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ARGO
(AHR-goh)
The
ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed Common clues:
Ship to Colchis; Medea rode on it; 50-oared ship; Jason's
fleece-finding ship; Golden Fleece craft; Mythical ship; Jason's
ship; Ship of myth Crossword
puzzle frequency:
8 times a year Frequency
in English language:
68205 / 86800 Video: Mythical
Ship Sets Sail
In
Greek mythology, the Argonauts were a band of heroes who, in the
years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his
quest for the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship,
the Argo which in turn was named after its builder Argus. They
were sometimes called Minyans, after a prehistoric tribe of the
area.
The
Argo, by Lorenzo Costa
After
the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the Iolcan
throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in
Thessaly (near the modern city of Volos). Because of this
unlawful act, an oracle had warned him that a descendant of
Aeolus would seek revenge. Pelias put to death every prominent
descendant of Aeolus he could reach, but spared Aeson at the
dramatic pleas of his mother Tyro. Pelias, however, kept Aeson
prisoner and forced him to renounce his inheritance. Later, Aeson
married Polymele, who bore him a son named Diomedes. Pelias
intended to kill the baby at once, but Polymele summoned her
kinswomen to weep over him, as if he were a still-born. She faked
a burial and smuggled the baby to Mount Pelion, where he was
raised by the centaur Chiron, who renamed the boy Jason.
When
Jason was 20 years old, he went to consult an oracle who ordered
him to dress himself as a Magnesian, wear a leopard skin and
carry two spears. Then he should head to the Iolcan court. Jason
did as he was told. Now a new oracle warned Pelias to be on his
guard against a man with one shoe. One day, Pelias was presiding
a solemn sacrifice to Poseidon, to which some neighboring kings
attended. Among the crowd there stood a tall youth in leopard
skin with only one sandal. Pelias came to recognize him as his
nephew. Jason had lost his sandal while crossing the muddy
Anavros river. He helped an old woman who was begging to be
transported. That woman was Hera under disguise, who wanted to
punish Pelias for having neglected the customary sacrifices to
her. When Pelias met Jason, he could not kill him on the spot,
for some prominent kings of the Aeolian family were there.
Instead, he approached the youth and asked: "What would you
do if an oracle announced that one of your fellow-citizens were
destined to kill you?". Jason replied that he would send him
to go and fetch the Golden Fleece, not knowing that Hera had put
those words in his mouth.
Jason
learned later that Pelias was being haunted by the ghost of
Phrixus, who had fled from Orchomenus riding on a divine ram to
avoid being sacrificed, and took refuge in Colchis where he was
later denied proper burial. According to an oracle, Iolcus would
never prosper unless his ghost were taken back in a ship,
together with the golden ram's fleece. This fleece now hung from
a tree in the grove of the Colchian Ares, guarded night and day
by a dragon that never slept. Pelias swore before Zeus that he
would give up the throne at Jason's return, while expecting that
Jason's attempt to steal the Golden Fleece would be a fatal
enterprise. Hera, however, would act on Jason's favour during
this perilous journey.
Jason
was accompanied by some of the principal heroes of ancient
Greece. The number of Argonauts varies, but usually totals
between 40 and 55; traditional versions of the story place their
number at 50.
Some
have hypothesised that the legend of the Golden Fleece was based
on a practice of the Black Sea tribes of placing a lamb's fleece
at the bottom of a stream to entrap particles of gold being
washed down from upstream. This practice was still in use in
recent times, particularly in the Svaneti region of Georgia.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Argo".
TET
(401)
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