Pindar, 'and I
know a certain short path.' Like Pindar, we may abridge the tale of
Jason. He seeks the golden fleece in Colchis: AEetes offers it to him
as a prize for success in certain labours. By the aid of Medea, the
daughter of AEetes, the wizard king, Jason tames the fire-breathing
oxen, yokes them to the plough, and drives a furrow. By Medea's help
he conquers the children of the teeth of the dragon, subdues the snake
that guards the fleece of gold, and escapes, but is pursued by AEetes.
To detain AEetes, Medea throws behind the mangled remains of her own
brother, Apsyrtos, and the Colchians pursue no further than the scene
of this bloody deed. The savagery as this act survives even in the
work of a poet so late as Apollonius Rhodius (iv. 477), where we read
how Jason performed a rite of savage magic, mutilating the body of
Apsyrtos in a manner which was believed to appease the avenging ghost
of the slain. 'Thrice he tasted the blood, thrice spat it out between
his teeth,' a passage which the Scholiast says contains the
description of an archaic custom popular among murderers.

Beyond Tomi, where a popular etymology fixed the 'cutting up' of
Apsyrtos, we need not follow the fortunes of Jason and Medea. We have
already seen the wooer come to the hostile being, win his daughter's
love, achieve the adventures by her aid, and flee in her company,
delaying, by a horrible device, the advance of her pursuers. To these
incidents in the tale we confine our attention.

Many explanations of the Jason myth have been given by Scholars who
thought they recognised elemental phenomena in the characters. As
usual these explanations differ widely. Whenever a myth has to be
interpreted, it is certain that one set of Scholars will discover the
sun and the dawn, where another set will see the thunder-cloud and
lightning. The moon is thrown in at pleasure.

Preller[100] is a learned Scholar, with his own set of etymologies.
Jason is derived, he thinks, from ~iaomai~, to heal, because Jason
studied medicine under the Centaur Chiron. This is the view of the
Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (i. 554). Jason, to Preller's mind, is
a form of Asclepius, 'a spirit of the spring with its soft suns and
fertile rains.' Medea is the moon. Medea, on the other hand, is a
lightning goddess, in the opinion of Schwartz.[101] No philological
reason is offered. Mr. Brown writes: 'The moon, as the night-light,
linked with Idyia-Daeira, is itself knowi