THE ORPHIC ARGONAUTICA: PART SIX – CONCLUSION

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

When we left off last time, Medea’s Aunt Circe had informed her that in order to stop the vendetta the Furies were waging against her, Jason, Orpheus and the rest of the Argonauts Medea must be purified from the taint of betraying her father and killing her brother 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.

The ship the Argo sailed past Sardinia and Sicily successfully, but then Charybdis caused the Argonauts to become trapped in its powerful whirlpool in the Strait of Messina. The only thing that saved our heroes was the fact that Thetis, a Nereid nymph, was in love with the future King Peleus of the Argonauts, so she freed the Argo from the whirlpool and the ship went on its way.

Later, Peleus and Thetis would become the parents of Achilles.

The Argonauts resumed their journey to Melis. At length they passed by the Sirens, whose singing as usual tempted sailors to approach them only to wind up dashed on the rocks. Orpheus played his lyre and sang, managing to overpower the singing of the Sirens.

Infuriated, the Sirens committed suicide and the Argo continued on its way.

Next, our heroes neared Corcyra and were pursued by more ships from the fleet of Medea’s father King Aeetes. Because Jason and Medea had not yet consummated their relationship Aeetes was still within his paternal rights to order Medea to return home with him, where she would be at his mercy.

The pair had a marriage ceremony performed immediately, then went off to sleep together. The goddess Hera now intervened disguised as a maidservant and Aeetes was persuaded to abandon his pursuit.

Before too long, the Argonauts approached Crete, where the bronze giant Talos mistook them for pirates and hurled enormous boulders at them to destroy them. Though in more mainstream versions of the Argonaut saga it is Medea who uses her dark magic to slay Talos, this Orphic variation proceeds differently.

The Argonauts all pray in unison to the god Apollo to save them. Moved, Apollo fires an arrow at Talos, hitting him in the ankle, the only spot on his metal body where he was vulnerable because the vein there came directly from his heart. All of the Ichor (divine blood) poured out of the wound, killing Talos.

NOTE: Yes, that parallels the later fate of Achilles but as of the journey of the Argonauts Achilles had not even been born yet.

At last, the Argo arrives at the home of the Meliae. Orpheus joins with those ash tree Nymphs to cleanse Medea and Jason of their monumental sins. A bit anticlimactically, Jason and the Argonauts sail off to take Jason home with the Golden Fleece so he may at last claim his throne.

Orpheus makes his own way back to Thrace. In the future I’ll delve more deeply into Orphism and the ways it differs from traditional Greek mythology.