ABSTRACT
Daughter of Aeetes, king of Colchis (son of Helios, the Sun-god), and the Oceanid Idyia, whose name, like Medea’s, means ‘cunning’, ‘knowing’. From her earliest days, Medea, taking after her aunt Circe, was a skilful witch and devotee of Hecate. When Jason came to Colchis with the Argonauts in his quest for the Golden Fleece, Hera, who wished to punish Pelias, king of Iolcus, caused Aphrodite to make Medea fall violently in love with Jason, who was both handsome and persuasive. Aphrodite sent Eros to shoot her with an arrow, and appeared to her in the form of Circe in order to persuade her to overcome her scruples. As a result Jason, when presented by Aeetes with seemingly impossible tasks as a condition for winning the Golden Fleece, asked Medea to help him, and she, in return for a promise of marriage, complied (according to Ovid) because she knew her father meant to destroy the Argonauts and had no intention of surrendering the fleece. She performed elaborate rituals to propitiate Hecate, gave Jason a magic ointment making him impervious to the onslaught of the fire-breathing bulls, told him how to defeat the soldiers who would spring from the dragon’s teeth, and killed or drugged for him the serpent which guarded the Golden Fleece in a sacred grove. Then, realising that Aeetes meant to kill the Argonauts in the night, Medea went to them secretly and urged them to flee at once. As they went to the ship, she took Jason to the grove, and he stole the fleece.
