Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After Apsyrtus’s murder, Zeus’s anger and the Argo’s Dodonaean beam drove Jason and Medea to Circe, daughter of Helios and sister of Aeetes, on Aeaea. Circe received them without at first knowing the crime. In Apollonius she performs the proper rites of purification for homicide: she slaughters a suckling pig (or performs the blood-cleansing ritual), washes the polluted pair, and makes offerings to Zeus the Purifier. When she learns they have killed her brother’s son (or, in the Apollodorean child-version, the child Apsyrtus), she refuses further hospitality and bids them leave, though the cleansing stands. They depart under her warning and Hera’s continued care. On the long return Apollonius also strands the Argo in the shallows of Libya (the Syrtes). The crew carry the ship for twelve days across the desert; they encounter the Hesperides mourning the serpent Ladon (freshly slain by Heracles on his own labor—chronological mythic overlap). Orpheus advises divine help; the Libyan goddess or the heroines of the land appear. At Lake Tritonis the local sea-god Triton appears when the Argonauts offer a tripod; he gives a clod of earth to Euphemus (pledge of future Thera/Cyrene in Pindaric sequel) and, taking human or divine form, physically tows or guides the Argo to navigable water, revealing the sea-path out of the shoals. Apollodorus notes Circe’s purification after Apsyrtus and summarizes further return stops more briefly. Together Circe and Libya mark the return as a journey of cleansing and geographical ordeal, not a simple reverse sail from Colchis to Iolcus.