[23]
The Argonauts now arrived among the Mariandynians, and there King Lycus received them
kindly.1 There died Idmon the seer of a
wound inflicted by a boar;2 and there too died Tiphys, and
Ancaeus undertook to steer the ship.3
And having sailed past the Thermodon and the Caucasus they came to the river Phasis, which is in the Colchian land.4 When the ship was brought into port, Jason repaired to
Aeetes, and setting forth the charge laid on him by Pelias invited him to give him the
fleece. The other promised to give it if single-handed he would yoke the brazen-footed
bulls. These were two wild bulls that he had, of enormous size, a gift of Hephaestus; they
had brazen feet and puffed fire from their mouths. These creatures Aeetes ordered him to
yoke and to sow dragon's teeth; for he had got from Athena half of the dragon's teeth
which Cadmus sowed in Thebes.5 While Jason puzzled how he could yoke the bulls, Medea
conceived a passion for him; now she was a witch, daughter of Aeetes and Idyia, daughter
of Ocean. And fearing lest he might be destroyed by the bulls, she, keeping the thing from
her father, promised to help him to yoke the bulls and to deliver to him the fleece, if he
would swear to have her to wife and would take her with him on the voyage to Greece. When Jason swore to do so, she gave him a drug
with which she bade him anoint his shield, spear, and body when he was about to yoke the
bulls; for she said that, anointed with it, he could for a single day be harmed neither by
fire nor by iron. And she signified to him that, when the teeth were sown, armed men would
spring up from the ground against him; and when he saw a knot of them he was to throw
stones into their midst from a distance, and when they fought each other about that, he
was taken to kill them.6 On hearing that, Jason anointed
himself with the drug,7 and being come to the grove of the temple he sought the bulls, and though they
charged him with a flame of fire, he yoked them.8 And when he had sowed the teeth, there rose armed men from the ground; and where
he saw several together, he pelted them unseen with stones, and when they fought each
other he drew near and slew them.9 But though the bulls were yoked, Aeetes did
not give the fleece; for he wished to burn down the
Argo and kill the crew. But before he could do so, Medea brought Jason by
night to the fleece, and having lulled to sleep by her drugs the dragon that guarded it,
she possessed herself of the fleece and in Jason's company came to the
Argo.10 She was attended, too, by her brother Apsyrtus.11 And with them the
Argonauts put to sea by night.
1 Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.720ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 715ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. iv.733ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 18.
2 Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.815ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 725ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v.1ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 14, 18. According to Apollonius, the barrow of Idmon was surmounted by a wild olive tree, which the Nisaeans were commanded by Apollo to worship as the guardian of the city.
3 Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.851-898; Orphica, Argonautica 729ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 890; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v.13ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 14, 18.
4 As to Jason in Colchis, and his winning of the Golden Fleece, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.1260ff., iii.1ff., iv.1-240; Diod. 4.48.1-5; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v.177-viii.139; Ov. Met. 7.1-158. The adventures of Jason in Colchis were the subject of a play by Sophocles called The Colchian Women. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 15ff.; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 204ff.
5 Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.401ff., 1176ff.
6 As to the yoking of the brazen-footed bulls, compare Pind. P. 4.224ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1026ff. As to the drug with which Jason was to anoint himself, see further Pind. P. 4.221ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.844ff. It was extracted from a plant with a saffron-coloured flower, which was said to grow on the Caucasus from the blood of Prometheus. Compare Valerius Flaccus, Argon. vii.355ff.; Pseudo-Plutarch, De Fluviis v.4.
7 Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1246ff.
8 Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii. 1278ff.
9 Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii. 1320-1398.
10 Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.123-182.
11 Here Apollodorus departs from the version of Apollonius Rhodius, according to whom Apsyrtus, left behind by Jason and Medea, pursued them with a band of Colchians, and, overtaking them, was treacherously slain by Jason, with the connivance of Medea, in an island of the Danube. See Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.224ff., 30（ Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.223, 228）. The version of Apollonius is followed by Hyginus, Fab. 23 and the Orphic poet （Ap. Rhod., Argon., 1027ff.）. According to Sophocles, in his play The Colchian Women, Apsyrtus was murdered in the palace of Aeetes （Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.228）; and this account seems to have been accepted by Eur. Med. 1334. Apollodorus's version of the murder of Apsyrtus is repeated verbally by Zenobius, Cent. iv.92, but as usual without acknowledgment.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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