Unlike Virgil’s Aeneid, an epic poem based on several myths and legends, and the Odyssey, an oral epic attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer, the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece is a collection of often contradictory legends. Different versions of parts of the whole series appear in later literature, including Pindar’s Pythian Odes, Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Euripides’ play Medea.

The Golden Fleece at the centre of Jason’s most famous adventure was that of a winged ram sired by the god Poseidon. The sheep was later sacrificed to Zeus in Colchis, where its fleece was hung on an oak in a grove sacred to the war god Ares. It was guarded by a dragon that never slept, and whose teeth generated warriors when they were planted in the ground.

Jason was the son of Aeson, the true king of Iolcos, and Alcimede. Aeson’s half-brother Pelias overthrew Aeson and killed all his descendants, but the infant Jason was spared when his mother convinced Pelias that he had been stillborn, and was then sent away to be brought up by Chiron the centaur, who also tutored the young Achilles.

When he had grown up, Jason challenged Pelias for his throne, and was told he had to go on a quest to find the Golden Fleece in order to win that throne. He therefore assembled a crew for his ship the Argo, who became known as Argonauts, and set sail on that quest. Among them were the Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces), Heracles and Orpheus.

Jason’s first bride is almost forgotten: Hypsipyle, Queen of Lemnos. The womenfolk of that island had neglected due worship of Aphrodite, so the goddess made their husbands reject them. In revenge, the women decided to kill the men, leaving the island populated only by women. Just when the situation for the women of Lemnos was looking worrying, who should turn up but Jason and his fifty hunky Argonauts. They certainly seemed to enjoy their visit, and didn’t find much time to send postcards back to their families explaining what they were doing. Jason, according to his status, was entertained by Queen Hypsipyle to the point where they married and she later gave birth to twins.

But Jason and the Argonauts remembered their mission in Colchis, and once it became clear how fruitful their stay on Lemnos had been, they set sail in quest of the Golden Fleece. Jean Pichore’s miniature shows Jason parting from Hypsipyle, their twins looking advanced in age. From there they had further adventures with the Doliones, and in Thrace.

When Jason and the Argonauts arrived in Colchis, they discovered its monarch was King Aeëtes, who set Jason three tasks to accomplish before he could take possession of the Golden Fleece:

• to yoke the Khalkotauroi, fire-breathing oxen, and with them to plough a field;
• to sow the teeth of a dragon into the field; as these grew instantly into warriors, he then had to overcome them;
• to overcome the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece.

To accomplish these, Jason enlisted the help of the king’s daughter Medea, a sorceress who, thanks to divine intervention by Hera through Aphrodite, had fallen in love with Jason. For his first task, Medea provided Jason with an ointment to protect his skin from the fire of the oxen; for the second, she explained how he should throw a rock into the middle of the warriors, causing them to kill one another; for the third, she provided a potion to put the guardian dragon to sleep, so he could make off with his prize. In return for her assistance, Jason promised to marry Medea.

John William Waterhouse’s painting of Jason and Medea (1907) shows her preparing the potion that Jason later gives to the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece. Medea wears a dress suggesting her role as a sorceress in its bold icons. In front of her, a flame heats ingredients for the potion, which she is adding to a chalice. Jason appears anxious, and is dressed and armed ready to go and do battle with the dragon.

Although identified as being The Etruscan Sorceress (1886), Elihu Vedder’s painting has all the symbolic associations of Medea. She is holding a vial that Jason used to capture the fleece, and at her feet is an open fire to prepare the potion for that vial.

Frederick Sandys shows Medea (1866-68) at work, preparing a magic potion for one of Jason’s missions. In front of her is a toad, and other ingredients. Behind her, in a gilt frieze, is Jason’s ship the Argo.

The finest visual account of this story is in the frescoes of the Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava in Bologna, Italy. Directed by Annibale Carracci, his brother Agostino and cousin Ludovico contributed significantly to these eighteen separate images, between about 1583-84. This uses elaborate multiplex narrative to summarise much of Ovid’s account: at the left, two of the fire-breathing bulls are still yoked, in front of King Aeëtes. The army sprung up from the dragon’s teeth appear behind the wall, still armed with spears but no longer fighting.

In the foreground, Jason has put the dragon to sleep using Medea’s magic concoction, and is unhitching the Golden Fleece while he can. At the right, two of the Argonauts offer to help Jason (shown a second time) carry the fleece away.

In Jean François de Troy’s The Capture of the Golden Fleece from 1742, Jason reaches up to take the Golden Fleece from a branch of the oak tree. The artist has interpreted this prize as a lamb of modest size, which is visually disappointing. However, the hero’s left foot rests on the body of the dragon, whose nostrils emit steam. To the left of Jason is Medea, dressed as an eastern princess, and surrounding them are the Argonauts, whose ship is seen at the far left, preparing to set sail.

Although Rubens never progressed a painting of Jason and the Golden Fleece beyond sketches, it was his pupil and collaborator Erasmus Quellinus the Younger who produced a finished painting of Jason and the Golden Fleece in 1630, probably within Rubens’ workshop. This shows the hero making off with the Golden Fleece, within a palatial building.

It was then that Jason’s troubles started.