Classical Mythology

(^578) THE GREEK SAGAS: GREEK LOCAL LEGENDS
food, and fouled the rest. When the Harpies next appeared, Zetes and Calais,
the winged sons of Boreas, pursued them with drawn swords to the Strophades
Islands, where Iris put an end to the chase by making the sons of Boreas return
and the Harpies swear never to go near Phineus again. Phineus foretold the rest
of the voyage to the Argonauts and forewarned them of its dangers. He told
them of the Symplegades (Clashing Rocks), two huge rocks near the western
end of the Black Sea that clashed together driven by the force of the winds. Noth-
ing had ever yet passed between them, and it was fated that they should remain
fixed once a ship had made the passage. Phineus advised the Argonauts to re-
lease a dove, and if it succeeded in flying between the rocks, then they them-
selves were to row hard between them as they recoiled. If it failed, they were to
turn back. In the event the dove was successful, and the Argonauts, with the
help of Athena (or Hera), got through before the rocks clashed for the last time,
losing part of the ship's stern ornament. The Symplegades remained fixed, never
to threaten seafarers again.^4
THE VOYAGE THROUGH THE EUXINE SEA
Not far along the Asiatic coast of the Euxine lived the Mariandyni, whose king,
Lycus, received the Argonauts hospitably. Here Idmon was killed by a boar, and
the helmsman, Tiphys, died. Nevertheless, with the Arcadian hero Ancaeus, son
of Lycurgus, as the new helmsman, they sailed on past the land of the Amazons
and that of the iron-working Chalybes and came to the Island of Ares, where
the Stymphalian Birds (frightened away from Greece by Heracles in his sixth
Labor) now lived. These they kept at bay by clashing their shields together. Here
they also found Phrixus' four sons, shipwrecked during an attempted voyage
from Colchis to Boeotia. They took them on board the Argo and found them of
no little help when they reached Colchis. Finally, they sailed up the river Pha-
sis to Colchis.
JASON AT COLCHIS
JASON'S TASKS
At Colchis, Aeëtes was prepared to let Jason take the fleece only if he first per-
formed a series of impossible tasks. These were to yoke a pair of brazen-footed,
fire-breathing bulls, the gift of Hephaestus to Aeëtes, and with them plow a large
field and sow it with dragon's teeth, from which would spring up armed men,
whom he would then have to kill.^5
MEDEA'S ROLE
Medea, Aeëtes' younger daughter, now enters the saga and brings to it elements
of magic and folktale. Through the agency of Hera and Aphrodite, she fell in