THE ORPHIC ARGONAUTICA: PART FIVE

Balladeer’s Blog continues examining this Orphic variation of the Quest for the Golden Fleece. PART ONE HERE. PART TWO HERE. PART THREE HERE. PART FOUR HERE. 

Having obtained the Golden Fleece, Jason, Orpheus and the rest of the Argonauts fled Colchis immediately on board the Argo. King Aeetes’ daughter Medea fled with them because she fell in love with Jason and defied her father to enable the theft of the Golden Fleece.   

Medea took her brother Absyrtus along and as their father Aeetes’ and his crew were about to overtake the Argo at sea, the dark sorceress Medea murdered Absyrtus, chopped his body into several pieces and scattered those pieces on the waves.

King Aeetes had to break off pursuit so he and his crew could fish up the various fragments of his son’s corpse for proper funeral rites.

NOTE: Though some versions of this epic have the people called the Minyae transform the floating remains into the two Absyrtides Islands, this Orphic variation presents the dismemberment and gathering of body parts as an allegory for the saga of Zagreus tinged with Osiris parallels.

     In Orphism, Zagreus is the supreme deity and combines aspects of Dionysus and Zeus. I will explore the concept in more depth as I delve more thoroughly into Orphism in the future.

Back to the Argonauts, after pulling away from Aeetes and his crew they were cursed by the Furies over Medea’s dark deed of murdering and dismembering her brother. Unfavorable winds and waves prevented them from putting in at any land they were familiar with.

Blown and tossed through the Mediterranean Sea and out into the Atlantic, the Argonauts arrived at what is now either the British Isles or by some accounts the more northerly Scandinavian islands. In this Orphic version of Greek myths it was the land of Hyperborea. More mainstream versions of the story of the Argonauts place Hyperborea elsewhere.

NOTE: An alternate version of the Orphic Argonautica depicts a different course taken by our heroes after fleeing Colchis. In this version, Aeetes’ fleet has blocked the only way back out to the Mediterranean Sea from Asia Minor.

    Orpheus, Jason and the others therefore sail the Black Sea to what is now Crimea and from there to the modern-day sites Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin, and Rotterdam. The Argonauts tote the Argo by land when they have to in order to use the various rivers of the region to complete their homeward journey.

     In that account, the Hyperboreans live in what we would call Russia/ Ukraine, and rather than be tossed about in the Mediterranean Sea TWICE, the Argonauts come out to the North Sea via Rotterdam and then back to the Mediterranean. 

Anyway, as the sea-tossed vessel neared the cavern entrance to Hades, the oracular beam of wood on the Argo (see Part One), still sentient because of Orpheus, spoke to our heroes and explained why the Furies were hounding them. It also warned them not to put in at Lernea, because the Lerneans would put them all to death for the notorious murder and desecration of Absyrtus. 

Heeding that warning, as the Argo limped its way back into the Mediterranean with the Argonauts surviving on rainwater and seafood, they sailed past Lernea. Since that is where the Furies intended for the Argonauts to be slain, they resumed persecuting them and made them lost for twelve to fifteen more days.

Managing to put in at the island home of Medea’s aunt – THE Circe – Medea and Jason were barred from Circe’s court because of Medea’s crimes. Circe tells her that she must be purified from the taint of her horrible deeds through rites performed by Orpheus and the Meliae – the ash-tree nymphs who nursed the infant Zagreus (in this Orphic version).

The involvement of the Meliae is necessary to assuage the Furies because both the Meliae and the Furies were peers, having been born from the blood of Uranus.

I WILL CONTINUE WITH THIS IN THE NEAR FUTURE.