The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #44 ｜ Argonautica with Stelios Panagiotou： Part III

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Chronicles, where today Stelios and I are going to be rounding off our

00:00:19.360 grand discussion about an even grander tale, which is of course the Argonautica. The tale

00:00:25.420 of jason and the argonauts jason and the golden fleece and i suppose that is appropriate given

00:00:32.120 that that is the very point in the story that we finally come to of course jason and the rest of

00:00:38.240 his argonauts you know his mariners aboard uh the argo the divinely created ship with the help of

00:00:45.340 argus and athena has managed to you know sail them all the way across the aegean they've gone

00:00:51.980 up through the Bosphorus, they've gone into the Black Sea, and in the last part that we

00:00:56.960 discussed together, of course, they finally managed to find their way to the court of 0.96

00:01:01.740 A80s at the far ends of the known world on the east of the Black Sea and the city of

00:01:09.020 Colchis. 0.84

00:01:10.480 And yeah, we've obviously had a lot to say about it all. 0.90

00:01:13.880 We've had a lot to say about Jason as a leader, as a hero, and how atypical he is compared

00:01:19.800 to some of the other Homeric type of figures.

00:01:24.740 And yeah, so we're coming to a head now

00:01:26.900 of the completion of the quest.

00:01:28.980 Yes, and one of the things that we have to mention

00:01:32.540 is that Apollonius of Rhodes

00:01:35.640 has a very dense style of writing.

00:01:39.760 So this version is just 140 pages

00:01:44.340 and it contains a multitude of events.

00:01:48.260 It's easy to forget some of them, because there's just so many.

00:01:53.160 Especially when you're dealing with something like Greek mythology,

00:01:55.940 where there's an entire lore and history behind every name.

00:02:00.440 And it's just so extensive.

00:02:02.880 You could spend far longer than we've been spending on it now,

00:02:07.020 though we feel like this works as a wonderful introduction for you.

00:02:10.400 He gives me the impression that he was writing,

00:02:13.280 expecting a sort of massive siege or something,

00:02:16.100 massive destruction which is like right i have 140 pages how can i fit as many events as possible

00:02:23.620 in them yeah and people who have watched the movie uh think it was from 1963 and later one

00:02:31.020 the harry hausen yeah yeah obviously the movie doesn't have many of the events that happened

00:02:37.640 in book four and especially in book four there is a surprising commonality between the Argonautica

00:02:48.060 and the and the Odyssey yes the trajectory so Jason is going through lots of the

00:02:54.740 through a very similar itinerary yes he fights same monsters he meets Cersei meets same people

00:03:03.720 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting to see how Jason compares in comparison to Odysseus.

00:03:12.880 We will definitely talk about it. But one of the things to mention when we're talking about

00:03:17.820 mythography, which is writing about myths, is that it was simultaneously narration, but also

00:03:24.620 them trying to educate people about the world. So it's not a coincidence that you see Jason

00:03:33.700 going through the same quest that Odysseus did.

00:03:37.460 And I'm saying I'm putting it in that way

00:03:41.460 because the Odyssey was written as a far older text

00:03:45.980 than the Argonautica.

00:03:47.140 Apollonius of Rhodes writes three, four centuries,

00:03:50.720 or perhaps more, perhaps later than Homer did.

00:03:55.380 So it was them just saying that let us remind you

00:03:59.220 of the entire lore in as concise way as a way as possible yeah and just to remind you if um you

00:04:07.400 know it's been a week since you last saw just to to recap some of the broad strokes of what happened

00:04:12.040 particularly in book three of course is that when jason arrives at the court of iates who is a very

00:04:19.380 tyrannical figure you know and everything about the grandeur of colchis and the fact that um all

00:04:27.100 of its architecture is fashioned by Hephaestus himself. You have this rich abundance, you know,

00:04:33.440 these springs that, you know, it just speaks to the enormous divine wealth that Aedes has in his

00:04:40.320 kingdom. But of course, like before, when they were fighting the Bibrachians, you know, that was 0.57

00:04:48.100 kind of a foreshadowing for the fact that, look, Aedes is a man who has very, barely any redeeming 0.99

00:04:55.860 qualities, right? The only thing you could really say that he has going for him is that he is feared

00:05:01.620 and respected, and that that fear and respect manages to create a certain level of order

00:05:08.160 in his kingdom. However, that does come at the expense of a great deal of justice, and we see

00:05:17.740 this in how hostile he is to Jason when Jason and the Argonauts first arrive in his kingdom.

00:05:24.660 And one thing that I think wasn't mentioned in when we discussed book three, but is worth mentioning, is the fact that Argos, the son of Phryxos, had mentioned, no, sorry, it's Aedes himself.

00:05:38.580 He recounts when Phrixos first arrived in Colchis all those years ago, you know, when he first flew there on the back of the Golden Ram, that the only reason Aedes actually accepted Phrixos into his kingdom and allowed him to marry his own daughter, Chalchiope, was because Zeus demanded it and Hermes demanded it.

00:06:04.740 But that just means that left to his own natural devices and his own natural persuasions,

00:06:11.920 Aetes is not a man of hospitality.

00:06:14.560 He is not a generous man. 0.78

00:06:17.000 He isn't a generous man, and he's a very tyrannical father.

00:06:21.540 But also, Jason asked him to part with the symbol of his authorities,

00:06:26.420 like going to a king and tell him, give me your scepter.

00:06:29.120 Yes.

00:06:29.820 So he wasn't going to take that well.

00:06:32.740 No, no.

00:06:33.480 And that is also at the expense of the fact that Jason tried to reason with Iates that, look, if you give me the fleece now, I will make sure that your name is renowned throughout all of Hellas, and every Greek will know of your grandeur and your magnificence.

00:06:51.320 And this is still not enough. In fact, it's so not enough that Aeates, in the exact same way that Peleus had first sent Jason on this unwinnable quest, also sets Jason on an unwinnable task, which is to yoke the bulls, which is to harness these giant fire-breathing bulls, because of course he has to.

00:07:14.440 it's greek mythology um and he also has to then plow the fields of aries and from those come

00:07:22.900 the dragon teeth and that brings about the sown men um as well who are you know obviously very

00:07:30.400 supernatural but thanks to jason succeeds in this of course thanks to the youngest daughter

00:07:37.280 of Aeates. He's betrayed from within by his own blood, because Medea is an acolyte of Hecate,

00:07:48.820 who is quite wise. Sorceress. Yes, a sorceress goddess, who understands everything to do with

00:07:58.180 potions and alchemy and witchcraft. And the occult, the arcane, the dark arts. And this

00:08:05.520 makes medea a very very powerful um woman in their own right and she uh thanks to the arrow 0.93

00:08:14.260 that she took from eros is basically falls mad over heels in love with jason and betrays her

00:08:23.320 own father betrays her own people and is basically in the crosshairs of being ostracized from her own

00:08:29.780 city because she's aided Jason in this quest. Yes. There are many layers in her betrayal.

00:08:37.860 And that's where the question arises, where is her responsibility? Where is she responsible?

00:08:46.660 And where isn't she responsible? We also have to mention that ATEEZ also commits hubris. 0.93

00:08:55.300 it's not just that you know he is rude and not a particularly good man doesn't say please

00:09:03.400 he gives a promise to jason that he doesn't intend to keep and he won't keep no he will

00:09:11.200 break his promise as someone else who i am not going to mention right now to avoid spoilers is

00:09:17.220 going to do in what follows, which we're definitely going to touch upon.

00:09:23.880 Yeah, sure.

00:09:25.020 The other thing as well, there was just another point with AATs as well, which is that when

00:09:29.840 you go back to book three and you look at the discussion between Hera and Athena, and

00:09:35.840 they're trying to come up with a plan for, okay, what divine intervention can we bring

00:09:41.000 that will make sure that Jason succeeds in his quest?

00:09:46.760 And one of the things that they point to is the fact that

00:09:49.460 they can't just convince Aeates to give it up, right?

00:09:55.640 So that actually goes to show there is a limit to the god's power.

00:09:59.740 Aeates is so strong-minded in his manifest values

00:10:06.220 that it's not really possible.

00:10:08.720 The smartest way to play it is to betray him from within.

00:10:12.840 And even though Medea is very, very powerful, she is a more impressionable character because she's younger and she is a little bit green, right? 0.90

00:10:22.940 She lives a very small life outside of the palace and the shrine.

00:10:28.020 She's not a worldly person.

00:10:31.300 And when she sees this, you know, this magnificent man, Jason, come out from, you know, this far-flung quest to her land in order to take the Golden Fleece,

00:10:40.940 this creates obviously a great deal of turmoil in her and also it suggests that in that mindset

00:10:47.700 because on the one hand you you would say well why would 80s give the fleece to jason just a

00:10:56.000 random stranger coming out of nowhere asking you your symbol of authority just promising you

00:11:01.300 good fame afterwards especially when you are the son the son of the sun god yeah when you are the

00:11:07.340 son of helios yes like by what right you're asking him but the the answer is in this framework is

00:11:15.740 that this is divine will so presumably you know if he he is also a demigod if you

00:11:23.540 you understand what i mean yes so he should be more open to be convinced about that yeah

00:11:32.240 Yeah, absolutely.

00:11:34.220 He should consult his oracle, let's say, at least.

00:11:40.300 Yeah, get the oracle's note.

00:11:43.060 So let's start talking about book four, shall we?

00:11:46.080 The final book in all of this.

00:11:48.240 And I would just begin with the one paragraph from the beginning

00:11:50.900 where Apollonius says,

00:11:52.520 You yourself, goddess, tell of the sufferings and thoughts

00:11:56.400 of the Colchian girl, you muse, child of Zeus.

00:11:59.900 within me my mind whirls in silent helplessness as I ponder whether I should call it at the mad

00:12:06.640 sickening burden of desire or a shameful panic which caused her to abandon the tribe of the 0.86

00:12:13.000 Colchians. And so we understand that this is the point in the story where Medea is going to abandon

00:12:20.060 her people and she does well to abandon her people as well. This is for her own self-preservation

00:12:26.520 this is the right decision, because Aeates, though he is volatile and petty and tyrannical, 0.97

00:12:34.680 he's not a fool, he's not stupid, and he understands that Jason has only been able to

00:12:42.240 accomplish the previous task in the Plains of Ares because Medea must have helped him, 0.69

00:12:49.340 as she well did. It was her who made him rub himself with these sacred oils,

00:12:55.940 and, you know, that made his armor, sorry,

00:12:59.100 that made his weapons, you know, unbreakable.

00:13:03.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, they got him on the tanning bed.

00:13:05.040 Yeah.

00:13:05.240 And, you know, and it all worked out.

00:13:08.320 So he, Aetes, understands that his daughter is complicit

00:13:12.760 in what's just happened.

00:13:15.620 And he seems to give absolutely no consideration

00:13:19.340 for her feelings or her motivations

00:13:22.580 of why she might have done this either, right?

00:13:25.480 He's not interested in why something happened.

00:13:29.140 He's only interested in the fact that it did happen.

00:13:33.060 And so Medea, I think I spoke to earlier this last time,

00:13:39.080 but this is the point where she basically just kisses her bed. 0.93

00:13:42.600 She leaves a lock of her own hair on her bed as well.

00:13:46.980 And it's said in the text, maybe I'm just being dense.

00:13:51.260 I don't quite understand how the message transfers across.

00:13:55.120 But I think the implication from the text is that the lock of her hair

00:13:58.380 is supposed to imply to her mother that she leaves behind,

00:14:02.540 that she left a virgin, which is obviously important.

00:14:06.820 But it's also symbolic of the fact that she is leaving her innocence behind,

00:14:12.100 that her innocence is dying in this room.

00:14:14.200 And for the first time in her life,

00:14:16.260 Jason's arrival has forced her to take on an agency

00:14:19.860 where she's not asking just what's good for my kingdom,

00:14:23.620 what's good for 80s. She's asking what do I want in life and what she wants though divinely

00:14:30.180 inflicted is Jason. It's hard to know what to make of it because you could say

00:14:38.900 that in a way her hair is a symbol of her femininity. That's a contentious point to make

00:14:47.060 because men also had long hair right at the time but this is something that it's like you know

00:14:55.060 complete makeover she leaves the world and she becomes a completely different person yeah but 0.96

00:15:02.980 she is very fierce she isn't a typical woman no you could say amazons were also fierce 0.98

00:15:10.020 fierce warriors but she's gonna be an incredibly fierce woman she isn't the you know the average

00:15:16.740 woman in a in the court of 80s and you could say that she's leaving a part of her behind

00:15:24.420 yes that could be another way to think of it that she she has left a part of her behind

00:15:31.460 and she will always she understands that she will always be a woman from kolhis

00:15:37.940 that's why when she goes to greece and all the other places she crosses the balkans and then

00:15:44.980 down to Italy and then to Libyan. So she's always the barbarian. 0.99

00:15:50.020 Yeah, she is the author in the story. Thanks, Kimberly Crenshaw.

00:15:54.980 Yeah, another point in her story as well is that, you know, the fact that because she feels this

00:16:02.420 pain and this suffering, right, that she is actually a woman who responds to that pain

00:16:09.380 and suffering by taking action, right?

00:16:12.920 She's a very active character in the story

00:16:15.800 and though she'll have her moments

00:16:17.380 and I've bookmarked them

00:16:18.860 because they make for fantastic reading,

00:16:21.660 I think as well that will foreshadow

00:16:24.000 the later tragedy with Jason

00:16:25.660 when Jason puts her into that position

00:16:28.580 of deep unhappiness

00:16:29.800 and we see the tragedy that will fall out there

00:16:32.820 and that we'll discuss more broadly

00:16:34.680 when we discuss Euripides' play,

00:16:36.380 which is very much a sequel to this,

00:16:38.900 though written before, of course. Anyway, so Medea decides to leave and she sneaks her way down to the

00:16:46.540 docks of Colchis. And they're out, you know, just beyond, sorry, beyond the shallows. You've got the

00:16:53.900 Argonauts and she's waving and trying to gesture to them. And the youngest son of Phryxos, he sees

00:17:00.640 her and eventually they've managed to bring Medea aboard. And at this point, of course, Medea is all

00:17:07.260 in. She's just putting

00:17:09.340 all the chips on the table. She's like,

00:17:11.180 look, I've betrayed my entire

00:17:13.200 city. I've betrayed my father.

00:17:15.980 There's no

00:17:16.800 room for half measures now.

00:17:19.080 I'm in it, and if

00:17:21.160 I get captured,

00:17:22.500 it's an unthinkable

00:17:25.120 scenario. So let's just

00:17:26.620 go to the Grove of Aries,

00:17:29.220 confront the dragon, get the golden

00:17:31.240 fleece. I will use my drugs

00:17:33.320 to help with

00:17:35.260 this and let's just get the fleece and get out as quick as possible i like the scene where they go

00:17:41.400 to the fleece and they marinate it she marinated well i was yes i was gonna read it because um

00:17:48.580 it's fantastic um so it goes on to say directly in front of them the dragon stretched out its vast

00:17:56.300 neck when its sharp eyes which never sleep spotted their approach and its awful hissing

00:18:03.000 resounded around the long reaches of the riverbank and the broad grove it was heard by those who

00:18:09.860 dwelled in that part of the colchian land which lies very far from titania beside the streams of

00:18:16.700 the lycos this river breaks off from the crashing araxes and unites its sacred stream with that of

00:18:23.540 the fascists to flow as one into the caucasian sea women who had just given birth woke in terror

00:18:31.080 And in panic threw their arms around their infant children

00:18:34.400 Who slept in their arms and shivered at the hissing

00:18:37.360 As when vast, murky whirls of smoke

00:18:40.840 Roll above a forest which is burning

00:18:43.360 And a never-ending stream spirals upwards from the ground

00:18:47.160 One quickly taking the place of another

00:18:49.640 So then did that monster uncurl its vast coils

00:18:53.840 Which were covered with hard, dry scales

00:18:57.320 As it rolled towards them 0.97

00:18:59.340 the maiden fixed it in the eye, and called in a lovely voice upon sleep, the helper, the highest 0.96

00:19:07.140 of the gods to bewitch the beast. She invoked to the queen, the night wanderer, the infernal, 0.84

00:19:14.340 the kindly one, to grant success to their enterprise. Behind her followed the son of Aeson,

00:19:21.140 terrified. Already under the spell of the song, the dragon was relaxing the ridge of its earth-born

00:19:27.080 coils, and it stretched out its numberless spirals, as when a black wave rolls weak and

00:19:34.760 noiseless on a gentle sea. Even so, however, it lifted high its terrible head, seeking to unwrap

00:19:42.000 them both in its deadly jaws. With a fresh-cut sprig of juniper, which had been dipped in a

00:19:48.200 potion, Medea sprinkled powerful drugs over its eyes while she sang, and all around sleep was

00:19:55.460 spread by the overwhelming scent of the drug. Just where it was, its jaw dropped to the earth,

00:20:02.620 and far into the distance its countless spirals were stretched out through the thick wood.

00:20:08.200 Then Jason removed the golden fleece from the oak at the maiden's instruction. She stayed where

00:20:14.580 she was, rubbing the beast's head with the drug, until Jason gave the order to turn back towards

00:20:19.860 a ship and they left the deep shaded grove of Ares as when the young girl catches in her fine

00:20:25.960 dress a gleam of the full moon hanging high over her bedroom under the roof and her heart is

00:20:31.780 delighted at the sight of the lovely radiance just so then did Jason rejoice as he lifted the

00:20:38.420 great fleece in his hand and over his fair cheeks and forehead the sparkle of the wool through a

00:20:44.600 bush-like flame. And so one thing to say is this fleece is massive, right? This is not an extra

00:20:51.300 small. This is almost as big as Jason himself. It's bulky, it's grand. You can absolutely see

00:20:57.700 not only in the gold of the fleece, but also in its size, how divine this fleece is. Another point

00:21:06.940 that I would just be remiss not to add as well is that this entire episode, I can't help but be

00:21:13.280 reminded of an event from the Silmarillion with Tolkien, and I would be really surprised if this

00:21:20.720 wasn't influencing Tolkien in this, but when Beren and Luthien smuggle their way into Angband

00:21:29.220 to steal one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's crown, and when that happens, Luthien sings

00:21:37.900 Morgoth to sleep as Beren steals a priceless jewel. And so I think there's definitely a

00:21:44.140 parallel there. And I think Tolkien was definitely drawing on this ancient tale for that part of a

00:21:49.720 story. And that wouldn't surprise me either, because it's not the first time that he borrows

00:21:54.600 from Greek mythology when it comes to constructing the Beren and Luthien tale. He also does it as

00:22:00.440 well when he has Luthien break in to Toling Gowroth to rescue Beren from what is essentially

00:22:09.620 hell, which is obviously reminiscent of Orpheus' tale as well.

00:22:14.880 Anyway, I've spoken.

00:22:15.720 Who's also there.

00:22:17.340 Who's also there, yes.

00:22:19.240 He will help a lot.

00:22:20.440 Yes.

00:22:21.460 In the movie, it's Orpheus who is chanting the dragon.

00:22:26.580 I mean, I get why they just made that decision.

00:22:29.960 Yeah.

00:22:30.440 playing the lyre, and the dragon is just completely disarmed.

00:22:36.120 Yeah.

00:22:37.360 But there's two things, really.

00:22:39.600 One, I think the writing does a tremendous job of putting across the sheer terror of this beast.

00:22:47.680 You know, when it talks about people throughout the region waking up with the sound of it.

00:22:52.560 One, that obviously alerts Iates and the rest of his men to the fact that the fleece is currently being stolen.

00:22:59.200 But also, as well, it makes you wonder, truly, what would Jason and the Argonauts have done there without Medea?

00:23:08.320 How would they have finally overcome this hurdle?

00:23:11.760 I mean, one, Jason would have already been dead because he'd never have succeeded in the challenge that Aedes threw down against him.

00:23:19.200 But this is just another example where Medea's intervention is the very difference between survival and failure.

00:23:27.280 yeah on the other hand you do have a strong crew so i don't know if they would have found a way to

00:23:33.200 deal with the dragon specifically but even if they did what i'm thinking is would they have

00:23:38.540 done it in time before 80s and his men also got there to stop them it's medea who's able to do

00:23:46.120 it so swiftly to just literally force sleep upon the sleepless dragon right it's all constantly 0.75

00:23:53.100 described as it does not sleep and yet Medea makes it sleep through the power of her drugs

00:23:59.220 which is I mean yeah it's one hell of morphine hit that's all I'll say. There is just another

00:24:07.920 thing about the golden fleece as well which I thought might be interesting to mention which is

00:24:12.840 that the ancient Greek geographer Strabo he actually I mean he was very very well traveled

00:24:20.600 man back in his day, and there was an extract from his Geografica that goes on to say,

00:24:28.300 it is said that in their country, meaning Georgia, where the story is currently set,

00:24:32.900 gold is carried down by the mountain torrents, and that the barbarians obtain it by means of

00:24:38.420 perforated troughs and fleecy skins, and that this is the origin of the myth of the golden fleece.

00:24:45.200 unless they call them Iberians by the same name as the Western Iberians from the gold mines in

00:24:51.380 both countries. And so we see here Strabo offering a more anthropological explanation as to the

00:24:58.740 creation of the fleece and how it was conceived of in the minds of men that through whatever it

00:25:04.980 was, this gold material that was flowing down from the mountains into the streams, and as they were

00:25:09.500 washing their clothes in the water of the local, that it was creating a gold effect on their fleecy

00:25:17.920 skins as a stray boy puts it. And so I think that's quite a remarkable, I mean, it might be true,

00:25:24.460 it might not be true, but I thought it was just worth putting out there as a point of interest.

00:25:29.340 I want to add to what you mentioned about the anthropological explanation that Apollonius

00:25:37.000 writes in the is it 32nd century bc yeah he's writing around uh yeah just after a generation

00:25:44.180 after alexander there's a very great question about what is myth whether there is one thing

00:25:49.960 or not and you have people who say that there is an essence in myth and others who are saying that

00:25:55.500 there isn't an essence in myth and there is a largely disconnected decentralized mythological

00:26:02.940 tradition, actually a multitude of traditions, not all of which have the same purpose.

00:26:08.400 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,

00:26:11.900 head to our website where you can find more.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 25, 2026

PREVIEW： Chronicles #44 ｜ Argonautica with Stelios Panagiotou： Part III

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