Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius) tells that she was turned away. fn27 In some tellings he was accompanied by Theseus, but this messes too much with chronology, as the end of Jason’s story will show. fn28 At the inception and conclusion of which the sisters of the Dioscuri – Helen of Sparta and CLYTEMNESTRA, wife of Agamemnon – were to play such crucial roles. fn29 Pronounced ‘Hip-sipperly’. fn30 Hypsipyle’s father THOAS found his way to Tauris on the Crimean peninsula, where he was to play a part in the aftermath of the Trojan War and the fraught destiny of Agamemnon’s family. fn31 Unusual for Heracles, who was capable of spreading his seed far and wide, as the huge number of his descendants, the Heracleides, testifies. Perhaps it was because at this period in his life he had eyes only for Hylas. fn32 The kingdom which Heracles rid of its monstrous lion for his First Labour. fn33 A top score in Scrabble. He is pronounced ‘Sizzy-kuhss’ (while his wife Clite rhymes with ‘high tea’ rather than ‘bite’). fn34 The tribe who attacked them are often called the Gegeneis, but that is just another way of saying giants. The word has same root as ‘gigantic’. The -geneis means ‘birth’ or ‘born’ as in ‘genes’, ‘genesis’, ‘generation’, etc. The Ge- is like the geo- in ‘geography’ and ‘geology’ and derives from Gaia the earth. Thus ‘giant’, ‘gigantic’ and ‘Gegeneis’ really mean ‘earthborn’ or ‘chthonic’ and have nothing to do with size, despite the way the words are now used and how the ‘giga’ was taken from ‘gigantic’ to mean ‘huge’. fn35 Of course strictly speaking the Greeks didn’t have aitches, only the asper, or rough, ‘breathing’. fn36 This is how Apollonius Rhodius, a Greek poet of the third century BC, describes it in his Argonautica, the fullest surviving ancient narrative of the voyage of the Argo. In other sources Heracles joins Jason’s crew after the completion of his Labours. fn37 Telamon had his revenge though. On his return from the quest he told his friend Heracles of the twins’ insistence that they sail on and not turn back to pick him and Polyphemus up. Heracles never forgot the insult, and when he came upon the twins on the island of Tenos he didn’t think twice about killing them. He constructed two pillars to mark their graves, which were said to sway whenever their father the North Wind blew. fn38 The city of Cius became an important chain on the ancient Silk Road, but is now a ruin. fn39 See Mythos, Vol I, page 301. fn40 A scene beloved of artists ever since, most notably the post-Pre-Raphaelite (if that makes sense) J. W. Waterhouse. fn41 In Apollonius Rhodius’ version they first stopped off at the kingdom of the Bebryces, on the Asian shore, where Polydeuces defeated their king and champion AMYCUS in a boxing match. fn42 Not the Phineus of Egypt pertrified by Perseus, of course. fn43 Their names were Aello (‘storm’) and Ocypete (‘swift of flight’). Homer mentions a third, Podarge, (‘flashing foot’ – the same name as one of the Mares of Diomedes. Harpy itself means ‘snatcher’. fn44 Anyone who has observed the behaviour of seagulls in seaside towns will wonder if they were the inspiration for the story of the Harpies. They snatch ice-cream cones from children and their droppings cake the promenades and seafronts. fn45 Stamphani and Arpia, two of the seven Heptani, or Ionian Islands, west of mainland Greece. The Strophades remain important sites for birds to this day. fn46 Like Hermes, Iris was a messenger of the gods. Her colourful qualities give us the name of the iris of the eye and all words that refer to the iridescence of the rainbow – petrol in water, that sort of thing. Like the Harpies, she was a daughter of the Titaness Electra. fn47 The Black Sea to us. fn48 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 189. fn49 For that reason they were sometimes called the Cyanean Rocks. Of course, few questions are more moot, vexed and thorny than whether or not the Greeks really saw blue, had a word for blue, or even knew what blue was. Famously, Homer often refers to the sea as oinops pontos ‘the wine-looking sea’, usually translated as ‘wine dark’. William Gladstone, finding time while serving as Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote a book on Homer which included the first serious study of Greeks and colour. It has recently re-emerged as an interesting element in the renewed Sapir-Whorf debate in academic linguistics. If you are interested, I recommend Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. fn50 The story of ‘Arion and the Dolphin’ is recounted in the first volume of Mythos (page 363). fn51 The name Jason actually means ‘healer’. fn52 They were not so far, after all, from Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics were held. fn53 According to some they were the birds who had flown from Lake Stymphalia when Heracles disturbed them with Athena’s rattle during his Sixth Labour. fn54 I’ve spelled his name this way to avoid confusion with Argus the shipwright. fn55 In today’s Republic of Georgia the river is now the Rioni and the port is Poti, headquarters of the Georgian navy. fn56 Now Kutaisi, Georgia’s legislative capital. fn57 Should you so wish, you can be introduced to the twelve original Titans in the first volume of Mythos (page 7). fn58 See under Theseus for the story of Pasiphae (here). Circe will feature in the story of Odysseus’s journey home from the Trojan War. fn59 Pronounced ‘ee-dee-ya’ I would think. She was Aeëtes’ aunt, being an Oceanid, and therefore a sister of his mother Perseis. fn60 If you’re anything like me, you’ll find all these relationships wildly confusing, although they are probably no more complicated than those in your own family. Save that you are less likely to be so incestuously connected to Titans, sea nymphs and enchantresses. fn61 Aeëtes is thought to be a form of the Greek word for ‘eagle’. fn62 Hecate, goddess of witchcraft and potions, was a daughter of the second generation Titans Perses and Asteria. She features in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. fn63 Unless you are fortunate enough to possess the wisdom of Nestor, you might find his plan easier to understand after a look at the map here. I don’t mind waiting. fn64 On their way through, Jason established Ljubljana, the capital of today’s Slovenia. The people there celebrate him as a founder hero. They say he killed a dragon in a lake and saved the inhabitants. That dragon remains the city’s emblem (although the story was later Christianized and Jason was replaced by St George). fn65 As Odysseus was to discover many years later, during his decade-long struggle to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. fn66 Lilybaeum is today’s Marsala, famous for its honey-sweet wine. Butes and Aphrodite became lovers. Some say it was around the time of her affair with ADONIS (see Mythos, Vol. I, page 325), and that she only did this to make Adonis jealous. She bore Butes a son, ERYX, who grew up to be one of the finest boxers of his generation. Not fine enough to survive a bout with Heracles, however. Even in his later years the great hero was too much for Eryx. He knocked him dead with one punch. Doubtless, being Heracles, he was filled with remorse and tried to put him back together again. fn67 Planets are ‘wandering rocks’ too – they get their name from the same Greek source word planetai meaning ‘wanderers’. Early astronomers were alerted to their difference from other heavenly bodies when they observed them roaming apparently randomly across the sky and called them planetes asteres, wandering stars. fn68 Or like the Millennium Falcon trying to steer through an asteroid field. fn69 Today’s Corfu. fn70 The Southern Adriatic. Confusing because the name ‘Ionia’ refers to parts of Asia Minor, today’s Turkey far to the other side of Greece. fn71 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn72 Ichor, the silvery-gold blood that ran in the veins of the gods was deadly poison to mortals. fn73 The word he used must have been ‘thaumaturge’. A lifetime ago, when I was learning ancient Greek as an eight-year-old, the textbook the school used liked to remind one of the English words that derived from Greek: ‘graph’ and ‘graphic’ from grapho, ‘telephone’ from phonos, that sort of thing. I will never forget my puzzlement when, in a vocabulary list, it presented the verb thaumazo, offering this helpful thought: ‘thaumazo, I wonder, or marvel at. This is easily remembered by thinking of the English word “thaumaturge”.’ And I suppose that was true, since I’ve never forgotten it. fn74 Also known as Chandax. fn75 This is where the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius comes to an end (as does the Argonautica Orphica, a Byzantine Greek retelling of the fifth or sixth century AD ostensibly narrated by Orpheus). Whether Apollonius failed to finish, or whether he felt he had best remain true to his title and deal only with the voyage and not with the repercussions and aftermath, is not known. fn76 Not to be confused with the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, daughters of Atlas and Pleione. See the first volume of Mythos (page 100). Euripides wrote a tragedy called the Peliades, but it is lost. fn77 She was later won by Admetus, and offered to die in his place. Heracles wrestled Death for her soul if you recall. fn78 Same name as Jason’s mother, which is confusing. fn79 I know, that name rather stands out amongst the others, doesn’t it? It’s the only one the spell-checker didn’t challenge. Evadne means ‘very holy’ which makes me think, wrongly, of Evander Holyfield. fn80 ‘Looking for a ewe’s teat to suckle from’ as Ovid rather endearingly puts it. fn81 It is far more likely to have been a magic trick than real witchcraft. I don’t doubt my friends the magnificent Penn and Teller could reproduce the effect perfectly. It’s very much in their wheelhouse – their frequently sordid and spectacularly sick wheelhouse. They are, in some respects, the Medeas of our time. fn82 Acastus is often listed as one of the Argonauts, which would mean that Pelias was either willing to sacrifice him – for he never believed the Argo would return – or perhaps that Acastus was there to ensure the Fleece, if found, would be returned to him. fn83 Half-uncle if my calculations are correct. Can there be such a thing as a half-uncle? At any rate, Pelias was a half-brother of Jason’s father Aeson, sharing Tiro as a mother. fn84 Samos was famous for the quality of its wine. It is celebrated by Byron in the glorious ‘Isles of Greece’ section of his epic poem Don Juan. ‘Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!’ fn85 His words were Πολλὰ μεταξὺ πέλει κύλικος καὶ χείλεος ἄκρου (Polla metaxu pelei kulikos kai cheileos akrou) according to Jenny March in her excellent Dictionary of Classical Mythology. If you put that into Google Translate however, it comes out as ‘A lot of people are screaming and screaming’ – go figure. fn86 What follows is based on Euripides’ version of the story in his tragedy Medea. fn87 No relation to the Theban royal of the same name in the stories of Heracles and Oedipus. This Creon was a descendant of Sisyphus which suggests some kind of family tie to Jason, which may explain his offer of sanctuary. fn88 Euripides doesn’t give them names, but according to Apollodorus they were Thessalus, Mermerus and Pheres. fn89 The eldest of the three, Thessalus, was away being tutored by Chiron and survived. He would return from Chiron’s cave to rule over Iolcos and Greater Aeolia, which we now call Thessaly in his honour. fn90 It seems that almost all the actresses who play the part win Tony or Olivier Awards these days. fn91 Translation by C. A. E. Luschnig. fn92 See the story of Theseus (here). It is Medea’s presence in Athens, as we shall see, that makes it impossible for Theseus to have been an Argonaut.