Legendary Passages #0036 - Medea's Letter to Jason -
The Argonauts epitaph, from Ovid's Heroides.
Here ends our tragic tale of Jason and Medea. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
Medea's Letter to Jason,
a Legendary Passage,
from Ovid's Heroides,
translated by Grant Showerman.
XII. MEDEA TO JASON
And yet for you, I remember, I the queen of Colchis could find time, when you besought that my art might bring you help. Then was the time when the sisters who pay out the fated thread of mortal life should have unwound for aye my spindle. Then could Medea have ended well! Whatever of life has been lengthened out for me from what time forth has been but punishment.
Ah me! why was the ship from the forests of Pelion ever driven over the seas by strong young arms in quest of the ram of Phrixus? Why did we Colchians ever cast eye upon Magnesian Argo, and why did your Greek crew ever drink the water of the Phasis? Why did I too greatly delight in those golden locks of yours, in your comely ways, and in the false graces of your tongue? Yet delight too greatly I did – else, when once the strange craft had been beached upon our sands and brought us her bold crew, all unanointed would the unremembering son of Aeson have gone forth to meet the fires exhaled from the flame-scorched nostrils of the bulls; he would have scattered the seeds – as many as the seeds were the enemy, too – for the sower himself to fall in strife with his own sowing! How much perfidy, vile wretch, would have perished with you, and how many woes been averted from my head!
‘Tis some pleasure to reproach the ungrateful with favours done. That pleasure I will enjoy; that is the only delight I shall win from you. Bidden to turn the hitherto untried craft to the shores of Colchis, you set foot in the rich realms of my native land. There I, Medea, was what here your new bride is; as rich as her sire is, so rich was mine. Hers holds Ephyre, washed by two seas; mine, all the country which lies along the left strand of the Pontus e’en to the snows of Scythia.
Aeëtes welcomes to his home the Pelasgian youths, and you rest your Greek limbs upon the pictured couch. Then ‘twas that I saw you, then began to know you; that was the first impulse to the downfall of my soul. I saw you, and I was undone; nor did I kindle with ordinary fires, but like the pine-torch kindled before the mighty gods. Not only were you noble to look upon, but my fates were dragging me to doom; your eyes had robbed mine of their power to see. Traitor, you saw it – for who can well hide love? Its flame shines forth its own betrayer.
Meanwhile the condition is imposed that you press the hard necks of the fierce bulls at the unaccustomed plow. To Mars the bulls belonged, raging with more than mere horns, for their breathing was of terrible fire; of solid bronze were their feet, wrought round with bronze their nostrils, made black, too, by the blasts of their own breath. Besides this, you are bidden to scatter with obedient hand over the wide fields the seeds that should beget peoples to assail you with weapons born with themselves; a baneful harvest, that, to its own husbandman. The eyes of the guardian that know not yielding to sleep – by some art to elude them is your final task.
Aeëtes has spoken; in gloom you all rise up, and the high table is removed from the purple-spread couches. How far away then from your thought were Creusa’s dowry-realm, and the daughter of great Creon, and Creon the father of your bride! With foreboding you depart; and as you go my moist eyes follow you, and in faint murmur comes from my tongue: “Fare thou well!” Laying myself on the ordered couch within my chamber, grievously wounded, in tears I passed the whole night long; before my eyes appeared the bulls and the dreadful harvest, before my eyes the unsleeping serpent. On the one hand was love, on the other, fear; and fear increased my very love. Morning came, and my dear sister, admitted to my chamber, found me with loosened hair and lying prone upon my face, and everywhere my tears. She implores aid for your Minyae. What one asks, another is to receive; what she petitions for the Aesonian youth, I grant.
There is a grove, sombre with pine-trees and the fronds of the ilex; into it scarce can the rays of the sun find way. There is in it – there was, at least – a shrine to Diana, wherein stands the goddess, a golden image fashioned by barbaric hand. Do you know the place? or have places fallen from your mind along with me?
We came to the spot. You were the first to speak, with those faithless lips, and these were your words: “To thy hand fortune has committed the right of choosing or not my deliverance, and in thy hand are the ways of life and death for me. To have power to ruin is enough, if anyone delight in power for itself; but to save me will be greater glory. By our misfortunes, which thou hast power to relieve, I pray, by thy line, and by the godhead of thy all-seeing grandsire the sun, by the three-fold face and holy mysteries of Diana, and by the gods of that race of thine – if so be gods it have – by all these, O maiden, have pity upon me, have pity on my men; be kind to me and make me thine for ever! And if it chance thou dost not disdain a Pelasgian suitor – but how can I hope the gods will be so facile to my wish? – may my spirit vanish away into thin air before another than thou shall come a bride to my chamber! My witness be Juno, ward of the rites of wedlock, and the goddess in whose marble shrine we stand!”
Words like these – and how slight a part of them is here! – and your right hand clasped with mine, moved the heart of the simple maid. I saw even tears – or was there in the tears, too, part of your deceit? Thus quickly was I ensnared, girl that I was, by your words. You yoke together the bronze-footed bulls with your body unharmed by their fire, and cleave the solid mould with the share as you were bid. The ploughed fields you sow full with envenomed teeth in place of seed; and there rises out of the earth, with sword and shield, a warrior band. Myself, the giver of the charmèd drug, sat pallid there at sight of men all suddenly arisen and in arms; until the earth-born brothers – O deed most wonderful! – drew arms and came to the grapple each with each.
Then, lo and behold! all a-bristle with rattling scales, come the unsleeping sentinel, hissing and sweeping the ground with winding belly. Where then was your rich dowry? Where then your royal consort, and the Isthmus that sunders the waters of two seas? I, the maiden who am now at last become a barbarian in your eyes, who now am poor, who now seem baneful – I closed the lids of the flame-like eyes in slumber wrought by my drug, and gave into your hand the fleece to steal away unharmed. I betrayed my sire, I left my throne and my native soil; the reward I get is leave to live in exile! My maidenly innocence has become the spoil of a pirate from overseas; beloved mother and best of sisters I have left behind.
But thee, O my brother, I did not leave behind as I fled! In this one place my pen fails. Of the deed my right hand was bold enough to do, it is not bold enough to write. So I, too, should have been torn limb from limb – but with thee! And yet I did not fear – for what, after that, could I fear? – to trust myself to the sea, woman though I was, and now with guilt upon me. Where is heavenly justice? Where the gods? Let the penalty that is our due overtake us on the deep – you for your treachery, me for my trustfulness!
Would the Stymplegades had caught and crushed us out together, and that my bones were clinging now to yours; or Scylla the ravening submerged us in the deep to be devoured by her dogs – fit were it for Scylla to work woe to ingrate men! And she who spews forth so many times the floods, and sucks them so many times back in again – would she had brought us, too, beneath the Trinacrian wave! Yet unharmed and victorious you return to Haemonia’s towns, and the golden fleece is laid before your fathers’ gods.
Why rehearse the tale of Pelias’ daughters, by devotion led to evil deeds – of how their maiden hands laid knife to the members of their sire? I may be blamed by others, but you perforce must praise me – you, for whom so many times I have been driven to crime. Yet you have dared – O, fit words fail me for my righteous wrath! – you have dared to say: “Withdraw from the palace of Aeson’s line!” At your bidding I have withdrawn from your palace, taking with me our two children, and – what follows me evermore – my love for you.
When, all suddenly, there came to my ears the chant of Hymen, and to my eyes the gleam of blazing torches, and the pipe poured forth its notes, for you a wedding-strain, but for me a strain more tearful than the funeral trump, I will filled with fear; I did not yet believe such monstrous guilt could be; but all my breast none the less grew chill. The throng pressed eagerly on, crying “Hymen, O Hymenaeus!” in full chorus – the nearer the cry, for me the more dreadful. My slaves turned away and wept, seeking to hide their tears – who would be willing messenger of tidings so ill?
Whatever it was, ‘twas better, indeed, that I not know; but my heart was heavy, as if I really knew, when the younger of the children, at my bidding, and eager for the sight, went and stood at the outer threshold of the double door. “Here, mother, come out!” he cries to me. “A procession is coming, and my father Jason leading it. He’s all in gold, and driving a team of horses!” Then straight I rent my cloak and beat my breast and cried aloud, and my cheeks were at the mercy of my nails. My heart impelled me to rush into the midst of the moving throng, to tear off the wreaths from my ordered locks; I scarce could keep from crying out, thus with hair all torn, “He is mine!” and laying hold on you.
Ah, injured father, rejoice! Rejoice, ye Colchians whom I left! Shades of my brother, receive in my fate your sacrifice due; I am abandoned; I have lost my throne, my native soil, my home, my husband – who alone for me took the place of all! Dragons and maddened bulls, it seems, I could subdue; a man alone I could not; I, who could beat back fierce fire with wise drugs, have not the power to escape the flames of my own passion. My very incantations, herbs, and arts abandon me; naught does my goddess aid me, naught the sacrifice I make to potent Hecate. I take no pleasure in the day; my nights are watches of bitterness, and gentle sleep is far departed from my wretched soul. I, who could charm the dragon to sleep, can bring none to myself; my effort brings more good to any one else soever than to me. The limbs I saved, a wanton now embraces; ‘tis she who reaps the fruit of my toil.
Perhaps, too, when you wish to make boast to your stupid mate and say what will pleasure her unjust ears, you will fashion strange slanders against my face and against my ways. Let her make merry and be joyful over my faults! Let her make merry, and lie aloft on the Tyrian purple – she shall weep, and the flames that consume her will surpass my own! While sword and fire are at my hand, and the juice of poison, no foe of Medea shall go unpunished!
But if it chance my entreaties touch a heart of iron, list now to words – words too humble for my proud soul! I am as much a suppliant to you as you have often been to me, and I hesitate not to cast myself at your feet. If I am cheap in your eyes, be kind to our common offspring; a hard stepdame will be cruel to the fruitage of my womb. Their resemblance to you is all too great, and I am touched by the likeness; and as often as I see them, my eyes drop tears. By the gods above, by the light of your grandsire’s beams, by my favours to you, and by the two children who are our mutual pledge – restore me to the bed for which I madly left so much behind; be faithful to your promises, and come to my aid as I came to yours! I do not implore you to go forth against bulls and men, nor ask your aid to quiet and overcome a dragon; it is you I ask for, - you, whom I have earned, whom you yourself gave to me, by whom I became a mother, as you by me a father.
Where is my dowry, you ask? On the field I counted it out – that field which you had to plough before you could bear away the fleece. The famous golden ram, sightly for deep flock, is my dowry – the which, should I say to you “Restore it!” you would refuse to render up. My dowry is yourself – saved; my dowry is the band of Grecian youth! Go now, wretch, compare with that your wealth of Sisyphus! That you are alive, that you take to wife one who, with the father she brings you, is of kingly station, that you have the very power of being ingrate – you owe to me. Whom, hark you, I will straight – but what boots it to foretell your penalty? My ire is in travail with mighty threats. Whither my ire leads, will I follow. Mayhap I shall repent me of what I do – but I repent me, too, of regard for a faithless husband’s good. Be that the concern of the god who now embroils my heart! Something portentous, surely, is working in my soul!
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides3.html#12
Greek and Roman mythology from the original sources, from Atlantis to Hercules to the Trojan War. Email: LegendaryPassages@gmail.com
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
LP0035 - Medea in Corinth - The Corinthian Isthmus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece
Legendary Passages #0035 - Medea in Corinth -
The Corinthian Isthmus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
This time we shall review various landmarks around the city of Corinth, and examine the stories and myths concerning them: the gods Helius and Poseidon, Queen Leucothea and her son Paleamon, Kings Neleus and Sisyphus, the usual temples and statues, and finally Jason and Medea and their children.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias2A.html#3
Medea in Corinth,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[2.1.5] - [2.3.11]
The Corinthian Isthmus stretches on the one hand to the sea at Cenchreae, and on the other to the sea at Lechaeum. For this is what makes the region to the south mainland. He who tried to make the Peloponnesus an island gave up before digging through the Isthmus. Where they began to dig is still to be seen, but into the rock they did not advance at all. So it still is mainland as its nature is to be. Alexander the son of Philip wished to dig through Mimas, and his attempt to do this was his only unsuccessful project. The Cnidians began to dig through their isthmus, but the Pythian priestess stopped them. So difficult it is for man to alter by violence what Heaven has made.
A legend of the Corinthians about their land is not peculiar to them, for I believe that the Athenians were the first to relate a similar story to glorify Attica. The Corinthians say that Poseidon had a dispute with Helius (Sun) about the land, and that Briareos arbitrated between them, assigning to Poseidon the Isthmus and the parts adjoining, and giving to Helius the height above the city. Ever since, they say, the Isthmus has belonged to Poseidon.
Worth seeing here are a theater and a white-marble race-course. Within the sanctuary of the god stand on the one side portrait statues of athletes who have won victories at the Isthmian games, on the other side pine trees growing in a row, the greater number of them rising up straight. On the temple, which is not very large, stand bronze Tritons. In the fore-temple are images, two of Poseidon, a third of Amphitrite, and a Sea, which also is of bronze.
The offerings inside were dedicated in our time by Herodes the Athenian, four horses, gilded except for the hoofs, which are of ivory, and two gold Tritons beside the horses, with the parts below the waist of ivory. On the car stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and there is the boy Palaemon upright upon a dolphin. These too are made of ivory and gold. On the middle of the base on which the car is has been wrought a Sea holding up the young Aphrodite, and on either side are the nymphs called Nereids. I know that there are altars to these in other parts of Greece, and that some Greeks have even dedicated to them precincts by shores, where honors are also paid to Achilles. In Gabala is a holy sanctuary of Doto, where there was still remaining the robe by which the Greeks say that Eriphyle was bribed to wrong her son Alcmaeon.
Among the reliefs on the base of the statue of Poseidon are the sons of Tyndareus, because these too are saviours of ships and of sea-faring men. The other offerings are images of Calm and of Sea, a horse like a whale from the breast onward, Ino and Bellerophontes, and the horse Pegasus.
Within the enclosure is on the left a temple of Palaemon, with images in it of Poseidon, Leucothea and Palaemon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaemon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it.
The graves of Sisyphus and of Neleus – for they say that Neleus came to Corinth, died of disease, and was buried near the Isthmus – I do not think that anyone would look for after reading Eumelus. For he says that not even to Nestor did Sisyphus show the tomb of Neleus, because it must be kept unknown to everybody alike, and that Sisyphus is indeed buried on the Isthmus, but that few Corinthians, even those of his own day, knew where the grave was. The Isthmian games were not interrupted even when Corinth had been laid waste by Mummius, but so long as it lay deserted the celebration of the games was entrusted to the Sicyonians, and when it was rebuilt the honor was restored to the present inhabitants.
CORINTH
The names of the Corinthian harbors were given them by Leches and Cenchrias, said to be the children of Poseidon and Peirene the daughter of Achelous, though in the poem called The Great Eoeae Peirene is said to be a daughter of Oebalus.
In Lechaeum are a sanctuary and a bronze image of Poseidon, and on the road leading from the Isthmus to Cenchreae a temple and ancient wooden image of Artemis. In Cenchreae are a temple and a stone statue of Aphrodite, after it on the mole running into the sea a bronze image of Poseidon, and at the other end of the harbor sanctuaries of Asclepius and of Isis. Right opposite Cenchreae is Helen's Bath. It is a large stream of salt, tepid water, flowing from a rock into the sea.
As one goes up to Corinth are tombs, and by the gate is buried Diogenes of Sinope, whom the Greeks surname the Dog. Before the city is a grove of cypresses called Craneum. Here are a precinct of Bellerophontes, a temple of Aphrodite Melaenis and the grave of Lais, upon which is set a lioness holding a ram in her fore-paws.
There is in Thessaly another tomb which claims to be that of Lais, for she went to that country also when she fell in love with Hippostratus. The story is that originally she was of Hycara in Sicily. Taken captive while yet a girl by Nicias and the Athenians, she was sold and brought to Corinth, where she surpassed in beauty the courtesans of her time, and so won the admiration of the Corinthians that even now they claim Lais as their own.
The things worthy of mention in the city include the extant remains of antiquity, but the greater number of them belong to the period of its second ascendancy. On the market-place, where most of the sanctuaries are, stand Artemis surnamed Ephesian and wooden images of Dionysus, which are covered with gold with the exception of their faces; these are ornamented with red paint. They are called Lysius and Baccheus, and I too give the story told about them. They say that Pentheus treated Dionysus despitefully, his crowning outrage being that he went to Cithaeron, to spy upon the women, and climbing up a tree beheld what was done. When the women detected Pentheus, they immediately dragged him down, and joined in tearing him, living as he was, limb from limb. Afterwards, as the Corinthians say, the Pythian priestess commanded them by an oracle to discover that tree and to worship it equally with the god. For this reason they have made these images from the tree.
There is also a temple of Fortune, with a standing image of Parian marble. Beside it is a sanctuary for all the gods. Hard by is built a fountain, on which is a bronze Poseidon; under the feet of Poseidon is a dolphin spouting water. There is also a bronze Apollo surnamed Clarius and a statue of Aphrodite made by Hermogenes of Cythera. There are two bronze, standing images of Hermes, for one of which a temple has been made. The images of Zeus also are in the open; one had not a surname, another they call Chthonius (of the Lower World) and the third Most High.
In the middle of the market-place is a bronze Athena, on the pedestal of which are wrought in relief figures of the Muses. Above the market-place is a temple of Octavia the sister of Augustus, who was emperor of the Romans after Caesar, the founder of the modern Corinth.
On leaving the market-place along the road to Lechaeum you come to a gateway, on which are two gilded chariots, one carrying Phaethon the son of Helius (Sun), the other Helius himself. A little farther away from the gateway, on the right as you go in, is a bronze Heracles. After this is the entrance to the water of Peirene. The legend about Peirene is that she was a woman who became a spring because of her tears shed in lamentation for her son Cenchrias, who was unintentionally killed by Artemis.
The spring is ornamented with white marble, and there have been made chambers like caves, out of which the water flows into an open-air well. It Is pleasant to drink, and they say that the Corinthian bronze, when red-hot, is tempered by this water, since bronze . . . the Corinthians have not. Moreover near Peirene are an image and a sacred enclosure of Apollo; in the latter is a painting of the exploit of Odysseus against the suitors.
Proceeding on the direct road to Lechaeum we see a bronze image of a seated Hermes. By him stands a ram, for Hermes is the god who is thought most to care for and to increase flocks, as Homer puts it in the Iliad:–
Son was he of Phorbas, the dearest of Trojans to Hermes,
Rich in flocks, for the god vouchsafed him wealth in abundance.
The story told at the mysteries of the Mother about Hermes and the ram I know but do not relate. After the image of Hermes come Poseidon, Leucothea, and Palaemon on a dolphin.
The Corinthians have baths in many parts of the city, some put up at the public charge and one by the emperor Hadrian. The most famous of them is near the Poseidon. It was made by the Spartan Eurycles, who beautified it with various kinds of stone, especially the one quarried at Croceae in Laconia. On the left of the entrance stands a Poseidon, and after him Artemis hunting. Throughout the city are many wells, for the Corinthians have a copious supply of flowing water, besides the water which the emperor Hadrian brought from Lake Stymphalus, but the most noteworthy is the one by the side of the image of Artemis. Over it is a Bellerophontes, and the water flows through the hoof of the horse Pegasus.
As you go along another road from the market-place, which leads to Sicyon, you can see on the right of the road a temple and bronze image of Apollo, and a little farther on a well called the Well of Glauce. Into this they say she threw herself in the belief that the water would be a cure for the drugs of Medea.
Above this well has been built what is called the Odeum (Music Hall), beside which is the tomb of Medea's children. Their names were Mermerus and Pheres, and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians owing to the gifts which legend says they brought to Glauce.
But as their death was violent and illegal, the young babies of the Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honor and a figure of Terror was set up. This figure still exists, being the likeness of a woman frightful to look upon but after Corinth was laid waste by the Romans and the old Corinthians were wiped out, the new settlers broke the custom of offering those sacrifices to the sons of Medea, nor do their children cut their hair for them or wear black clothes.
On the occasion referred to Medea went to Athens and married Aegeus, but subsequently she was detected plotting against Theseus and fled from Athens also; coming to the land then called Aria she caused its inhabitants to be named after her Medes. The son, whom she brought with her in her flight to the Arii, they say she had by Aegeus, and that his name was Medus. Hellanicus, however, calls him Polyxenus and says that his father was Jason.
The Greeks have an epic poem called Naupactia. In this Jason is represented as having removed his home after the death of Pelias from Iolcus to Corcyra, and Mermerus, the elder of his children, to have been killed by a lioness while hunting on the mainland opposite. Of Pheres is recorded nothing. But Cinaethon of Lacedaemon, another writer of pedigrees in verse, said that Jason's children by Medea were a son Medeus and a daughter Eriopis; he too, however, gives no further information about these children.
Eumelus said that Helius (Sun) gave the Asopian land to Aloeus and Epliyraea to Aeetes. When Aeetes was departing for Colchis he entrusted his land to Bunus, the son of Hermes and Alcidamea, and when Bunus died Epopeus the son of Aloeus extended his kingdom to include the Ephyraeans. Afterwards, when Corinthus, the son of Marathon, died childless, the Corinthians sent for Medea from Iolcus and bestowed upon her the kingdom.
Through her Jason was king in Corinth, and Medea, as her children were born, carried each to the sanctuary of Hera and concealed them, doing so in the belief that so they would be immortal. At last she learned that her hopes were vain, and at the same time she was detected by Jason. When she begged for pardon he refused it, and sailed away to Iolcus. For these reasons Medea too departed, and handed over the kingdom to Sisyphus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias2A.html#3
The Corinthian Isthmus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
This time we shall review various landmarks around the city of Corinth, and examine the stories and myths concerning them: the gods Helius and Poseidon, Queen Leucothea and her son Paleamon, Kings Neleus and Sisyphus, the usual temples and statues, and finally Jason and Medea and their children.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias2A.html#3
Medea in Corinth,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[2.1.5] - [2.3.11]
The Corinthian Isthmus stretches on the one hand to the sea at Cenchreae, and on the other to the sea at Lechaeum. For this is what makes the region to the south mainland. He who tried to make the Peloponnesus an island gave up before digging through the Isthmus. Where they began to dig is still to be seen, but into the rock they did not advance at all. So it still is mainland as its nature is to be. Alexander the son of Philip wished to dig through Mimas, and his attempt to do this was his only unsuccessful project. The Cnidians began to dig through their isthmus, but the Pythian priestess stopped them. So difficult it is for man to alter by violence what Heaven has made.
A legend of the Corinthians about their land is not peculiar to them, for I believe that the Athenians were the first to relate a similar story to glorify Attica. The Corinthians say that Poseidon had a dispute with Helius (Sun) about the land, and that Briareos arbitrated between them, assigning to Poseidon the Isthmus and the parts adjoining, and giving to Helius the height above the city. Ever since, they say, the Isthmus has belonged to Poseidon.
Worth seeing here are a theater and a white-marble race-course. Within the sanctuary of the god stand on the one side portrait statues of athletes who have won victories at the Isthmian games, on the other side pine trees growing in a row, the greater number of them rising up straight. On the temple, which is not very large, stand bronze Tritons. In the fore-temple are images, two of Poseidon, a third of Amphitrite, and a Sea, which also is of bronze.
The offerings inside were dedicated in our time by Herodes the Athenian, four horses, gilded except for the hoofs, which are of ivory, and two gold Tritons beside the horses, with the parts below the waist of ivory. On the car stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and there is the boy Palaemon upright upon a dolphin. These too are made of ivory and gold. On the middle of the base on which the car is has been wrought a Sea holding up the young Aphrodite, and on either side are the nymphs called Nereids. I know that there are altars to these in other parts of Greece, and that some Greeks have even dedicated to them precincts by shores, where honors are also paid to Achilles. In Gabala is a holy sanctuary of Doto, where there was still remaining the robe by which the Greeks say that Eriphyle was bribed to wrong her son Alcmaeon.
Among the reliefs on the base of the statue of Poseidon are the sons of Tyndareus, because these too are saviours of ships and of sea-faring men. The other offerings are images of Calm and of Sea, a horse like a whale from the breast onward, Ino and Bellerophontes, and the horse Pegasus.
Within the enclosure is on the left a temple of Palaemon, with images in it of Poseidon, Leucothea and Palaemon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaemon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it.
The graves of Sisyphus and of Neleus – for they say that Neleus came to Corinth, died of disease, and was buried near the Isthmus – I do not think that anyone would look for after reading Eumelus. For he says that not even to Nestor did Sisyphus show the tomb of Neleus, because it must be kept unknown to everybody alike, and that Sisyphus is indeed buried on the Isthmus, but that few Corinthians, even those of his own day, knew where the grave was. The Isthmian games were not interrupted even when Corinth had been laid waste by Mummius, but so long as it lay deserted the celebration of the games was entrusted to the Sicyonians, and when it was rebuilt the honor was restored to the present inhabitants.
CORINTH
The names of the Corinthian harbors were given them by Leches and Cenchrias, said to be the children of Poseidon and Peirene the daughter of Achelous, though in the poem called The Great Eoeae Peirene is said to be a daughter of Oebalus.
In Lechaeum are a sanctuary and a bronze image of Poseidon, and on the road leading from the Isthmus to Cenchreae a temple and ancient wooden image of Artemis. In Cenchreae are a temple and a stone statue of Aphrodite, after it on the mole running into the sea a bronze image of Poseidon, and at the other end of the harbor sanctuaries of Asclepius and of Isis. Right opposite Cenchreae is Helen's Bath. It is a large stream of salt, tepid water, flowing from a rock into the sea.
As one goes up to Corinth are tombs, and by the gate is buried Diogenes of Sinope, whom the Greeks surname the Dog. Before the city is a grove of cypresses called Craneum. Here are a precinct of Bellerophontes, a temple of Aphrodite Melaenis and the grave of Lais, upon which is set a lioness holding a ram in her fore-paws.
There is in Thessaly another tomb which claims to be that of Lais, for she went to that country also when she fell in love with Hippostratus. The story is that originally she was of Hycara in Sicily. Taken captive while yet a girl by Nicias and the Athenians, she was sold and brought to Corinth, where she surpassed in beauty the courtesans of her time, and so won the admiration of the Corinthians that even now they claim Lais as their own.
The things worthy of mention in the city include the extant remains of antiquity, but the greater number of them belong to the period of its second ascendancy. On the market-place, where most of the sanctuaries are, stand Artemis surnamed Ephesian and wooden images of Dionysus, which are covered with gold with the exception of their faces; these are ornamented with red paint. They are called Lysius and Baccheus, and I too give the story told about them. They say that Pentheus treated Dionysus despitefully, his crowning outrage being that he went to Cithaeron, to spy upon the women, and climbing up a tree beheld what was done. When the women detected Pentheus, they immediately dragged him down, and joined in tearing him, living as he was, limb from limb. Afterwards, as the Corinthians say, the Pythian priestess commanded them by an oracle to discover that tree and to worship it equally with the god. For this reason they have made these images from the tree.
There is also a temple of Fortune, with a standing image of Parian marble. Beside it is a sanctuary for all the gods. Hard by is built a fountain, on which is a bronze Poseidon; under the feet of Poseidon is a dolphin spouting water. There is also a bronze Apollo surnamed Clarius and a statue of Aphrodite made by Hermogenes of Cythera. There are two bronze, standing images of Hermes, for one of which a temple has been made. The images of Zeus also are in the open; one had not a surname, another they call Chthonius (of the Lower World) and the third Most High.
In the middle of the market-place is a bronze Athena, on the pedestal of which are wrought in relief figures of the Muses. Above the market-place is a temple of Octavia the sister of Augustus, who was emperor of the Romans after Caesar, the founder of the modern Corinth.
On leaving the market-place along the road to Lechaeum you come to a gateway, on which are two gilded chariots, one carrying Phaethon the son of Helius (Sun), the other Helius himself. A little farther away from the gateway, on the right as you go in, is a bronze Heracles. After this is the entrance to the water of Peirene. The legend about Peirene is that she was a woman who became a spring because of her tears shed in lamentation for her son Cenchrias, who was unintentionally killed by Artemis.
The spring is ornamented with white marble, and there have been made chambers like caves, out of which the water flows into an open-air well. It Is pleasant to drink, and they say that the Corinthian bronze, when red-hot, is tempered by this water, since bronze . . . the Corinthians have not. Moreover near Peirene are an image and a sacred enclosure of Apollo; in the latter is a painting of the exploit of Odysseus against the suitors.
Proceeding on the direct road to Lechaeum we see a bronze image of a seated Hermes. By him stands a ram, for Hermes is the god who is thought most to care for and to increase flocks, as Homer puts it in the Iliad:–
Son was he of Phorbas, the dearest of Trojans to Hermes,
Rich in flocks, for the god vouchsafed him wealth in abundance.
The story told at the mysteries of the Mother about Hermes and the ram I know but do not relate. After the image of Hermes come Poseidon, Leucothea, and Palaemon on a dolphin.
The Corinthians have baths in many parts of the city, some put up at the public charge and one by the emperor Hadrian. The most famous of them is near the Poseidon. It was made by the Spartan Eurycles, who beautified it with various kinds of stone, especially the one quarried at Croceae in Laconia. On the left of the entrance stands a Poseidon, and after him Artemis hunting. Throughout the city are many wells, for the Corinthians have a copious supply of flowing water, besides the water which the emperor Hadrian brought from Lake Stymphalus, but the most noteworthy is the one by the side of the image of Artemis. Over it is a Bellerophontes, and the water flows through the hoof of the horse Pegasus.
As you go along another road from the market-place, which leads to Sicyon, you can see on the right of the road a temple and bronze image of Apollo, and a little farther on a well called the Well of Glauce. Into this they say she threw herself in the belief that the water would be a cure for the drugs of Medea.
Above this well has been built what is called the Odeum (Music Hall), beside which is the tomb of Medea's children. Their names were Mermerus and Pheres, and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians owing to the gifts which legend says they brought to Glauce.
But as their death was violent and illegal, the young babies of the Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honor and a figure of Terror was set up. This figure still exists, being the likeness of a woman frightful to look upon but after Corinth was laid waste by the Romans and the old Corinthians were wiped out, the new settlers broke the custom of offering those sacrifices to the sons of Medea, nor do their children cut their hair for them or wear black clothes.
On the occasion referred to Medea went to Athens and married Aegeus, but subsequently she was detected plotting against Theseus and fled from Athens also; coming to the land then called Aria she caused its inhabitants to be named after her Medes. The son, whom she brought with her in her flight to the Arii, they say she had by Aegeus, and that his name was Medus. Hellanicus, however, calls him Polyxenus and says that his father was Jason.
The Greeks have an epic poem called Naupactia. In this Jason is represented as having removed his home after the death of Pelias from Iolcus to Corcyra, and Mermerus, the elder of his children, to have been killed by a lioness while hunting on the mainland opposite. Of Pheres is recorded nothing. But Cinaethon of Lacedaemon, another writer of pedigrees in verse, said that Jason's children by Medea were a son Medeus and a daughter Eriopis; he too, however, gives no further information about these children.
Eumelus said that Helius (Sun) gave the Asopian land to Aloeus and Epliyraea to Aeetes. When Aeetes was departing for Colchis he entrusted his land to Bunus, the son of Hermes and Alcidamea, and when Bunus died Epopeus the son of Aloeus extended his kingdom to include the Ephyraeans. Afterwards, when Corinthus, the son of Marathon, died childless, the Corinthians sent for Medea from Iolcus and bestowed upon her the kingdom.
Through her Jason was king in Corinth, and Medea, as her children were born, carried each to the sanctuary of Hera and concealed them, doing so in the belief that so they would be immortal. At last she learned that her hopes were vain, and at the same time she was detected by Jason. When she begged for pardon he refused it, and sailed away to Iolcus. For these reasons Medea too departed, and handed over the kingdom to Sisyphus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias2A.html#3
Sunday, June 7, 2015
LP0034 - The End of the Argonauts - The children of Medea & Heracles, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History
Legendary Passages #0034 - The End of the Argonauts -
The children of Medea & Heracles, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History.
This time Jason remarries, Medea kills his bride, marries Aegeus, leaves Athens, and her son Medus becomes king.
After reviewing signs of the Argonauts voyage, the passage jumps ahead to the sons of Heracles, their war with Eurystheus, and the Dorian Invasion.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#15
The End of the Argonauts,
a Legendary Passage,
from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History,
trans. by C. H. Oldfather.
[4.54.1] - [4.58.8]
JASON AND MEDEA IN CORINTH
The account runs like this:– Jason made his home in Corinth and living with Medea as his wife for ten years he begat children by her, the two oldest, Thessalus and Alcimenes, being twins, and the third, Tisandrus, being much younger than the other two.
Now during this period, we are informed, Medea was highly approved by her husband, because she not only excelled in beauty but was adorned with modesty and every other virtue; but afterward, as time more and more diminished her natural comeliness, Jason, it is said, became enamoured of Glaucê, Creon’s daughter, and sought the maiden’s hand in marriage.
After her father had given his consent and had set a day for the marriage, Jason, they say, at first tried to persuade Medea to withdraw from their wedlock of her free-will; for, he told her, he desired to marry the maiden, not because he felt his relations with Medea were beneath him, but because he was eager to establish a kinship between the king’s house and his children.
But when his wife was angered and called upon the gods who had been the witnesses of their vows, they say that Jason, disdaining the vows, married the daughter of the king.
Thereupon Medea was driven out of the city, and being allowed by Creon but one day to make the preparations for her exile, she entered the palace by night, having altered her appearance by means of drugs, and set fire to the building by applying to it a little root which had been discovered by her sister Circê and had the property that when it was kindled it was hard to put out. Now when the palace suddenly burst into flames, Jason quickly made his way out if it, but as for Glaucê and Creon, the fire hemmed them in on all sides and they were consumed by it.
Certain historians, however, say that the son of Medea brought to the bride gifts which had been anointed with poisons, and that when Glaucê took them and put them about her body both she herself met her end and her father, when he ran to help her and embraced her body, likewise perished.
Although Medea had been successful in her first undertakings, yet she did not refrain, so we are told, from taking her revenge upon Jason. For she had come to such a state of rage and jealousy, yes, even of savageness, that, since he had escaped from the peril which threatened him at the same time as his bride, she determined, by the murder of the children of them both, to plunge him into the deepest misfortunes; for, except for the one son who made his escape from her, she slew the other sons and in company with her most faithful maids fled in the dead of night from Corinth and made her way safely to Heracles in Thebes. Her reason for doing so was that Heracles had acted as a mediator in connection with the agreements which had been entered into in the land of the Colchians and had promised to come to her aid if she should ever find them violated.
Meanwhile, they go on to say, in the opinion of everyone Jason, in losing children and wife, had suffered only what was just; consequently, being unable to endure the magnitude of the affliction, he put an end to his life. The Corinthians were greatly distressed at such a terrible reversal of fortune and were especially perplexed about the burial of the children. Accordingly, they dispatched messengers to Pytho to inquire of the god what should be done with the bodies of the children, and the Pythian priestess commanded them to bury the children in the sacred precinct of Hera and to pay them the honours which are recorded to heroes.
After the Corinthians had performed this command, Thessalus, they say, who had escaped being murdered by his mother, was reared as a youth in Corinth and then removed to Iolcus, which was the native land of Jason; and finding on his arrival that Acastus, the son of Pelias, had recently died, he took over the throne which belonged to him by inheritance and called the people who were subject to himself Thessalians after his own name.
I am not unaware that this is not the only explanation given of the name the Thessalians bear, but the fact is that the other accounts which have been handed down to us are likewise at variance with one another, and concerning these we shall speak on a more appropriate occasion.
MEDEA AND AEGEUS
Now as for Medea, they say, on finding upon her arrival in Thebes that Heracles was possessed of a frenzy of madness and had slain his sons, she restored him to health by means of drugs. But since Eurystheus was pressing Heracles with his commands, she despaired of receiving any aid from him at the moment and sought refuge in Athens with Aegeus, the son of Pandion.
Here, as some say, she married Aegeus and gave birth to Medus, who was later king of Media, but certain writers give the account that, when her person was demanded by Hippotes, the son of Creon, she was granted a trial and cleared of the charges he raised against her.
After this, when Theseus returned to Athens from Troezen, a charge of poisoning was brought against her and she was exiled from the city; but by the gift of Aegeus she received an escort to go with her to whatever country she might wish and she came to Phoenicia.
MEDEA IN ASIA
From there she journeyed into the interior regions of Asia and married a certain king of renown, to whom she bore a son Medus; and the son, succeeding to the throne after the death of the father, was greatly admired for his courage and named the people Medes after himself.
Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvelous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out; and some indeed, in their desire to win favour with the Athenians, say that she took that Medus who she bore to Aegeus and got off safe to Colchis; and at that time Aeëtes, who had been forcibly driven from the throne by his brother Perses, and regained his kingdom, Medus, Medea’s son, having slain Perses; and that afterwards Medus, securing the command of an army, advanced over a large part of Asia which lies above the Pontus and secured possession of Media, which has been named after this Medus.
But since in our judgment it is unnecessary and would be tedious to record all the assertions which the writers of myths have made about Medea, we shall add only those items which have been passed over concerning the history of the Argonauts.
ARGONAUTS ALTERNATIVE ROUTES
Not a few both of the ancient historians and of the later ones as well, one of whom is Timaeus, say that the Argonauts, after the seizure of the fleece, learning that the mouth of the Pontus had already been blockaded by the fleet of Aeëtes, performed an amazing exploit which is worthy of mention. They sailed, that is to say, up the Tanaïs river as far as its sources, and at a certain place they hauled the ship overland, and following in turn another river which flows into the ocean they sailed down it to the sea; then they made their course from the north to the west, keeping the land on the left, and when they had arrived near Gadeira (Cadiz) they sailed into our sea.
And the writers even offer proofs of these things, pointing out that the Celts who dwell along the ocean venerate the Dioscori above any of the gods, since they have a tradition handed down from ancient times that these gods appeared among them coming from the ocean. Moreover, the country which skirts the ocean bears, they say, not a few names which are derived from the Argonauts and the Dioscori.
And likewise the continent this side of Gadeira contains visible tokens of the return voyage of the Argonauts. So, for example, as they sailed about the Tyrrhenian Sea, when they put in at an island called Aethaleia they named its harbour, which is the fairest of any in those regions, Argoön after their ship, and such has remained its name to this day.
In like manner to what we have just narrated a harbour in Etruria eight hundred stades from Rome was named by them Telamon, and also at Phormia in Italy the harbour Aeëtes, which is now known as Caeëtes. Furthermore when they were driven by winds to the Syrtes and had learned from Triton, who was king of Libya at that time, of the peculiar nature o the sea there, upon escaping safe out of the peril they presented him with the bronze tripod which was inscribed with ancient characters and stood until rather recent times among the people of Euhesperis.
We must not leave unrefuted the account of those who state that the Argonauts sailed up the river Ister river as far as its sources and then, by its arm which flows in the opposite direction, descended to the Adriatic Gulf.
For time has refuted those who assumed that he Ister which empties by several mouths into the Pontus and the Ister which issues into the Adriatic flow from the same regions. As a matter of fact, when the Romans subdued the nation of the Istrians it was discovered that the latter river has its sources only forty stades from the sea. But the cause of the error on the part of the historians was, they say, the identity in name of the two rivers.
THE HERACLEIDES AND EURYSTHEUS
Since we have sufficiently elaborated the history of the Argonauts and the deeds accomplished by Heracles, it may be appropriate also to record, in accordance with the promise we made, the deeds of his sons.
Now after the deification of Heracles his sons made their home in Trachis at the court of Ceÿx the king. But later, when Hyllus and some of the others had attained manhood, Eurystheus, being afraid lest, after they had all come of age, he might be driven from his kingdom at Mycenae, decided to send the Heracleidae into exile from the whole of Greece.
Consequently he served notice upon Ceÿx, the king, to banish both the Heracleiae and the sons of Licymnius, and Iolaüs as well and the band of Arcadians who had served with Heracles on his campaigns, adding that, if he should fail to do these things, he must submit to war.
But the Heracleidae and their friends, perceiving that they were of themselves not sufficient in number to carry on a war against Eurystheus, decided to leave Trachis of their own free will, and going about among the most important of the other cities they asked them to receive them as fellow-townsmen. When no other city had the courage to take them in, the Athenians alone of all, such being their inborn sense of justice, extended a welcome to the sons of Heracles, and they settled them and their companion in the flight in the city of Tricorythus, which is one of the cities of what is called the Tetrapolis.
And after some time, when all the sons of Heracles had attained to manhood and a spirit of pride sprang up in the young men because of the glory of descent from Heracles, Eurystheus, viewing with suspicion their growing power, came up against them with a great army.
But the Heracleidae, who had the aid of the Athenians, chose as their leader Iolaüs, the nephew of Heracles, and after entrusting to him and Theseus and Hyllus the direction of the war, they defeated Eurystheus in a pitched battle. In the course of the battle the larger part of the army of Eurystheus was slain and Eurystheus himself, when his chariot was wrecked in the flight, was killed by Hyllus, the son of Heracles; likewise the sons of Eurystheus perished in the battle to a man.
After these events all the Heracleidae, now that they had conquered Eurystheus in a battle whose fame was noised abroad and were well supplied with allies because of their success, embarked upon a campaign against Peloponnesus with Hyllus as their commander.
Atreus, after the death of Eurystheus, had taken over the kingship in Mycenae, and having added to his forces the Tegeatans and certain other peoples as allies, he went forth to meet the Heracleidae.
When the two armies were assembled at the Isthmus, Hyllus, Heracles’ son challenged to single combat any one of the enemy who would face him, on the agreement that, if Hyllus should conquer his opponent, the Heracleidae should receive the kingdom of Eurystheus, but that, if Hyllus were defeated, the Heracleidae would not return to Peloponnesus for a period of fifty years.
Echemus, the king of the Tegeatans, came out to meet the challenge, and in the single combat which followed Hyllus was slain and the Heracleidae gave up, as they had promised, their effort to return and made their way back to Tricorythus.
Some time later Licymnius and his sons and Tlepolemus, the son of Heracles, made their home in Argos, the Argives admitting them to citizenship of their own accord; but all the rest who had made their homes in Tricorythus, when the fifty-year period had expired, returned to the Peloponnesus. Their deeds we shall record when we have come to those times.
Alcmenê returned to Thebes, and when some time later she vanished from sight she received divine honours at the hands of the Thebans. The rest of the Heracleidae, they say, came to Aegimius, the son of Dorus, and demanding back the land which their father had entrusted to him made their home among the Dorians.
THE EXILE OF TLEPOLEMUS
But Tlepolemus, the son of Heracles, while he dwelt in Argos, slew Licymnius, the son of Electryon, we are told, in a quarrel over a certain matter, and being exiled from Argos because of this murder changed his residence to Rhodes. The island was inhabited at that time by Greeks who had been planted there by Triopas, the son of Phorbas.
Accordingly, Tlepolemus, acting with the common consent of the natives, divided Rhodes into three parts and founded there three cities, Lindus, Ielysus (Ialysus), and Cameirus; and he became king over all the Rhodians, because of the fame of his father Heracles, and in later times took part with Agamemnon in the war against Troy.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#15
The children of Medea & Heracles, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History.
This time Jason remarries, Medea kills his bride, marries Aegeus, leaves Athens, and her son Medus becomes king.
After reviewing signs of the Argonauts voyage, the passage jumps ahead to the sons of Heracles, their war with Eurystheus, and the Dorian Invasion.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#15
The End of the Argonauts,
a Legendary Passage,
from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History,
trans. by C. H. Oldfather.
[4.54.1] - [4.58.8]
JASON AND MEDEA IN CORINTH
The account runs like this:– Jason made his home in Corinth and living with Medea as his wife for ten years he begat children by her, the two oldest, Thessalus and Alcimenes, being twins, and the third, Tisandrus, being much younger than the other two.
Now during this period, we are informed, Medea was highly approved by her husband, because she not only excelled in beauty but was adorned with modesty and every other virtue; but afterward, as time more and more diminished her natural comeliness, Jason, it is said, became enamoured of Glaucê, Creon’s daughter, and sought the maiden’s hand in marriage.
After her father had given his consent and had set a day for the marriage, Jason, they say, at first tried to persuade Medea to withdraw from their wedlock of her free-will; for, he told her, he desired to marry the maiden, not because he felt his relations with Medea were beneath him, but because he was eager to establish a kinship between the king’s house and his children.
But when his wife was angered and called upon the gods who had been the witnesses of their vows, they say that Jason, disdaining the vows, married the daughter of the king.
Thereupon Medea was driven out of the city, and being allowed by Creon but one day to make the preparations for her exile, she entered the palace by night, having altered her appearance by means of drugs, and set fire to the building by applying to it a little root which had been discovered by her sister Circê and had the property that when it was kindled it was hard to put out. Now when the palace suddenly burst into flames, Jason quickly made his way out if it, but as for Glaucê and Creon, the fire hemmed them in on all sides and they were consumed by it.
Certain historians, however, say that the son of Medea brought to the bride gifts which had been anointed with poisons, and that when Glaucê took them and put them about her body both she herself met her end and her father, when he ran to help her and embraced her body, likewise perished.
Although Medea had been successful in her first undertakings, yet she did not refrain, so we are told, from taking her revenge upon Jason. For she had come to such a state of rage and jealousy, yes, even of savageness, that, since he had escaped from the peril which threatened him at the same time as his bride, she determined, by the murder of the children of them both, to plunge him into the deepest misfortunes; for, except for the one son who made his escape from her, she slew the other sons and in company with her most faithful maids fled in the dead of night from Corinth and made her way safely to Heracles in Thebes. Her reason for doing so was that Heracles had acted as a mediator in connection with the agreements which had been entered into in the land of the Colchians and had promised to come to her aid if she should ever find them violated.
Meanwhile, they go on to say, in the opinion of everyone Jason, in losing children and wife, had suffered only what was just; consequently, being unable to endure the magnitude of the affliction, he put an end to his life. The Corinthians were greatly distressed at such a terrible reversal of fortune and were especially perplexed about the burial of the children. Accordingly, they dispatched messengers to Pytho to inquire of the god what should be done with the bodies of the children, and the Pythian priestess commanded them to bury the children in the sacred precinct of Hera and to pay them the honours which are recorded to heroes.
After the Corinthians had performed this command, Thessalus, they say, who had escaped being murdered by his mother, was reared as a youth in Corinth and then removed to Iolcus, which was the native land of Jason; and finding on his arrival that Acastus, the son of Pelias, had recently died, he took over the throne which belonged to him by inheritance and called the people who were subject to himself Thessalians after his own name.
I am not unaware that this is not the only explanation given of the name the Thessalians bear, but the fact is that the other accounts which have been handed down to us are likewise at variance with one another, and concerning these we shall speak on a more appropriate occasion.
MEDEA AND AEGEUS
Now as for Medea, they say, on finding upon her arrival in Thebes that Heracles was possessed of a frenzy of madness and had slain his sons, she restored him to health by means of drugs. But since Eurystheus was pressing Heracles with his commands, she despaired of receiving any aid from him at the moment and sought refuge in Athens with Aegeus, the son of Pandion.
Here, as some say, she married Aegeus and gave birth to Medus, who was later king of Media, but certain writers give the account that, when her person was demanded by Hippotes, the son of Creon, she was granted a trial and cleared of the charges he raised against her.
After this, when Theseus returned to Athens from Troezen, a charge of poisoning was brought against her and she was exiled from the city; but by the gift of Aegeus she received an escort to go with her to whatever country she might wish and she came to Phoenicia.
MEDEA IN ASIA
From there she journeyed into the interior regions of Asia and married a certain king of renown, to whom she bore a son Medus; and the son, succeeding to the throne after the death of the father, was greatly admired for his courage and named the people Medes after himself.
Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvelous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out; and some indeed, in their desire to win favour with the Athenians, say that she took that Medus who she bore to Aegeus and got off safe to Colchis; and at that time Aeëtes, who had been forcibly driven from the throne by his brother Perses, and regained his kingdom, Medus, Medea’s son, having slain Perses; and that afterwards Medus, securing the command of an army, advanced over a large part of Asia which lies above the Pontus and secured possession of Media, which has been named after this Medus.
But since in our judgment it is unnecessary and would be tedious to record all the assertions which the writers of myths have made about Medea, we shall add only those items which have been passed over concerning the history of the Argonauts.
ARGONAUTS ALTERNATIVE ROUTES
Not a few both of the ancient historians and of the later ones as well, one of whom is Timaeus, say that the Argonauts, after the seizure of the fleece, learning that the mouth of the Pontus had already been blockaded by the fleet of Aeëtes, performed an amazing exploit which is worthy of mention. They sailed, that is to say, up the Tanaïs river as far as its sources, and at a certain place they hauled the ship overland, and following in turn another river which flows into the ocean they sailed down it to the sea; then they made their course from the north to the west, keeping the land on the left, and when they had arrived near Gadeira (Cadiz) they sailed into our sea.
And the writers even offer proofs of these things, pointing out that the Celts who dwell along the ocean venerate the Dioscori above any of the gods, since they have a tradition handed down from ancient times that these gods appeared among them coming from the ocean. Moreover, the country which skirts the ocean bears, they say, not a few names which are derived from the Argonauts and the Dioscori.
And likewise the continent this side of Gadeira contains visible tokens of the return voyage of the Argonauts. So, for example, as they sailed about the Tyrrhenian Sea, when they put in at an island called Aethaleia they named its harbour, which is the fairest of any in those regions, Argoön after their ship, and such has remained its name to this day.
In like manner to what we have just narrated a harbour in Etruria eight hundred stades from Rome was named by them Telamon, and also at Phormia in Italy the harbour Aeëtes, which is now known as Caeëtes. Furthermore when they were driven by winds to the Syrtes and had learned from Triton, who was king of Libya at that time, of the peculiar nature o the sea there, upon escaping safe out of the peril they presented him with the bronze tripod which was inscribed with ancient characters and stood until rather recent times among the people of Euhesperis.
We must not leave unrefuted the account of those who state that the Argonauts sailed up the river Ister river as far as its sources and then, by its arm which flows in the opposite direction, descended to the Adriatic Gulf.
For time has refuted those who assumed that he Ister which empties by several mouths into the Pontus and the Ister which issues into the Adriatic flow from the same regions. As a matter of fact, when the Romans subdued the nation of the Istrians it was discovered that the latter river has its sources only forty stades from the sea. But the cause of the error on the part of the historians was, they say, the identity in name of the two rivers.
THE HERACLEIDES AND EURYSTHEUS
Since we have sufficiently elaborated the history of the Argonauts and the deeds accomplished by Heracles, it may be appropriate also to record, in accordance with the promise we made, the deeds of his sons.
Now after the deification of Heracles his sons made their home in Trachis at the court of Ceÿx the king. But later, when Hyllus and some of the others had attained manhood, Eurystheus, being afraid lest, after they had all come of age, he might be driven from his kingdom at Mycenae, decided to send the Heracleidae into exile from the whole of Greece.
Consequently he served notice upon Ceÿx, the king, to banish both the Heracleiae and the sons of Licymnius, and Iolaüs as well and the band of Arcadians who had served with Heracles on his campaigns, adding that, if he should fail to do these things, he must submit to war.
But the Heracleidae and their friends, perceiving that they were of themselves not sufficient in number to carry on a war against Eurystheus, decided to leave Trachis of their own free will, and going about among the most important of the other cities they asked them to receive them as fellow-townsmen. When no other city had the courage to take them in, the Athenians alone of all, such being their inborn sense of justice, extended a welcome to the sons of Heracles, and they settled them and their companion in the flight in the city of Tricorythus, which is one of the cities of what is called the Tetrapolis.
And after some time, when all the sons of Heracles had attained to manhood and a spirit of pride sprang up in the young men because of the glory of descent from Heracles, Eurystheus, viewing with suspicion their growing power, came up against them with a great army.
But the Heracleidae, who had the aid of the Athenians, chose as their leader Iolaüs, the nephew of Heracles, and after entrusting to him and Theseus and Hyllus the direction of the war, they defeated Eurystheus in a pitched battle. In the course of the battle the larger part of the army of Eurystheus was slain and Eurystheus himself, when his chariot was wrecked in the flight, was killed by Hyllus, the son of Heracles; likewise the sons of Eurystheus perished in the battle to a man.
After these events all the Heracleidae, now that they had conquered Eurystheus in a battle whose fame was noised abroad and were well supplied with allies because of their success, embarked upon a campaign against Peloponnesus with Hyllus as their commander.
Atreus, after the death of Eurystheus, had taken over the kingship in Mycenae, and having added to his forces the Tegeatans and certain other peoples as allies, he went forth to meet the Heracleidae.
When the two armies were assembled at the Isthmus, Hyllus, Heracles’ son challenged to single combat any one of the enemy who would face him, on the agreement that, if Hyllus should conquer his opponent, the Heracleidae should receive the kingdom of Eurystheus, but that, if Hyllus were defeated, the Heracleidae would not return to Peloponnesus for a period of fifty years.
Echemus, the king of the Tegeatans, came out to meet the challenge, and in the single combat which followed Hyllus was slain and the Heracleidae gave up, as they had promised, their effort to return and made their way back to Tricorythus.
Some time later Licymnius and his sons and Tlepolemus, the son of Heracles, made their home in Argos, the Argives admitting them to citizenship of their own accord; but all the rest who had made their homes in Tricorythus, when the fifty-year period had expired, returned to the Peloponnesus. Their deeds we shall record when we have come to those times.
Alcmenê returned to Thebes, and when some time later she vanished from sight she received divine honours at the hands of the Thebans. The rest of the Heracleidae, they say, came to Aegimius, the son of Dorus, and demanding back the land which their father had entrusted to him made their home among the Dorians.
THE EXILE OF TLEPOLEMUS
But Tlepolemus, the son of Heracles, while he dwelt in Argos, slew Licymnius, the son of Electryon, we are told, in a quarrel over a certain matter, and being exiled from Argos because of this murder changed his residence to Rhodes. The island was inhabited at that time by Greeks who had been planted there by Triopas, the son of Phorbas.
Accordingly, Tlepolemus, acting with the common consent of the natives, divided Rhodes into three parts and founded there three cities, Lindus, Ielysus (Ialysus), and Cameirus; and he became king over all the Rhodians, because of the fame of his father Heracles, and in later times took part with Agamemnon in the war against Troy.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4C.html#15
Thursday, June 4, 2015
LP0033 - Medea and the Argonauts - There and back again & the story of Io from The Library of Apollodorus
Legendary Passages #0033 - Medea and the Argonauts -
There and back again & the story of Io from The Library of Apollodorus.
This time the Argonauts land at Colchis, Princess Medea steals the Golden Fleece, and they make the long voyage home.
Then we cover the family of Inachus, Argus and his eye-covered body, and Princess Io who was changed into a cow.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html#9
Medea and the Argonauts,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.
[1.9.23] - [2.1.3]
The Argonauts now arrived among the Mariandynians, and there King Lycus received them kindly. There died Idmon the seer of a wound inflicted by a boar; and there too died Tiphys, and Ancaeus undertook to steer the ship.
And having sailed past the Thermodon and the Caucasus they came to the river Phasis, which is in the Colchian land. When the ship was brought into port, Jason repaired to Aeetes, and setting forth the charge laid on him by Pelias invited him to give him the fleece.
The other promised to give it if single-handed he would yoke the brazen-footed bulls. These were two wild bulls that he had, of enormous size, a gift of Hephaestus; they had brazen feet and puffed fire from their mouths. These creatures Aeetes ordered him to yoke and to sow dragon's teeth; for he had got from Athena half of the dragon's teeth which Cadmus sowed in Thebes.
While Jason puzzled how he could yoke the bulls, Medea conceived a passion for him; now she was a witch, daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, daughter of Ocean. And fearing lest he might be destroyed by the bulls, she, keeping the thing from her father, promised to help him to yoke the bulls and to deliver to him the fleece, if he would swear to have her to wife and would take her with him on the voyage to Greece.
When Jason swore to do so, she gave him a drug with which she bade him anoint his shield, spear, and body when he was about to yoke the bulls; for she said that, anointed with it, he could for a single day be harmed neither by fire nor by iron. And she signified to him that, when the teeth were sown, armed men would spring up from the ground against him; and when he saw a knot of them he was to throw stones into their midst from a distance, and when they fought each other about that, he was taken to kill them.
On hearing that, Jason anointed himself with the drug, and being come to the grove of the temple he sought the bulls, and though they charged him with a flame of fire, he yoked them. And when he had sowed the teeth, there rose armed men from the ground; and where he saw several together, he pelted them unseen with stones, and when they fought each other he drew near and slew them.
But though the bulls were yoked, Aeetes did not give the fleece; for he wished to burn down the Argo and kill the crew. But before he could do so, Medea brought Jason by night to the fleece, and having lulled to sleep by her drugs the dragon that guarded it, she possessed herself of the fleece and in Jason's company came to the Argo. She was attended, too, by her brother Apsyrtus. And with them the Argonauts put to sea by night.
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When Aeetes discovered the daring deeds done by Medea, he started off in pursuit of the ship; but when she saw him near, Medea murdered her brother and cutting him limb from limb threw the pieces into the deep. Gathering the child's limbs, Aeetes fell behind in the pursuit; wherefore he turned back, and, having buried the rescued limbs of his child, he called the place Tomi. But he sent out many of the Colchians to search for the Argo, threatening that, if they did not bring Medea to him, they should suffer the punishment due to her; so they separated and pursued the search in divers places.
When the Argonauts were already sailing past the Eridanus river, Zeus sent a furious storm upon them, and drove them out of their course, because he was angry at the murder of Apsyrtus. And as they were sailing past the Apsyrtides Islands, the ship spoke, saying that the wrath of Zeus would not cease unless they journeyed to Ausonia and were purified by Circe for the murder of Apsyrtus. So when they had sailed past the Ligurian and Celtic nations and had voyaged through the Sardinian Sea, they skirted Tyrrhenia and came to Aeaea, where they supplicated Circe and were purified.
And as they sailed past the Sirens, Orpheus restrained the Argonauts by chanting a counter-melody. Butes alone swam off to the Sirens, but Aphrodite carried him away and settled him in Lilybaeum.
After the Sirens, the ship encountered Charybdis and Scylla and the Wandering Rocks, above which a great flame and smoke were seen rising. But Thetis with the Nereids steered the ship through them at the summons of Hera.
Having passed by the Island of Thrinacia, where are the kine of the Sun, they came to Corcyra, the island of the Phaeacians, of which Alcinous was king. But when the Colchians could not find the ship, some of them settled at the Ceraunian mountains, and some journeyed to Illyria and colonized the Apsyrtides Islands. But some came to the Phaeacians, and finding the Argo there, they demanded of Alcinous that he should give up Medea. He answered, that if she already knew Jason, he would give her to him, but that if she were still a maid he would send her away to her father. However, Arete, wife of Alcinous, anticipated matters by marrying Medea to Jason; hence the Colchians settled down among the Phaeacians and the Argonauts put to sea with Medea.
Sailing by night they encountered a violent storm, and Apollo, taking his stand on the Melantian ridges, flashed lightning down, shooting a shaft into the sea. Then they perceived an island close at hand, and anchoring there they named it Anaphe, because it had loomed up (anaphanenai) unexpectedly. So they founded an altar of Radiant Apollo, and having offered sacrifice they betook them to feasting; and twelve handmaids, whom Arete had given to Medea, jested merrily with the chiefs; whence it is still customary for the women to jest at the sacrifice.
Putting to sea from there, they were hindered from touching at Crete by Talos. Some say that he was a man of the Brazen Race, others that he was given to Minos by Hephaestus; he was a brazen man, but some say that he was a bull. He had a single vein extending from his neck to his ankles, and a bronze nail was rammed home at the end of the vein. This Talos kept guard, running round the island thrice every day; wherefore, when he saw the Argo standing inshore, he pelted it as usual with stones. His death was brought about by the wiles of Medea, whether, as some say, she drove him mad by drugs, or, as others say, she promised to make him immortal and then drew out the nail, so that all the ichor gushed out and he died. But some say that Poeas shot him dead in the ankle.
After tarrying a single night there they put in to Aegina to draw water, and a contest arose among them concerning the drawing of the water. Thence they sailed betwixt Euboea and Locris and came to Iolcus, having completed the whole voyage in four months.
-
Now Pelias, despairing of the return of the Argonauts, would have killed Aeson; but he requested to be allowed to take his own life, and in offering a sacrifice drank freely of the bull's blood and died. And Jason's mother cursed Pelias and hanged herself, leaving behind an infant son Promachus; but Pelias slew even the son whom she had left behind.
On his return Jason surrendered the fleece, but though he longed to avenge his wrongs he bided his time. At that time he sailed with the chiefs to the Isthmus and dedicated the ship to Poseidon, but afterwards he exhorted Medea to devise how he could punish Pelias. So she repaired to the palace of Pelias and persuaded his daughters to make mince meat of their father and boil him, promising to make him young again by her drugs; and to win their confidence she cut up a ram and made it into a lamb by boiling it. So they believed her, made mince meat of their father and boiled him. But Acastus buried his father with the help of the inhabitants of Iolcus, and he expelled Jason and Medea from Iolcus.
They went to Corinth, and lived there happily for ten years, till Creon, king of Corinth, betrothed his daughter Glauce to Jason, who married her and divorced Medea. But she invoked the gods by whom Jason had sworn, and after often upbraiding him with his ingratitude she sent the bride a robe steeped in poison, which when Glauce had put on, she was consumed with fierce fire along with her father, who went to her rescue.
But Mermerus and Pheres, the children whom Medea had by Jason, she killed, and having got from the Sun a car drawn by winged dragons she fled on it to Athens. Another tradition is that on her flight she left behind her children, who were still infants, setting them as suppliants on the altar of Hera of the Height; but the Corinthians removed them and wounded them to death.
Medea came to Athens, and being there married to Aegeus bore him a son Medus. Afterwards, however, plotting against Theseus, she was driven a fugitive from Athens with her son. But he conquered many barbarians and called the whole country under him Media, and marching against the Indians he met his death. And Medea came unknown to Colchis, and finding that Aeetes had been deposed by his brother Perses, she killed Perses and restored the kingdom to her father.
-
Having now gone through the family of Deucalion, we have next to speak of that of Inachus. Ocean and Tethys had a son Inachus, after whom a river in Argos is called Inachus. He and Melia, daughter of Ocean, had sons, Phoroneus, and Aegialeus. Aegialeus having died childless, the whole country was called Aegialia; and Phoroneus, reigning over the whole land afterwards named Peloponnese, begat Apis and Niobe by a nymph Teledice. Apis converted his power into a tyranny and named the Peloponnese after himself Apia; but being a stern tyrant he was conspired against and slain by Thelxion and Telchis. He left no child, and being deemed a god was called Sarapis. But Niobe had by Zeus (and she was the first mortal woman with whom Zeus cohabited) a son Argus, and also, so says Acusilaus, a son Pelasgus, after whom the inhabitants of the Peloponnese were called Pelasgians. However, Hesiod says that Pelasgus was a son of the soil.
About him I shall speak again. But Argus received the kingdom and called the Peloponnese after himself Argos; and having married Evadne, daughter of Strymon and Neaera, he begat Ecbasus, Piras, Epidaurus, and Criasus, who also succeeded to the kingdom.
Ecbasus had a son Agenor, and Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. He had eyes in the whole of his body, and being exceedingly strong he killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide; and when a satyr wronged the Arcadians and robbed them of their cattle, Argus withstood and killed him. It is said, too, that Echidna, daughter of Tartarus and Earth, who used to carry off passers-by, was caught asleep and slain by Argus. He also avenged the murder of Apis by putting the guilty to death.
Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus, had a son Iasus, who is said to have been the father of Io. But the annalist Castor and many of the tragedians allege that Io was a daughter of Inachus; and Hesiod and Acusilaus say that she was a daughter of Piren. Zeus seduced her while she held the priesthood of Hera, but being detected by Hera he by a touch turned Io into a white cow and swore that he had not known her; wherefore Hesiod remarks that lover's oaths do not draw down the anger of the gods.
But Hera requested the cow from Zeus for herself and set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. Pherecydes says that this Argus was a son of Arestor; but Asclepiades says that he was a son of Inachus, and Cercops says that he was a son of Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus; but Acusilaus says that he was earth-born. He tethered her to the olive tree which was in the grove of the Mycenaeans. But Zeus ordered Hermes to steal the cow, and as Hermes could not do it secretly because Hierax had blabbed, he killed Argus by the cast of a stone; whence he was called Argiphontes.
Hera next sent a gadfly to infest the cow, and the animal came first to what is called after her the Ionian gulf. Then she journeyed through Illyria and having traversed Mount Haemus she crossed what was then called the Thracian Straits but is now called after her the Bosphorus. And having gone away to Scythia and the Cimmerian land she wandered over great tracts of land and swam wide stretches of sea both in Europe and Asia until at last she came to Egypt, where she recovered her original form and gave birth to a son Epaphus beside the river Nile. Him Hera besought the Curetes to make away with, and make away with him they did. When Zeus learned of it, he slew the Curetes; but Io set out in search of the child.
She roamed all over Syria, because there it was revealed to her that the wife of the king of Byblus was nursing her son; and having found Epaphus she came to Egypt and was married to Telegonus, who then reigned over the Egyptians. And she set up an image of Demeter, whom the Egyptians called Isis, and Io likewise they called by the name of Isis.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html#9
There and back again & the story of Io from The Library of Apollodorus.
This time the Argonauts land at Colchis, Princess Medea steals the Golden Fleece, and they make the long voyage home.
Then we cover the family of Inachus, Argus and his eye-covered body, and Princess Io who was changed into a cow.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html#9
Medea and the Argonauts,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.
[1.9.23] - [2.1.3]
The Argonauts now arrived among the Mariandynians, and there King Lycus received them kindly. There died Idmon the seer of a wound inflicted by a boar; and there too died Tiphys, and Ancaeus undertook to steer the ship.
And having sailed past the Thermodon and the Caucasus they came to the river Phasis, which is in the Colchian land. When the ship was brought into port, Jason repaired to Aeetes, and setting forth the charge laid on him by Pelias invited him to give him the fleece.
The other promised to give it if single-handed he would yoke the brazen-footed bulls. These were two wild bulls that he had, of enormous size, a gift of Hephaestus; they had brazen feet and puffed fire from their mouths. These creatures Aeetes ordered him to yoke and to sow dragon's teeth; for he had got from Athena half of the dragon's teeth which Cadmus sowed in Thebes.
While Jason puzzled how he could yoke the bulls, Medea conceived a passion for him; now she was a witch, daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, daughter of Ocean. And fearing lest he might be destroyed by the bulls, she, keeping the thing from her father, promised to help him to yoke the bulls and to deliver to him the fleece, if he would swear to have her to wife and would take her with him on the voyage to Greece.
When Jason swore to do so, she gave him a drug with which she bade him anoint his shield, spear, and body when he was about to yoke the bulls; for she said that, anointed with it, he could for a single day be harmed neither by fire nor by iron. And she signified to him that, when the teeth were sown, armed men would spring up from the ground against him; and when he saw a knot of them he was to throw stones into their midst from a distance, and when they fought each other about that, he was taken to kill them.
On hearing that, Jason anointed himself with the drug, and being come to the grove of the temple he sought the bulls, and though they charged him with a flame of fire, he yoked them. And when he had sowed the teeth, there rose armed men from the ground; and where he saw several together, he pelted them unseen with stones, and when they fought each other he drew near and slew them.
But though the bulls were yoked, Aeetes did not give the fleece; for he wished to burn down the Argo and kill the crew. But before he could do so, Medea brought Jason by night to the fleece, and having lulled to sleep by her drugs the dragon that guarded it, she possessed herself of the fleece and in Jason's company came to the Argo. She was attended, too, by her brother Apsyrtus. And with them the Argonauts put to sea by night.
-
When Aeetes discovered the daring deeds done by Medea, he started off in pursuit of the ship; but when she saw him near, Medea murdered her brother and cutting him limb from limb threw the pieces into the deep. Gathering the child's limbs, Aeetes fell behind in the pursuit; wherefore he turned back, and, having buried the rescued limbs of his child, he called the place Tomi. But he sent out many of the Colchians to search for the Argo, threatening that, if they did not bring Medea to him, they should suffer the punishment due to her; so they separated and pursued the search in divers places.
When the Argonauts were already sailing past the Eridanus river, Zeus sent a furious storm upon them, and drove them out of their course, because he was angry at the murder of Apsyrtus. And as they were sailing past the Apsyrtides Islands, the ship spoke, saying that the wrath of Zeus would not cease unless they journeyed to Ausonia and were purified by Circe for the murder of Apsyrtus. So when they had sailed past the Ligurian and Celtic nations and had voyaged through the Sardinian Sea, they skirted Tyrrhenia and came to Aeaea, where they supplicated Circe and were purified.
And as they sailed past the Sirens, Orpheus restrained the Argonauts by chanting a counter-melody. Butes alone swam off to the Sirens, but Aphrodite carried him away and settled him in Lilybaeum.
After the Sirens, the ship encountered Charybdis and Scylla and the Wandering Rocks, above which a great flame and smoke were seen rising. But Thetis with the Nereids steered the ship through them at the summons of Hera.
Having passed by the Island of Thrinacia, where are the kine of the Sun, they came to Corcyra, the island of the Phaeacians, of which Alcinous was king. But when the Colchians could not find the ship, some of them settled at the Ceraunian mountains, and some journeyed to Illyria and colonized the Apsyrtides Islands. But some came to the Phaeacians, and finding the Argo there, they demanded of Alcinous that he should give up Medea. He answered, that if she already knew Jason, he would give her to him, but that if she were still a maid he would send her away to her father. However, Arete, wife of Alcinous, anticipated matters by marrying Medea to Jason; hence the Colchians settled down among the Phaeacians and the Argonauts put to sea with Medea.
Sailing by night they encountered a violent storm, and Apollo, taking his stand on the Melantian ridges, flashed lightning down, shooting a shaft into the sea. Then they perceived an island close at hand, and anchoring there they named it Anaphe, because it had loomed up (anaphanenai) unexpectedly. So they founded an altar of Radiant Apollo, and having offered sacrifice they betook them to feasting; and twelve handmaids, whom Arete had given to Medea, jested merrily with the chiefs; whence it is still customary for the women to jest at the sacrifice.
Putting to sea from there, they were hindered from touching at Crete by Talos. Some say that he was a man of the Brazen Race, others that he was given to Minos by Hephaestus; he was a brazen man, but some say that he was a bull. He had a single vein extending from his neck to his ankles, and a bronze nail was rammed home at the end of the vein. This Talos kept guard, running round the island thrice every day; wherefore, when he saw the Argo standing inshore, he pelted it as usual with stones. His death was brought about by the wiles of Medea, whether, as some say, she drove him mad by drugs, or, as others say, she promised to make him immortal and then drew out the nail, so that all the ichor gushed out and he died. But some say that Poeas shot him dead in the ankle.
After tarrying a single night there they put in to Aegina to draw water, and a contest arose among them concerning the drawing of the water. Thence they sailed betwixt Euboea and Locris and came to Iolcus, having completed the whole voyage in four months.
-
Now Pelias, despairing of the return of the Argonauts, would have killed Aeson; but he requested to be allowed to take his own life, and in offering a sacrifice drank freely of the bull's blood and died. And Jason's mother cursed Pelias and hanged herself, leaving behind an infant son Promachus; but Pelias slew even the son whom she had left behind.
On his return Jason surrendered the fleece, but though he longed to avenge his wrongs he bided his time. At that time he sailed with the chiefs to the Isthmus and dedicated the ship to Poseidon, but afterwards he exhorted Medea to devise how he could punish Pelias. So she repaired to the palace of Pelias and persuaded his daughters to make mince meat of their father and boil him, promising to make him young again by her drugs; and to win their confidence she cut up a ram and made it into a lamb by boiling it. So they believed her, made mince meat of their father and boiled him. But Acastus buried his father with the help of the inhabitants of Iolcus, and he expelled Jason and Medea from Iolcus.
They went to Corinth, and lived there happily for ten years, till Creon, king of Corinth, betrothed his daughter Glauce to Jason, who married her and divorced Medea. But she invoked the gods by whom Jason had sworn, and after often upbraiding him with his ingratitude she sent the bride a robe steeped in poison, which when Glauce had put on, she was consumed with fierce fire along with her father, who went to her rescue.
But Mermerus and Pheres, the children whom Medea had by Jason, she killed, and having got from the Sun a car drawn by winged dragons she fled on it to Athens. Another tradition is that on her flight she left behind her children, who were still infants, setting them as suppliants on the altar of Hera of the Height; but the Corinthians removed them and wounded them to death.
Medea came to Athens, and being there married to Aegeus bore him a son Medus. Afterwards, however, plotting against Theseus, she was driven a fugitive from Athens with her son. But he conquered many barbarians and called the whole country under him Media, and marching against the Indians he met his death. And Medea came unknown to Colchis, and finding that Aeetes had been deposed by his brother Perses, she killed Perses and restored the kingdom to her father.
-
Having now gone through the family of Deucalion, we have next to speak of that of Inachus. Ocean and Tethys had a son Inachus, after whom a river in Argos is called Inachus. He and Melia, daughter of Ocean, had sons, Phoroneus, and Aegialeus. Aegialeus having died childless, the whole country was called Aegialia; and Phoroneus, reigning over the whole land afterwards named Peloponnese, begat Apis and Niobe by a nymph Teledice. Apis converted his power into a tyranny and named the Peloponnese after himself Apia; but being a stern tyrant he was conspired against and slain by Thelxion and Telchis. He left no child, and being deemed a god was called Sarapis. But Niobe had by Zeus (and she was the first mortal woman with whom Zeus cohabited) a son Argus, and also, so says Acusilaus, a son Pelasgus, after whom the inhabitants of the Peloponnese were called Pelasgians. However, Hesiod says that Pelasgus was a son of the soil.
About him I shall speak again. But Argus received the kingdom and called the Peloponnese after himself Argos; and having married Evadne, daughter of Strymon and Neaera, he begat Ecbasus, Piras, Epidaurus, and Criasus, who also succeeded to the kingdom.
Ecbasus had a son Agenor, and Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. He had eyes in the whole of his body, and being exceedingly strong he killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide; and when a satyr wronged the Arcadians and robbed them of their cattle, Argus withstood and killed him. It is said, too, that Echidna, daughter of Tartarus and Earth, who used to carry off passers-by, was caught asleep and slain by Argus. He also avenged the murder of Apis by putting the guilty to death.
Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus, had a son Iasus, who is said to have been the father of Io. But the annalist Castor and many of the tragedians allege that Io was a daughter of Inachus; and Hesiod and Acusilaus say that she was a daughter of Piren. Zeus seduced her while she held the priesthood of Hera, but being detected by Hera he by a touch turned Io into a white cow and swore that he had not known her; wherefore Hesiod remarks that lover's oaths do not draw down the anger of the gods.
But Hera requested the cow from Zeus for herself and set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. Pherecydes says that this Argus was a son of Arestor; but Asclepiades says that he was a son of Inachus, and Cercops says that he was a son of Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus; but Acusilaus says that he was earth-born. He tethered her to the olive tree which was in the grove of the Mycenaeans. But Zeus ordered Hermes to steal the cow, and as Hermes could not do it secretly because Hierax had blabbed, he killed Argus by the cast of a stone; whence he was called Argiphontes.
Hera next sent a gadfly to infest the cow, and the animal came first to what is called after her the Ionian gulf. Then she journeyed through Illyria and having traversed Mount Haemus she crossed what was then called the Thracian Straits but is now called after her the Bosphorus. And having gone away to Scythia and the Cimmerian land she wandered over great tracts of land and swam wide stretches of sea both in Europe and Asia until at last she came to Egypt, where she recovered her original form and gave birth to a son Epaphus beside the river Nile. Him Hera besought the Curetes to make away with, and make away with him they did. When Zeus learned of it, he slew the Curetes; but Io set out in search of the child.
She roamed all over Syria, because there it was revealed to her that the wife of the king of Byblus was nursing her son; and having found Epaphus she came to Egypt and was married to Telegonus, who then reigned over the Egyptians. And she set up an image of Demeter, whom the Egyptians called Isis, and Io likewise they called by the name of Isis.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html#9
Monday, June 1, 2015
LP0032 - Fables of the Argonauts - The quest and its repercussions, from The Fables of Hyginus
Legendary Passages #0032 - Fables of the Argonauts -
The quest and its repercussions, from The Fables of Hyginus.
Last time the Argonauts set sail from from Iolcus, and visited Lemnos, King Cyzicus, King Amycus, King Lycus, saved Phineus from Harpies, and then traversed the Clashing Rocks.
This time they reach Colchis, and take both the Golden Fleece and Princess Medea. Jason marries her, but when he marries another, she kills his bride and flees to Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#15
Fables of the Argonauts,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Fables of Hyginus,
translated by Mary Grant.
XIV. - XXVII.
When Hercules took them as companions (when he went after the Girdle of the Amazons) he left them terror-struck.
When the Argonauts started for Colchis, they wanted to have Hercules as leader. He declined, saying that Jason, at whose instigation they all were going, should be the leader. Jason, therefore, directed them.
Argus, son of Danaus, was shipbuilder; Tiphys was pilot. After his death Ancaeus, son of Neptune, steered. Lynceus, son of Aphareus, who ahd keen sight, was the lookout man at the prow; helmsmen were Zetes and Calais, sons of Aquilo, who had wings on head and feet. At prow and oars sat Peleus and Telamon; at the centre [?] Hercules and Idas. The rest kept their positions. Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, gave the calls. Later, when Hercules left his place, Peleus, son of Aeacus, sat there.
This is the ship Argo, which Minerva had put in the circle of stars because she built it. When first he ship was launched into the sea, it appeared among the stars from rudder to sail. Cicero in his Phaenomenna described its appearance and beauty in the following verses:
Moving slowly near the tail of the Dog,
the Argo glides along,
bearing her stern first, with its light;
not as other ships are wont to move
their prows on the deep
cleaving the Neptunian meadows with their beaks,
but she bears herself backward
through the turning spaces of the sky
just as when sailors approach safe harbors,
they turn their ship with its great burden
and drag the stern backward to the longed-for shore;
so old Argo glides beyond the turning heavens,
and her rudder, hanging from the moving stern,
touches the rear foot-tracks of the shining Dog.
This ship has four stars on her stern;
on the right of the rudder, five;
on the left, four – all alive;
in all, thirteen.
XV. WOMEN OF LEMNOS
On the island of Lemnos the women for several years did not make offerings to Venus, and because of her anger their husbands married Thracian wives and scorned their former ones. But the Lemnian women (all except Hypsipyle), instigated by the same Venus, conspired to kill the whole tribe of men who were there. Hypsipyle secretly put her father Thoas on board a ship which a storm carried to the island Taurica.
In the meantime, the Argonauts, sailing along, came to Lemnos. When Iphinoe, guardian of the harbour, saw them, she announced their coming to Hypsipyle the queen, to whom Polyxo, by virtue of her middle age, gave advice that she should put them under obligation to the gods of hospitality and invite them to a friendly reception. Hypsipyle bore sons to Jason, Euneus and Deipylus. Delayed many days there, they were chided by Hercules, and departed.
Now when the Lemnian women learned that Hypsipyle ahd saved her father, they tried to kill her. She fled, but pirates captured her, took her to Thebes, and sold her as a slave to King Lycus. The Lemnian women gave the names of the Argonauts to the children they had conceived by them.
XVI. CYZICUS
Cyzicus, son of Eusorus, king in an island of the Propontis, received the Argonauts with generous hospitality, but when they had left him, and had sailed a whole day, by a storm that arose in the night they were brought unaware to the same island. Cyzicus, thinking they were Pelasgican enemies attacked them on the shore at night, and was slain by Jason. On the next day, when he had come near the shore and saw that he had killed the king, he gave him burial and handed over the kingdom to his sons.
XVII. AMYCUS
Amycus, son of Neptune and Melie, king of Bebrycia, compelled whoever came to his kingdom to contend with him in boxing, and slew the vanquished. When he had challenged the Argonauts to a boxing match, Pollux fought with him and killed him.
XVIII. LYCUS
Lycus, king of an island of the Propontis, received the Argonauts hospitably, grateful because they had killed Amycus, who had often attacked[?] him. While the Argonauts were staying with Lycus, and had gone out to gather straw, Idmon, son of Apollo, was wounded by a wild boar and died.
XIX. PHINEUS
Phineus, a Thracian, son of Agenor, had two sons by Cleopatra. Because of their stepmother’s charges, these two were blinded by their father. Now to this Phineus, Apollo is said to have given the gift of prophecy. But he, since he revealed the deliberations of the gods, was blinded by Jove, and Jove set over him the Harpies, who are called the hounds of Jove, to take the food from his lips.
When the Argonauts came there and asked him to show them the way, he said he would show them if they would free him from the punishment. Then Zetes and Calais, sons of the North Wind and Orithyia, who are said to have had wings on head and feet, drove the Harpies to the Strophades Islands, and freed Phineus from the punishment.
He showed them how to pass the Symplegades by sending out a dove; when the rocks rushed together, in their rebound . . . [they would pass through if the dove went through, and they exerted all their strength in rowing. But if she perished,] they should turn back. By the help of Phienus the Argonauts passed the Symplegades.
XX. STYMPHALIDES
When the Argonauts had come to the island of Dia, and the birds were wounding them, using their feathers as arrows, they were not able to cope with the great numbers of birds. Following Phineus’ advice they seized shields and spears, and dispersed them by the noise, after the manner of the Curetes.
XXI. SONS OF PHRIXUS
When the Argonauts had entered the sea called Euxine through the Cyanean Cliffs, which are called Rocks of the Symplegades, and were wandering there, by the will of Juno they were borne to the island of Dia. There they found shipwrecked men, naked and helpless – the sons of Phrixus and Chalciope – Argus, Phrontides, Melas, and Cylindrus. These told their misfortunes to Jason, how they had suffered shipwreck and been cast there when they were hastening to go to their grandfather Athamas, and Jason welcomed and aided them.
They led Jason to Colchis, bade the Argonauts conceal the ship. They themselves went to their mother Chalciope, Medea’s sister, and made known the kindness of Jason, and why the had come. Then Chalciope told about Medea, and brought her with her sons to Jason. When she saw him, she recognized him as the one whom in dreams she had loved deeply by Juno’s urging, and promised him everything. They brought him to the temple.
XXII. AEETES
An oracle told Aeetes, son of Sol, that he would keep his kingdom as long as the fleece which Phrixus had dedicated should remain the shrine of Mars. And so Aeetes appointed this task for Jason, if he wished to take away the golden fleece – to yoke with yoke of adamant the bronze-footed bulls which breathed flames from their nostrils, and plow, and sow from a helmet the dragon’s teeth, from which a tribe of armed men should arise and slay each other.
Juno, however, whished to save Jason, because once when she had come to a river and wished to test the minds of men, she assumed an old woman’s form, and asked to be carried across. He had carried her across when others who had passed over despised her. And so since she knew that Jason could not perform the commands without help of Medea, she asked Venus to inspire Medea with love.
At Venus’ instigation, Jason was loved by Medea. By her aid he as freed from all danger, for when he had plowed with the bulls, and the armed men had been born, by Medea’s advice he threw a stone among them. They then fought among themselves and slew each other. When the dragon was lulled to sleep with drugs he took the fleece from the shrine, and set off for his country with Medea.
XXIII. ABSYRTUS
When Aeetes knew that Medea had fled with Jason, he made ready a ship and sent Absyrtus, his son, with armed guards after her. When he had caught up with her in the Adriatic Sea in Histria at King Alcinous’ court, and would fight for her, Alcinous intervened to prevent their fighting. They took him as arbiter, and he put them off till the next day. When he seemed depressed and Arete, his wife, asked him the cause of his sadness, he said he had been made arbiter by two different states, to judge between Colchians and Argives. When Arete asked him what judgment he would give, Alcinous replied that if Medea were a virgin, he would give her to her father, but if not, to her husband. When Arete heard this from her husband, she sent word to Jason, and he lay with Medea by night in a cave. Then next day when they came to court, and Medea was found to be a wife she was given to her husband.
Nevertheless, when they had left, Absyrtus, fearing his father’s commands, pursued them to the island of Minerva. When Jason was sacrificing there to Minerva, and Absyruts came upon him, he was killed by Jason. Medea gave him burial, and they departed. The Colchians who had come with Absyrtus, fearing Aeetes, remained there and founded a town which from Absyrtus’ name they called Absoros. Now this island is located in Histria, opposite Pola, joined[?] to the island [corrupt].
XXIV. JASON. DAUGHTERS OF PELIAS
Since Jason has faced so many perils at the command of his uncle Pelias, he began to think how he might kill him without suspicion. This Medea proposed to do.
And so, when they were now far from Colchis, she bade the ship be hidden in a secret place, and she herself in the guise of a priestess of Diana came to the daughters of Pelias. She promised to make their father Pelias a youth again instead of an old man, but this the eldest daughter Alcestis said could not be done.
In order more easily to bend her to her will, Medea cast mist before them, and by means of drugs formed many strange things which seemed to be like reality, putting an old ram in a brazen vessel, from which a very fine young lamb seemed to spring. So in the same way the daughters of Pelias – namely, Alcestis, Pelopia, Medusa, Pisidice, and Hippothoe – at Medea’s instigation slew their father and cooked him in a brazen caldron.
When they realized they had been deceived, they fled from the country. But Jason, at a given signal of Medea, made himself the master of the palace, and handed over the rule to Acastus, son of Pelias, brother of the Peliades, because he had gone with him to Colchis. He himself with Medea departed for Corinth.
XXV. MEDEA
When Medea, daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, had already borne to Jason sons – Mermerus and Pheres – and they were living in great harmony, it was cast in his teeth that a man so brave and handsome and noble should have as wife a foreigner and sorceress.
To him, Creon, son of Menoecus, King of Corinth, gave his younger daughter Glauce as wife. When Medea saw that she, who had been Jason’s benefactress, was treated with scorn, with the help of poisonous drugs she made a golden crown, and she bade her sons give it as a gift to their stepmother. Creusa took the gift, and was burned to death along with Jason and Creon. When Medea saw that the palace was on fire, she slew Mermerus and Pheres, her sons by Jason, and fled from Corinth.
XXVI. MEDEA IN EXILE
Medea, an exile from Corinth, came to Athens to the hospitality of Aegeus, son of Pandion, and married him; to him Medus was born.
Later the priestess of Diana began to censure Medea, and tell the king that she could not perform sacrifices piously because there was a woman in that state who was a sorceress and criminal. She was exiled then for the second time. Medea, however, with her yoked dragons, returned to Colchis from Athens.
On the way she came to Absoros where her brother Absyrtus was buried. There the people of Absoros could not cope with a great number of snakes. At their entreaties Medea gathered them up and put them in her brother’s tomb. They still remain there, and if any goes outside the tomb, it pays the debt to nature.
XXVII. MEDUS
An oracle told Perses, son of Sol, Aeetes’ brother, that he should beware of death from Aeetes’ descendants. Medus, following his mother, was brought to him by a storm, and guards seized him and brought him to King Perses. When Medus, son of Aegeus and Medea, saw that he had come into the power of his enemy, he falsely asserted he was Hippotes, son of Creon. The king carefully investigated, and ordered him cast into prison. There sterility and scarcity of crops are said to have occurred.
When Medea had come there in her chariot with the yoked dragons, she falsely claimed before the king to be a priestess of Diana. She said she could make atonement for the sterility, and when she heard from the king that Hippotes, son of Creon, was held in custody, thinking he had come to avenge the injury to his father . . . there, unknowingly, she betrayed her son. For she persuaded the king that he was not Hippotes, but Medus, son of Aegeus, sent by his father to dispatch the king, and begged that he be handed over to her to kill, convinced that he was Hippotes.
And so when Medus was brought out to pay for his deceit by death, when she saw that things were otherwise than she had thought, she said she wished to talk with him, and gave him a sword, and bade him avenge the wrongs of his grandfather. Medus, at this news, killed Perses, and gained his grandfather’s kingdom; from his name he called the country Media.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#15
The quest and its repercussions, from The Fables of Hyginus.
Last time the Argonauts set sail from from Iolcus, and visited Lemnos, King Cyzicus, King Amycus, King Lycus, saved Phineus from Harpies, and then traversed the Clashing Rocks.
This time they reach Colchis, and take both the Golden Fleece and Princess Medea. Jason marries her, but when he marries another, she kills his bride and flees to Athens.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#15
Fables of the Argonauts,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Fables of Hyginus,
translated by Mary Grant.
XIV. - XXVII.
When Hercules took them as companions (when he went after the Girdle of the Amazons) he left them terror-struck.
When the Argonauts started for Colchis, they wanted to have Hercules as leader. He declined, saying that Jason, at whose instigation they all were going, should be the leader. Jason, therefore, directed them.
Argus, son of Danaus, was shipbuilder; Tiphys was pilot. After his death Ancaeus, son of Neptune, steered. Lynceus, son of Aphareus, who ahd keen sight, was the lookout man at the prow; helmsmen were Zetes and Calais, sons of Aquilo, who had wings on head and feet. At prow and oars sat Peleus and Telamon; at the centre [?] Hercules and Idas. The rest kept their positions. Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, gave the calls. Later, when Hercules left his place, Peleus, son of Aeacus, sat there.
This is the ship Argo, which Minerva had put in the circle of stars because she built it. When first he ship was launched into the sea, it appeared among the stars from rudder to sail. Cicero in his Phaenomenna described its appearance and beauty in the following verses:
Moving slowly near the tail of the Dog,
the Argo glides along,
bearing her stern first, with its light;
not as other ships are wont to move
their prows on the deep
cleaving the Neptunian meadows with their beaks,
but she bears herself backward
through the turning spaces of the sky
just as when sailors approach safe harbors,
they turn their ship with its great burden
and drag the stern backward to the longed-for shore;
so old Argo glides beyond the turning heavens,
and her rudder, hanging from the moving stern,
touches the rear foot-tracks of the shining Dog.
This ship has four stars on her stern;
on the right of the rudder, five;
on the left, four – all alive;
in all, thirteen.
XV. WOMEN OF LEMNOS
On the island of Lemnos the women for several years did not make offerings to Venus, and because of her anger their husbands married Thracian wives and scorned their former ones. But the Lemnian women (all except Hypsipyle), instigated by the same Venus, conspired to kill the whole tribe of men who were there. Hypsipyle secretly put her father Thoas on board a ship which a storm carried to the island Taurica.
In the meantime, the Argonauts, sailing along, came to Lemnos. When Iphinoe, guardian of the harbour, saw them, she announced their coming to Hypsipyle the queen, to whom Polyxo, by virtue of her middle age, gave advice that she should put them under obligation to the gods of hospitality and invite them to a friendly reception. Hypsipyle bore sons to Jason, Euneus and Deipylus. Delayed many days there, they were chided by Hercules, and departed.
Now when the Lemnian women learned that Hypsipyle ahd saved her father, they tried to kill her. She fled, but pirates captured her, took her to Thebes, and sold her as a slave to King Lycus. The Lemnian women gave the names of the Argonauts to the children they had conceived by them.
XVI. CYZICUS
Cyzicus, son of Eusorus, king in an island of the Propontis, received the Argonauts with generous hospitality, but when they had left him, and had sailed a whole day, by a storm that arose in the night they were brought unaware to the same island. Cyzicus, thinking they were Pelasgican enemies attacked them on the shore at night, and was slain by Jason. On the next day, when he had come near the shore and saw that he had killed the king, he gave him burial and handed over the kingdom to his sons.
XVII. AMYCUS
Amycus, son of Neptune and Melie, king of Bebrycia, compelled whoever came to his kingdom to contend with him in boxing, and slew the vanquished. When he had challenged the Argonauts to a boxing match, Pollux fought with him and killed him.
XVIII. LYCUS
Lycus, king of an island of the Propontis, received the Argonauts hospitably, grateful because they had killed Amycus, who had often attacked[?] him. While the Argonauts were staying with Lycus, and had gone out to gather straw, Idmon, son of Apollo, was wounded by a wild boar and died.
XIX. PHINEUS
Phineus, a Thracian, son of Agenor, had two sons by Cleopatra. Because of their stepmother’s charges, these two were blinded by their father. Now to this Phineus, Apollo is said to have given the gift of prophecy. But he, since he revealed the deliberations of the gods, was blinded by Jove, and Jove set over him the Harpies, who are called the hounds of Jove, to take the food from his lips.
When the Argonauts came there and asked him to show them the way, he said he would show them if they would free him from the punishment. Then Zetes and Calais, sons of the North Wind and Orithyia, who are said to have had wings on head and feet, drove the Harpies to the Strophades Islands, and freed Phineus from the punishment.
He showed them how to pass the Symplegades by sending out a dove; when the rocks rushed together, in their rebound . . . [they would pass through if the dove went through, and they exerted all their strength in rowing. But if she perished,] they should turn back. By the help of Phienus the Argonauts passed the Symplegades.
XX. STYMPHALIDES
When the Argonauts had come to the island of Dia, and the birds were wounding them, using their feathers as arrows, they were not able to cope with the great numbers of birds. Following Phineus’ advice they seized shields and spears, and dispersed them by the noise, after the manner of the Curetes.
XXI. SONS OF PHRIXUS
When the Argonauts had entered the sea called Euxine through the Cyanean Cliffs, which are called Rocks of the Symplegades, and were wandering there, by the will of Juno they were borne to the island of Dia. There they found shipwrecked men, naked and helpless – the sons of Phrixus and Chalciope – Argus, Phrontides, Melas, and Cylindrus. These told their misfortunes to Jason, how they had suffered shipwreck and been cast there when they were hastening to go to their grandfather Athamas, and Jason welcomed and aided them.
They led Jason to Colchis, bade the Argonauts conceal the ship. They themselves went to their mother Chalciope, Medea’s sister, and made known the kindness of Jason, and why the had come. Then Chalciope told about Medea, and brought her with her sons to Jason. When she saw him, she recognized him as the one whom in dreams she had loved deeply by Juno’s urging, and promised him everything. They brought him to the temple.
XXII. AEETES
An oracle told Aeetes, son of Sol, that he would keep his kingdom as long as the fleece which Phrixus had dedicated should remain the shrine of Mars. And so Aeetes appointed this task for Jason, if he wished to take away the golden fleece – to yoke with yoke of adamant the bronze-footed bulls which breathed flames from their nostrils, and plow, and sow from a helmet the dragon’s teeth, from which a tribe of armed men should arise and slay each other.
Juno, however, whished to save Jason, because once when she had come to a river and wished to test the minds of men, she assumed an old woman’s form, and asked to be carried across. He had carried her across when others who had passed over despised her. And so since she knew that Jason could not perform the commands without help of Medea, she asked Venus to inspire Medea with love.
At Venus’ instigation, Jason was loved by Medea. By her aid he as freed from all danger, for when he had plowed with the bulls, and the armed men had been born, by Medea’s advice he threw a stone among them. They then fought among themselves and slew each other. When the dragon was lulled to sleep with drugs he took the fleece from the shrine, and set off for his country with Medea.
XXIII. ABSYRTUS
When Aeetes knew that Medea had fled with Jason, he made ready a ship and sent Absyrtus, his son, with armed guards after her. When he had caught up with her in the Adriatic Sea in Histria at King Alcinous’ court, and would fight for her, Alcinous intervened to prevent their fighting. They took him as arbiter, and he put them off till the next day. When he seemed depressed and Arete, his wife, asked him the cause of his sadness, he said he had been made arbiter by two different states, to judge between Colchians and Argives. When Arete asked him what judgment he would give, Alcinous replied that if Medea were a virgin, he would give her to her father, but if not, to her husband. When Arete heard this from her husband, she sent word to Jason, and he lay with Medea by night in a cave. Then next day when they came to court, and Medea was found to be a wife she was given to her husband.
Nevertheless, when they had left, Absyrtus, fearing his father’s commands, pursued them to the island of Minerva. When Jason was sacrificing there to Minerva, and Absyruts came upon him, he was killed by Jason. Medea gave him burial, and they departed. The Colchians who had come with Absyrtus, fearing Aeetes, remained there and founded a town which from Absyrtus’ name they called Absoros. Now this island is located in Histria, opposite Pola, joined[?] to the island [corrupt].
XXIV. JASON. DAUGHTERS OF PELIAS
Since Jason has faced so many perils at the command of his uncle Pelias, he began to think how he might kill him without suspicion. This Medea proposed to do.
And so, when they were now far from Colchis, she bade the ship be hidden in a secret place, and she herself in the guise of a priestess of Diana came to the daughters of Pelias. She promised to make their father Pelias a youth again instead of an old man, but this the eldest daughter Alcestis said could not be done.
In order more easily to bend her to her will, Medea cast mist before them, and by means of drugs formed many strange things which seemed to be like reality, putting an old ram in a brazen vessel, from which a very fine young lamb seemed to spring. So in the same way the daughters of Pelias – namely, Alcestis, Pelopia, Medusa, Pisidice, and Hippothoe – at Medea’s instigation slew their father and cooked him in a brazen caldron.
When they realized they had been deceived, they fled from the country. But Jason, at a given signal of Medea, made himself the master of the palace, and handed over the rule to Acastus, son of Pelias, brother of the Peliades, because he had gone with him to Colchis. He himself with Medea departed for Corinth.
XXV. MEDEA
When Medea, daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, had already borne to Jason sons – Mermerus and Pheres – and they were living in great harmony, it was cast in his teeth that a man so brave and handsome and noble should have as wife a foreigner and sorceress.
To him, Creon, son of Menoecus, King of Corinth, gave his younger daughter Glauce as wife. When Medea saw that she, who had been Jason’s benefactress, was treated with scorn, with the help of poisonous drugs she made a golden crown, and she bade her sons give it as a gift to their stepmother. Creusa took the gift, and was burned to death along with Jason and Creon. When Medea saw that the palace was on fire, she slew Mermerus and Pheres, her sons by Jason, and fled from Corinth.
XXVI. MEDEA IN EXILE
Medea, an exile from Corinth, came to Athens to the hospitality of Aegeus, son of Pandion, and married him; to him Medus was born.
Later the priestess of Diana began to censure Medea, and tell the king that she could not perform sacrifices piously because there was a woman in that state who was a sorceress and criminal. She was exiled then for the second time. Medea, however, with her yoked dragons, returned to Colchis from Athens.
On the way she came to Absoros where her brother Absyrtus was buried. There the people of Absoros could not cope with a great number of snakes. At their entreaties Medea gathered them up and put them in her brother’s tomb. They still remain there, and if any goes outside the tomb, it pays the debt to nature.
XXVII. MEDUS
An oracle told Perses, son of Sol, Aeetes’ brother, that he should beware of death from Aeetes’ descendants. Medus, following his mother, was brought to him by a storm, and guards seized him and brought him to King Perses. When Medus, son of Aegeus and Medea, saw that he had come into the power of his enemy, he falsely asserted he was Hippotes, son of Creon. The king carefully investigated, and ordered him cast into prison. There sterility and scarcity of crops are said to have occurred.
When Medea had come there in her chariot with the yoked dragons, she falsely claimed before the king to be a priestess of Diana. She said she could make atonement for the sterility, and when she heard from the king that Hippotes, son of Creon, was held in custody, thinking he had come to avenge the injury to his father . . . there, unknowingly, she betrayed her son. For she persuaded the king that he was not Hippotes, but Medus, son of Aegeus, sent by his father to dispatch the king, and begged that he be handed over to her to kill, convinced that he was Hippotes.
And so when Medus was brought out to pay for his deceit by death, when she saw that things were otherwise than she had thought, she said she wished to talk with him, and gave him a sword, and bade him avenge the wrongs of his grandfather. Medus, at this news, killed Perses, and gained his grandfather’s kingdom; from his name he called the country Media.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#15
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