Алтын жүнді қошқар туралы грек мифологиясының әңгімесі

Artefact in Greek mythology, part of the Argonauts' tale

In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece (Χρυσόμαλλον δέρας) is the fleece of the golden woolled, winged ram, Chrysomallos, that rescued Phrixus and brought him to Colchis, where Phrixus then sacrificed it to Zeus. Phrixus gave the fleece to King Aeëtes who kept it in a sacred grove, whence Jason and the Argonauts stole it with the help of Medea, Aeëtes' daughter. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship. In the historical account, the hero Jason and his crew of Argonauts set out on a quest for the fleece by order of King Pelias in order to place Jason rightfully on the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly. Through the help of Medea, they acquire the Golden Fleece. The story is of great antiquity and was current in the time of Homer (eighth century BC). This story has shifted forms many times, to include the story of Madusa and how she turned people who came to visit her to gold. It survives in various forms, among which the details vary. Nowadays, the heraldic variations of the Golden Fleece are featured frequently in Georgia, especially for Coats of Arms and Flags associated with Western Georgian (Historical Colchis) municipalities and cities, including the Coats of Arms of City of Kutaisi, the ancient capital city of Colchis.

Athamas the founder of Thessaly, but also king of the city of Orchomenus in Boeotia (a region of southeastern Greece), took the goddess Nephele as his first wife. They had two children, the boy Phrixus (whose name means "curly", as in the texture of the ram's fleece) and the girl Helle. Later Athamas became enamored of and married Ino, the daughter of Cadmus. When Nephele left in anger, drought came upon the land. Ino was jealous of her stepchildren and plotted their deaths; in some versions, she persuaded Athamas that sacrificing Phrixus was the only way to end the drought. Nephele, or her spirit, appeared to the children with a winged ram whose fleece was of gold. The ram had been sired by Poseidon in his primitive ram form upon Theophane, a nymph and the granddaughter of Helios, the sun god. According to Hyginus, Poseidon carried Theophane to an island where he made her into a ewe so that he could have his way with her among the flocks. There Theophane's other suitors could not distinguish the ram god and his consort. Nephele's children escaped on the yellow ram over the sea, but Helle fell off and drowned in the strait now named after her, the Hellespont. The ram spoke to Phrixus, encouraging him, and took the boy safely to Colchis (modern day south east coastal region of the Black Sea), on the easternmost shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea. There the ram was sacrificed to gods. In essence, this act returned the ram to the god Poseidon, and the ram became the constellation Aries. Phrixus settled in the house of Aeëtes, son of Helios the sun god. He hung the Golden Fleece preserved from the ram on an oak in a grove sacred to Ares, the god of war and one of the Twelve Olympians. The fleece was guarded by a never sleeping dragon with teeth that could become soldiers when planted in the ground. The dragon was at the foot of the tree on which the fleece was placed. In some versions of the story, Jason attempts to put the guard serpent to sleep.

Pindar employed the quest for the Golden Fleece in his Fourth Pythian Ode (written in 462 BC), though the fleece is not in the foreground. When Aeëtes challenges Jason to yoke the fire breathing bulls, the fleece is the prize: "Let the King do this, the captain of the ship! Let him do this, I say, and have for his own the immortal coverlet, the fleece, glowing with matted skeins of gold". In later versions of the story, the ram is said to have been the offspring of the sea god Poseidon and Themisto (less often, Nephele or Theophane). The classic telling is the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, composed in the mid third century BC Alexandria, recasting early sources that have not survived. Another, much less known Argonautica, using the same body of myth, was composed in Latin by Valerius Flaccus during the time of Vespasian. Where the written sources fail, through accidents of history, sometimes the continuity of a mythic tradition can be found among the vase painters. The story of the Golden Fleece appeared to have little resonance for Athenians of the Classic age, for only two representations of it on Attic painted wares of the fifth century have been identified: a krater at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a kylix in the Vatican collections. In the kylix painted by Douris, c. 480–470, Jason is being disgorged from the mouth of the dragon, a detail that does not fit easily into the literary sources; behind the dragon, the fleece hangs from an apple tree. Jason's helper in the Athenian vase paintings is not Medea— who had a history in Athens as the opponent of Theseus—but Athena.