John Anhcondo
02/02/13
G4
Dante’s Inferno: Jason Jason and the Argonauts, a hero of Greek mythology, punished for the sins of a seducer in the eighth circle of hell. He is to march for all eternity and be whipped by demons supervising himself and the other sinner in Dante’s Inferno. One might ask is this punishment too severe, whether it’s for the seduction and abandonment of two women, or even poetic justice for his sins. Jason of Iolcus in Thessaly, the son of the former king of Iolcus, Aeson, was one of the heroes taught by the centaur Chiron. As a young man Jason went to the court of his uncle Pelias to reclaim the throne his father had given his uncle with the condition that Jason would become king when he came of age. King Pelias, warned by an oracle that a man with one sandal would cause him to lose the throne, was alarmed when he saw Jason because, while crossing a river, Jason had lost one of his sandals. To stave off the oracle's predicted ill fortune, Pelias sent Jason on what was presumed to be a suicide mission, which was to fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis. Jason succeeded in the seemingly impossible quest, with the help of his many heroic friends, known collectively as the Argonauts, and by charming the king's daughter Medea, a witch/sorceress. (It should also be noted that before he met Medea he had slept with a woman of The Isle of Lemnos, and left her with child When he left Colchis, Jason was obligated to take Medea with him because she had betrayed her father. On their sea passage, Medea killed her younger brother in protection of Jason and tossed his limbs upon the sea. Medea won the throne of Iolcus for Jason by tricking Pelias' own daughters to kill him. The pair continued together and had two sons, but later Jason reconsidered marriage to such a barbarian princess, so he set her aside in order to marry a Corinthian princess, Glauce.
Medea was enraged, and caused the death of Glauce. There are several different interpretations as to how Medea dealt with her and Jason’s children. She most likely either killed them in frustration or the blame was laid upon her. There are also several versions of Jason’s death, some say murder by Medea, a beam fell on him from the Argo while he slept, or he committed suicide because of the death of his children and the shame he felt. I do believe that Dante is too severe in his placement of Jason in Hell, at the very least he is unfair. From Dante's perspective, crimes of passion or desire are the least abhorrent and consequently deserve minimal punishment in comparison to what he believes are the more serious offenses. These sinners, the carnal, the gluttonous, the hoarders and wasters, along with the wrathful and sullen fall just below the virtuous pagans in Dante's hell. In some way, they represent a loss of self control, of reason gone amiss, as each plunges into a personal world of self indulgence. To Dante, those that succumb to the pleasures of the 'will' deserve an eternity less painful than those who fall into emotional or psychological despair. Yet, like the sins that constitute placement deeper in the bowels of Hell, all represent a punishment equal to or reflective of the sin as it existed in life. In Dante's view a circle of sin consists of acts of fraud. He classifies these sinners as seducers and panderers, flatterers, simoniacs, fortune tellers, grafters, hypocrites, thieves, evil counselors, sowers of discord, and counterfeiters or falsifiers. These are the souls who in life betrayed the confidence of another. In Dante's conception of Hell, it seems, each soul is ultimately responsible for his own placement in Hell based upon his or her willful actions in life. They do not appear sentenced by chance but rather by some universal code. Dante judges each soul and banishes it to the circle that best represents its most horrid action. However, if this is truly the case, why does Dante place Jason with the panderers and seducers instead of further down in the pit along with Medea? She did kill their children. Even if one is to discount all his other deeds and focus only on this last one, Jason appears to be abandoning his sons, if not for Medea's contrivance. He is, in essence, betraying his kin. According to Dante, he should, therefore, fall into circle nine, round one: Caina. It is ironic that Medea's conviction of Jason is so strong. If Dante were to sentence Medea in his Inferno she too would have a very long fall. Obviously guilty of betrayal to her kin, Dante might place Medea in circle nine, round one: Caina. But, she commits a crime before the murder of her sons that is even harsher from Dante's perspective. She is guilty of treachery to one's benefactor. Prior to her exile she begs King Creon to permit her to stay a few more hours, until morning, so she might make proper provisions for the safety of her children. Creon, in an act of mercy, grants her request. And, it is in this short span of time the Medea plans and successfully carries out the murder of the king's daughter, and indirectly, Creon's death too. Medea should, by Dante's standards, spend her eternity in circle nine, round 4: Judecca.

Works Cited
Dante. The Inferno. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: Penguin, 1954. Euripides. Medea. Trans. Rex Warner. New York: Dover, 1993.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. New York: Penguin, 1969.