.

There is an encounter with the Lemnian women who had slain all their unfaithful men. Then comes the abduction of young Hylas by nymphs while Tiphys urges them to depart to catch the winds.

Jason and crew depart the island, unknowingly leaving Heracles and Polyphemus behind in their search for Hylas. As soon as they take note of the missing, in their grief they start to turn back risking the winds. But, Zetes and Calais stopped the search. We are informed that in the future, Heracles will punish these two for stopping the search, but he will survive, as will Polyphemus who is destined to found and build a city there among the Mysians. You never know who you are fighting in the dark it seems.

But, with a favoring wind they soon steer through the eddying Bosporus. There they hear the prophecy of the aged Phineus. In return for delivering him from the Harpies, he explains how they should make it through the Cyanean rocks into the Black Sea, by first sending a dove through. And as when a man roofs over a house with tiles to be an ornament of his home and a defence against rain, and one fits firmly into another, each after each; so they roofed over the ship with their shields, locking them together.

And as a din arises from a warrior-host of men sweeping on when lines of battle meet, such a shout rose upward from the ship into the air.

Now they saw none of the birds yet, but when they touched the island and clashed upon their shields, then the birds in countless numbers rose in flight hither and thither. And as when the son of Cronos sends from the clouds a dense hailstorm on city and houses, and the people who dwell beneath hear the din above the roof and sit quietly, since the stormy season has not come upon them unawares, but they have first made strong their roofs; so the birds sent against the heroes a thick shower of feather-shafts as they darted over the sea to the mountains of the land opposite.

But, first they have to win the fleece. It seems dear old Dad is not such a dear. He not only does not intend to allow Jason to have the fleece, but he sets him another impossible task to obtain this… first impossible task. In the morning I yoke the oxen, and at eventide I cease from the harvesting. But, the question remains: Is Medea justified in placing her hope and future in the hands of a sailor who has promised to marry her?

Sadly, she soon becomes a political exile on the ship, as her Father continually sends men to force the men to return her. He so wants revenge upon his own daughter that he sends her brother to capture her. Later a neighboring king is being strong-armed into extraditing Medea back to King Aeetes, when the King's wife warns Jason that her husband will not send Medea back if Jason and Medea are already married.

So, they move the wedding ahead to that very night, instead of waiting to get home to his family. Numerous maps have been speculated, in an attempt to rectify the geography. Apollonius had a poor understanding of the world outside the Mediterranean, as did most of the Greeks of that age. This rough attempt to map a journey around terra incognita was much like Sci-fi writers today attempting to describe a space journey through the universe. In this way, the book speaks of the unknown ancient worlds This is highly readable ancient Greek.

I read it in the Kindle and Audible not quite whisper-synced and enjoyed the narration as well as the translation of the text by Seaton. My first ancient text and I really enjoyed it! The introduction and explanatory notes were extremely helpful and though I'm sure I missed out on a few references I still had a great time with the story.

Definitely one to reread in the future and has spurred me on to tackle the Odessy! A wonderful adventure! Been meaning to read this for a long time and it did not disappoint. The text itself is also very intriguing in terms of history, place and interpretation, something I'd like to look into some more. Apollonius explores various themes that shape the poem as a whole, such as love, deceit, heroism and honour to the gods.

Cool idea. Cool title. Ultimately, I have to side with Callimachus on this one. Well, maybe not. Virgil has something to say about it, doesn't he? But apparently the Greek world was full of imitators. And bad ones, at that. Apollonius, my misguided friend, y Cool idea.

Apollonius, my misguided friend, you proved yourself a hack with this one. I couldn't make it past the first book. Why Hera and Athene are meeting in some dank cave is beyond me. And then other characters, unnamed and unseen, pop up out of nowhere and the action is completely muddled. I tried. I really did. I thought, this story survived almost years. I owe it to my man Apollonius to power through and complete the journey. Alas, I was more inclined to hang out with Hypsipyle and her lusty, sex-starved, though murderously-inclined bunch, than to venture much further.

Jun 15, Richard Thompson rated it liked it Shelves: ancient. I have been exposed to a number of versions of the Jason story from retellings in children's books of Greek mythology that I read when I was very young to the Ray Harryhausen movie to the Latin version by Flaccus, which I read in my high school Latin class.

So I thought that it was time to finally read the definitive version by Apollonius Rhodius. It was good, but a little disappointing. The character of Medea was great, but the story and the rest of the characters were less fleshed out than I h I have been exposed to a number of versions of the Jason story from retellings in children's books of Greek mythology that I read when I was very young to the Ray Harryhausen movie to the Latin version by Flaccus, which I read in my high school Latin class.

The character of Medea was great, but the story and the rest of the characters were less fleshed out than I had hoped. Homer sets the gold standard for epic poetry, and this is silver at best in comparison, despite some was in which the poetic techniques are a bit more modern and developed beyond the Homeric oral tradition.

And when Jason sows the dragons' teeth, I couldn't help visualizing Harryhausen's stop motion animated skeleton warriors. Nov 03, Markus rated it really liked it Shelves: classic-fictions. He mentions Achilles in his mothers arms, still a child. Homer is however his obvious guide in many ways, the progression of the story, the difficulties of the heroes along their quest to recover the golden fleece, beeing helped by Medea, the Colchian princess and various gods under the guidance of Hera.

All very similar to Ulysses, but not quite as rich, colourful and detailed. Medea steals the show. As posted on Zezee with Books. An oracle had told him that someone wearing a single sandal would kill him and Jason had shown up wearing one sandal he lost the other in some mud whe As posted on Zezee with Books.

An oracle had told him that someone wearing a single sandal would kill him and Jason had shown up wearing one sandal he lost the other in some mud when he carried an old woman Hera in disguise across a river.

To get rid of Jason, Pelias sends him on the impossible mission to get the Golden Fleece. To aid him on his mission, Jason calls upon heroes far and wide. Among those who join him are the mighty Heracules, sweet-voiced Orpheus, Polydeuces and Castor twin sons of Zeus commonly called the Dioscuri , and Zetes and Calais a.

Aiding the heroes on their mission are the goddesses Hera, the mastermind behind this tale, and Athena.

Their adventures include visiting the island of Lemnos, which is populated only by women they had killed all the men because the lusted after other women , chasing off some harpies so a man can eat the harpies kept despoiling his food , and sailing through Clashing Rocks. Jason promises to marry her in return for her help. My thoughts: That was hard to summarize.

This will be long so if you want to read the short of my thoughts, jump to the Overall section below. Let me start with why I chose to read this poem. Prior to reading this, I was somewhat familiar with the story of Jason and Medea. If so, then Medea got a bad deal. On the translation and its components: The poem is translated by Aaron Poochigian. I thought the poem was accessible and the story enjoyable. For the majority of it, I was hooked because of all the crazy adventures.

So I read the poem and its endnotes at the same time to make sure that I understood what was going on. I suggest the same to others interested in reading it. And it has other tidbits historical facts and such that are useful and fun to know.

The story told is quite fast paced but there are some slow parts, which made me break from the story. The slowest sections were when Medea falls in love with Jason and we had to read about her anguished thoughts on loving him and deceiving her father.

However, there were times when I would notice the rhythm and I would reread the section aloud so I could hear how it flows. Otherwise, I admired how the poem is written and the images the descriptions created in my head.

Speaking of descriptions, I love the long similes, though sometimes I got lost in them. Even when I get lost in the length of a simile, by its end I understand the description. One of my favorite things about myths is that they are used to explain why things occur or why a place has a certain name.

They help to tell the history of a people. A lot of such tellings are, of course, included in Argonautica and I enjoyed reading them. My favorite is how an island came to be called Epiphany. I was more interested in learning what would happen next. He has doubts, he is not a hot head, and he is more likely to take the diplomatic route than challenge someone to a fight. And I really like that he doubts himself sometimes because it makes him relatable and familiar to the heroes I read about in fantasy books today.

I consider the love in this story external because she was forced to fall hopelessly in love with Jason. As such, she acted in accordance to the force of that love. There are adventures, monsters, gods, and battles.

There are moments of intense infatuation, fear, and despair. Jason reminds me of Jason in the Heroes of Olympus series because of his indecisiveness.

There are other things I noticed but what stuck out the most was Aeolus, god of the winds. This was wild. One of the beams the keel of the ship, the Argo, can talk. I mean, a talking piece of wood, people. Oh yes I suppose I also liked the epic journey through strange lands of murderous giants, murderous women, murderous rulers few of whom are women and repulsive, homicidal birds.

That was all good. But that piece of wood though This was as exciting, as dazzling, as fantastical and as weird as The Odyssey, but just that little more exciting for the talking bit of wood.

Alright This was wild. My biggest takeaway from reading this is a fascination with how interwoven the ancient Greek gods are in their everyday life: the omens and portents abundant in the tale reflect an obsession with them parallel to other polytheistic cultures.

That, and how the world of men seems to be one long game to them, influenced by the gods' fancies and whims. The ending was weak, though. For such an exciting tale, it sort of died lamely, like a candle run its course.

The best part of this book is the off the wall, days-be-gone imagery. Apollonius got nothing on Homer. This should be an amazing tale Some of the characterizations and interactions are interesting, but in many cases scenes that would have been multi-page, memorable if not epic events if handled by Homer or Virgil are reduced to a couple of sentences along the lines of "yeah, this thing happened.

Moving on Just ok. The experience with the names was worse then War and Peace tbh. It's outstanding. I was vaguely familiar with the story, but until reading it in full I never appreciated its scope and its themes and its dense mythology and its depth in examining human nature and psychology and its awesome adventure, or its sheer excellence as a story and narrative. The Penguin books edition I read was well done, translated and with notes by E.

Rieu, as well as a glossary and map, which became vital during my reading. It seems like he was careful to maintain the writing of the original, despite this being a prose translation. Given that, the prose is wonderful, colorful and poetic obviously, since this was originally a poem.

This ancient tale is littered with mythological gods, the children and not-so-distant relatives of gods, in a world in which Greek mythology is very much alive and active. Jason's crew is described to us, with impressive lineages from gods and heroes, each character bringing something of value to the quest and to the story, helping Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece. And the Golden Fleece, although being the main impetus for the quest which itself was given by a king terrified that Jason might mean his doom , is really a secondary concern.

This story, like other epics of its time, shows us that it is the quest, the adventure, the voyage itself which is interesting and exciting and can be seen as almost the whole purpose, while the end goal, the thing which is to be obtained, is sometimes nothing more than an excuse for an epic adventure. And this certainly is an epic adventure, which still over years later stands as a magnificent tale that outshines many modern classics.

Indeed, even the story of the Golden Fleece itself may have some basis in scientific fact. The Greek myths are over two thousand years old — and perhaps, in their earliest forms, much older — and yet many stories from Greek mythology, and phrases derived from those stories, are part of our everyday speech. We describe a challenging undertaking as a Herculean task , and speak of somebody who enjoys great success as having the Midas touch.

However, as this last example shows, we often employ these myths in ways which run quite contrary to the moral messages the original myths impart. The moral of King Midas, of course, was not that he was famed for his wealth and success, but that his greed for gold was his undoing: the story, if anything, is a warning about the dangers of corruption that money and riches can bring.

Or, as the Bible bluntly puts it, the love of money is the root of all evil. Similarly, Narcissus, in another famous Greek myth, actually shunned other people before he fell in love with his own reflection, and yet we still talk of someone who is obsessed with their own importance and appearance as being narcissistic.

The messages they impart are therefore timeless and universal, and this helps to explain why, more than two millennia after they were first written down, they remain such an important influence on Western culture. This is a wonderful summary and analysis. I love how Jason did not leave Medea like how Theseus left Ariadne. Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address. Interesting Literature is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.

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Interesting Literature. When Jason finally arrives in Colchis he asks King Aietes to return the golden fleece to him as it belonged to his ancestor. Reluctant, the king suggests yet another series of challenges to Jason.

He must yoke fire-breathing bulls, plough and sow a field with dragons' teeth and then overcome the warriors who will rise from the furrows. Aietes is confident the tasks are impossible but unbeknownst to the king, his daughter Medea has taken a liking to Jason.

She offers to assist Jason if he will marry her. He agrees. Medea is a powerful sorceress and Jason is successful. Jason and Medea return to Greece where Jason claims his father's throne, but their success is short-lived. Uncomfortable with Medea's magic, the locals drive Medea and Jason out of Iolkos.

They go into exile in Corinth where the king offers Jason his daughter in marriage. He agrees and so violates his vow to the gods to be true only to Medea. Furious, Medea kills the woman, kills Medea and Jason's children and then ascends to Mount Olympus where she eventually marries Achilles. Jason goes back to Iolkos where his boat the Argo is on display. One day, while he sits next to the boat weeping, the decaying beam of his ship the Argo falls off and hits him on the head, killing him outright.