Jason and the Golden Fleece

Part One · The Man with One Sandal

In the kingdom of Iolcus, in the north of Greece, a ruthless man named Pelias had seized the throne from his own brother, the rightful king, and he governed nervously, because an oracle had delivered a disturbing prophecy. He must beware, the oracle declared, of a stranger wearing only one sandal, for that stranger would eventually deprive him of everything he had stolen. Meanwhile, far away in the mountains, the rightful king's infant son had been smuggled to safety and entrusted to Chiron, the wisest of the centaurs, half man and half horse, who educated him in medicine, music, hunting and the patient arts of leadership. The boy's name was Jason, and when he had grown into a tall and confident young man, he descended from the mountains to reclaim his father's kingdom.

On his journey he encountered a swollen river and, on its bank, a frail old woman who asked him to carry her across. Jason lifted her onto his shoulders without hesitation and waded into the torrent, although the current was ferocious and the old woman felt astonishingly heavy. Halfway across, one of his sandals was sucked away by the mud. When he deposited her safely on the opposite bank, she transformed before his eyes into a radiant figure, for she was Hera, the queen of the gods, who had been testing his character, and who promised him her protection from that day forward. So Jason arrived at the palace of Iolcus wearing a single sandal, and when Pelias observed his bare foot, the king's face turned the color of ashes.

Pelias, however, was too cunning to reveal his alarm. He welcomed his nephew warmly. He greeted him with elaborate courtesy and agreed, with a smile that never reached his eyes, to surrender the throne, on one condition. Jason must first demonstrate that he deserved it by retrieving the legendary Golden Fleece, the shimmering hide of a magical winged ram, which hung from an oak tree in a sacred grove in Colchis, at the farthest eastern edge of the Black Sea. It was guarded, Pelias added casually, by a dragon that never slept. The king was confident that no traveler could survive such an expedition, but Jason accepted the challenge immediately, and messengers carried his invitation to every corner of Greece, summoning the bravest heroes of the age to join him. Not one of them refused.

Part Two · The Voyage of the Argo

The shipbuilder Argus constructed a magnificent vessel with fifty oars, and the goddess Athena herself fitted into its prow a beam of sacred oak that could speak and offer advice. The ship was named the Argo, and its crew became known as the Argonauts. Among them were Heracles, the strongest man who ever lived, the twin brothers Castor and Polydeuces, the swift huntress Atalanta, who could outrun any animal in Arcadia, and Orpheus, whose music could calm the wildest waves and set the rowers' rhythm. Their voyage was long and perilous. They visited islands of extraordinary strangeness, rescued an old blind prophet named Phineus from the monstrous winged Harpies who stole his food, and in gratitude the prophet explained exactly how they might survive the most terrifying obstacle on their route. They listened to every word.

At the entrance to the Black Sea, he warned them, stood the Clashing Rocks, two colossal cliffs that drifted across the water and smashed together with tremendous violence, crushing anything that attempted to pass between them. When the Argonauts approached, they saw the rocks grinding apart and colliding again in clouds of spray, while the sea boiled and thundered around them. Following the prophet's instructions, Jason released a white dove from the prow. The bird darted between the cliffs, which slammed together behind it, snipping away only a single tail feather. As the rocks rebounded, the Argonauts heaved on their oars with every particle of their strength, Athena pushed the stern with an invisible hand, and the Argo shot through the gap, losing only an ornament from its stern before the cliffs crashed shut forever. They never moved again.

Part Three · The King's Impossible Tasks

After many more adventures, the travelers reached the misty coast of Colchis and rowed up the river to the city of King Aeetes, a son of the sun god, who received them with suspicious hostility. When Jason respectfully explained his mission, the king concealed his fury and proposed a bargain. He would surrender the Fleece willingly, he said, if Jason could accomplish in a single day a task that the king himself had performed. Jason must harness two bulls with hooves of bronze and breath of fire, plow an enormous field with them, sow the field with dragon's teeth instead of seeds, and then defeat the warriors who would sprout from the ground. Aeetes was certain that the young stranger would perish in the attempt. Nobody had ever survived those bulls.

That evening Jason received unexpected assistance. The king's daughter Medea, a gifted sorceress and a priestess of the goddess Hecate, had watched him in her father's hall, and with some encouragement from Hera, she had fallen deeply in love with him. Secretly she met him by moonlight at a temple outside the city and presented him with a magical ointment, prepared from the crimson flower that grew where the blood of a wounded Titan had fallen. If he anointed his body, his shield and his spear with it, she explained, neither fire nor bronze could harm him for one entire day. She also revealed the secret of defeating the earthborn warriors. In return, Jason solemnly promised to take her with him to Greece and to remain faithful to her forever. Then they parted in the dark.

The next morning the entire population of Colchis gathered to observe the contest. The bronze bulls came thundering out of an underground stable, bellowing flames that scorched the grass, and the spectators gasped as the fire engulfed Jason completely. But when the smoke cleared, he was standing unharmed, gripping one bull by its horn. Gradually and deliberately, he forced both furious animals to their knees, fastened the yoke around their necks and drove them across the field until it was plowed from end to end. Then he scattered the dragon's teeth into the furrows. Almost immediately the soil began to tremble and bulge, and from every furrow sprang an armed warrior, until an entire army of fierce soldiers stood glaring at him across the field. The whole crowd fell silent.

Part Four · The Dragon in the Grove

Remembering Medea's advice, Jason picked up an enormous boulder and hurled it into the middle of the earthborn army. Each warrior believed that his neighbor had thrown it, and they turned upon one another in a furious and confused struggle, until the whole bewildering army had defeated itself in a tremendous, clattering confusion, and the field fell silent again. Jason had accomplished the impossible task, but King Aeetes had no intention of keeping his bargain. That night, in a rage, he plotted to burn the Argo and destroy every one of the strangers. Medea discovered his treachery and hurried to warn Jason, and she insisted that they must seize the Fleece immediately, before dawn, and escape while the king was still assembling his soldiers. There was no time to lose.

Medea guided Jason through the impenetrable darkness, along a hidden and treacherous path, to the sacred grove, where the Golden Fleece hung from the branches of an ancient oak, glowing like a cloud illuminated by the rising sun. Coiled around the trunk lay the guardian dragon, its immense body stretched in endless loops, its eyes open and unblinking, and its hiss echoed among the trees like the roar of a distant waterfall. Medea approached it fearlessly, singing a soft, persuasive incantation and sprinkling its eyes with a potion made from juniper. Gradually the enormous head sank toward the ground, the coils relaxed one after another, and for the first time in its existence the sleepless dragon closed its eyes and fell into a profound slumber. Its breathing grew slow and deep.

Jason climbed carefully and silently over the sleeping coils, scarcely daring to breathe, lifted the Fleece from its branch and wrapped it around his shoulders, where it shone so brilliantly that his face and forehead glowed with reflected gold. Then he and Medea raced back through the forest to the river, where the Argonauts were waiting anxiously at their oars. They cut the mooring ropes and rowed downstream with all their might, while behind them alarm trumpets sounded and torches flared along the walls of the city. By the time King Aeetes discovered the empty branch and the slumbering dragon, the Argo had already passed the mouth of the river and was racing westward across the open sea, with Orpheus playing to keep the rowers' rhythm. The Fleece lit the deck like a lamp.

The voyage home was long and complicated, and the Argonauts endured storms, sirens, giants and countless delays, but eventually the Argo sailed triumphantly into the harbor of Iolcus, with the Golden Fleece displayed on its prow for every citizen to admire. The heroes scattered to their homes and became the subjects of songs that were sung for a thousand years. Jason had proved that courage, patience and a willingness to help a stranger at a riverbank could achieve what treachery and strength alone could not. And the old prophecy had come true at last, as prophecies in Greek stories always do: the stranger with one sandal had returned, carrying the treasure that a frightened king had believed no mortal could ever win. And Hera, watching from Olympus, was well pleased.