Episode 176: Jason and the Argonauts (Myth Movie Night)
/We’re suggesting a new title for Jason and the Argonauts—really, it should be Medea and the Himbos. This week’s movie is the 1963 edition of Jason and the Argonauts, followed by a deep dive into the original Greek telling (thanks, Edith Hamilton!).
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of child endangerment/murder (there’s a lot of this), drowning, starvation, death, dismemberment, grief, poisoning, and fire/burning.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends No Bad Ideas! Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Multitude: Our newest show, NEXT STOP, has just launched! Check out NEXT STOP in your podcast player or nextstopshow.com!
Sponsors
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And this is Episode 176, Jason and the Argonauts for Myth Movie Night.
Julia: We try to spread out the realm of the myths that we get to talk about. I started with a lot of Greek and then we kind of fell off with the Greek because I wanted to cover other stories from around the world, but I fucking love going in on the Greek stuff.
Amanda: I found it so enjoyable. I've been thinking about scenes from the movie and also from the stories that you told as part of this episode for days now since we recorded it. I think this is a really fun one.
Julia: Yeah, I'm really, really stoked and I'm also really stoked because we're joined by some new patrons.
Amanda: Tov, Kelsea, Elle, Lisa, Heather, Tyler, Desmond, and is that Diane I see?
Julia: That is, that's my mom.
Amanda: Julia, did your mom join our Patreon? Thank you, Diane.
Julia: She did. I texted her being like, "You don't have to do that." And she's like, "I want to."
Amanda: Diane, thank you. You're the bomb. You joined the ranks of our distinguished supporting producer-level patrons, Landon, Nicki, Tyree, Megan, Debra, Molly, Skyla, Samantha, Sammy, Neil, Jessica and Phil Fresh and our legend level patrons. We're getting a very nice shaker and spoon box this month. Steven, Milena, Francis, Clara, Brittany, Josie, Kylie Morgan, Beat Me Up Scotty, Audra, Chris, Mark, Mr. Volk, Sarah and Jack Murray.
Julia: You all are wonderful. You are the epic voyage that makes our lives complete.
Amanda: Oh, Julia. And can you tell our listeners what we were enjoying on that epic voyage? What were we drinking?
Julia: We were drinking Golden Dreams which I'll tell you a little bit more about after the refill but it's a really like light but also creamy and gorgeous-looking citrus cocktail. Highly recommended. It's delicious and delightful.
Amanda: It's so good. Also delicious, delightful and golden, it's the newest show from Multiple, people. Next Stop is now out. It is an audio sitcom assistant directed by Julia, written by Eric Silver, directed by Brandon Grugle, I executive produced, and you will even hear the voices of editor Eric of Mike Schubert and of tons of Multitude friends and family in this first episode, which is now out in any podcast player.
Julia: It is delightful. I had so much fun. It's probably the project I am most proud of making in 2020.
Amanda: I am amazed. More than like 30 people's time and effort and talent went into this. We're so proud of it. It is a sitcom so it's something that is sort of like a world you can escape to. It makes you laugh. It's about friends who are trying to help each other and figure themselves out. The theme song has been stuck in my head for fully three months. We like a full theme song for the show written by Evan Cunningham. It is so, so good. So it would mean a lot to us if you checked out Next Stop. It's at nextstopshow.com or in any of your podcast players just write Next Stop.
Julia: If you like Friends but hate Ross Geller, this is the show for you.
Amanda: If you like How I Met Your Mother and would like even more women loving women in your sitcoms, this is the one for you. Some of the other voices you'll hear in Next Stop belong to our friends from No Bad Ideas, which is the podcast that I have been busting through this past week. It is a wonderful show about creativity. It's improv, it's interview, it's all the things that I want in a podcast that I'm listening to as I'm going about my errands and my day. So Zach Valenti's voice is in the show, as well as our very good friend Sarah and Gabriel who don't have cameos but who you can hear on No Bad Ideas. So check that out in your podcast player as well.
Julia: It's a great show. Amanda and I have both guested on it. I had a lot of fun doing my episode. We created a plot about a cannibalistic eatery. And I think that if you like Spirits, you're going to enjoy that episode.
Amanda: And finally, we wanted to let you know about our Boston live show schedule for May 6th 2020. It is happening virtually now and best news is it's free to register. Anybody can watch it so come hang out with us. It's like a happy hour style so you can make a drink along at home and hang out with us as we learn all about mythological poppers from around the world.
Julia: Yeah. You can get tickets. Again, they're free and they are available at spiritspodcast.com/slash.boston.
Amanda: Or in the description of this episode. So please check out Next Stop. We are so happy about it, so proud of it. It is the Golden Fleece of my heart right now. But without further ado, enjoy Spirits podcast episode 176, Jason and the Argonauts, Myth Movie Night.
Julia: Amanda, I had you watch a movie that I had not seen before but only seen GIFs of.
Amanda: I had realized, Julia, that I had seen so many constituent parts of this movie excerpted and memed on the internet, but seeing them all strung together was a whole other experience.
Julia: I feel like I only saw like GIFs of the last 20 minutes of this film and the rest was just like...
Amanda: I took like a mythology pop culture film studies style like summer course once and it all came flooding back to me of being 16 in Washington Square Park, blah, blah, blah, taking clove cigarettes from cute girls. I think that we did study a couple of these like stills because each of them, like you could put the golden ratio on top of pretty much any image from this movie and it would be a wonderful meme.
Julia: Yeah. So for listeners at home who haven't glanced at our title, we watched Jason and the Argonauts, which is the 1963 film. It was produced by Charles H. Schneer. It was directed by Don Chaffee. And it features the incredible stop motion animation from Ray Harryhausen.
Amanda: I was so surprised over and over again that it was made in 1960.
Julia: I know, right?
Amanda: I'm like, looking back at the history of film, I get that like color talkies were like still perfecting their technology. And this is very much like renaissance, golden era, blah, blah, blah, Hollywood, but it smacked so much to me of like early Hollywood, studio-produced features. Everybody in like the same shade of makeup with plastic armor. It was outstanding. It was just incredible.
Julia: There were so many very, very short tunics. I was like, "How did we not see a dick?"
Amanda: Very short tunics. Also a lot of bananas, which I'm pretty sure Greece didn't have.
Julia: Probably not. I can't speak for the historical accuracy of the fruit that they had involved here, but I'm going to go ahead and say a lot of this was not historically accurate to Ancient Greece.
Amanda: No, not so much but it was extremely fun. So conspirators, we highly recommend you watch it. It is streamable on YouTube for free. So if you want to go do it, go ahead, either before or after this episode. But if you do want to remain spoiler free, skip ahead about two and a half minutes because Julia is about to do our summary.
Julia: So we open on Pelias consulting a soothsayer and soothsayer's like, "Hey, yo, listen. Zeus says you're going to get this kingdom from this other king, King Aristo," not his real name, but that's fine. But like, "Hey, you're going to get it but Zeus will take it away because one of his children will come and get you." And Pelias is like, "Hey, fuck that. I'm going to kill all these kids." And so he starts to do that. Except he kills the daughter who saved her little baby brother Jason in the temple of Hera and Hera's like, "Bitch, that's not cool. We ain't going to live with this."
Amanda: Literally in front of a statue of me that looks exactly like the actress. No, no, no.
Julia: Yeah, desecrated my temple. Not cool. So, Hera is like, "Hey, I'm going to help Jason. He's my boy now." Zeus is like, "You can only help him five times" and she's like, "Fine, whatever." So 20 years later, star wipe, Jason... Hera scares Pelias into a river and then Jason comes and saves him but he loses a sandal in the process, which like the soothsayer told him like, "Oh, you got to watch out for a dude with only one sandal because he's going to bring about your revenge." And so Jason is like, "Hey, I'm going to get the Golden Fleece and I'm going to kick Pelias out of my kingdom." And he's like, "Oh shit, I'm not going to tell him, I'm Pelias and encourage him to go on this mission because he'll definitely die during it."
Julia: Jason's like, "All right, awesome. I'm going to talk to the guys real quick because Hermes picked me up and he's big and I'm little." "Awesome." And Hera's like, "I'm going to help you with your quest." And so he decides to throw a big party and it's like, "Hey, everyone, come compete to be on my ship." They all like go do dumb things and like wrestle and whatnot.
Amanda: Thirty seconds.
Julia: I'm not even like halfway through this plot point at this point. They get on the ship, Hercules and, I don't know, people are there. They go through a bunch of dumb shit. Hercules does something dumb and a dude get stomped to death by Talos. They finally arrived where the Golden Fleece is. They fight a hydra. That's a whole thing. He meets Medea who is hot and also can kind of do magic and then they fall in love and then they have to fight some skeletons. Okay, bye.
Amanda: Excellent. I gave you an additional 15 seconds because of my own interruptions and you came in right on time.
Julia: That's fine. I didn't sum it up well, but don't worry. I'm going to sum up the actual myth for you all.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Because it wouldn't be a good episode of this if we didn't tell the full story of the actual myth because this movie does a very good job in hitting some of the beats and being somewhat historically accurate, but the original myth is so buckwild that we kind of have to talk about it, Amanda.
Amanda: I have a cup of tea here with a little bit of whiskey in it. I am completely ready.
Julia: Hell yeah, bring it on. The story of Jason and the Argonauts is more often known as the Quest for the Golden Fleece, obviously, because that's what they're going for. It is most famously told as an epic poem. It was made famous by the third century poet Apollonius of Rhodes, and then the poets Pindar and Euripides expanded the story in the fifth century.
Julia: May I just say that saying of Rhodes is such a wonderfully, over the top thing and I feel like if I were ever had to lie to somebody about my name and where I'm from in bars, like you do sometimes, and just be like, "Oh, yes. I am Alexandria of Rhodes." It'd be like, "Ooh, I love that so much."
Amanda: Yeah, no, I like the... What's it? I feel like there's a word for it. It's like of blah, blah, blah.
Julia: I know. It's not appendage but it's something like that.
Amanda: Yeah, they use it for like food. I'm like hyped up. Let's talk about Greek mythology.
Julia: Yeah. The story begins with the Greek King Athamas, who was married to a woman named Nephele and they had two children. So that included a son named Phrixus. So already, we're getting like much more background information than the movie provides. There's like a whole thing we're getting like how the fleece came into being. So eventually, Athamas grew bored of his wife and sent her into exile like you do.
Amanda: No, don't do that.
Julia: Marrying a woman named Ino instead, so Nephele is worried that in order to secure her spot and her children's legacy, Ino is going to try and kill her son Phrixus. And of course, she's right about that. Ino wants to kill Phrixus and comes up with this super elaborate plan to kill him. She basically manages to ruin all of the seeds in the kingdom before they're planted so it soon becomes clear that there's going to be no harvest.
Amanda: Oh fuck.
Julia: So King Athamas sends a messenger to the oracle to see how they can please the gods in order to have their harvest grow. But Ino bribes the messenger to never actually go to the oracle and instead to return saying that the oracle advised them to offer Phrixus up as a sacrifice.
Amanda: Damn, there is something really heretical about lying about what an oracle says.
Julia: Yeah, it's bad.
Amanda: It feels like an unwritten rule of mythology and The Matrix that you can disobey an oracle, but you sure as shit can't lie about what the oracle says.
Julia: Listen, it's all bad.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: You should never do anything bad in Greek mythology because it will come back to bite you in the ass, no matter what. So the people who were starving, they forced the king's hand and he agrees to the sacrifice. Nephele obviously praying to the gods that her child will be spared. And on the day of the sacrifice, a ram with Golden Fleece snatches up Phrixus and his sister from the altar, and flies them away on Hermes' orders. Good job, Hermes. Excellent work.
Amanda: Nice.
Julia: In flight, however, the sister falls off the ram and she drowns. But Phrixus is delivered to the country of Colchis and their king allows Phrixus to marry one of his daughters. For this kindness, Phrixus then sacrifices the ram that saved him to Zeus and gives the wondrous Golden Fleece to the Colchian king.
Amanda: Okay, this is all in its own logic right.
Julia: Star wipe, back to Greece, where Phrixus has this uncle who should be king, but has been usurped by his nephew named Pelias. Getting back into the actual story that we see in the movie.
Amanda: If Shakespeare has taught me anything, it's that if you're a king, never have nephews.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: That's just the whole thing.
Julia: Never let your siblings have children.
Amanda: Sure. Seems appropriate.
Julia: So the king had a son that should have been his heir, Jason, but Jason has been sent away so that he can be out of reach of his wicked cousin.
Amanda: There we go.
Julia: So he ends up being raised by Chiron, the center who trained a bunch of different heroes. We've talked about Chiron on the show before.
Amanda: And yet every time I'm like, "Okay, inexplicable center professor. Okay."
Julia: I love him. So Pelias consults an oracle, like we saw at the beginning of the film, to make sure that he would be able to keep the throne, but the Oracle tells him that he would die at the hands of a kinsman and that he should be wary of anyone he should meet who only wore one sandal. A classic sign.
Amanda: Yeah, like people didn't lose their sandals. Those things look like they would slide off if you stepped on a pebble.
Julia: Yeah, no, it's a... The classic Greek sandal kind of had wrappings around the ankle, so it shouldn't fall off easily.
Amanda: That's true. In the movie, it was more like just a flip flop.
Julia: It was kind of just a flip flop. So many years later, Jason, he's been kicking it with Chiron. He's been training. He hears that Pelias is holding some sort of games in order to honor Poseidon so he decides to go and take part in it. So he makes his way over to the kingdom, but on the way he has to cross a river. He also comes across an old woman who's unable to cross said river on her own, so he helps her across on his back. In this instance, it's not Pelias who he saves from the river but rather the old lady. The woman blesses him for helping her and surprise, she's actually Hera in disguise.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And then Jason makes his way into the city. And Jason, Jason's looking good, Amanda.
Amanda: I was just going to say, if there isn't Jason-Hercules fanfic, I am going to quit.
Julia: So here's a quote from Edith Hamilton's translations of the story which I took most of my notes from.
Amanda: Oh fuck, yeah.
Julia: "One foot was bare, although in all other ways he was well-clad. A garment fitting close to his splendid limbs and around his shoulders, a leopard skin to turn the showers. He had not shorn the bright locks of his hair. They ran rippling down his back."
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: Oh. Thank you.
Amanda: We have ourselves a stud.
Julia: Yep, he's just mad hot. So everyone immediately starts gossiping. They're saying he must be one of Poseidon kids, or maybe he's Apollo himself, or maybe he's one of Aphrodite lovers, but Pelias hears this and he hears about the one sandal and he freaks out.
Amanda: I think this is a real opportunity for bonding with your friends that we have lost in this modern age, TMTM, which is imagine like three drinks in at happy hour, you turn to your friend and you're like, "I think he is Poseidon." Like imagine if that was an option.
Julia: I think he's just so hot that he has to be Apollo.
Amanda: If somebody was so hot or wily or successful that you're like, "Listen, no other explanation. She must be Hera in disguise."
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative). No, I love it.
Amanda: I love it.
Julia: So Pelias comes to where Jason is and he demands that Jason tell him who he is and Jason's like, "Sup, I'm your kin. I'm here to take back what's mine" and Pelias is like, "Okay, you seem like a cocky motherfucker. So here's the deal. If you bring back the Golden Fleece, I'll step down and I'll give you back the kingdom. No fight needed." And Jason loves this idea. He is young, he is hot, he is a himbo and he loves adventure so he agrees.
Amanda: Now, is the Golden Fleece the thing to get just because it's proof that he is who he says he is or is it like inherently valuable?
Julia: So it is inherently valuable because it does have the story attached to it. And it also is attached to Pelias and Jason's bloodline, but the Golden Fleece in itself was a symbol of authority and kingship.
Amanda: Okay, so like a relic that you want.
Julia: Yes. So Jason loving this idea about an adventure. A call goes out basically saying, "Hey, heroes. If you want adventure, come hang out with me, Jason." So a bunch of heroes ended up coming and joining the Argonauts, which is the name of his crew because of Argo is the ship and Argus is the man who made the ship because they... The whole thing. They named it after him.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So here is the list of heroes that ended up joining the Argonauts. Some of them vary depending on who's telling the story. So I have an alphabetical list. Here we go. So there's Acatus, Admetus, Argus, the guy who built the ship, Atalanta who is the only lady, Augeas, Zetes & Calaïs who are known as the Boreads because they're the son of the Northern Wind, Castor & Polydeuces who were twin half brothers, Euphemus, Heracles aka Hercules, Idas, Idmon who is a seer, Lynceus, Meleager, Orpheus, the guy with the lyre and the hot wife that he left in the underworld.
Amanda: In the la la la la la la la.
Julia: Yes. Peleus who's Achilles dad, Philoctetes, not the satyr from the Hercules movie, Telamon and Typhus who is the helmsman.
Amanda: Now, Julia, can we please return to the concept of twin half brothers? I need to know.
Julia: We can. Hold on, I'll explain the story in just a second.
Amanda: Also, it sounds like a hot time. There's a lady, there's a dad and everybody else is like young and down to fuck.
Julia: Yes, everyone is very, very hot. I wish that Atalanta played a bigger role in the story because she really doesn't but she is very cool on her own.
Amanda: I mean, also, I'm assuming that's who the Atlantic Ocean's named after which is pretty dope.
Julia: To the first point, Amanda, the Atlantic Sea or the Atlantic Ocean got its name and it's derived from the Sea of Atlantis.
Amanda: Oh fuck, that's also pretty mettle, though. I never put that together.
Julia: It's pretty legit. And so Castor and Polydeuces who are also known as Castor and Pollux in Roman mythology, so their mom was Leda but they had two separate dads. So Castor was the mortal son of the king of Sparta and then Pollux or Polydeuces was the divine son of Zeus.
Amanda: And it's certainly possible for fraternal twins to theoretically be fertilized by different sperm so rock on.
Julia: That happens in cats a lot. I know that much. Not the musical, real cats.
Amanda: I'm like, Julia, I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of sex in the movie Cats.
Julia: Oh, there's not but God, there should have been. Anyway. We have all of these heroes and it is said that Hera was the one that stirred the desire for adventure in each of them so that they would feel compelled to join the quest.
Amanda: I love that.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Like a snow globe that someone just has to kind of tip over and then you're just like, "Fuck yeah, I'm ready."
Julia: Fuck, yeah, let's do it. So they're on the ship. The first island that they land on is the Island of Lemnos, which was an island where only women lived.
Amanda: Great.
Julia: Yeah. The women had all risen up and killed all the men except for their old king, who his daughter floated away in a hollow chest after she became their ruler.
Amanda: Damn.
Julia: Yeah, so that's cool. But even though the women were fierce, they welcomed the Argonauts. They gave them food and wine and then allowed them to sail away. There's also like a whole side plot where Jason fathers twins with the queen, and then Heracles gets pissed and he's like, "I want to leave even" though he had plenty of affairs with a bunch of different people.
Amanda: I mean, it sounds like a really smart way to get some more genetic material into this population, so rock on.
Julia: Yeah, supposedly, the myth goes that they created their own weird line of not quite human children because of that. It's complicated.
Amanda: There's a lot to unpack there. Let's just put it in a chest and sail it away.
Julia: So the irony of Heracles being super mad about them staying too long in this island is that they actually lose Heracles from the voyage not too long after that. So Heracles had this armor bearer named Hylas, who we see in the movie.
Amanda: Iorek Byrnison.
Julia: Yes. We see him in the film. He's not associated with Heracles before this in the film, but Heracles and he get along really well in the movie version. But Hylas was also, fun fact, Heracles' lover. But Hylas goes to one of the islands that they land on that they stopped at for water, and he is accidentally drowned by a water nymph who saw him while he was drawing water from the spring. It was like I want to kiss that and so she threw her arms around his neck and drew him into the deep water and he disappeared.
Amanda: Wow, he was drowned for being too hot.
Julia: Too hot. Yeah, kind of like Narcissus but less egotistical.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: But Heracles is then driven mad and start searching the forest for Hylas, forgetting all about the quest. To the point where the other Argonauts have to leave him behind.
Amanda: Oh, so sad.
Julia: Yeah, it's very gay pining.
Amanda: I mean, is there any other kind?
Julia: Yeah, that's true. Next big fight is with the harpies which, again, we saw in the film. So they came across an island where there's a man named Phineus and Phineus was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo but the skill annoyed Zeus. He's like, "This guy shouldn't have that power. That seems fucking dumb." So Zeus every time before Phineus would eat sent the harpies to defile the food that the man was going to eat so that it was so foul that no one could bear to go near it, much less eat it.
Amanda: That's brutal, Zeus.
Julia: Yeah, it's fucking rough, man. Luckily for Phineus, he had seen that there was going to be two men that would save him from the harpies. And those are the Boreads, which is Zetes and Calais, the sons of the Northern Wind.
Amanda: Incredible.
Julia: So these two guys, they go. They're ready to kill these harpies and they're fighting with them and then ready to strike them down. But then the messenger goddess Iris appears and tells them that they're forbade from killing the harpies, but also promised on the River Styx that they would never bother Phineus again. Yeah.
Amanda: Women know their word.
Julia: There we go.
Amanda: Side note. Really love the name Iris.
Julia: Yeah, it's so good, right? I love Iris. She's so forgotten in Greek mythology and she deserves to be talked about more. So Phineus is really thankful for the help of the Argonauts and thus he gives them advice for their voyage, because the next thing that they're going to face is the clashing rocks, which has a very fancy Greek name that I can't pronounce. He gives them advice that if they sent a dove and it managed to pass through the clashing rocks without being crushed, they would be able to follow but if the dove was crushed, they would have to give up their quest for the Golden Fleece forever. Like you do.
Amanda: Okay. I mean, too bad for the dove. But all in all, I think pretty smart.
Julia: Right. So the Argonauts do what they're told and the dove is sent out and it flies and ducks and weaves and it makes it through the rocks. But the tail feathers of the dove get caught at the very end. So the Argonauts-
Amanda: Like Poe Dameron.
Julia: The Argonauts take this as a good sign. They follow the dove as quickly as possible through and much like the dove, only the stern's ornament is torn off, but they managed to proceed safely.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Julia: Yeah. So when the ship passes through as well, the rocks slam together and permanently stay that way in place so that they can no longer harm any other sailor.
Amanda: Pretty good. Pretty good.
Julia: Yeah. Not bad, not bad. At this point. We haven't met Medea yet because what the movie has is she gets rescued from the wreckage of a ship that wasn't able to make it through the clashing rocks. But in this case, we haven't met her yet because she becomes important later. So they end up passing the island of the Amazons and the version of the story points out that the Amazons were the daughters of Aries and the nymph Harmony. Did you know that? Fun fact.
Julia: However, the winds are fair and the Argonauts seized the chance to continue on their quest rather than stopping on the island. And because the winds remained fair and they did not stop, they arrived in Colchis finally, the land of the Golden Fleece, before sunset that night.
Amanda: If this was a cruise, I would take it because getting to go to Lemnos and the Amazons' island in the same journey is a privilege I would pay for.
Julia: Yeah, well, you wave at the Amazon island as you go by. But still, right.
Amanda: I respect their sanctity, that's fine.
Julia: The the story makes the whole point of being like, "Well, if they had stopped on the Amazon island, they would have had to fight the Amazons and then that would have been a really bloody battle. And not all the Argonauts would have made it." I was like, "Hell yeah, they probably wouldn't have."
Amanda: Hell yeah. God, the Amazon's so good.
Julia: And Amanda, I will tell you a little bit more about Medea and how she enters into the story but first, let's get a refill.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Julia: Amanda, I have been in need of vitamins. I need my vitamin D. I need to make sure that I'm eating properly and then I'm getting all of the stuff that my body needs and thankfully, Care/of makes that super easy. So Care/of can make taking your vitamins and supporting your health goals attainable. They have an easy online quiz that helps you find the vitamins and powders that will help support your specific health goals like improving your fitness routine or managing stress. I need help with both of those right now. And really, all you have to do is answer a few questions about your diet, your health goals and lifestyle, and then Care/of will recommend a list of vitamins and supplements that will specifically help with those.
Julia: The vitamin aisle can be super confusing. It's hard to know what you need and where to start. So all you have to do is answer questions like how much sleep Do you get at night? How often do you work out? Do you follow any specialty diets? Do you have concerns about your hair or your skin or your nail health? As a result, you just follow Care/of's expert recommendations or you can adjust your packet any time. What you receive is totally up to you and everything that they send you straight to your door comes in individual eco-friendly packs that are made from compostable films, and there's a ton of info on how to compost them on Care/of site. So sometimes I get compostable stuff and I'm like, "I don't know what to do with this."
Amanda: Do I just bury it? What do I do?
Julia: Do I just like put it in a pot and like hope for the best? But no, they tell you how to take care of it.
Amanda: And Care/of is offering 50% off your first order at takecareof.com with the code spirits50.
Julia: Yeah, so use the code spirits50 at takecareof.com and you're going to get 50% off your first Care/of order.
Amanda: Thanks, Care/of.
Julia: Amanda, I feel like I have a lot more time nowadays. And I am taking those opportunities to kind of reconnect with skills that I feel like I've lost in the past. And thankfully, I have Skillshare to help with that.
Amanda: I know. I'm like I used to at one point know how to close a dumpling and I forgot. So being able to brush up on stuff like that, and take a little time to make something really cool is a really nice way to kind of spend your time.
Julia: Yeah, and I've been taking this class through Skillshare by Mari Andrew. It's called Drawing as Self-Discovery: 5 Ways to Start.
Amanda: Ooh!
Julia: It's nice to journal but also let out some creative energy by drawing and being able to kind of reassess how I'm doing mentally. And I feel like that's been helping with my therapy a lot too. So I really appreciated Mari's class from Skillshare. Skillshare is a great way to stay inspired. It's a great way to express yourself and connect with a community of creatives. I totally recommend everyone go and explore their creativity at skillshare.com/spirits2 where our listeners get two free months of Skillshare Premium. That's two months free at skillshare.com/spirits2 where you can learn to explore new skills or deepen existing passions.
Amanda: And finally, Julia, we are sponsored this week by Feals. Now I started about a year and a half ago using CBD to help with my insomnia. It is a really helpful way and part of my bedtime routine now to, in my experience, make sure that I don't have trouble falling back asleep if I wake up in the middle of the night. And it's really just helpful in terms of stress relief, in terms of getting the sleep that I need. And also just knowing when I fall asleep like I don't have to get nervous by getting into bed because it's something that really genuinely helps with my insomnia.
Amanda: But it can also be really hard to kind of get to know like what is CBD, how do you use it, like what dosage is right? There's like different strengths and everything like that. So I appreciate that Feels makes it really easy to get started and help you feel better sooner. So they have a free CBD hotline that can help guide you through the discovery process and they also have a membership program so it helps you kind of know what to get at what cadence. It's hassle-free. It gets delivered right to your house or your money back. It's that simple.
Julia: Yeah. So you can become a member today by going to feals.com/spirits and you'll get 50% off your first order with free shipping. So that's F-E-A-L-S .com/spirits to become a member and get 50% off automatically taken off your first order with free shipping. feals.com/spirits.
Amanda: It's easy to take. You have real human support if you have questions and it can help you feel better. So that is feals.com/spirits. And now let's get back to the show.
Julia: Now Amanda, I know you're rocking the whiskey and tea combo very nice, solid choice but I was feeling something a little bit more like brunchy but also desserty.
Amanda: So good. I always want us a sweet treat with my breakfast.
Julia: So I went with a cocktail aptly named the Golden Dream. So it's a little bit of cream, a little bit of orange juice, a little bit of orange liqueur, I used Cointreau and a little bit of Galliano liqueur which is a like sweet herbal Italian liqueur. Highly recommended if you want a little bit of like sweetness but also like a little bit of thyme flavor. I think it's a really nice combo for adding complexity to sometimes one-note cocktails.
Amanda: It also looks like rainbow sherbet which is amazing.
Julia: It does, it does. It looks like the homemade limoncello that Jake and I make.
Amanda: But please, tell me more about Medea. I'm dying to know who she is.
Julia: Absolutely. Another star swipe, back to Olympus. Oh shit is going down up there. Hera is extremely nervous about Jason's ability to succeed and so she goes to Aphrodite for help and Aphrodite and Hera, usually not on great terms and Aphrodite is pretty surprised by Hera's plead for help and she agrees to do whatever she can. So she sends Cupid to make the daughter of the Colchian king fall in love with Jason.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: And this daughter is named Medea. And not only is she gorgeous, but she's also extremely skilled in magic.
Amanda: Fuck, yeah, man.
Julia: Yeah, in the film, they have her and the rest of the Colchians worshiping Hecate but I couldn't find anything about that in the translation of the text that I was reading. So I'm not sure how accurate that is. But Hecate was the goddess of magic so it would make sense.
Amanda: Maybe like many high school productions of Macbeth, you just cut all the Hecate shit because that's too long for a play.
Julia: It's just like three scenes that are so unnecessary to the plot.
Amanda: I mean, maybe looking back, they're dope but at least that's what happened with our production and many of them that I've seen.
Julia: No, no, it's dope. I'm not going to say that Hecate isn't dope, but I don't think it impacts the plot at all.
Amanda: Yeah, it feels very much like the actors have to make custom changes kind of scene.
Julia: Yeah, for sure. So meanwhile, the Argonauts have arrived at the Colchian palace. They were hidden by Hera in a thick fog, so no one bothered them on their way there. And then the king saw them immediately and treated them as guests. Medea came to see the visitors and instantly fell in love with Jason because of Cupid's arrow.
Amanda: I was going to say, just like she was struck by Cupid, but yep, this is ancient Greece so she was.
Julia: Quite literally. So the Argonauts were allowed to bathe and eat and then the king asked who they were and what they were doing there. Jason speaks pretty plainly and explains like, "Hey, we're here for the fleece" and that enrages the king. He legit thinks in the story, "If these strangers had not eaten at my table, I would kill them."
Amanda: Dang.
Julia: But hospitality is very important in Greek mythology so he can't do that. But instead, he states that Jason and the Argonauts have to prove themselves in a trial of courage to show that they deserve the Golden Fleece. Awesome.
Amanda: Is this the Olympics?
Julia: It is not the Olympics but solid guess. So he sets a trial, the Argonauts would have to yoke two bulls who had feet made of bronze and breathed fire in order to plow a field. And then in that field, they would have to plant the teeth of a dragon. And then when those teeth were planted, they would spring out of the ground as an army, and then the Argonauts would have to fight them.
Amanda: Damn, Julia, this is a like master level set up your own demise kind of scheme.
Julia: Yeah, so Jason's like, "Damn, that sounds hard. But I came all this way. So I'm going to go ahead and do that all myself" even though the Argonauts are like, "No, please, let us help you." But he's like, "Nah, I came all this way. I have to prove myself and I'm going to do this on my own."
Amanda: Just him and his mane.
Julia: Yeah. Meanwhile, one of the king's grandsons came to Jason and was like, "Hey, here's the thing. Medea is great at magic, she can do anything." So Jason went to ask Medea for help. And then Medea is already completely smitten with him so she agrees. And she makes him an ointment that would protect him from the oxen's flames. And she also warns him that he would not be able to defeat the dragon soldiers on his own. So she advises him when he's faced off against them, that he should throw a rock into the crowd of them and the soldiers would be unable to figure out where the rock came from. And so they would fight among themselves, allowing Jason to just be like, "All right, I did it."
Amanda: That is a very good idea.
Julia: Yeah, and so that's exactly what he does. When the flames of the oxen try to burn him, the ointment allows him to not feel it at all. When the soldiers spring up out of the ground, he just like lobs a big stone at them. They're like who threw that then started fighting among themselves. And he's like, "Here I am."
Amanda: This makes the Triwizard Tournament feel a lot less inventive.
Julia: Yes, as it should. J.K. Rowling stole everything from mythology. Anyway, the Colchian king is extremely pissed but Hera in a dream had convinced Medea that she had to run away with Jason. So Medea comes to him in the middle of the night and brought him to where the Golden Fleece was protected by a dragon. So she sings a song to the beast, it falls into a deep sleep. Again, this is just the plot of Harry Potter. It allows Jason to steal the fleece from the tree it was hanging upon. And then Jason promises that when they return to Greece, he would marry her. And with that, the Argonauts just get the fuck out of Colchis.
Julia: Stars wipe. Stars wipe. The Colchian king is nothing so easily beat. He sends his son and his armies to try and stop the band of heroes. And once again, they are saved by Medea who ends up killing her brother. So there's two different versions of the story. One where she sends word to her brother that she's going to return the fleece and that he should meet her in a solitary second location. And instead of her being there, it's Jason and he kills him.
Amanda: No.
Julia: There's another version where she kills her brother herself and she cuts his body into pieces and then tosses them in the water so that the ships following them have to stop and pick up his body and therefore, slows their pursuit down enough that the Argo can get away.
Amanda: Wow, brutal, but like self-preservation, I guess.
Julia: Yeah, seriously, and like she's still completely, magically smitten because of Cupid's arrow and stuff and she has this thought in her head from Hera that she needs to go with Jason, so.
Amanda: Hera sucks. That's the thing we don't talk about very much.
Julia: No, Hera is good. Hara deserves better. All of the women in this story deserve better, Amanda.
Amanda: That's true. Hera is brutal and deserves better.
Julia: Yes. So they returned to Greece. One of the stops on the way, they are again saved by Medea. On Crete, she warns them of a man named Talos who is completely made of bronze except for his ankle. We saw this in the film as well, except they fight him on the way there rather than on the way back. When Talos comes and threatens to crush them with giant rocks, because he is again as a giant man made out of bronze, he picks up a boulder and then Medea kneels down and prays to the hounds of Hades to come and destroy Talos. So Talos is picking up this boulder but as he's doing so, he scrapes his ankle and then bleeds to death, which leaves the island safe for the Argonauts to land and restock and refuel.
Amanda: That's even more dramatic than Achilles' heel.
Julia: Yeah, it's super dramatic because he's just a giant bronze man.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: There are also the story of sirens. Again, this is depending on who is telling the story, which poet is writing it. The sirens sang beautiful songs that enticed sailors to drown themselves attempting to reach them. But instead, Orpheus saves the crew by playing a song that is both louder and more beautiful than the sirens' song, which allows them all to pass safely.
Amanda: La la la la la la.
Julia: La la la la la la. Finally, Amanda. They arrive back in Greece, but it is not a happy homecoming. Pelias has killed Jason's father, his mother has died in grief. Jason begs Medea to help in exacting revenge against Pelias and she comes up with a super clever way to do so. The translation calls it clever. I think it's fucking brutal, but you can be the judge.
Julia: She tells Pelias' daughters that she has the ability to turn the old young again. She demonstrates by turning an old ram into a lamb by cutting up the ram and then boiling it in water and then saying a spell over it and then a lamb just like hops out of the boiling water.
Amanda: Isn't life so much more fun when we let magic happen and don't persecute it? That's just my take.
Julia: So the daughters are like, "Damn, that's really cool. Okay, so we have to cut up our dad but then he'll be young forever? That kind of sounds a little rough, but okay, we'll do it."
Amanda: Oh man.
Julia: So they go and they do that. And they put the pieces in the water like Medea says, and they turn around and they say, "Okay, do your thing" but Medea is gone. She's just not there anymore.
Amanda: Fuck!
Julia: She has just left and they're like, "Oh shit, we just murdered our dad, huh?"
Amanda: No!
Julia: So Medea helps Jason get his revenge. And Medea has done all these things that have saved all of the Argonauts and saved Jason's life and all of this stuff. And then Jason, they get back to Greece. They have two kids together and then he just completely fucks her, Amanda. He goes and he gets married to the king of Corinth's daughter in order to solidify an alliance.
Amanda: Boo.
Julia: And Medea, obviously, is rightfully pissed about this and says something at the wedding to the king of Corinth basically implying like, "Hey, your daughter kind of fucked me and I'm going to get my revenge." And the king of Corinth is like, "No, you're not" and banishes her and her two kids.
Amanda: Boo.
Julia: So she's got to leave the country and she's thinking all about all the shit that Jason made her do and what she did in her love. And then Jason shows up and tells her, "Oh, you were being so foolish and you're uncontrollable and you should be grateful because I'm the only reason you weren't executed for your threats. And you're going to be so lucky because I'm going to make sure you have the gold you need in order to leave this country. Don't worry, I got this for you."
Amanda: After a journey that should instead be called Medea and the Himbos, the fact that he treats her this way is objectionable.
Julia: So I'm going to go ahead and let Medea do the talking in terms of how she responds to him. Again, this is from Edith Hamilton's translation of the story. So it is, "You come to me, to me of all the race of men, yet it is well you came, for I shall ease the burden of my heart if I can make your baseness manifest. I saved you. Every man in Greece knows that. The bulls, the dragon men, the serpent warder of the fleece, I conquered them. I made you victor. I held the light that saved you. Father and home, I left them for a strange country. I overthrew your foes contrived for Pelias the worst of deaths. Now you forsake me. Where shall I go? Back to my father's house, to Pelias' daughters? I have become for you the enemy of all. Myself, I have no quarrel with them. O, I have had in you a loyal husband to be admired of men. An exile now, oh god, oh god, no one to help. I am alone."
Amanda: Damn, that's powerful.
Julia: Yeah, so just like fucking crushing him, calling him out on all of his bullshit. And so Jason just retorts like, "Oh, well, it was really Aphrodite who saved me because she made you fall in love with me. And it wasn't you yourself?"
Amanda: No, I mean, it wasn't her choice to have that motivation instilled in her but all that shit was her cunning and her power.
Julia: Exactly. So Medea is rightfully pissed. She says, "Fuck your gold. I don't need it." And so she sets herself on the path of revenge, because what else would you do if you're a woman in this situation? You get revenge. So she's going to kill Jason's new bride. So what she does is she takes her most beautiful robe from her chest of things that she brought from Colchis and she covers it in a deadly poison, which she then sends her sons to bring to the new bride. The new bride accepts the gift and puts it on immediately. And no sooner does she do so that her skin erupts in fire and melts away and she drops dead.
Amanda: She probably also deserves better.
Julia: Probably also deserves better, but like, God. Everyone should know better in this story. So Medea knows that she won't be able to remain in that country for much longer. And by the time that Jason comes to accuse her of the murder, she is on the roof of her house on a chariot drawn by dragons and she disappears into the night. And Edith Hamilton puts it really distinctly. They carried her away through the air out of Jason's sight as he cursed her. Never himself for what had come to pass."
Amanda: Fuck, yeah. Oh man, so good and bad. Everything about this is good and terrible.
Julia: Yeah. So that is the story of the Quest of the Golden Fleece. I think Jason and the Argonauts did a fairly good job. We get none of the like epic drama of the return and the conflict between Jason and Medea. And we also don't get to see Medea being like super cool. But I really do think that the movie did a good job kind of capturing the essence of the story. And really, just like the effects for their time period are really, really cool. I think one of my favorite scenes in the film is when they're going through the clashing rocks, and they juxtaposed it so that like the ship is sailing, but they also filmed a man dressed as Triton holding a bunch of rocks up and like he has a fish tail. It's great. It's a really fun movie.
Amanda: I really liked some of the early flashbacks where I think someone just like dropped a drop in water and like films the ripples or had like smoke filling a room or something. And it was just really wonderfully layered. It was extremely entertaining, but also effective.
Julia: Yeah, seriously. So Amanda, what do you think of the Jason story as a whole?
Amanda: Well, it sounds like we are overdue for a big budget Hollywood adaptation of the story of Medea because fuck Jason. Also, that part of the story is so much less interesting than the other half. Yeah, seriously.
Julia: I think it's so interesting when we look at a lot of the stories of like the Greek adventures, of the Greek journeys and stuff like that. There's always a lot of island hopping. I was reading the Edith Hamilton version of the story and she spends a lot of time at the beginning talking about like, there were no roads at this point. Like traveling across land was like no one did that. So here's the quote. "It was of course a journey by water. Rivers, lakes and seas were the only highways. There were no roads. All the same, a Voyager had to face perils, not only on the deep but on the land as well. Ships did not sail by night, and any place where soldiers put in might harbor a monster or a magician who could work more deadly harm than storm and shipwreck. High courage was necessary to travel, especially outside of Greece."
Amanda: Amazing. That really does paint a very, very good picture.
Julia: Yeah. And like it's very evocative of all the other classic quests and journeys in Greek mythology. You think of the Odyssey again, they're island hopping place to place to place to get to the Trojan War and then to get back from the Trojan War, and it's like-
Amanda: Getting back is not better than leaving.
Julia: Yes. No, it never is but I do love the idea of it's such like a good TV format, where it's like episode Monster of the Week. We're on this island and we're fighting Talos, the giant bronze man. And then this week, we have to make our way through the clashing rocks and oop, we got to save Phineus from the harpies. I love how you can tell that these stories were either told all at once or were told nightly being like, "Oh, where did we leave off last? Oh, yes. Phineus and the harpies. Well, next we go, finally, to the clashing rocks."
Amanda: I love that analogy. And I think when I was younger trying to read the Odyssey or the Iliad, it almost felt distracting. "Why are we spending so much time on this fucking mermaid, on this fucking siren, like whatever it is? I want to know what happens." But knowing that context that it's like every night or in the morning in the evening or like stretched out over a long banquet or something or on the road, but you're kind of telling this little bit by little bit, and the journey is as pleasurable as the ending.
Julia: Yeah, exactly. And I think that it really says something to the way that oral storytelling, the way that it was done is kind of forgotten and we kind of think of these as like, "Oh man, it's a long ass epic poem." Yeah, maybe they did recite it over an extremely long banquet but more likely, they were told in little bits and pieces to have audiences come back and keep listening.
Amanda: It's amazing and I think one of the examples where historical context, like it so often does, makes things richer and not better necessarily, right? Not the way it "should be experienced," like nobody's telling you, you have to say all this stuff out loud, but that would be a very good Zoom, Hangout, I think, to have a standing date of just reading Edith Hamilton's version of the story over and over again to your friends.
Amanda: Julia, your face is very excited. But in any case, it is helpful to know how things came about because then you can appreciate or pick and choose or contextualize the ways that you can enjoy it now.
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that this movie and also our retelling of it just proves that these stories have a real shelf life. They can last forever and we can keep telling these stories over and over and over again. And clearly, we have.
Amanda: Yeah, like there are echoes of this in sort of Dungeons and Dragons, right? Like the whole idea of you meet on a tavern on a nighttime stop on a bigger journey or your caravan is attacked like there are in so many modules. It's just kind of like story beats and ideas of hubris and revenge and like the extremely real and very depressing plight of women who give everything to support a man and then because of title, law, property, hubris, power are left with nothing at the end of it. It's such a distinct story on its own and yet, every single part of it is evocative of other stuff.
Julia: Yeah, like half of those stories that I told about, like the islands that they stopped out, Amanda, we obviously could have like... we've heard of all those outside of the context of Jason and the Golden Fleece, which is it's fascinating on its own because it just means like how much these stick into society's mind.
Amanda: Absolutely. It's like a crossover network TV special where it's like, "Oh, that guy. Oh that guy's here."
Julia: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: "Oh she's here."
Julia: I love the crossover specials. Shout out to-
Amanda: A dragon, why not?
Julia: Shout out to the CW of Arrowverse shows that all cross over every season.
Amanda: Truly. Well, thank you for bringing this story. I really appreciated it and I look forward to you reading more of this book to me over time.
Julia: Oh, baby. Let's do it.
Amanda: And remember
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.