CC 303/352: Lecture Outline, October 18, 2001

Jason and Medea

I. The myths

• birth: son of Aeson, exiled by his half-brother Pelias
• education: Chiron
• Travel to Iolcus:

1. Helps disguised Hera across stream
2. "Beware of the man with one sandal"
3. Sent after Golden Fleece (from ram that rescued Phrixus)

• Some Argonauts

1. Heracles (erastes) and Hylas (eromenos)
2. Zetes and Calais
3. Castor and Polydeuces (=Pollux) (Dioscuri)
4. Theseus
5. Orpheus
6. Meleager
7. Peleus
8. Telamon

• The voyage to Colchis

1. Lemnos: Hypsipyle
2. Propontis: Cyzikus
3. Mysia: Hylas and Heracles lost
4. Bebryces: Amycus
5. Salmydessus: Phineus and the Harpies
6. The Symplegades ("Clashing Rocks")

• In Colchis

1. Aeetes and Medea
2. fire-breathing bulls
3. dragon's teeth
4. dragon guarding fleece

• Trip home from Colchis

1. death of Apsyrtus
2. Medea and Jason married
3. Hesperides
4. Talus

• Back home

1. rejuvenation of Aeson
2. daughters of Pelias
3. Exile in Corinth
4. Jason's planned marriage to Creon's daughter Glauce
5. Medea kills Creon, Glauce, and children and flees to Athens
6. Jason dies when a piece of the Argo falls on him

II. Perspectives

• history:

1. Iolcus important in Bronze Age
2. do myths reflect voyages in Bronze Age or Dark Age?

• religion: little evidence for worship of Jason
• functions / recurring elements / folktale motifs
• initiation: separation, liminality, trials, reintegration
• Jason as inadequate hero?

1. Medea takes charge in Apollonius of Rhodes (Argonautica) and Ovid (Metamorphoses)
2. Euripides' Medea

III. The Calydonian Boar Hunt

• Althea, Oeneus, Meleager
• Artemis and the Boar
• Atalanta

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