The Quest of the Golden Fleece

Max, Nate, and Andrew

The Ram

• A king named Athamas leaves his wife Nephele for a second one named Ino

• Ino wants her son to inherit the throne but first she has to get Nephele’s son, Phrixus, out of the way

• A flying golden ram sent by hermes saves Phrixus, but his sister Helle, fell off the ram and died.

• Phrixus made it safely to Colchis on the ram and there he sacrifices it to Zeus and gives its skin, the Golden Fleece, to the king, Aetes.

Meanwhile…

• A man named Pelias took over the throne of a Greek king, and his son Jason grows up and wants to reclaim the throne

• When he reaches the kingdom, Pelias pretends to give in to jasons demands, but tells him he must retrieve the golden fleece first.

• Jason takes the challenge and gets a group of warriors to go along with him, including Hercules, Peleus and Orpheus. Together they were called the Argonauts

Their Journey

• First off they go through the fierce women of Lemnos, but surprisingly they were kind and Hercules decided to stay with them

• Next they find an Oracle, and after helping him drive off harpies eating all of his food, he gives them info to help them pass through the Symplegades

• After passing through and almost having to fight off women warriors known as Amazons, and going by the chained Prometheus, they reach Colchis

The Trials

• The king Aetes gives Jason two trials to complete for him to receive the Fleece, but these trials are impossible for a mortal

• Cupid makes Aetes daughter, a witch named Madea, fall in love with Jason so she helps him pass through the two trials, the first being to control two bulls, and the second to use the bulls to plow a field and sow it with dragons teeth

• After completing the trials, Madea warns Jason that Aetes will kill him in his sleep so he steals the Fleece and heads back to Greece with Madea in the night

The Journey Home

• On the way back, out of love Madea has to kill her own brother who was trying to stop Jason

• On the way home, they have to pass through Scylla, the dreaded rock, Charybdis, a deadly whirlpool, and Talus, a giant bronze man

• When he gets home, his mother and father were dead at the hands of Pelias. So Madea tricks Pelias daughters into killing him, and she brings Jason’s father back to life.

Happily Ever After

• Madea and Jason have two kids, but Jason leaves to marry the daughter of the king of Corinth, and Madea and the children are banished

• To get revenge, she has her children give Jasons wife a robe, which made her burst into flames when she put it on, and it kills the king as well as he tries to help

• Finally Madea kills her two sons she had with Jason and flies away on a magic chariot

Four Great Adventures

Phaethon

• The place of the sun always shown darkness and night were not known of up there

• A brave mortal traveled up there and wanted to know if the sun god was his dad

• His dad is the sun god• The god said anything you ask will come true, and the boy

responded I wish to take your place• The god said I have to let you do it if you wish but no mortal

can drive the chariot• Phaethon made his choice and mounted the car and it was

off• the car lost control and Phaethon died

Pegasus and Bellerophon

• There was a mighty young lad named Bellerophon and he was from the parents Poseidon and a mortal named Eurynome

• More than anything Bellerophon wanted Pegasus, a winged horse

• He was advised to sleep in Athena's temple so she will speak to him in his dreams

• the goddess woke him up and in front of him was a bridle of gold to tame Pegasus

• when he tamed Pegasus he went on quests for the Lycian king so he could marry her

• In the end he marries her, but he tries to ride Pegasus up to Mount Olympus and dies

 Otus and Ephialtes

• Two twins who were giants sons of Poseidon• They were troublemakers and imprisoned Ares• They were going to stack 2 Mountains on top of each other

but they were stopped by Poseidon• They were interested in something else so they tried to catch

Artemis• Artemis knew of their evil doing so she led them to the island

of Naxos and the two saw a beautiful milky-white hind, it disappeared so the brothers split up

• They both saw the creature at the same time and threw their spears at the thing, but the creature disappeared and they killed each other because they were across from one another

Daedalus

• Invented the labyrinth• Both he him and his son were captured by King Minos• He made wings to escape, but unfortunately his son died• He flew to Sicily• King Cocalus' daughters pour scalding hot water on King

Minos 

Questions

• Do you think that the hero Jason is overrated for his victory of the golden fleece?

• Would you have taken the same actions the Princess (madea) did to get revenge?

• Why did Daedalus and his son get captured by King Minos?