The myths chronicled in The Golden Fleece elude any precise historical timeline. These fabled events unfurl in an era long before the annals of history began, already ancient by the time Homer wove his legendary epics of the Trojan War, the Iliad and the Odyssey, in the eighth century B.C. While the discoveries unearthed by archaeology have revealed that certain mythological tales, like that of the Trojan War, are firmly rooted in historical truth, Jason's adventure for The Golden Fleece dwells in a realm that straddles the border between the fantastical and the real.

The society portrayed in The Golden Fleece reflects the ethos of the Greek Dark Ages, a shadowy interval in Greek history marked by the collapse of mighty cities such as Mycenae around 1200 B.C., and the resurgence of a sophisticated civilization centuries later. During this epoch, people clustered in modest communities, reliant on the leadership of a king—often the term used for the community's leader—and their compatriots for protection. The world beyond their village limits loomed as an intimidating expanse; every territory outside their familiar boundaries posed potential peril, and each outsider was seen as a possible foe.

Though Jason's epic journey includes detours into the realm of the mythical, his path can largely be charted on a modern map. Hailing from Thessaly, a region nestled in central Greece, his daring quest for The Golden Fleece sweeps across the Aegean Sea. Along their odyssey, the crew of the Argo makes landfall on real islands, like Lemnos, and navigates the narrow straits leading into the Black Sea. The backdrop of their saga is a vivid landscape of towering mountains, treacherous shores, shadowy woods, and seas that shift from serene to tempestuous.

Young adults today might struggle with the varying quality of Colum's rendition of The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles. While some sections leap off the page with vivid drama, others lie flat and lifeless. Epic tales, by their very nature, call for language that soars above the mundane, even as Homer himself employed an elevated version of Greek to spin his legendary sagas. Colum endeavors to do the same with his formal and dignified prose, yet sometimes his words stray so far from conversational English that they become hard to navigate.

Colum's particular style might be partly attributed to the era in which he wrote The Golden Fleece, almost seventy years past, when formality was woven into the very fabric of daily life. Furthermore, Colum likely grappled with bridging the gap between the young audience he aimed to reach and the mature themes he sought to convey. Take, for instance, the tale of Jason and Hypsipyle; a writer in the 1920s would have hesitated to reveal that Jason left Hypsipyle with child, a fact that would now be comfortably at home in today's soap operas.

In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, heroism was synonymous with the prowess of a warrior, and the pinnacle of this valor was achieved on the battlefield. Battles were waged not to usher in peace, but to capture the elusive prize of glory. Driven by the thirst for fame, a warrior, finding himself in a lull of conflict, might provoke a skirmish. This recalls the tale of Jason, whose decision to voyage to Colchis in pursuit of the Golden Fleece mirrors this relentless pursuit of renown.

The tragic aftermath of Jason's egocentric and capricious quest speaks volumes on its own; it illustrates how the allure of glory often seduces heroes away from their societal duties, resulting in catastrophic outcomes. The narrative of The Golden...