40 pages • 1 hour read
Apollonius of RhodesJason and the Golden Fleece
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Jason
Jason is the protagonist, a young man noted for his beauty. He is the nephew of King Pelias of Iolkus, and Pelias considers him a danger to his throne. Jason is adventurous and loyal to his crew, but at times he lacks confidence and can become quickly discouraged. At pivotal moments, he finds leadership anxiety provoking and only succeeds at his quest because of Medea’s intervention. In his characterization and epithets, Jason explicitly contrasts with both the Iliad’s Achilles and the Odyssey’s Odysseus. His epithet is amekhanos, meaning “without resources;” one of Odysseus’ epithets is polymekhan, meaning “of many devices.” Contrary to Achilles, Jason does not jump eagerly into battle. For example, Polydeukes volunteers to face Amykos, rather than Jason. When the Argonauts fight the Colchians, Jason shows up at the end but is unnecessary, as the Argonauts have defeated them without him.
The hero Jason most closely resembles is Paris, the Trojan prince who, with Aphrodite’s help, brings Helen (and her treasure) from Sparta to Troy. In Apollonius, Aphrodite is also the patron of Jason. She sends Eros to inflict Medea with love for the Hellenic hero so that she will engineer a plan for his success. Like Paris, Jason is repeatedly described as handsome. His beauty causes the Lemnian queen Hypsipyle to blush, presumably without the help of Eros’ intervention.
Like Paris, Jason can be perceived as vaguely ridiculous. In Book 3 of the Iliad, Paris prances forward out of the Trojan line wearing a leopard skin, holding two spears, but then shrinks back into the city to avoid Menelaus. When he does face Menelaus in single combat, Aphrodite saves him, then quickly spirits him to the bedroom. Jason too can be portrayed in comical terms. These are especially evident in his constant anxious fretting that the quest will fail, even when the Argonauts achieve their goals, the way he is described stretching and drinking water as he waits for the earth-born warriors to sprout, and the pointless battle armor he wears when the Argonauts sail out.
Medea
Medea is the daughter of King Aietes of Cholcis. She is a sorceress and priestess of Hekate, associated with witchcraft and the moon. Medea is a rare character in epic poetry because Apollonius gives her an internal monologue, allowing her to express her hopes, fears, and doubts directly. She is a plot catalyst because Jason's quest cannot progress without her help.
In Ptolemaic Alexandria, Euripides was well-known, leading scholars to believe that historical audience of Jason and the Golden Fleece would have been aware of his play Helen. The tragic end it portrays for Jason and Medea’s marriage—her murder of their young sons together—may have been a twist on the myth unique to Euripides, and Apollonius is believed to be exploiting this knowledge in his portrayal of young Medea. The narrator gradually reveals her sinister potential.
Though being a priestess of Hekate suggests dangerous power, when Medea first appears in Book 3, she is a poignant figure, a victim of the goddesses' conspiracy to ensure Jason’s success. Like Helen in Book 3 of the Iliad, Medea tries to resist the influence of love. Helen argues with Aphrodite in her divine form and is threatened with hatred and violence. Neither Eros nor Aphrodite appear to Medea in human form, but Medea’s struggle against love is equally futile. The grief she feels at betraying her father drives her to the brink of suicide, until Hera forces her to remember the pleasure of being alive. Divine intervention foils any attempt she makes to resist and remain loyal to her own people.
Hints at the dangerous power of her drugs gradually build. The drug that she gives Jason to make him invulnerable is from the ichor of Prometheus—in other words from a god’s punishment and suffering. In her desperation to avoid being returned to her father and punished, she plans the murder of her own brother. When she fears the Argonauts will return her to the Colchians, she berates and threatens the Argonauts and longs to die in a blazing pyre (as Virgil’s Dido will do in the Aeneid of the first century BC). The epic ends with Jason and Medea’s marriage, celebrated by the peace-loving Phaeacians, but the threat of future violence hangs over their union.
Orpheus
Today, Orpheus is primarily known through Roman sources and Ovid’s Metamorphoses in particular, which tells the story of his doomed love for Eurydice. Orpheus is a son of the Muse Calliope, one of the daughters of Mnemosyne (Memory) and Zeus, and a supremely gifted musician.
On the quest, his musical skill is frequently employed to soothe tempers and protect the Argonauts from danger, a reminder that martial skills are not the only ways in which heroes can provide protection. In Book 1, Orpheus’ music prevents a quarrel from breaking out between Idmon and Idas, which would have potentially undermined the quest before it even began. The Argonauts row to the rhythm of Orpheus’ lyre, and he drowns out the Sirens’ deadly song with his own. His presence on the quest underscores the power of song evident through the Homeric epics, but here it is a musician rather than a bard who plays a significant role.
Peleus
Peleus is best known as the father of Achilles, the central warrior of Homer’s Iliad. Apollonius acknowledges the relationship as the quest launches: Cheiron and his wife bring baby Achilles to the see his father as the Argonauts row out. In Hellenic mythology, Peleus was the mortal that Zeus chose to marry Thetis, a sea nymph whose children were prophesied to outshine their father. The marriage was forced on Thetis against her will in order to prevent her from giving birth to a powerful son who could potentially destabilize the pantheon by challenging Zeus’ supremacy.
In Homer, Achilles is fully mortal; there are no references to Achilles being invulnerable. Jason and the Golden Fleece, however, depicts Thetis attempting to immortalize him and being stopped by Peleus, who fears that she is hurting him. She flees their home thereafter. Their awkward reunion is depicted in Book 4, when Thetis is sent to alert him of the divine plan for their successful journey. Apollonius portrays Peleus as stalwart and brave, often exhorting the Argonauts when they are dispirited and even asserting his willingness to put himself in harm’s way when Jason falters.
Herakles
Herakles is the archetypal mythic hero, perhaps the most symbolic character in the narrative. Although Herakles is absent from Books 2-4, his heroic presence lingers in the background, providing a counterpoint to the indecision that characterizes many of Jason's actions as a leader. Herakles and Jason represent two different types of leadership, which Apollonius explores as a major theme in the text.
When the Argonauts embark on their quest, Herakles is the first hero the others wish to elect as their leader, but he defers to Jason, a symbolic representation of the old hero giving way to the new. When the heroes become complacent on Lemnos and are distracted from continuing with their quest, it is Herakles who prompts them into action. Even when Herakles leaves the narrative, he remains a pervasive presence in the poem, the limelight shifting from Jason to him. The king of the Mariandynoi, Lykos, laments the Argonauts’ loss of Herakles and launches into a story about him. The Argonauts get past the violent birds around Ares’ island using Herakles’ strategy for dispelling the Stymphalian birds. They find water to drink in Atlas’ territory because Herakles passed through the previous day and found a stream to quench his thirst. Several times, the Argonauts lament that Herakles is not with them and predict disaster, even at moments when they have already succeeded at their set task. This symbolizes that in the new model of leadership, the team is more important than the individual hero.
