Jason and the Golden Fleece

A sandal bobbed along a muddy, flooded river, spinning, then slipping out of sight downstream. The one who had lost it was already walking away, one foot bare and one foot still in a sandal, straight toward the city gate ahead. He did not turn back to look for it. Perhaps he did not yet know that a single sandal, carried off by the water, was about to make a whole kingdom tremble.

The man with one sandal was named Jason. But to understand why he walked with one foot bare, the story has to go far back in time, to the days when he was a newborn baby.

The ancient Greeks told that Jason's father was the rightful king of the city of Iolcos. But his half-brother, Pelias, seized the throne from him. The father feared that Pelias would kill his little son to remove any future threat. So one dark night he carried Jason up a high mountain to the cave of the centaur Cheiron, and left the baby with him to be raised in secret.

Through all the years that followed, Cheiron was both teacher and foster father to Jason. In the windy mountain cave, other boys grew up alongside Jason, sons of heroes from near and far, and Heracles was among them. Cheiron taught the boys to play music, to hunt and to wrestle. He also taught them to recognize every kind of healing herb that grew on the mountainside.

When Jason had grown into a strong young man, he left the mountain cave and went down to the plains to reclaim the kingdom of his father. Before they parted, Cheiron gave him two pieces of advice. He repeated them again and again, as if he wanted to carve them into Jason's heart forever. Never speak a harsh word to anyone. And once a promise is made, keep it whole, however hard it may be.

On his way down the mountain, Jason came to a river in full flood, swift and muddy. On the bank stood a thin old woman, huddled and small, who asked to be carried across. Jason remembered what Cheiron had told him. He knelt down, took her on his back, and felt his way step by step through the churning water that threatened to sweep them both away. At one point he nearly slipped, with the water up to his chest. Still he struggled on and brought the old woman safely to the other bank. It was in that water that one of his sandals slipped off and floated away without a trace. The old woman, in truth, was a goddess in disguise, quietly testing the heart of the young man.

So Jason walked into Iolcos just as night was falling, one foot in a sandal and one foot bare, exactly as this story began. King Pelias was in the city at that moment. The instant he saw the young stranger, he stood frozen. Long before, a prophecy had reached his ears, saying that a man wearing only one sandal would come and take his throne. Now that man was standing right in front of him.

So Pelias thought of a cunning plan. He made Jason a promise. If Jason brought back the Golden Fleece, kept in the distant land of Colchis, the king would hand over the throne of Iolcos to him.

Jason accepted without the slightest hesitation and had a great ship built. He named it the Argo. Jason also had its prow fitted with a piece of wood cut from a sacred oak, a tree through which the gods often spoke. Because of this, the Argo itself could speak. Now and then, all through the voyage, it warned the crew or showed them the way.

News of the voyage spread across all of Greece, and the bravest men from every corner came to Iolcos, asking to join. Heracles, his old friend from the mountain, was there too. Then came Orpheus, the musician whose playing could move even the stones. The twins Castor and Pollux stepped aboard. With them came Zetes and Calais, two brothers with wings on their shoulders, sons of the North Wind. Dozens of other heroes from across Greece made their way to Iolcos as well, one after another. Before the ship left harbor, the whole crew swore together to follow Jason as their captain to the very end.

Never before had a single ship carried so many heroes on one voyage.

The Argo set out and sailed along the coast. As they passed a high mountain, the one where Cheiron had raised Jason, the crew stopped for a little while. One of the heroes even had time to hug and kiss his little son, whom Cheiron was raising. Then, as the ship put out to sea, Cheiron stood on a cliff and watched them go, raising his hands to pray that they would all come home safe.

The first stop was an island. The women who lived there welcomed the sailors with warm hospitality, plentiful feasts by flickering firelight and soft beds. Many of the crew wanted to stay forever. They nearly forgot home, the ship, and faraway Colchis. It was Heracles who stood up and reminded everyone why they had come. Thanks to him, the comforts of the island did not hold the ship there for too long.

On a strange coast, a young friend of Heracles, who never left his side, went off alone to fetch water from a clear spring. But beneath that water lived the nymphs of the spring. They were so taken with his voice and his looks that they pulled him down to stay with them forever. Heracles searched all along the spring, calling and calling, but his friend was nowhere to be found. Then a fair wind suddenly rose, and the crew had to weigh anchor. They left Heracles alone on that shore, still searching for the friend who would never come back.

From its very first stages, the voyage was no longer Jason's story alone.

The Argo sailed on and came to a coast ruled by a giant named Amycus. The giant had a habit of forcing everyone who stopped there to box against him, and no one had ever beaten him. This time, Pollux stepped forward to accept the challenge. The two fought for a long while inside a ring of onlookers, until Pollux landed one decisive punch. Amycus fell and did not get up again. From then on, no one on that coast had to fear him anymore.

After another long stretch of sea, the sailors met a blind old man named Phineus, who was barely getting by on a remote shore. The gods had once grown angry with him. Not only had they left him blind, they had also sent a flock of monster birds. Every day the birds swooped down to foul or snatch the little food he had, until he was close to starving. Zetes and Calais leapt into the air and chased the monster birds until they vanished from the sky. The birds never came back to trouble the old man again. To repay them, Phineus told the crew how to pass through the strait ahead. He also warned them about two giant rocks that kept crashing together, crushing anything caught between them. His advice was to let a bird fly first, watch how it got through, and only then decide.

When they reached the strait, the sailors did just as Phineus had told them and let a bird fly ahead. The bird shot through the gap between the rocks. It lost only a few tail feathers as the two great stones slammed shut behind it. Reading this as a good sign, Jason shouted his order, and the whole crew rowed with all their strength. The Argo sped through the gap just as the rocks crashed together, losing only the ornament at its stern. From that day on, the two strange rocks stood still forever and never crashed together again.

At last the Argo reached the land of Colchis, ruled by King Aeetes. The Golden Fleece hung on an ancient tree in the middle of a sacred forest. It was guarded by a dragon whose eyes had never once closed in sleep.

Aeetes agreed to hand over the Golden Fleece, but only if Jason passed three trials that the king himself would set.

For the first trial, Jason had to tame two bulls with feet of bronze and mouths that breathed fire. For the second, he had to use those same bulls to plow a field of about four acres, all in a single day. But the third trial made everyone who heard of it shudder. He had to sow dragon teeth in the freshly plowed field, and out of the earth a whole army of armed men would rise.

The king's daughter, Medea, was skilled at making medicines from plants, and she quietly decided to help Jason. She gave him a jar of special ointment, made from a rare flower. It could protect whoever wore it from fire and blades for a whole day, and it gave great strength as well. She told him one more important thing. If the army rose from the ground, he only had to throw a stone into the middle of the crowd. The warriors would mistake one another for enemies and turn to fight among themselves.

Protected by Medea's ointment, Jason went out to face the two fire-breathing bulls and came away unharmed. He tamed them and yoked them, then plowed the whole field of four acres before night fell. He sowed the dragon teeth in the fresh furrows. Soon armed warriors began to climb out of the ground all along the furrows, more and more of them, until they surrounded him on every side. On instinct, Jason gripped the hilt of his sword, ready to stand alone against that whole army. Then he suddenly remembered what Medea had told him. He let go of the sword, picked up a stone, and threw it straight into the middle of the crowd. At once the warriors turned on one another in suspicion. They fought among themselves until none of them was left standing.

The hardest trial, it turned out, was not one that strength alone could win. From the fight with Amycus to the monster birds above Phineus, from the clashing rocks to the army that rose from the earth, the dangers kept coming. Each one was overcome by a different pair of hands, a different mind, within the same crew.

Seeing that Jason had completed all three trials, King Aeetes grew alarmed. He began looking for ways to delay, unwilling to keep his promise to hand over the Golden Fleece. Medea saw what her father intended and understood that they could not wait any longer. She decided that she had to act that very night.

That night, Medea quietly led Jason into the sacred forest. The Golden Fleece still hung glittering on the ancient tree. The guardian dragon lay coiled there, its eyes wide open, never closing. Orpheus stepped closer, gently touched his strings, and began to sing a slow song, soft as a lullaby. One by one, the coils of the giant dragon stopped stirring. The eyes that had never closed drooped half shut for the first time, and then closed completely. The dragon sank into a sleep deeper than any it had ever known.

In that stillness, Jason stepped forward and lifted the Golden Fleece down from the branch of the ancient tree.

There was not a moment to lose. Jason, Medea and the whole crew ran to the Argo. They rowed hard down the river in the darkness, out through the river mouth and onto the open sea. The Argo turned its prow to the west, toward home. And over the night sea, the music and the singing of Orpheus rose once more. This time they were not meant to lull anyone to sleep. They were a song of victory, ringing out long over the waves, following the ship as it faded into the darkness at the edge of the sky.