The Argonautika: The Story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece (Hellenistic Culture & Society) - Softcover

The first commentary since 1912 on all four books of the Argonautika, the tale of Jason and the quest for the Golden Fleece, is accompanied by a dynamic translation of the Hellenistic epic which was a radical depature from the Homeric tradition, featuring a rather unsensational hero whose best quality is being a hit with the ladies, and a heroine who is a major chracter in her own right: a virgin sorceress whose magic brings Jason's triumph yet cannot save her from her own infatuation. The introduction discusses Apollonios in his Alexandrian world and proposes a new understanding of his poetic puropse and acheivement. The commentary is especially good at explaining mythical allusions which abound.

"Peter Green turns his formidable classical learning and his finely nuanced sense of English verse to bear on the challenge of restoring Apollonios to his true place—on a par with the best modern poetic versions of Homer and Virgil."—Robert Fagles, translator of Homer's Iliad

"The style is crisp, energetic, and masculine in the narrative, but not unsympathetic to the love-suffering of Medeia."—Jasper Griffin, Oxford University

"A smooth-running and highly readable verse translation of Apollonios's epic tale of the voyage of the Argonauts from the pen of a writer whose elegant verse translations of Ovid's Erotic Poems and Juvenal's Satires have long been justly admired by scholars and the general public alike. Peter Green's Argonautika is, quite simply, invaluable."—Bernard Knox, author of Backing into the Future