Jason kills the sawn-men raising out from the Dragon’s teeth

 

<< Previous : The Argonauts and the birds of the island of Ares

The third Canto deals with karmic memories.

Jason convinced the Argonauts to send just a small delegation to Aeetes. Only the sons of Phrixus along with Telamon and Augeias accompanied him.

Aeetes was angry at first, accusing them of wanting to seize the throne but then agreeing to let them go in search of the fleece on the condition that Jason should pass a certain test. The hero had to yoke two dreadful bulls with feet of bronze and exhaling fire as the king was used to doing. Then he had to plow four acres of the fallow land of Ares with the bulls to then sow in it the dragon’s teeth. From this sowing fierce armed warriors would spring up whom the hero would have to kill before they killed him.

(The dragon had been killed by Cadmus at the time of the founding of Thebes to free the access to the spring of Ares; Apollonius thus establishes a link with the purification-liberation process.)

The goddesses Hera and Athena who were closely watching over the expedition feared that the heroes would not be able to seize the fleece when confronted by the terrible Aeetes. They asked Aphrodite to send her son Eros so that with one of his arrows he would ignite Medea’s heart with a violent love for Jason. She was the second daughter of Aeetes, the first one, Chalciope, being married to Phrixus. The help of this sorceress and priestess of Hecate seemed indispensable to the two goddesses in order to save the heroes from disaster. Therefore a carefully masked Eros shot an arrow at Medea who was immediately enamoured of Jason.

On the suggestion of Argus, one of the sons of Phrixus, a meeting was secretly organised between Medea and Jason with the involvement of Chalciope who was worried about the inheritance of her children, for Aeetes in fact believed that the Argonauts had come to seize the throne.

During the meeting Jason could not resist the love that Aphrodite had kindled in Medea. He promised to take her with him after his trial and marry her. Medea gave him an ointment that would make him invincible to the bronze weapons and to fire which he had to spread on his arms and body. The ointment had been prepared with a “plant that had grown for the first time when the carnivorous eagle of Zeus let the divine blood of the unfortunate Prometheus flow to the earth on the foothills of the Caucasian mountain”. Medea also assured him that the protection would last throughout the day without fail and recommended that he must never refuse to fight but when the warriors would spring up from the ground he must throw a heavy stone in their midst without being seen because then they would fight among themselves to seize it.

Just before the test Telamon and Aethalides went to collect the teeth which had to be sown while Jason prepared himself and offered a sacrifice to Hecate.

King Aeetes, the people of Colchis and the Argonauts assembled in the plain of Ares, “the Killer of Men”, to attend the trial.

Jason stood firm and waited for the dreadful flame spitting bulls and overpowered them one after another. Once he had yoked the bulls he ploughed the land and sowed the teeth.

Then across the field rose like stems of grain the fully armed “Sons of Earth”. Remembering Medea’s advice Jason seized an enormous stone and flung it in their midst. As expected “they who had been sown” killed each other to seize it. The hero then hurried cutting down those who were still half-embedded and the latecomers who were entering the battle. Soon the ground was red with the blood of the warriors and not a single one remained alive.

 Dismayed Aeetes returned to his palace to consider a nefarious plan for dealing with the heroes.

It must be recalled that Aeetes the king of Colchis, “the consciousness of the whole”, is a son of Helios the sun “that sees everything” (Panoptes) and is thus an expression of the radiance of the supermind consciousness of Truth (Hyperion).

(The character structure of the name Colchis could be understood as the place of “the opening of consciousness and essential liberty”. Let us make note that in the Balkans Colchis is a yellow flower which appears at the end of winter.)

According to the most ancient legend Helios only had two children: Circe the magician, “the power of detailed vision” or “discernment of Truth” and King Aeetes of Colchis, “the high global consciousness”. (Κιρκος is a bird of prey, “the spiraling one” who discerns things from a long distance.)

The other manifestations of the supermind, Perses and Pasiphae, were added later on.

Aeetes is in fact “olophronos”, he who “envelops totality”. His capital is Aia, a symbol of the “development and organisation of existence-consciousness across all planes”.

The nymph Asterodia, “the path of a star” or “the path at the beginnings of light”, bore him his son Apsyrtus.

His legitimate wife Idyia, “she who sees”, bore him two children one of which is the magician Medea, “intention” – in this case it is the intention of the soul rather than of the ego as she is a granddaughter of the sun and Hecate’s priestess – and Chalciope the “inflexibility of vision-willpower”.

The name Μηδεια has the same root as the word μηδος which means at the same time “intention” and “the genitals of man”. The latter meaning is it seems often used by Homer and would associate Medea to the concept of a force of creation.

Another interpretation of Medea can be given based on the word μηδεις which signifies “none, nobody” evoking a giving up of ego with the passage into the first place of the psychic being.

Since at this level the manifestations of the forces are transformational powers of the supermind, the characters that represent them are magicians, notably Medea and Circe.

Medea is in addition a priestess of Hecate, “she who strikes from afar” which is to say “she who has long-term goals”. Hecate is a daughter of Perses “the transformation” (son of the Titan Crius).

It therefore seems obvious that those  who opposed Aeetes the most strongly were the Sauromatians (or Sauromatae), “the vain lizards” simultaneously symbolising inertia, lack of commitment and one who has no path and thus no love.

The delegation led by Jason to meet Aeetes specifically includes heroes who represent the first luminous experience of the soul. These are Augeas, “flashes of light” and the children of Phrixus “the shive