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This myth deals with inner insincerities which lead to deceptive paths
During the night the heroes finished crossing the Hellespont and advanced into the Propontis. Then they reached a peninsula known as “Mount of Bears” which had two successive harbours and moored their ships in the first cove. The hills of this peninsula were inhabited by wild and ferocious beings, the Sons of the Earth, each of which had six arms. The Doliones occupied the plains and were protected from the giants by Poseidon because they were the descendants of this god.
The Argonauts built an altar to Apollo the “God of Disembarkation”, and developed their friendship with the Doliones. Their king invited them to advance with their ships to the second cove.
The next morning at dawn they climbed to the top of the Mountain Dindymum “to be acquinted with the sea routes”. The giants began hurling rocks to obstruct the channel through which the ships would exit but were slain by the arrows of the Argonauts.
The latter set sail but overnight the adverse winds brought them back to the island without their knowledge. In the darkness the Doliones, believing that they were faced with hostile people attacked the Argonauts who slew a large number of them and realised their mistake only the next morning. The king of the Doliones Cyzicus perished in the battle.
There were then twelve stormy days and twelve stormy nights which prevented them from setting sail again. Warned by the flight of the Halcyon, the seer Mopsus advised Jason to offer a sacrifice to Rhea and the goddess responded “through the manifestation of clear signs”.
The Argonauts then set sail again, travelling past the cape of Poseidon and heading toward new lands.
The advance of the Argonauts across the Aegean, Hellespont, Propontis, the Bosphorus, and the Euxinus Pontus seas describes the progression of increasingly deeper purification of the vital being.
In the first place the Aegean Sea relates to seekers who embark on the journey but stay “on the edge” of purifying their vital being.
Then comes the first strait Hellespont which gets its name from Helle. She was the sister of Phrixus and the two children when tortured by their stepmother fled on the back of a ram with the Golden Fleece sent by Zeus. It is the myth already studied which recounts the first experience of luminous sensitivity. This experience usually opens much later the doors to a deeper involvement in the quest. The Hellespont is also the final limit in the individuation process (Helle). Hellespont is also known as the strait of the Dardanelles with reference to Dardanus, the son of the Pleiad Electra, who marks the first experience of the illumined mind.
The seeker then progresses deeper into the purification of his vital being (in the Propontis which is pro+Pontos, i.e. more deeper in the vital) up to the place that opens the passage to the luminous mind or illuminations. This is the Bosphorus “which carries the cow”, the cow being symbol of illumination.
Finally the seeker penetrates the deep waters of the vital being, the Euxinus Pontus (the Black Sea) or the “strange, inhospitable vital being” with its shores inhabited by wild tribes including the Amazons. As per our interpretation, the meaning usually attached to the Pontus – “the hospitable sea” – is thus quite erroneous.
Therefore the first episode in the quest for the Fleece relates to the beginning of the spiritual journey as “the beard had hardly grown on Jason’s face“. It is a warning against the “insincerities” which create illusions and operate from the subconscient, the word Dolione signifying “deceitful, cunning and deceptive”. The Doliones are sons of Poseidon. The seeker does not identify them as such because they appear to be going in the direction of the quest: in fact the king provided wine for the Argonauts and sheep for their sacrifice to Apollo.
This distances the seeker from his psychic perception of truth although he believes he is on the journey to the light of Truth or convinces himself that he is. That is why sacrifice is offered to Apollo, “God of Disembarkation”: the seeker has left the right path. When we persist in insincerities and are deaf to the inner voice, the latter falls silent, often for a long time until we return to the right path which sometimes happens only after harsh confrontations. There can be several reasons for this deafness: impatience, fascination with powers, desire to stand out from the crowd, automatic self-justification, or anything that benefits the ego pride.
The seeker then sinks deeper into the illusory path without suspecting it and it threatens to imprison him in a kind of a trap (The Argonauts push their ship into the second creek that the giants attempt to obstruct).
