Apollonius of Rhodes

The Penguin Epics snippet from The Voyage of the Argo by Apollonius of Rhodes is superb. Jason and the Golden Fleece retells the narrative from the Argonauts arrival at the kingdom of Amycus through to Jason's completion of the task set by the keeper of the Fleece, Aeetes. The tale is everything that could be asked for from an Epic - the action is terrific, the romance believable and emotional, and the historical setting vividly conjured.

One of the elements of Jason that works well is that show more it is not just about the lead character. A few of the Argonauts crop up regularly and while Jason is clearly the lead hero, his is a band of followers that merit their own characters. As they are not faceless, their actions and roles impact on the rest of the team. The deaths of two characters early on in this snippet plunges the Argonauts into grief. Too often elsewhere, the death of a comrade has no real meaning but here such depth of feeling demonstrates a kinship worth being a part of.

The action sequences are great from the very beginning of the snippet when Argonaut Polydeuces takes on King Amycus in a boxing match. While this is not a blow-by-blow account, it is a great rendition of martial sport told by a writer who clearly understood what he was talking about. Apollonius is also wise to include the gods but to not deliver them an automaticity in that they too are striving for success. This is a useful reminder of the Greek understanding of the world in that reliance on divine intervention alone could not be enough for success.

Romance is not always easy but Apollonius hits some terrific notes between Medea and Jason. His depiction of the passion that Medea holds within her after Eros has hit her with love's arrow is highly believable. Medea finds herself in a very familiar female quandry - the powerful but dangerous stranger is the person she is drawn to. The steps she takes to move from the obligation she has to her family and the self-doubt it inspires make for such a rich and impressive character. The conflict between loyalty and love makes each step of her rebellion a difficult choice for Medea. To a great extent Medea is the star of this particular snippet.

The morality of Jason is relatively simple. Good deeds performed without desire for personal gain are rewarded while the arrogant are not. The soothsayer Phineus is the embodiment of this. It transpires that he slightly arrogantly took his foresight too far and failed to show due respect to Zeus who punished him harshly. He was otherwise a good man and the Argonauts provide him with the greatest reward which is release from his curse. One other character who had supported Phineus prior to the Argonauts arrival is also rewarded.

With any epic, the place and culture matter just as much as the tale and the key at the back of the book helps slightly though it would still require further information to really get to grips with where and who. The snippet does though get the balance right between having enough names to capture the imagination without delving into lists. Apollonius gives lineage to most characters and the places he describes are identifiable enough to be traceable for a modern reader. Older legends are touched on such as the battles between the gods for supremacy as well as tales from the outer reaches of Greek knowledge such as the Caucasian mountains. This is an old tale though and it is really fascinating to catch glimpses of people that affect later stories.

Jason and the Golden Fleece is a snippet from the epic and the only negative that can truly be felt is that it leaves the reader wanting the rest. show less

Okay, this was surprisingly good! I haven't really liked much of the ancient greek the class I'm reading these for has assigned, but this one caught me off guard!

I was a little hesitant going in since Hunter literally says in the preface "no one... is more conscious than I am of the failings of my translation"... Umm, cmon dude have a little confidence? It's a prose translation, so it's not accurate to the original metered verse, but as a non-scholar I didn't really mind that. Obviously show more when changing the form of a work this drastically you need to take some liberties, but I felt it was entirely adequate and much easier to read than the other epic poems that my professor has assigned. On top of that, I actually enjoyed it instead of slogging along-- this was a story I was unfamiliar with, and I found myself actively avoiding spoilers, for a work written thousands of years ago! I hesitate to use the word "riveting" but this was the closest classical literature to a page-turner I've ever read. This edition also has maps in the front, and it's really funny to watch how bad these guys are at navigation, but the overall effect is sort of like reading a high-fantasy novel that's set in a familiar location, so that's cool too.

A lot of people seemed to not like Jason's character but I found him a lot more interesting than Heracles for example. He's a lot more human, and this makes for a more realistic story. I wouldn't say he's relatable but the emotional journey was a lot more believable than some of the older Greek works (and I understand that this is a sort of aggregation of things written centuries before so that plays a role in its sophistication). Medea was obviously my favorite character, I found myself sympathizing with her the most throughout, and her speech on Drepane was quite powerful. I felt really bad for her, she deserved so much better!

So yeah that gets me to the failings of this poem, which are pretty common to the Greek I've read, which is listing people and misogyny lol. There's quite a bit of just listing names that contemporary readers would be familiar with, and it got frustrating to the point that I would just skip over those sections and figure out who's who later. This was made worse by the fact that the footnotes were all at the end instead of the bottom of each page, and I just didn't feel motivated to read them all, so I'm sure I missed important context. Also, I won't excuse misogyny just because it's old; after having read ancient literature that actually treats women as people (like the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) Apollonius honestly has no excuse :))) show less

I think I enjoyed this more than the Iliad! Jason is very much a different hero than Achilles is that epic, and while Jason is a bit of a jerk (especially after the events of the epic), I found his story much more interesting to read.

But really, this epic isn't just about Jason, it spends a lot of time with the other Argonauts. Many of them have great heroic or tragic moments in the play that are as fun to read as Jason's.

Then there's Medea. She basically just steals the show in the second show more half, and her plight is even more devastating to read knowing what eventually happens to her in her own tragedy. The most interesting thing to me about her story is that the gods barely intervene directly in this epic (compared to Homer) Medea getting hit with Eros' (Cupid) arrow eventually leads to her betraying and killing her family, Jason's future bridesmaid, and her own children. Would she have had a better life without the intervention of the gods?

I liked this translation (although I can't say I can compare it to anything else). It was understandable, had good notes, and I always like a good alliteration which the translator likes to use. show less

Best parts:
1. The metaphors. Lots of excellent ones here, much akin to the Iliad.
2. Medea shows up halfway in and steals the show. She might be the only interesting character, but she's interesting enough on her own to make up for the perfunctoriness of the rest. The gender relationships between men and women are a source of conflict throughout the text, and that is never more apparent than through the tensions inherent to Medea's character, simultaneously magically powerful and societally show more disempowered. Certainly a recipe for tragedy, though tragedy is not very present here.
3. Detailed nautical descriptions, if you're into that. I certainly am. show less