Jason as Love-hero in Apollonios' "Argonautika" Beye, Charles R Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1969; 10, 1; ProQuest pg. 31

Jason as Love-hero in Apollonios' 
Argonautika 

Charles Rowan Beye 

Two TENDENCIES which appear in epic poems after the time of 
Homer are particularly important for understanding Apollo­
nios. One is the gradual abandonment of the hero in favor of 

a concentration upon his adventures or on the historicity of events-a 
witness to the arrival of the antiquarian mind.1 The other trend, more 
clearly seen and documented, is the growing self-consciousness of the 
poet, who finds either that the manner of epic poetry has been so well 
delineated as to be inhibiting or that he himself is engaged in scholarly 
analyses of epic which force him to think more objectively of the form. 

The motivation for the first of these two tendencies can already be 
seen in Hesiod's account (Theogony 26ft) of the Muses' observation that 
they know how to tell lies as well as truth. Essentially this is a challenge 
to saga, which in early cultures is generally thought to be true history, 
as oral poets and poetry are thought to be passing on unchanged a 
record of events. Hesiod's anecdote acknowledges new suspicions 
about epic; henceforth epic poetry had either to acknowledge its fic­
tional nature or to take on the pretensions to truth which Hesiod had 
arrogated unto himself.2 The fragments of subsequent epics show that 
most poets preferred the latter, from the authors of the cycle to 
Rhianos, a contemporary of Apollonios. The former, by attempting to 
set the Iliad and Odyssey into a greater continuing narrative, reveal 
minds bent on historicity. Random saga material, all the flotsam and 
jetsam of a lengthy oral epic tradition, seems to have been forced into 
a coherent vision of world history. Rhianos, on the other hand, com­
posed a true, historical epic, a poem on the Messenian War.3 That his 

1 H. M. and N. K. Chadwick, The Growth of Literature III (Cambridge 1940) 802ff, discuss 
antiquarianism in epic poetry. 

2 See my The Iliad, the Odyssey and the Epic Tradition (Garden City 1966) 203-05. For a dis­
cussion of the informational element in Homer and its cultural function see E. A. Havelock, 
Preface to Plato (Cambridge [Mass.] 1963) 36-114. 

3 Cf Pausanias' account of it in his description of Sparta (bk. 4). For a description of what 
we know of Rhianos' style and intent see C. Mayhoff, De Rhiani Cretensis studiis Homericis 
(Leipzig 1870) 15ff. 

31 



32 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

subject matter was in fact quite remote in time seems due to a con­
vention which must have been a considerable inhibition to epic poets. 
A division between old and new Athenian history was recognized, with 
the Persian Wars as the dividing point. The later period was not 
thought to have any connection with myth, not to be set within the 
heroic range, unlike the earlier period, to which, indeed, Herodotos 
had already given a mythical, epical personality. The creation of a 
truly historical contemporary epic was avoided because the conflict 
between obvious immediate truth and epic's fictional potential was 
too great, particularly in the matter of personal characterization. The 
poets fell back on fact altogether; the fabrication of cyclic epics, there­
fore, went on apace,4 epics that simply outlined a series of saga events 
or remote historical events enacted by depersonalized participants. 
Something of the nature of these poems comes through in an amusing 
poem in the Palatine Anthology (11.130) beginning: HI hate those cyclic 
poets, the ones who keep saying 'and then'." These poems must have 
achieved an effect akin to what H. G. Wells' Outline of History done in 
hexameters would produce. 

We can trace considerably better the increasing self-consciousness 
of epic poets. The poets themselves complain of the problem. Choirilos 
of Samos, for instance, laments the passing of the time when the mead­
ow of epic poetry was untrod, and complaining that everything about 
epic is already known, he asks the Muse to lead him through a different 
kind of story (fr.1a Kinkel). 

Choirilos was only modestly experimental. He chose a true subject, 
whereas in the Alexandrian period experimentation became more 
vigorous. Rudolf Pfeiffer's excellent new book, History of Classical 
Scholarship,r, makes it unnecessary to rehearse the details. It was a time 
in which notions of rhetoric and genre gave emphasis to form, when 
the vitality of prose pushed poetry to extremes of innovation. It was, 
as well, a time when epic poetry, far from having exhausted itself, was 
unusually popular. Callimachos may have inveighed against the long 
epic, but his objections were not necessarily heeded.6 There seems to 
have been extensive epic activity during the Hellenistic period.7 We 

, Cf K. Kroll, "Das historische Epos," Sokrates N.P. 4 (1916) 3f. 
5 R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic 

Age (Oxford 1968); See especially "Zenodotus and his Contemporaries." 105ff; "Callimachus 
and the Generation of his Pupils." 123ff. 

I K. Ziegler. Das hellenistische Epos (Leipzig 1934). 
7 J. U. Powell and C. A. Barber. ed. New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature, 2nd ser. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 33 

know of vast numbers of contests, fierce competition for prizes, all for 
epic poetry. Later in the first century we hear of a club or guild of epic 
poets. Perhaps the quality of these epics was never high, but the in­
stinct to practice the form did not die. The reason may well lie in the 
academic basis for epic that derived from the Library early in the 
Alexandrian period. If we knew more, we could perhaps speak of much 
of this production as being cheaply popular, and perhaps many of 
the writers as largely amateurs, men of letters rather than true 
poets8. 

There were, however, serious attempts at epic, among them the 
poems of Rhianos. He was an epic poet of a new stamp because he was 
also involved in Homeric scholarship. Known in antiquity as Rhianos 
grammatikos, he produced an edition of both Homeric poems, from 
which over forty readings have been preserved. IfIsocrates could now 
call himself a 'poet of words'9 and epic poets were ypCXfJ-fJ-CXTLKot, then 
the implications of the trends from Hesiod onward which I have sug­
gested are all the more apparent. Men such as Rhianos are in a sense 
the latter-day Homeridai, except that where the rhapsodes passed on 
the ipsissima verba of the master, the scholars of Alexandria were pre­
pared in their studies to recreate the exact manner of the master.10 

That they were conscious to an extraordinary degree of epic usage we 
know from the scholia to the Homeric epics. They were not only capa­
ble of making the subtlest distinctions in matters of diction (although 
often wrongly),n but they concerned themselves as well with matters 
of epic propriety. In this sphere they therefore undertook to recreate 
the Homeric mentality, to set the Homeric tone.12 The story of Zeno­
dotos athetizing Iliad 3.423-26 because it is not fitting for the goddess 
Aphrodite to set a chair for Helen and thus perform the task of a serv­
ing maid is exactly a case in point. It illustrates still further the essen­
tial truth of Choirilos' complaint that epic technique had discovered 

(Oxford 1929) 35ff; F. Susemihl, Geschichte der gr. Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit I (Leipzig 
1891) 375-409. 

8 So B. Otis argues in Virgil, a Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford 1963) 396ff. 
9 Cf Wilamowitz, Hellenistische Dichtung I (Berlin 1924) 91-94; and recently J. A. Coulter, 

GRBS 8 (1967) 228-32. 
10 This fact seems to me to justify confronting Apollonios with Homer as P. Handel does 

(Beobachtungen Zur epischen Technik des A.R. [Munchen 1954]), for which he has been criti­
cized (cf A. Maddalena's review in RivFC 33 [1955] 317ff). On the general question of poet­
scholars in Alexandria see Pfeiffer, op.cit. (supra n.5) 88ff. 

11 Cf M. van der Valk, Textual Criticism of the Odyssey (Leiden 1949) 91ff, 125ff. 
12 Cf M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad II (Leiden 1964) 11-33, 

406-35. 
3-G.R.B.S. 



34 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

and reached its natural limits. The major fact which confronted any­
one trying to compose epic was that the form and the tone were pre­
determined. He must observe this in one of two possible ways, either 
to accept it or to deny it. 

One way to deny the form is to pervert it, and to my mind, this is 
exactly what Apollonios set out to do. He is, however, unlike Euripi­
des, who seems frequently bored with tragic usage and therefore 
laughs at the ingredients of his form. Time and again we can see Eur­
ipides slipping out of the manner and tone of tragedy to mock it.13 

Apollonios in quite another way, quite seriously, took the materials of 
epic and put them together with various incongruities that, while 
legitimate, are bizarre, to create an epic poem that is thoroughly sen­
sible and by denying much that is Homeric maintains the sense of 
Homer throughout. This is akin to the paradoxical element in sur­
realist painting. But, as theologians tell us, he who is agnostic is lost, 
whereas the man who denies God is accepting him as much as the true 
believer. Thus I would call the Argonautika <anti-epic', rather than call 
Jason <anti-hero'.14 He fits comfortably into the Argonautika; he is the 
hero within that narrative. It is the epic itself which in the face of the 
tradition is a distortion. 

From the very first Apollonios indicates how he will acknowledge 
Homer by distorting him. His determination to avoid formulaic utter­
ance while using Homeric words is notorious. Verbal repetition is the 
essence of Homeric diction; the quality which it imparts to the narra­
tive is too well known to need discussion. Its absence then in language 
patterns that are otherwise immediately akin to older epic is remark­
able, unsettling and, indeed, perverse.15 One could argue that this 
effective exotic manipulation of the language was hardly new, that we 
may see the same thing brought off by Antimachos ofKolophon, him­
self an Homeric scholar and poet. Antimachos, however, is trying for 
something else. His conscious and continuous obscurity achieved 
through neologisms and allusions is far away from the Homeric 

18 The Alcestis, despite the special circumstances of its production, is possibly the best 
example; cf. my "Alcestis and her Critics," GRBS 2 (1959) 109-27. 

14 Thus G. Lawall, "Apollonius' Argonautika: Jason as Anti-Hero," yeS 19 (1966) 121-69. 
15 Handel, op.cit. (supra n.lO) 82ff, argues that conscious variation is an Apollonian device 

to force the reader to attend to details and thus follow the narrative more closely. This is a 
common argument for the motives behind variation; and, of course, this is literate poetry 
(cf. C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost [Oxford 1942] esp. 39if, and Pfeiffer, op.cit. [supra 
n.5] 25 n.l) but it is the language of Homer upset. 



.' 

CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 35 

manner, whereas Apollonios remains relatively simple and direct.16 

Still the change in Apollonios' style from that of Homer is demon­
strable, because formulae have been replaced by individual words as 
the building blocks of the line. 

Similar is the poet's practice in varying Homeric phrases. The 
notorious example is the poem's opening line where KAEa CPW'T(JW may 
stand for KAEa av8pwv; the variation shows the poet's control, his sense 
of artifice, and, more important, his mode of playing his poem against 
the reader's knowledge of Homer. In so doing he exhibits, if only in 
details, his conscious manipulation of the elements of epic poetry. 
Consider further the phrase in 1.19 where the ship Argo is described 
as a creation of Argos at the suggestion of Athena, "Apyov'A8y]vaLy]S' 
Kap.i€tv {mo8v!'-oavvT/atv. The phrase occurs once in the Iliad (15.412) to 
describe a shipbuilder's inspiration Inro8v!'-oavVT/atv' A8Y]vaL"f}S' and in the 
Odyssey (16.233). when Odysseus says he reached Ithaka at Athene's 
inspiration. Anyone familiar with the Iliad in the intimate way in 
which the ancients knew their Homer would probably recall the 
passage, and very likely the Odyssean one would come to mind as 
well; the reader would note immediately the alteration of the phrase, 
that is, the separation of the name and the noun by an intervening 
verb. This alteration is not a result of the process of changing, evolving 
epic diction over which Apollonios has no control, for other contem­
porary poets do recreate the Homeric manner. One of the hallmarks 
of epic style, for instance, a noun followed by one or two adjectives at 
the end of the line, is rare in Apollonios, but common in Kallimachos 
(e.g., Hymn 3) and Theokritos when they choose to be Homeric. Such 
stylistic variations in Apollonios are matters of the minutest detail, 
and very likely no reader would consciously recognize the majority of 
them. They do, however, produce for the constant reader of Homer 
the sense of a narrative style slightly askew or out of focus. 

The manner in which Apollonios deals with form is more obvious. 
For instance, he introduces his catalogue in a way that is certainly a 
bolder assault upon our senses. The Argonautika is no doubt too brief 
for Apollonios to plunge far in medias res and to return only later to an 

16 Although Apollonios' grammar and diction are more subtle and complex than 
Homer's; see K. Mugler, "Zur epischen Sprache bei Homer und Apollonios," Philologus 96 
(1944) Iff, and C. Marxer, Die Sprache des Apollonius Rhodius in ihren Beziehungen ZU Homer 
(Diss. Zurich 1935). The style of the hexameters places Apollonios definitely to the side of 
Homer, as opposed, say, to Kallimachos; see A. Wifstrand, Von Kallimachos ZU Nonnos (Lund 
1933) 78. 



36 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

introductory mood. Nor does he care to lock his catalogue into the 
narrative dramatically or thematically as did the poet of the Iliad. The 
catalogue stands alone, and the transitions in the first few lines of the 
poem are the very boldest: a four line invocation followed by an ex­
tremely condensed resume of events leading to Jason's departure, 
which moves abruptly into the introduction of the catalogue. Gone is 
epic prolixity; gone, too, is the epic emphasis upon narrative. Gone is 
the feeling of effort and grandeur that preceded the Homeric Cata­
logue of Ships. Apollonios' sense of time and unity has been advanced 
as reason for this remarkable staccato effect; it is argued that he is 
constrained to introduce his list of characters before the narration 
startsP But it is more likely that Apollonios is being literary, playing 
with structure rather than securing it; for in fact we see this effect re­
peated at the close of his poem. In the fourth book he has moved his 
ship and crew ever closer to home, finally through a series of relatively 
inconsequential picaresque episodes (1170-72). Suddenly he shifts 
gears, so to speak, and delivers an abrupt epilogue after the manner of 
the Homeric Hymns. The epilogue fairly sneaks up on the reader. 

Why? we may well ask. This is the result of the professionalism of 
the 7Tot"f}'T~~-ypa/L/La'T'K6~ and his audience.1s He knows perfectly well 
the structure of his model; he understands the structure in terms of 
its parts and he can manipulate them at will; by so doing he demon­
strates to his reader that he is reordering his Homeric models in some 
new perspective. The opening fifty lines of the A rgonautika are, com­
pared to Homer, surreal in their breathless and harsh juxtapositions; 
so is the conclusion. But as elements qua elements their fundamental 
similarity is unmistakable. 

Apollonios wants still further to make it abundantly clear early in 
his poem where he stands before his tradition. He moves through 
action and character to establish the new perspective. Again he shows 
his seriousness, for in searching for a hero he proceeds to the central 
problem of epic in his time. He is emphatic in making clear that Jason 
will be his hero, and he accomplishes this chiefly by introducing 
Herakles in a significant fashion as the anti-hero. Apollonios' serious-

17 Handel, op.cit. (supra n.10) 15f. 
18 "Of course every poet counts on the active collaboration of his audience, but as a rule he 

incites and gUides the intended response, while Apollonios frequently does no more than 
provide the stuff, expecting the others to puzzle it out by dint of their own imagination 
and erudition," says H. Frankel, "Apollonios Rhodios as a Narrator in Argonautika,Z.1-140," 
TAPA 83 (1952) 155. 



.. 

CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 37 

ness perhaps needs stressing, for he seems to some to be creating a 
mock heroic poem, or in any case to be parodying epic. Such a view, 
however, does not account for the grimness and solemnity of emotion 
that appear frequently in this strange poem. 

Jason has seemed to many an unlikely candidate for hero. The 
reasons are many, but in general they rest upon the fact that he is 
morally, spiritually and intellectually impotent, and perhaps a 
physical coward as well. If we look to the formal elements of the 
poem, however, Jason is inescapably the hero. And Apollonios has 
directed us to consider the formal creation of a hero by playing so 
emphatically with epic forms. He does not ask us to nominate Jason 
hero out of our hearts, but from our intellectual grasp of the structure 
of the poem. That Jason is formally the hero can be shown in many 
examples, but a few will suffice. Jason is the cause of the entire expedi­
tion, for it is he who so inspires Pelias' fear that the king conceives the 
plan that constitutes throughout the subject of the entire poem 
(1.5ff). Of this the poet reminds us often during the course of the action, 
for instance, when Argos says (3.356£), "it was for his [Jason's] sake that 
the others went out as a body from Hellas." More formally when the 
poet calls upon Erato (3.1ff) for poetic assistance, it is to tell the story 
of Jason. Or again, when the poet wonders aloud, so to speak, (2.1090f) 
why it was that Phineus encouraged the crew to land on the island of 
Aretias, it is because there Jason will meet the sons of Phrixus, who 
will provide him with immeasurable help in the ensuing narrative. 
Perhaps nowhere is he more obviously the hero than when the poet 
paints in detail his psychological state (e.g., 2.621ff). Jason's psyche is a 
matter of general concern; this is not true of any other hero, none of 
whom actually has a personality. The matter needs clarification since 
Jason seems unsympathetic to many critics, who therefore choose not 
to take him seriously.19 The matter is intellectual not emotional, 
however; we must acknowledge first that Apollonios has contrived 
formally to maintain Jason's primacy throughout the poem, and a 
primacy developed in heroic perspective. 

One intellectualist theory develops the idea that the crew acts as 
hero in a body.20 To be sure, Jason is attentive to his crew, and they 
often act as though innocent of any notion of his superiority. The 

19 J. F. Carspecken, "Apollonius Rhodius and the Homeric Epic," yeS 13 (1952) 99f, gives 
a summary of views hostile to Jason. 

20 Carspecken, op.cit. (supra. n.19) lloff. 



38 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

speech in which Jason encourages everyone to offer advice (3.171ff) 
and enlarges upon the idea of the group depending upon its members 
suggests a kind of anti-heroic democracy. Sentiments such as this, com­
bined with Jason's retiring nature and his emotional dependency upon 
Peleus, do not describe heroic vitality. Yet we must remember how 
often Jason does the talking, how it is he who deals with Aeetes, it is he 
who gets the fleece and the girl. The important consideration is the 
total improbability of his doing so, its faulty perspective, indeed, its 
basic perversity. It is a collision between content and form. 

The idea of the crew as hero will not work, for not only do they not 
engage our sympathies or our interest either singly or together but 
their effect upon the central action of the story is nil. For instance, 
Tiphys, the pilot of the Argo, dies (2.854), and while we are told that 
unendurable sorrow overcomes the crew at this disaster (858), a few 
moments later Ankaios is able to say that there are many skillful men 
aboard the Argo who can make the voyage safely (874-76). Idmon, the 
prophet, prophesies essentially to no point because the successful out­
come of this venture has never been in doubt. Then, Orpheus, who is 
described as though a part of a painting, offers up his lyre at the tomb 
of Sthenelos (2.928), thereby rendering himself useless (although the 
poet has him incongruously making the music for the wedding of 
Jason and Medea in the fourth book [1159]). The crew is essentially 
decorative counterpoint to Jason. When they are being used most 
effectively by Apollonios, he contrives to show Jason as somehow lost 
in the crowd. 

A more recent theory regarding the crew divides them into "types 
of human action,"21 i.e., men of brawn, men of skill, men of valor and 
men of piety, who are meant to represent ways of confronting life 
alternative to that of Jason. The basic distinctions here set up, I think, 
are instructive, and we may presume that Apollonios wished to con­
trast Jason's behavior with other mental attitudes. The ineffectuality 
of these members of the crew, however, does not seem to me to be 
based upon allegorical design. None of them except Herakles is suffi­
ciently characterized to make a real impression in the narrative. Only 
Herakles offers an adequately rich personality to suggest a way of life 
that fails. Furthermore, men like Peleus, or more particularly Idas, 
who are categorized as men of valor are not so far removed from the 
type represented by Herakles that they form a distinct category. 

21 Lawall, op.cit. (supra n.14) 123-48. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 39 

Jason, therefore, does not seem in some allegorical way to succeed 
where piety or skill must fail. Thus he is not an alternative to these 
qualities; therefore we need not consider Apollonios' conception of 
man to be realized in the person of Jason necessarily nor must it be a 
conception so depraved as some critics would have it.22 

The presence of Herakles in the narrative seems important, a means 
by which Apollonios enlarges and more clearly concentrates upon 
Jason. Herakles is present by design. Since the Argo's crew was not 
fixed unvaryingly in the tradition, one cannot say that Apollonios was 
forced to include Herakles in his account. Moreover, he seems deliber­
ately to have omitted the hero Theseus, who was often included in 
stories of the voyage; his apology for Theseus' absence from the crew 
(1.lOlff) is forced and inappropriate, and perhaps, therefore, self­
conscious. Apollonios is sometimes praised for the adroit way in which 
he manages to dismiss Herakles from the narrative at the end of the 
first book. This view, however, must assume the initial awkwardness 
of introducing unnecessarily a traditional superhero who upstages a 
conventional, if not somewhat colorless, hero.23 Herakles is surely in 
the narrative by plan. The poet seems boldly to clarify this by intro­
ducing Telamon's accusation of Jason (1. 1 290ff) that he sailed off from 
the island abruptly to be rid of Herakles and so to attach to himself 
alone whatever glory the expedition might confer. This cynical motive 
has been alleged by some critics to be Apollonios' own reason for 
dispatching Herakles. But the fact is that nothing in Jason's personality 
suggests glory-seeking or the will or energy to execute such a plan. 
The poet, on the contrary, offers the accusation to give overt expres­
sion to what his readers might happen to feel. Once said, it rings hollow. 
and the reader must dismiss the possibility that Herakles' departure 
from the narrative is a cheap and mechanical device on the author's 
part to bolster Jason's position. By forcing us to discount Telamon's 
criticism, the author draws attention to the implications of Herakles' 
departure and enforces its symbolic function. 

Apollonios from the first contrives to establish Jason as a hero with 
a difference. His absence from the catalogue marks him off as someone 

22 The members of the crew are remarkable for the magical powers they possess (see 
H. J. Rose, Handbook of Greek Mythology' [New York 1950] 295; Carspecken, op.cit. [supra n.19] 
107-09) and do not really use. Jason, himself, has none. Perhaps Apollonios is making a dis­
tinction between human and non-human heroes. Cf C. Whitman's nicely drawn distinction 
in his Sophocles: a Study in Heroic Humanism (Cambridge [Mass.11951) 59£. 

28 Carspecken, op.cit. (supra n.19) 120f. 



40 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

separate. In a sense the crew can be called his retinue, as the line con­
cluding the catalogue implies (1.228): "These were the many helpers 
gathered together as helpers for Jason." His position, however, is there­
after made ambiguous by the unanimous decision on the part of the 
crew to elect Herakles as their leader (337-39). It is suggested to them 
that they choose the best man, one who will lead them, manage every 
detail, and handle their differences and dealings with the strangers 
whom they shall meet. Declining, Herakles suggests Jason as an alter­
native-but only because it was Jason who gathered together the band 
of men. Nonetheless, Jason, cause of the expedition as the fleece is its 
goal, central to the story as no one else is, appears alone, removed from 
the crew, structurally by his absence from the catalogue and emo­
tionally by their failure to select him openly and spontaneously as 
their leader. 

Herakles, the crew's choice, is a formidable figure of saga and myth. 
He was the subject of epics by two of the Alexandrian canon of epic 
writers, Panyassis of Halikamassos and Peisandros of Rhodes. Panyassis 
created the Herakles who could assault the gods, the lover of wine, the 
fighter of monsters, while Peisandros first created Herakles as hunter 
and all-round athlete. The references to him in the Iliad may perhaps 
indicate a live oral tradition coeval with that of the Trojan saga and 
the story of Achilles' wrath. Herakles is, therefore, an important alter­
native to Jason. He is on one level a counterpart to the heroic values of 
Achilles; he is still more perhaps analogous to Ajax or Diomedes as a 
man of considerable physical strength, animal daring and courage­
all exemplified in his labors. Beyond this, the tale of the labors has a 
fairy-tale ring so that we may say that Herakles has also moved in the 
fairy-tale world in which Jason, too, will appear. Finally, through his 
exploits and travels he bears affinities with the new heroism that 
Alexander brought into the Greek world.24 From the outset, then, 
Herakles' refusal to accept the unanimously offered leadership of the 
crew is momentous and totally serious. And Apollonios keeps his 
reader aware of Herakles often throughout the earlier part of the 
poem by such deliberate devices as the description of the Argo's 
lowering in the water under Herakles' weight (1.532f) or the crew's 

U On the change from heroic poetry, with its concern for the individual warrior-hero 
motivated by strength, courage, resourcefulness, etc., to non-heroic poetry, peopled with 
legislators and civilization-builders concerned with the growth of the state, see Chadwick. 
op.at. (supra n.1) 333-43. Cf also Wilamowitz, "Griechische Heldensage," Kleine Schriften II 
(Berlin 1937). 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 41 

recognition that Polydeuces' powers would have been unnecessary 
had Herakles confronted Amycus (2.145-53). 

Between the catalogue and Herakles' refusal Jason is portrayed in a 
strange fashion. The poet shows us the grief of Jason's parents at his 
parting, natural enough in the circumstances, but a grief so intense as 

.. to charge the mood with unrelieved sadness. Then Apollonios des­
cribes Jason's arrival at the beach where his comrades are assembled, 
gathered to meet him, as the poet says (320). Suddenly the poet inter­
rupts Jason's appearance to describe the late arrival of Akastos and 
Argos, adding that the crew were filled with wonder as they saw them 
(322) in their resplendent clothing. The two naturally upstage Jason. 
In much the way Herakles functions, these events contribute to a cer­
tain deflation of the aura about Jason. 

The character of these incidents is reinforced by the curious descrip­
tion of Jason's departure from the palace (307-16). After comparing 
him in simile with Apollo in his beauty as he sets forth to the shouts of 
the populace, Apollonios introduces an old woman, Iphias, the priest­
ess of Artemis: " ... she kissed his right hand, but had not the strength 
to say a word, eager though she was to do so, as the crowd pressed on. 
But she was left there by the wayside, as the old are left by the young; 
he passed by and was gone afar." The simile gives the first hint of the 
majesty that should rightfully belong to Jason as hero, but Apollonios 
has immediately undercut it with the description of the priestess, just 
as he has used the latecomers' arrival at the beach. True enough in 
crowds and processions old women will be lost and turned aside. But 
Apollonios manages to give the description considerable melancholia; 
we see the event from the sorry position of the old woman, and the 
glitter of Jason's triumphal progression is tarnished. The sadness here 
reinforces the misery of Jason's mother. Furthermore,Jason seems not 
to be master of his actions. He is swept along-no doubt unseeing and 
perhaps not caring-but part of the surge of events which he cannot 
control. The simile speaks against itself in a small detail. Jason, as 
analogue to Apollo, has bereaved the priestess of Apollo's sister. Since 
Apollonios, like Aeschylus, is always careful to make every point of 
his similes fit their comext,25 this minor incongruity is surely intended 
to reflect the world in which communication, continuity and coher-

25 See H. Faerber, Zur dichterischen Kunst in Apollonios Rhodios Argonautika (Die Gleichnisse) 
CDiss. Berlin 1932). 



42 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

ence are fractured, a world in which the glorious coming of Jason does 
not make things right. 

The episodes which I have mentioned precede Jason's first effective 
act ofleadership, the decision to sacrifice to Apollo (351ff). By this time 
we have seen him as alone, invested with an aura of melancholia and 
lamentation,26 up-staged, not preferred, and finally set up as a dubious 
alternative to Herakles. Apollonios does not employ characterizing 
epithets in the Homeric manner, but Jason is sometimes described as 
af-L~xavoS" 'without device or resource', 'helpless' and 'dejected'.27 Cer­
tainly the opening scenes of the epic realize the implications of that 
epithet, as does Herakles' logic in suggesting Jason as leader. It is the 
force of events that places Jason where he is, rather than personal 
drive.28 

The bitter-sweet quality of the poem perhaps reaches an early peak 
in the lamentable mistaken killing of Kyzikos. He is compared to 
Jason as young and blooming. He is newly married, not yet a father; 
the poet stresses the risk he takes in going out of the bridal chamber at 
this time to banquet with strangers cc casting fears from his heart" 
(979), the implication being that until he had secured his royal succes­
sion he should pass the time in lovemaking rather than enter the com­
pany of strangers who would as easily murder him as not. Such is the 
sweet goodness of the new groom, the kind host, the amatory young 
man. Because of the importance of love in this poem it is doubly hor­
rible that Kyzikos is killed; trebly horrible that he is killed in igno­
rance by Jason. The poet offers this episode to illustrate seriously and 
awfully how af-L~xavoS" Jason is. Things happen to him; he does not 
create them. The battle in which Kyzikos dies is in context as perverse 
as any episode in the poem. It is the first avSpolCTau{a in the poem, in 
fact, almost the only one, with the traditional catalogue-like list of 
names. The battle is followed by the traditional lamentation and 
burial. While formal and traditional, the episode is startlingly wrong 

28 The main mood returns in small ways as the poem proceeds. For instance, when Idmon 
interprets an omen, the moment of prophecy has the quality of the description of Jason's 
departure from the palace. Idmon prophesies not only success for the mission but his own 
fated death. As Apollonios says (448f), " ... the youths rejoiced at their return, but grief 
seized them over the misery for Idmon." 

27 See the instances cited by M. Hadas, "Apollonios called the Rhodian," CW 26 (1932) 
41-54. 

28 As Carspecken, op.cit. (supra n.19) l06f, remarks, all the deities are on Jason's side, so 
that there can be no heroic resistance to cosmic or supernatural forces. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 43 

and meaningless. In this situation Jason's qualities as an epic hero seem 
altogether faulted. 

It is shortly before this sorry episode on the island of Lemnos that 
another kind of Jason emerges, a more positive man, and here he is 
associated with love. Jason is more formally heroic on the Homeric 
model, specifically when he goes forth to an audience with the princess 
Hypsipyle. He girds himself, as it were, in a great cloak which is 
lengthily described.29 We seem to be meant to be reminded of Aga­
memnon's arming in Iliad 12, although here one item which Jason 
takes up is fully described and there the description is spread over 
several articles of Agamemnon's armor. More exactly the description 
of the cloak recalls the description of Achilles' shield, for the cloak has 
designs representing the same kind of abstract symbolism that the 
shield bears. 

The cloak gives to Jason the splendor and brightness of the sun 
(1.72Sf), recalling the countless times that Homer equates his heroes' 
martial brilliance with shining fire. Jason goes forth to the city like a 
star (1.774), as Achilles in the Iliad (22.26) rushes upon the waiting 
Hektor like a star. There are more points of comparison with that 
passage in the Iliad: the waiting Troj ans, the waiting love-sick maidens ; 
the darkness of the night in both cases (22.28: 1.777); Achilles rushing 
across the plain, the star rising over the girls' homes (22.26: 1.776); the 
star of the Iliad bringing fever, in the Argonautika charming the 
maidens' eyes (22.31: 1.777). As Jason approaches the city the simile 
places him in the context of a warrior endowed with wondrous 
might.30 The entire passage commencing with the description of the 
cloak suggests the prelude to an aptGT€{a that is in general reminiscent 
of Achilles' preparation for battle at the close of Iliad 19. The one 
crucial difference is that Jason's ap€T~ is his sexuality. 

When Jason complains of his inadequacy (2.416ff), the prophet 
Phineus replies that he is to rely upon the aid of Aphrodite. The whole 
of the Lemnian episode illustrates this dimension of Jason's heroism. 
Sexual images are central, from the first discussion in Hypsipyle's 

S9 See the scholiast ad v. 721f(Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera rec. Ca. Wendel [Berlin 
1958] 60), who recognizes the unusual features of the cloak. 

80 When Jason appears to Medea in the moment that is the spiritual or emotional con­
summation of their love (3.956ff), he is compared to the same star, i.e. Sirius, as is Achilles in 
the passage here discussed (cf Leaf ad lac. II. 22.27) and there are other parallels (e.g., 
Argon. 3.959 fL~Aot(7L S' tv aU17"erov 7jK£v dr~vv; Iliad 22.31 cP1pn 17"oAA6V 1r1JP€"T6V S€LAoLUL 

{JPOTO'iUL. 



44 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

council hall when her aged nurse Polyxo rises to speak from her seat 
next to four virgins, unmated (aD/L-rlS"' literally <untamed'). Polyxo's 
warning of the time when there will be no one to do the plowing seems 
obviously sexual, especially after the barnyard adjective applied to the 
virgins (cf, too, lines 867ft) On the cloak are images appropriate to 
the setting of the entire poem, that is the conflict between love and 
war, or rather love in war and war in love, such as the image of 
Aphrodite viewing her reflection in Ares' shield or the race contest of 
Hippodameia with love and hate clearly warring. 

The simile of the star at Jason's approach involves a description of 
maidens enclosed in their chamber, surely the virginal state again. 
Jason is described as going through the gates of the city, then arriving 
at the palace where maidens open more gates to give him access to the 
princess whose name means <High Gates'. Precedents for sexual 
symbolism are not wanting: one thinks of the Sapphic fragment of 
the fruit tree and the meadow (Diehl3 fr.5) and Hippolytos' ode to 
chastity (Eur. Hipp. 73ft), and attention has recently been drawn to the 
sexual imagery of the gates of the Acropolis in Aristophanes' Lysistrata 
(249ft)'31 Here Apollonios depicts virginity that is to be overcome by 
the hero as a kind of battle encounter. 

The traditional hero's panoply with which Jason's encounter with 
Hypsipyle commences formally declares him a hero, but the context 
is novel. Jason is a sexual hero, a lover; and this kind of hero is new in 
epic. Odysseus, to be sure, has a number of sexual adventures, and in­
deed more than once owes his survival to the ladies with whom he 
sleeps (even Nausikaa's sexual interest in him motivates her concern 
for his welfare). But there is an enormous difference in attitude be­
tween the two poems; in Odysseus' relationships with Circe or Kalypso 
we are not made to feel that the interest is anything other than simply 
sexual desire on the part of the females; certainly Odysseus keeps his 
affections for Penelope. The women in the Argonautika, on the other 
hand, seem to be interested in Jason in a deeper, more complicated 
emotional way. 

Hypsipyle's feelings for Jason are veiled until he must leave. Then 
her actions and speeches tell that she does in some way love him 
(886ff). Jason's emotions are not revealed. But his manner of approach 
to Hypsipyle's palace, endowed with radiant sexuality, implies more 

31 C. H. WWtman, Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge [Mass.] 1964) 203. The 
notion is called "plaUSible" by K. J. Dover, CR 80 (1966) 160. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 45 

the lover, at least as far as externals, than even the ITlagically rejuven­
ated Odysseus seems to suggest. Jason as a romantic lover is not, how­
ever, demonstrative or aggressive; his sexuality is simply the essence 
of his being. This is important to notice, for despite the formal ele­
ments of traditional heroism and sexuality Jason remains as &fJ-~XCXV05 
as before. Endowed with a rOITlantic sexual panoply which his person­
ality does not complement, he seems to be an unfulfilled Paris. 

While Jason and most of the crew go off to enjoy the delights of 
Hypsipyle and the other Lemnian ladies, Herakles remains behind 
with a few chosen comrades. The others enjoy an evening of gaiety 
and sensuality that stretches into days provoking Herakles' disgust, 
disgust at the delay, disgust at the sexuality. HIs it a pleasure to stay 
here to plow the rich CAt7Tap6~) soil of Lemnos?" he cries (1.867-74). 
"Let's leave [Jason] in Hypsipyle's bed until he has filled Lemnos with 
men children and there will come to him great fame (j3&.gLS)."32 
Herakles, the more traditional hero, offers his disapproval, and we 
may say that Apollonios is setting Herakles up as the alternative to 
Jason's sexuality.33 Such is the force of this disapproval that the Argo 
departs abruptly. 

Herakles, however, is ITlade to disappear from the narrative, and 
the circumstances of his departure show Apollonios again defining the 
kind of hero which dominates his epic. Herakles' overwhelming 
strength reduces him in fact to impotence when his oar breaks as he 
furiously tries to maneuver the Argo alone, a portent of his departure 
and the reasons for it. Shortly thereafter he loses Hylas, who is snatched 
away by a love-sick water nymph. Herakles' frenzied search for Hylas 
takes him away forever from the voyage of the Argonauts and the 
winning of the fleece. 

What is Hylas to Herakles that he prizes the boy above the sailing 
of the Argo? Hylas is Herakles' creature, reared by the hero from 
childhood after Herakles killed his father. There is a hint of Androm­
ache's dependence upon Hektor here; her survival and the death of 
her family recall it. More specifically, Hylas holds a position analogous 

82 Yet {3&gLS has perhaps more the bourgeois notion of reputation. The equation of 
plowing with sexual intercourse also occurs at 1.79Sf (the Thracian lands equalling the 
Thracian mistresses). One wonders if a double-entendre lurks in 1.829f. 

33 When Jason meets with Kyzikos Herakles again stays behind with some younger men 
(O'lTAOT£pOL). Whatever courtly and diplomatic civilities passed between Jason and Kyzikos 
are not part of Herakles' world. He stays at the beach until he rises up at the appearance of 
the earth-born men. Monstrous, savage fighting is more his kind of endeavor; cf Lawall, 
op.cit. (supra n.14) 124ff. 



46 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

to Patroklos' relationship to Achilles or that of Sthenelos to Diomedes 
in the Iliad. Yet with a difference, for Patroklos is older than Achilles 
and for that reason a source of moderation, and Hylas is first described 
(1.131E) as in the prime of youth. When the water nymph first perceives 
him, he is rosy with beauty and sweet graces as the moon shines down 
upon him. Apollonios says no more, but Theokritos in his account of 
the episode (Idyll 13) identifies the young boy as Herakles' beloved. We 
have no real evidence that Theokritos' paederastic motif ought to be 
read into the Apollonian account, but I should say that this is so. The 
question of the priority of the two versions of the Hylas-Herakles story 
is not relevant.34 Theokritos' version shows that such an interpretation 
was normal and reasonable. Even without it we can assess the relation­
ship of Herakles and Hylas in terms of traditional epic. Setting aside 
the question of the degree of sexuality involved in the relationship of 
Patroklos and Achilles (which Aeschylus developed), we may confi­
dently say that the Iliad shows the major heroes concerned with a male 
world. Masculine affection and concern appear again and again in 
relationships between the heroes. It is this to which Herakles is heir in 
Apollonios' conception if nothing else. The Theokritean version pre­
sents this side too: C< As a father teaches his beloved son, so did Herakles 
teach Hylas all the lore which had made him noble and renowned 
himself, and never parted from him, neither at noon's onset, nor when 
dawn ... sped upward to the halls of Zeus" (13.8-11). This seems to 

represent what at certain stages of Greek culture constituted the ideal 
emotional relationship.35 

On the other hand, tradition shows Herakles involved with women, 
for instance, Deianeira and lole. Herakles, however, never appears to 
be a lover of women, a man given to affectionate, romantic interest in 
females. He is usually shown to be a lusty man; in Sophocles' Yrachiniai 
his love for lole seems to be simple physical passion compared to 
Deianeira's love for him. The insensitivity he shows in acquiring lole 
(Yr. 352-67) is matched by his hostility toward Deianeira, even when 
he learns her true motive and error in injuring him. He is not a Paris 

34 For a review of the question see A. Kohnken, "Apollonios Rhodios und Theokrit: die 
Hylas- und die Amykosgeschichten beider Dichter und die Frage der Prioritat," Hypomne­
mata 12 (Gottingen 1965). B. Otis, op.at. (supra n.S) 398-405, makes the point that Apollo­
nios would not have shown Herakles as love-sick in the fashion ofTheokritos because that 
would have sentimentalized him. If Apollonios is intent on Herakles representing an older 
form of heroism, the motive which Otis suggests makes sense. 

35 Cf Phaidros' speech in PI. Symp. 178A-180B. For Aeschylus see now B. Snell, Scenes from 
Greek Drama (Berkeley/LOS Angeles 1964) 14f. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 47 

who welcomes Helen to the bedchamber; he is more like Odysseus, 
whom prudence and lust place next to a Circe or Kalypso. 

For Hylas Herakles demonstrates considerable concern, grief, deep 
need. This is the version of Apollonios. Taking from Theokritos the 
potentials of the relationship we may view Herakles as a hero of the 
type who offers his soul to a young male, while freely seeking sexual 
satisfaction from females. Herakles, alone of the figures in the cata­
logue, is described as having a young helper C07T(xwv). He is a hero of 
the older epic tradition. Apollonios, by removing Herakles from the 
narrative in pursuit of Hylas, still more clearly shows Jason as a new 
kind of epic hero, a romantic hero, a love hero, a man who will move 
out of the male dominated context of traditional epic into a new het­
erosexual tragedy of manners. This is the most important function of 
Herakles. His earlier appearances went far toward establishing Jason 
as perhaps nothing more than an ordinary man perversely in hero's 
clothing. Herakles provides the measure, Jason is found wanting until 
at Lemnos he is invested with a kind of heroism. Finally Jason and his 
peculiar &p€T~ triumph, as Herakles and the tradition for which he 
stands must withdraw in a paederastic pursuit that has no place in 
love epic. 

Herakles, like Idas and Peleus, also stands for a martial skill and 
toughness of personality that is found wanting in the new ambience. 
This is mirrored on the divine level C3.18ff) when Athene is helpless 
and love is not; "it's not strength or force of hands we need," says 
Hera to Aphrodite, "but love" (3.84). Similarly Jason can ponder 
(3.182-84) whether he should meet Aeetes in battle, or in fact contrive 
some other plan. Fighting is passe; Jason alone of the heroes seems to 
understand this. Herman Frankel has well brought out the anachro­
nistic quality of the opposite mentality, particularly in Idas, calling 
him a kind of Don Quixote in this epic.36 

I believe that Virgil was much impressed by the way in which 
Apollonios used Herakles symbolically in his poem and modeled the 
introduction and departure of Anchises in the narrative after Apollo­
nios' usage. For Anchises is freighted with an heroic world that can no 
longer sustain itself, and he must die before Aeneas can properly 
assume his own heroic proportions.37 

36 H. Frankel, "Ein Don Quijote unter den Argonauten des Apollonios," MusHelv 17 
(1960) 1-20. 

3? See Beye, op.cit. (supra n.2) 223f. 



48 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

Yet in contrast to Herakles Jason remains &fL~xavoS', especially 
emotionally. Herakles' dash after Hylas shows an energy and vitality 
that Jason never musters, and Apollonios chooses to remind us of this 
at the very end of the epic in his description of Herakles and the Hes­
perides. Here once again we see the old-style hero who achieves his 
prize through his own strength and courage, relying on no one. Jason, 
as we know, must depend upon Medea completely in order to get the 
fleece. This is the way Apollonios tells it, and in so doing he is working 
on the implications of the new kind of hero revealed in Book 1. To 
an extent this new hero owes his personality to his sexuality. 

From the first Jason has been shown to be not responsible for his 
actions; Herakles chose him leader of the Argonauts, Hypsipyle 
needed a mate, darkness made K yzikos an anonymous enemy and 
victim. Just as he was initially depicted as being swept on by the 
crowds, so he continues to be swept on by events throughout the 
poem. However much we may choose to consider this singularly 
strange, we cannot deny that Jason is uniformly portrayed as passive. 
Such consistency suggests that Apollonios consciously chose to repre­
sent Jason in this fashion. By surrounding him with the props of 
traditional heroism he offers the reader a paradoxical figure who 
provides a commentary on the epic form itself. 

Jason's initial conquest of Medea's heart and his subsequent victory 
in the contest which Aeetes sets for him are critical moments in the 
narrative which call for heroics. Apollonios has introduced two epi­
sodes reminiscent of Homeric epic. The Homeric coloration highlights 
alternately the importance and the absurdity of these moments. 
Among them stands out specifically the embassy of Hera and Athena 
to Aphrodite, who at their request sends Eros to earth to inflame 
Medea with love. The dramatic scene is that of Thetis going to 
Hephaistos in Iliad 18. In one view Jason, as a kind of wandering 
Odysseus, needs his Athene, who in this epic will naturally be replaced 
by Aphrodite. As Phineus said, the crew must find their help in 
Aphrodite. Essentially she provides this in the form of her son, Eros. 
But Athene's and Hera's embassy of petition strongly reminds one of 
Thetis' trip to Hephaistos for Achilles' new shield. The reference to 
Hephaistos in the Apollonian scene as the builder of Aphrodite's 
house and the explanation for his absence bring to mind the cozy 
domesticity of Charis and Hephaistos in the Iliad scene. This is made 
sharper by the parallel in the greetings. As Charis says (Iliad 18.386) to 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 49 

Thetis: "You didn't used to visit us too often," so Aphrodite says to 
Hera and Athene (3.53f): "Why have you come, you two, who before 
did not come too frequently?" 

Eros then becomes the invincible shield who will help the hero, the 
new hero of love. Eros descends to earth majestically in a manner 
reminiscent of Homer (although the scholiast tells us that Apollonios 
is imitating Ibycus at this point). The description of the descent gives 
majesty to the otherwise petulant pretty baby boy. The scenes of the 
conspiring goddesses and the two divine boys at their dice have been 
often called inappropriate to an epic context; the goddesses much 
resemble Alexandrian court ladies. Since the Ptolemaic court was 
almost as close as one could get to the divine in that era, such women 
and their manner, as well as the elegance and grace of their lives, are a 
natural counterpart to the more rigorous scenes on Olympos in the 
Homeric epics. The temptation to see in them a source for the mood 
of mock-heroic, especially in Eros' descent, is checked by the deeply 
passionate and tragic quality of Medea's love; the story of Jason and 
Medea is ultimately too serious. Love is a force in life that has many 
sides, one of which is overwhelming passion. But love has also an 
ambience of beauty, gaiety and a sense of careless pleasure which the 
goddesses and Eros and Ganymede provide. They form the sensible 
divine entourage to Medea's love, and in this sense they are as thor­
oughly epic as Athene's appearance to Achilles in Iliad 1 or her appear­
ance to Diomedes in Book 5.38 

The other scene in Book 3 which translates us back to the world of 
heroic epic is Jason's victory in the contest of plowing the field and 
sowing the dragon's teeth, a scene that is meant to be Jason's &pLaT€la 
clearly. The mood, of course, is different because Jason is dealing with 
fantasies and he is protected by magic; yet an &.ptaT€la it is. Apollonios 
has very well managed to show its surreal aspects by describing 
Jason's preparations for the contest (3.1191ff), involving magical rites 
performed at night, his covering himself in a cloak given him by 
Hypsipyle which, as the poet says, is a memorial to their continual 
love-making.39 This description is opposed to that of Aeetes girding 

38 Handel, op.cit. (supra n.lO) 105ff, believes these scenes show Medea's intervention to be 
the work of the gods; thus Jason's love· making has the touch of god in it and becomes an 
heroic trial like any other. 

89 Polydeuces when confronting Amykos (2.30ft") is conceived much like Jason, that is, 
sensual, if not pretty. He wears a delicate cloak given him by a loving Lemnian girl. His 
opponent, clothed in a heavy cloak and girded with a staff, is called earth's 7rl>"wp TlKOS (39) 
and is the loser. 

4-G.R.B.S. 



50 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

for battle (3.1225ff), where the king puts on the traditional items of 
investiture. The king when accoutered rides forth fierce and proud as 
any traditional hero, but, of course, ineffectually, because that kind of 
heroic strength and purpose is now meaningless. Aeetes is only an 
astonished onlooker in this scene. Aeetes' emotional capitulation 
marks the success of Jason's aptUTEta on the heroic level, magic, 
maiden and love apart.40 

The narration of Jason's contest is filled with similes (sixteen in the 
last 150 lines of Book 3) as the avSpOKTaataL of the Iliad are. Apollonios 
has for the most part introduced similes that recall those of the Iliad, 
that is, a vigorous horse (1259), lightning in a stormy sky (1265), a 
rocky reef in a pounding sea (1294), a raging boar facing hunters (1359). 
The comparison of Jason to a falling star (13 77ff) is particular ly effective 
in recalling the style and feeling of heroics in the Iliad. With this event 
(an aEe>.O~ as Apollonios calls it)41 the third book ends in high epic 
allusion as it had begun with the embassy to Aphrodite. 

But, as has often been noted, the third book belongs to Medea, 
which at first glance seems fatal to any heroic pretensions on the part 
of Jason. Medea, however, appears as Jason's victim, or more specifi­
cally Eros' victim. She is as much afL~xavo~42 in the face of love as Jason 
has been earlier in facing the entire expedition to Colchis. To this ex­
tent they parallel each other and sustain a mood throughout the poem 
of victims helpless in a world they never made, culminating finally in 
their lack of enthusiasm toward their so long delayed marriage 
(4.1161ff), when they are forced into sexual intercourse; to make the 
mood more obviously wrong the poet surrounds the couple with the 
customary features of a joyful celebration (4.1128-69). Medea has her 
magic skill as Jason has his sexuality; beyond this they are essentially 
helpless, acted upon far more than acting. In Book 3 each has his 
moment of individual heroism, Jason's the more typical, Medea's the 
more novel, that of a love-sick woman. From her love springs the 
decisive action of the third book, but this seems to be balanced by 
Jason's killing of Apsyrtos in the fourth, an act that springs if not from 
love then at least in part from deep concern. 

Although Medea contributes the aid that settles the course of action, 

'0 Handel, op.cit. (supra n.10) 117f. 
u ft.£8Aos is the traditional word used in accounts of Herakles' adventures. 
U The simile of the young bride now widowed (3.656ff) occurring at the onrush of Medea's 

mounting physical desire for Jason, foreshadOWing the doomed nature of her love, produces 
the same mood of melancholia and frustration that pervades the early part of Book 1. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 51 

there are constant intimations that Jason controls the situation. The 
motif of Theseus and Ariadne suggests that Jason is the user and Medea 
the used. More importantly the numerous allusions to Nausikaa of the 
Odyssey evoke a Medea under the spell of the stranger Jason. In 
creating the Nausikaa-Medea equation Apollonios seems to show the 
same determination he exhibits elsewhere to emphasize the perver­
sity of his epic world. Medea changes subtly from the sweet young 
thing whom we know Nausikaa to be into the witch who is ultimately 
capable of anything (and in this we are meant to be reinforced perhaps 
by Euripides' conception ofher).43 Apollonios has contrived a particu­
larly remarkable description of Medea in Book 3 (828-90). It begins 
with the light of day, the maiden's washing away the tears of the love­
sick night. The bath, the ointment, the perfume, the veil gleaming 
like silver, her entourage of fragrant maidens-all combine to display 
lightness, goodness and innocence. As the maidens hitch up the chariot 
for Medea we are reminded of Nausikaa, off to the seashore for the 
family washing. The impression of Medea as a Nausikaa-figure is 
intensified at 869ff by the description of her departure in the chariot 
with her lovely maidens dancing along beside. As if to set the parallel 
still more firmly, Apollonios compares Medea to Artemis; the lengthy 
simile recalls a similar one at Odyssey 6.lOZff. These portraits, however, 
surround a description of the magical charm which Medea is trans­
porting to the temple of Hekate, a goddess generally associated with 
night (quite the reverse of the atmosphere of the opening passage). 
During nocturnal incantations, we are told, Medea has created the 
charm herself, got from a flower sprung from the blood spilled by the 
eagle which chews Prometheus' liver. With this description Medea, 
the witch, the mysterious and strange, stands revealed. Apollonios 
manages this Jekyll-and-Hyde perversity nicely with the remark 
(3.867f): "She brought the charm out and set it in the fragrant girdle 
which went about her ambrosial bosom." Another time the poet 
achieves an equally unsettling juxtaposition. In the beginning of Book 
4 Medea is wracked with anguish and decides to leave her family. 
Both her anguish and her departure (4.11ff) are the pitiable tale of an 
innocent maiden in trouble; indeed, the simile (3Sff) emphasizes 
exactly this: she is like a servant girl afraid, alone in a strange land, 

43 Handel, op.cit. (supra n.10) 116f, points out that the earlier tradition (cf Pind. Pyth. 
4.2l4ff) shows her to be a witch; thus the process has been to humanize the witch rather 
than vice versa. 



52 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

stealing away from a house where her mistress maltreats her. Then 
Apollonios intrudes the other Medea (50ft): "Now Medea decided to 
go to the temple, for she was not ignorant of the road, since often be­
fore she had wandered that way in search of corpses and deadly roots 
from the earth, things which sorceresses are usually out looking for." 

Medea's fairy-tale features are dangerous. Jason's emotional in­
volvement with her is shown by Apollonios to be finally fatal to him 
in terms of traditional heroism. Medea's world, her family are far 
from the traditional heroic world scaled to normal men. Jason by 
attaching himself to her becomes lost in this other world. Partly 
Jason's seeming ineffectuality in coping with his environment stems 
from its fantastic character. Odysseus' travels through the more 
magical parts of his fairyland show him deserted by the Olympian 
gods,44 symbolic of the fact that he cannot function as a typical saga 
hero in such a setting. But in just such a setting Apollonios has located 
the major part of his story. While the myth calls for it, the poet partic­
ularly emphasizes its unreality, and in this fairy-tale world Jason is 
lost. From the first Aeetes-Circe's brother, we should remember­
shows a barbarity (3.377ff) that stuns Jason; the contest which Aeetes 
demands is grotesque. Naturally Jason is at a loss (cf 3.423, 432). After 
the poet describes Jason's agreement to the contest as K€p8aMos (426), 
with its overtones of the crafty Odysseus, we know he has been ironic 
when he has Jason tell his crew (3.500f): "I agreed to Aeetes' plan for 
there wasn't any better idea that came to my mind." Jason is out of 
his context, and when Medea instructs him in what he must do 
(3 . 1026ff) , the magical directions show that Jason's tasks will be at least 
as complicated as Odysseus' adventures, because normal man is made 
to go to the final limits of fairyland in this elaborate ritual. 

As if to symbolize this emphasis Apollonios has devised two 
voyages for the Argo, the first (in Books 1 and 2) in essence as realistic 
as any 7T€pl7TAOVS known to the Greeks, but the second (in Book 4) 
an adventure in a fairy-tale world of strange people and impossible 
geography.45 Here Jason meets Medea's aunt, the witch Circe, sur­
rounded by veritable grotesques rather than simply men transformed 
into animals. Here in this fairy-tale setting he finally takes Medea's 
virginity. Perhaps most significantly it is in this final part of the epic 
that Jason most decisively acts when he murders Apsyrtos. It is Jason 

" See G. M. Calhoun, "The Divine Entourage in Homer," AJP 61 (1940) 257-77. 
45 Handel, op.dt. (supra n.10) 63--67. 



CHARLES ROWAN BEYE 53 

who does the killing, and Apollonios makes Jason's act the more 
individual by having Medea turn her eyes away. The death of Apsyr­
tos is accomplished by first trapping him with gifts. Consistent with 
the main theme of this epic, the primary gift is a cloak which Hypsi­
pyle earlier had given to Jason. The cloak bears in its very texture the 
memories oflove-making; Apollonios recounts the time when Diony­
sos made love to Ariadne upon the very cloak after she had been 
deserted by Theseus. Once again sexuality gives him victory. 

The poet seems to make a comment upon this by breaking the 
narrative with an apostrophe to love, which works so much evil for 
mankind; it comes between the description of the cloak and the mur­
der of Apsyrtos. The poet's sudden subjectivity provides a sharp focus 
on the killing of Apsyrtos. The event is, of course, unheroic, and an 
evil crime. Again we witness the perversion of the hero, now set with­
in the perverse, bizarre arena of the final travels. Jason has traveled 
far in this narrative, and in a sense he is a victim of Medea in this 
unnatural world (cf. the emotional trap laid for Jason beginning at 
4.345ff). Apollonios has contrived a strange story and a strange man in 
Jason. The murder of Apsyrtos, however, reflects the rhythm of love 
and hate in the poem, a motif first introduced in the song which Or­
pheus sings in Book 1 (496-511). The song is offered by Orpheus to 
quell the ugly mood of quarreling between Idmon and Idas; its 
theme is suggested by the quarrel, that is, the alternation of love and 
hate or strife as the two opposing and ruling forces in the universe. 
Critics have found this song inapposite, a forced intrusion of Alexan­
drian pedantry, Apollonios' chance to display his knowledge of 
Empedocles' philosophies (cf. e.g., Diels fr.17). But the theme of the 
song grows out of the quarrel and furthermore seems to elaborate a 
motif which runs through the entire epic, the conflict of love and 
hate (or destruction). The theme appears formally as in the design 
on Jason's cloak, where Aphrodite is shown looking at her reflection 
in Ares' shield. Dramatically the theme appears in the warmth of the 
reception offered by the Doliones and their leader, Kyzikos, to Jason 
and his crew, soon to be reversed in their sudden and wanton murder; 
or the theme may be seen in the women of Lemnos killing all their 
menfolk only to seek out sexual relationships with Jason and his crew. 
Again and again love and hate alternate and often seem to grow the 
one out of the other; it is a rhythm in which Jason himself is caught 
rather than one that he has created. 



54 JASON AS LOVE-HERO IN APOLLONIOS' ARGONAUTIKA 

Finally, I would offer two suggestions. In a poem so carefully and 
frequently charged with sexual symbols and turning upon the sexual­
ity of the central figure, it seems worth pondering whether the fleece 
represents Medea's virginity. The fourth book begins with Medea's 
anguish; she has betrayed her people and her father in helping Jason. 
Her anguish is shown as occurring in her room, which she leaves 
finally after having left a cutting of her hair for her mother, a memorial 
to her virginity, she says. She precedes this by kissing her virginal bed 
and the folding doors on both sides of it and then she strokes the walls 
of her room. Shortly thereafter it is she who offers to Jason the fleece 
and he responds by vowing marriage (4.86-87,95-98). I suggest that in 
the context of this poem (and consonant with Apollonios' mode of 
stating things) the golden fleece represents on one level Medea's 
maidenhead. Jason's acquisition is his triumphant heroism, a natural 
consequence of his innate sexuality. Medea in her Nausikaa-like 
dream of wish fulfillment (3.616ff) has already confused the fleece and 
herself, confused her role and Jason's in contesting for the fleece; it is 
she in her dream who yokes the oxen, she who bestows the fleece, 
and in all of this within the dream she seems to be giving up her vir­
ginity. And finally when Jason and Medea consummate their love 
they lie on the fleece, so that it is bound up by the poet in their feel­
ings toward each other. 

Secondly, I call particular attention to Jason's extraordinary pas­
sivity. In part this may derive from Apollonios' view of mankind as 
helpless, at least in his own time, contrasting an Alexandrian Jason to 
an Homeric Herakles. But there is more to Jason's passivity, I believe, 
and that has to do with his sexual attributes. His sexuality is not, as 
we have shown, either paederastic or simply physical. He has an am­
bience always of the romantic qualities of beauty, grace and charm. 
His females, Hypsipyle, and, of course, far more notably Medea, love 
him with a passion. As Book 4 shows, Jason cares for Medea as well. 
This heterosexual love bespeaks a kind of sexuality new to epic, and I 
believe that Jason appears essentially passive because the epic tradi­
tion could not, even for Apollonios, accommodate itself to the theme 
of a male exhibiting strong feelings of love and affection for a female. 
One is reminded of the peculiar revulsion that Pentheus feels toward 
the disguised Dionysos in Euripides' Bacchae (453ff), because he sees in 
the stranger's good looks something erogenous, some electric quality 
designed for seducing women. No self-respecting male would either 



CHARLES ROW AN BEYE 55 

be so handsome or so needlessly interested in the female sex; that is 
the implication. To the Greek mind it is not masculine. 

Compare the successful development of feeling which Theokritos 
manages in his Hylas poem. This, however, is homosexual love, 
sanctioned in poetry for some time, a kind of love in any case dignified 
and built into the institution of culture, as the initial speech in the 
Symposium signifies. No sanction of this sort existed for heterosexual 
love in epic, at least so far as men were concerned. A Phaedra might be 
love-sick in tragedy, a Medea might go mad for love, but no man 
shows this passion. Apollonios wished to achieve Jason's heroism 
through his sexuality, as is evident in the way in whichJ as on approaches 
Hypsipyle and by the manner in which the poet removes Herakles 
from the narrative. Nonetheless, the poet fails, I believe, in exhibiting 
Jason as a fitting sexual hero, a counterpart to his anguished Medea. I 
think that to do so successfully would have seemed too daring. 

Perhaps also Apollonios was influenced by the misogynistic strain 
that runs through so much of Greek literature, already apparent I 
believe, in the Odyssey.46 Once Jason has Medea under his spell, once 
he has contrived (with Eros) to be her lover, then he himself is caught 
somehow. To be sure, Medea is special, being a witch, but she is also 
very much a woman, and she leads Jason farther and farther away 
from the normal world he knows, where alone he can possibly exer­
cise any control. This is perhaps not so much the enchantment of a 
witch as it is of a woman; and too, this may be a misogynistic element 
more characteristic of the genre than of the culture. 

Beyond this, Apollonios may have had the alternative desire to 
indicate the failure of will among his contemporaries. By leaving 
Jason's emotional reactions hidden, he allowed himself to portray a 
hero as essentially &JL~xavos, which may very well have been part of 
his aim. The poem is ambiguous; when it is perverse one feels the 
poet's control; but its ambiguity, on the contrary, seems to me to be 
irresolution on the poet's part.47 

BOSTON UNIVERSITY 

December, 1968 

46 See Beye, op.cit. (supra n.2) 174-78, 201f; also S. Butler, The Authoress of the Odyssey2 
(London 1922) 115-57. 

47 I should like to thank my former student, James Michael Tillotson, for a number of 
suggestions adopted in this essay, particularly in connection with Arg. 4; too, I should like to 
thank my friend, William M. Calder III, for his generous criticisms of several drafts. I have 
read versions of it to several audiences, first to the Columbia University Faculty Seminar on 
Classical Civilization, from whose criticisms the paper has profited.