ARGONAUTICA AS CATABASIS
 Persephone and Hades, the underworld deities. (Wikimedia Commons) |
The rise of comparative mythology, and studies of Indo-European myths, suggested to some that Jason's journey was in origin one that belonged first to the Underworld. In the nineteenth century, scholars deduced that Indo-European people believed that the sun went below the earth at night and as such was an underworld deity. His house, which must be reached by crossing the Ocean, was therefore a voyage to the land of the dead across the waters of death. Therefore, some saw in Jason's voyage across the sea to the land of the son of the Sun a distorted version of this primeval Indo-European myth, that is, a journey to the underworld (known as a catabasis or katabasis). In more recent times, the suggestion was supported by Joseph Eddy Fontenrose (in Python, 1959) and Raymond J. Clark (in Catabsis, 1979), but opposed by Paul Dräger (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Feb. 26, 2003). The following excerpts outline a few of the early claims for the Argonauts' journey as a catabasis. |
Outlines of Primitive Belief among the Indo-European Races
Charles Francis Keary
1882
The expedition of the Argonauts was always held in Greek tradition to have preceded the expedition of Odysseus. It belongs to the 'antiquity' of Homer. No circumstantial account of it, however, is to be found until a much later date than that of the Odyssey; therefore it is right to consider the latter poem as the first great epic of the Sea of Death. That the voyage of the Argonauts was originally of the same kind as the voyage of Odysseus, and undertaken in the same direction, seems highly probable. In after years the former was transmuted into an expedition to Cholchis and to the river Phasis. But there is no trace of that form of the legend in Homer. All that is there said is that Jason's voyage was made to the house of Aeetes (Od. xii. 70). Nowhere is it said that the land lay to the eastward; nothing in the earliest tradition points to that voyage in the Euxine and up the Phasis, which we meet first in Pindar and afterwards in a more elaborate shape in Apollonius Bhodius. The golden fleece might seem (to a lover of dawn myths) to suggest the dawn; but it does not so any more than do the apples of the Hesperides. The myth of these latter is a myth of sunset, Aeetes is the brother of Circe, and son of Helios and Perse. He is, like Circe, connected with the setting sun, and so with death. He is a kind of god of death, and for that reason is called 'death designing’ (ὀλοόφρονος) --Od. x. 137.
Source: Charles Francis Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief among the Indo-European Races (New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1882), 296, n.1.
Charles Francis Keary
1882
The expedition of the Argonauts was always held in Greek tradition to have preceded the expedition of Odysseus. It belongs to the 'antiquity' of Homer. No circumstantial account of it, however, is to be found until a much later date than that of the Odyssey; therefore it is right to consider the latter poem as the first great epic of the Sea of Death. That the voyage of the Argonauts was originally of the same kind as the voyage of Odysseus, and undertaken in the same direction, seems highly probable. In after years the former was transmuted into an expedition to Cholchis and to the river Phasis. But there is no trace of that form of the legend in Homer. All that is there said is that Jason's voyage was made to the house of Aeetes (Od. xii. 70). Nowhere is it said that the land lay to the eastward; nothing in the earliest tradition points to that voyage in the Euxine and up the Phasis, which we meet first in Pindar and afterwards in a more elaborate shape in Apollonius Bhodius. The golden fleece might seem (to a lover of dawn myths) to suggest the dawn; but it does not so any more than do the apples of the Hesperides. The myth of these latter is a myth of sunset, Aeetes is the brother of Circe, and son of Helios and Perse. He is, like Circe, connected with the setting sun, and so with death. He is a kind of god of death, and for that reason is called 'death designing’ (ὀλοόφρονος) --Od. x. 137.
Source: Charles Francis Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief among the Indo-European Races (New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1882), 296, n.1.
Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors
Fletcher S. Bassett
1885
The trembling Argonauts feared the moving Symplegades, fabled to crush ships passing between them. The waves dashed up the Cyanae, so as to endanger passing ships. Two similar wave-beaten rocks on the Illyrian coast were also reported to threaten destruction to the passing ship. Festus says that the waves dash upon the rocks at the Canaries with so much violence that it is dangerous to approach, and the islands tremble from the shock. […]
Here, too, a literal interpretation is impossible, while we may allege a rational foundation for the myth. Lubbock says it is possible that in these moving islands we have a tradition of the floating ice-masses, which, in the glacial period, must have issued from the Black Sea. But we must not forget that we are talking yet of mythical voyagers, and are considering another soul journey, or sun voyage—this time to the eastward and not west into the Sea of Death. These rocks are the gates of hell, typified by the moving cloud-barrier to the sun's journey. We learn from comparative mythology that similar opening and shutting rocks are encountered by the soul-bark in Mexican, Burmese, and Mongol legends. Fiske, then, rightly interprets the myth: "In early Aryan mythology, there is nothing by which the clouds are more frequently represented than by rocks or mountains. Such were the Symplegades, which, charmed by the harp of the wind-god Orpheus, parted to make way for the talking ship Argo, with its crew of solar heroes."
Source: Fletcher S. Bassett, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors (Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1885), 17-18.
Fletcher S. Bassett
1885
The trembling Argonauts feared the moving Symplegades, fabled to crush ships passing between them. The waves dashed up the Cyanae, so as to endanger passing ships. Two similar wave-beaten rocks on the Illyrian coast were also reported to threaten destruction to the passing ship. Festus says that the waves dash upon the rocks at the Canaries with so much violence that it is dangerous to approach, and the islands tremble from the shock. […]
Here, too, a literal interpretation is impossible, while we may allege a rational foundation for the myth. Lubbock says it is possible that in these moving islands we have a tradition of the floating ice-masses, which, in the glacial period, must have issued from the Black Sea. But we must not forget that we are talking yet of mythical voyagers, and are considering another soul journey, or sun voyage—this time to the eastward and not west into the Sea of Death. These rocks are the gates of hell, typified by the moving cloud-barrier to the sun's journey. We learn from comparative mythology that similar opening and shutting rocks are encountered by the soul-bark in Mexican, Burmese, and Mongol legends. Fiske, then, rightly interprets the myth: "In early Aryan mythology, there is nothing by which the clouds are more frequently represented than by rocks or mountains. Such were the Symplegades, which, charmed by the harp of the wind-god Orpheus, parted to make way for the talking ship Argo, with its crew of solar heroes."
Source: Fletcher S. Bassett, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors (Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1885), 17-18.
Boanerges
J. Rendel Harris
1913
It was pointcd out in a previous chapter that the passage of the Symplegades or Clashing Rocks, at the entrance to the Euxine, by Jason and his companions, was not an incident found that could be limited to the supposed first Greek voyage of discovery. The Clashing Rocks occurred elsewhere, which showed that they had really nothing to do with the Euxine, nor anything to do with Jason, imagined to be a definite historical character. The Clashing Rocks, as we have said, occur elsewhere: we found them, for example, in South America, which does not exactly lie on the Euxine. In a modified form, they appear as Clashing Doors, in which the passer through may be caught and perhaps destroyed, or split trees which come together again and imprison the un-wary. The theme is clearly the same: there is an attempt on the part of some one or more persons to force a passage into somewhere or after somebody, and a little study of the various stories of heroes who, usually in pairs, make attempt to pass the Clashers, will show that it is the Sky-boys or Thunder-boys who are gone in search of the Sun, lost for a time to mortal view in the Western Sea, or which is the same thing, swallowed for a time by the Dragon and the Darkness. Into this underworld the heroes will penetrate in order to liberate the captive Sun. This theme is one that is well known to us. Sometimes it is varied, and the theme is the wooing of the Daughter of the Sun. The change could be explained, but it is not necessary at this point; what is necessary is to register the facts and then in the light of the facts, to simplify the involved problems. For example, without going into North or South America, we know from the folk-songs of Lithuania, that our own ancestors believed in Sons of God (dewa deli) who rode upon a chariot in order to woo the daughter of the Sun.
Read more of this piece here.
Source: Rendel Harris, Boanerges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913).
J. Rendel Harris
1913
It was pointcd out in a previous chapter that the passage of the Symplegades or Clashing Rocks, at the entrance to the Euxine, by Jason and his companions, was not an incident found that could be limited to the supposed first Greek voyage of discovery. The Clashing Rocks occurred elsewhere, which showed that they had really nothing to do with the Euxine, nor anything to do with Jason, imagined to be a definite historical character. The Clashing Rocks, as we have said, occur elsewhere: we found them, for example, in South America, which does not exactly lie on the Euxine. In a modified form, they appear as Clashing Doors, in which the passer through may be caught and perhaps destroyed, or split trees which come together again and imprison the un-wary. The theme is clearly the same: there is an attempt on the part of some one or more persons to force a passage into somewhere or after somebody, and a little study of the various stories of heroes who, usually in pairs, make attempt to pass the Clashers, will show that it is the Sky-boys or Thunder-boys who are gone in search of the Sun, lost for a time to mortal view in the Western Sea, or which is the same thing, swallowed for a time by the Dragon and the Darkness. Into this underworld the heroes will penetrate in order to liberate the captive Sun. This theme is one that is well known to us. Sometimes it is varied, and the theme is the wooing of the Daughter of the Sun. The change could be explained, but it is not necessary at this point; what is necessary is to register the facts and then in the light of the facts, to simplify the involved problems. For example, without going into North or South America, we know from the folk-songs of Lithuania, that our own ancestors believed in Sons of God (dewa deli) who rode upon a chariot in order to woo the daughter of the Sun.
Read more of this piece here.
Source: Rendel Harris, Boanerges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913).
Wander-Ships
Walter Bassett
1917
The natural means of transportation across the death sea or river is by boat, and this not only for the body but also for the soul […] Nearly all Aryan [i.e., Indo-European] peoples retain in whole or in part customs directly traceable to this belief in the soul-boat. In many cases the actual launching of a boat has been superseded by a symbolic launching through the fire of the funeral pyre. […] About the adventures of Ulysses and the Argonauts have been woven the Greek legends of the sea of death. The Phaeacian ships of the Odyssey are death ships without helmsmen or rudders, rigging or tackle, but they know the thoughts of men. No bark of that mysterious fleet has ever been wrecked or stranded. They carry the souls of the blameless to the gardens of Alcinous.
Source: Wilbur Bassett, Wander-Ships: Folk Stories of the Sea with Notes upon Their Origin (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1917), 116, 117, 119.
Walter Bassett
1917
The natural means of transportation across the death sea or river is by boat, and this not only for the body but also for the soul […] Nearly all Aryan [i.e., Indo-European] peoples retain in whole or in part customs directly traceable to this belief in the soul-boat. In many cases the actual launching of a boat has been superseded by a symbolic launching through the fire of the funeral pyre. […] About the adventures of Ulysses and the Argonauts have been woven the Greek legends of the sea of death. The Phaeacian ships of the Odyssey are death ships without helmsmen or rudders, rigging or tackle, but they know the thoughts of men. No bark of that mysterious fleet has ever been wrecked or stranded. They carry the souls of the blameless to the gardens of Alcinous.
Source: Wilbur Bassett, Wander-Ships: Folk Stories of the Sea with Notes upon Their Origin (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1917), 116, 117, 119.
