Tales linked to Lemnos

After the debate of Ulysses and Ajax and the suicide of the latter in Book 13, Ovid moves to the story of Hecuba and Polymestor. But before he gets there, he runs quickly through a host of stories linked to Lemnos that have a lot to them in their own right. There's a curious thread running through them, having to do in part with women who kill husbands and kings -- they're certainly worth getting some familiarity with.

These include the story of Lemnos, King Thoas and  Hypsipyle; the culmination of the misfortunes of Philoctetes; the curious story of Palamedes, the only man known to outwit Odysseus, and his father, Nauplius, who incites Clytemnestra and other kings' wives to be unfaithful to their husbands:

Nauplius swore revenge against King Agamemnon and the other Greek leaders. According to Apollodorus, when the Greeks were sailing home from Troy after the close of the war, Nauplius lit beacon fires along the perilous coastline of Euboea, and many ships were shipwrecked as a result. Before this point, he also convinced many of the lonely wives of the Greek commanders to be unfaithful to their husbands, and to conspire against them - including Clytemnestra, (Agamemnon's wife) who joined with Aigisthos, and Meda, (wife of Idomeneus) who was unfaithful with Leucos. Leucos killed Meda and her daughter Cleisithyra and drove out Idomeneus out when he had returned from Troy.

Drouais: Philoctetes in Lemnos

Rich Gifts: The Shape of Metamorphoses 7

Book 7 of the Metamorphoses offers recurrent patterns -- there's sorcery, a prophetic dream, rejuvenation, a fulfilled wish, dangerous gifts, and an enchanted spear. As usual, Ovid does not offer to spell out their relationships for us.

The overall narrative can be broken into three major parts and one introductory vignette, as outlined below. Challenging!

Vignette: The sons of Boreas save Phineus the Seer

-- Zetes and Calais rescue Phineus from the Harpies
    (Note: Phineus was married to their sister, Cleopatra.)

I. Medea - Sorcery






-- Jason and Medea - dramatic monologue, plighted troth, Medea as auctor of Jason's feat.
-- Rejuvenation of Aeson - making the old young
-- Medea and Pelias - children kill their father
-- Medea, Aegeus and Theseus - father recognizes son - rejuvenation of Athens

II. Aeacus, Minos and the Myrmidons - Dream


-- Plague, Dream, and Rejuvenation of the kingdom









III. Cephalus and Procris - Gifts of the Gods

-- Gifts of Diana: Laelaps the magical dog and the Teumessian vixen.
-- Love, Mistrust, L'Aura, and an Enchanted Javelin
    (Procris was a daughter of Erechtheus and sister to Orithyia, who was ravished by Boreas)

Eos carries off Cephalus

"I saved your skin"

I will lighten my grief by reviling you
and you will feel the sting in hearing it.
I will begin at the beginning.

I saved your skin, as all the Greeks know
who boarded the Argo with you,
when you were sent to master the fire-breathing bulls
with yokes and to sow the deadly field;
and the dragon which guarded the golden fleece
and, never sleeping, protected it with its many coils,
I killed it and held up the light of safety for you.

As for me, after betraying my father and my home
I came to Iolcus near Pelion
with you, eager but not prudent.
Then I killed Pelias, in the way that he would die most tragically
at the hands of his own children and I confounded their entire house.

And you, after receiving this from me, you, the vilest man alive,
you have betrayed me, and you have made a new marriage,
though you already have children. If you were still childless
you could be excused for craving another marriage bed.
Gone is the faith of oaths. I cannot understand
whether you believe the old gods are no longer in power
or that new covenants are established for men today,
since you must know that you have not kept your oath to me...

~ Medea to Jason (Medea 472-494)

Medea, the curse of Pelias 1, is the princess, priestess, and witch, whom Jason brought to Hellas on his return from Colchis. Medea has been called daughter of Hecate since she served this goddess as her priestess, but otherwise her mother is said to have been Idyia, one of the OCEANIDS. Her father Aeetes, [son of Helios] who had been king of Ephyraea (Corinth) before he emigrated to Colchis, was brother of Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos 2 of Crete, and of the witch Circe. And whereas the latter lived in the island of Aeaea in the Mediterranean, Aeetes ruled in the city of Aea in Colchis.

Vellera radianta: The back story of the golden fleece

 As he did with Perseus, so Ovid will strangely bend the tale of Medea in Book 7, and again he'll seem to shift the emphasis from its major features to others elements that might strike us as less important.

Since he relies on our knowledge of the back-story -- indeed, of Euripides' play as well -- here's the brief version of how the Golden Fleece came to hang in the kingdom of Aeetes:

In Greek mythology, Phrixus or Frixos (Greek: Φρίξος, Phrixos) or Phryxus was the son of Athamas, king of Boiotia, and Nephele (a goddess of clouds). His twin sister Helle and he were hated by their stepmother, Ino. Ino hatched a devious plot to get rid of the twins, roasting all of Boeotia's crop seeds so they would not grow. The local farmers, frightened of famine, asked a nearby oracle for assistance. Ino bribed the men sent to the oracle to lie and tell the others that the oracle required the sacrifice of Phrixus and Helle. Before they were killed, though, Phrixus and Helle were rescued by a flying, or swimming,[1] ram with golden wool sent by Nephele, their natural mother; their starting point is variously recorded as Halos in Thessaly and Orchomenus in Boeotia. During their flight Helle swooned, fell off the ram and drowned in the Dardanelles, renamed the Hellespont (sea of Helle), but Phrixus survived all the way to Colchis, where King Aeëtes, the son of the sun god Helios, took him in and treated him kindly, giving Phrixus his daughter, Chalciope, in marriage. In gratitude, Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the king the golden fleece of the ram, which Aeëtes hung in a tree in the holy grove of Ares in his kingdom, guarded by a dragon that never slept.