Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

154
BOOK
II.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
to return home discomfited. The Achaians are now pos-
sessed of the golden fleece, but Zeus also is wroth at the
death of Absyrtos, and raises a storm, of which the results
are similar to those of the tempest raised by Poseidon to
avenge the mutilation of Polyphemos. In fact, the chief
incidents in the return of Odysseus we find here also, in
the magic songs of the Seirens, and the wisdom of Kirke,
in Skylla and Charybdis and the Phaiakian people. From
the Seirens they are saved by the strains of Orpheus, strains
even sweeter than theirs, which make the stuffing of the
sailors' ears with wax a work of supererogation. It is use-
less to go into further detail. The accounts given of the
course of the voyage vary indefinitely in the different mytho-
graphers, each of whom sought to describe a journey through
countries and by tracks least known to himself, and there-
fore the most mysterious. The geography, in short, of the
Argonautic voyage is as much and as little worth investi-
gating as the geography of the travels of 16 and the sons
and daughters of her descendants Danaos and Aigyptos.
The prophecy uttered long ago to Pelias remained yet
unfulfilled ; and when Iason returned to Iolkos, he found, like
Odysseus on his return to Ithaka, according to some versions,
that his father Aison was still living, although worn out with
age. The wise woman Medeia is endowed with the powers of
Asklepios by virtue of the magic robe bestowed on her by
Helios himself, and these powers are exercised in making
Aison young again. Pelias too, she says, shall recover all his
ancient strength and vigour, if his daughters will cut up his
limbs and boil them in a caldron ; but when they do her
bidding, Medeia suffers the limbs to waste away without
pronouncing the words which would have brought him to life
again. Thus is Iason, like Oidipous and Perseus, Cyrus and
Romulus, one of the fatal children whose doom it is to slay
their sires. The sequel of the myth of Iason has few, if any,
features peculiar to itself. Iason can no more be constant to
Medeia than Theseus to Ariadne or Phoibos to Koronis. At
Corinth he sees the beautiful Glauke, another of the bright
beings whose dwelling is in the morning or evening sky ; but
the nuptials must be as fatal as those of Iole and Herakles.