The New Student's Reference Work/Argonauts

Argonauts (ar′ gō-nat), in Greek story, the band of heroes who sailed, before the Trojan war in the ship Argo, in search of the golden fleece; Argonauts meaning sailors of the Argo. Pelias, king of Iolcus in Thessaly, was warned by an oracle to fear his nephew, Jason, and so, hoping he would be killed, he sent him to capture and bring home the fleece of the ram which had carried off the brother and sister, Phrixus and Helle, and which Phrixus had sacrificed to. Phrixus had nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars in Colchis, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon and by fire-breathing bulls. Jason set sail with the principal heroes of Greece, among them, and. After various adventures in Lemnos, Mysia and the land of the Bebryces, and after successfully passing between the floating islands of the Symplegades, which were dreaded because of their custom of dashing to pieces whatever came in their way, the Argonauts reached Colchis. The king of Colchis promised Jason the golden fleece if he would yoke the fire-breathing bulls to the plow and sow the dragon’s teeth, from which warriors always sprang up to kill the sower. With the aid of Medea, the king’s daughter, a powerful enchantress, who had fallen in love with Jason, the latter achieved these tasks. Finding the king plotting against him, he seized the fleece and set sail with Medea and her brother, Absyrtus. When the king pursued them, Medea killed her brother, and throwing his body into the sea, piece by piece, so delayed her father, that the Argo escaped, though, because of their crime, they suffered many things on their homeward journey.