basis
of a mythological story. The Fleece, like the hoard of the Nibelungen,
is the occasion, but the curse attached to it is not the cause, of
crimes; this cause is the cupidity of human nature and the helplessness
of the individual who allows the forces of evil to gain sway over him.
Jason, in overweening self-indulgence, attaches himself to a woman to
whom he cannot be true. Medea, in too confident self-sufficiency, is not
proof against the blandishments of an unscrupulous adventurer and
progresses from crime to crime, doing from beginning to end what it is
not her will to do. An unnatural and unholy bond cannot be severed even
to make way for a natural and holy one. And the paths of glory lead not
to the grave but to a living death in the consciousness of guilt and the
remorse for misdeeds.

Grillparzer never again wrote with such tumultuous passion as swayed him
at the time of his work on the first half of _The Golden Fleece._ His
illicit love of Charlotte Paumgarten gave him many a tone which thrills
in the narrative of Jason and Medea; the death of his mother brought
home to him the tragedy of violence and interrupted his work in the
midst of _The Argonauts;_ his visit to Rome enabled him to regain
composure and increase his sense of the local color of ancient
civilization; so that when he completed _Medea,_ in the fall and early
winter of 1819-20, he wrote with the mastery of one who had ventured,
suffered, observed, and recovered. In his own person he had experienced
the dangers of the _vita activa_ against which _The Golden Fleece_ is a
warning.

Mention has already been made of Grillparzer's pride in the history of
Austria. In 1809 he wrote in his diary, "I am going to write an
historical drama on Frederick the Warlike, Duke of Austria." A few
stanzas of a ballad on this hero were written, probably at this time;
dramatic fragments have survived from 1818 and 1821. In the first two
decades of the nineteenth century vigorous efforts were made, especially
by Baron von Hormayr and his collaborators, to stir up Austrian poets to
emulate their North-German colleagues in the treatment of Austrian
subjects. With these efforts Grillparzer was in hearty sympathy. The
Hanoverian A.W. Schlegel declared in a lecture delivered at Vienna in
1808 that the worthiest form of the romantic drama was the historical;
and made special mention of the house of Habsburg. In 1817 Matthaeus von
Collin's play _Frederick the Warlike_ wa