The Argonautika

The Argonautika narrates the adventures of Jason and his comrades, the Argonauts, when they sailed from Iolkos, in eastern Greece, on the ship Argo to acquire the Gold Fleece from King Aietes of Kolchis, at the far end of the Black Sea. Book 3 tells how they achieved their aim with the aid of the king’s daughter, Medea, who fell in love with Jason, betrayed her father, and abandoned her homeland. Finally it relates the Argonauts’ far-flung wanderings on their voyage home to Iolkos, during which Medea connived in the murder of her brother and became Jason’s wife. This translation represents the rhythm of the original, a dactylic-hexameter meter like that of the poet’s Homeric models, the Iliad and the Odyssey. This evocation of Homer’s epics is important to the significance of the story and to the way readers understand the characters and the action of the poem. The rhythm also gives greater value to the pace of the narrative, the descriptions of places and events, and the extended Homeric similes. The music carries the reader pleasurably forward along with the voyage that it describes, especially if the epic is read aloud from time to time. The brief introduction should help readers understand the issues raised in this poem of the third century BCE, when its author Apollonios Rhodios was a scholar and librarian at the great library in Alexandria. But the epic itself provides all necessary contexts, and readers are encouraged to encounter it directly, not being overly concerned with precise mythical or geographical references. This is a work to be enjoyed, not sweated over.