KhalkiopeChalciope

The daughter of the king and queen of Kolkhis (Colchis), Aietes (Aeetes) and Eidyia; the sister of the sorceress, Medea, and half-sister of Apsyrto.

When the fugitive, Phrixus, came to Kolkhis on the flying ram with the Golden Fleece, Aietes gave him sanctuary and allowed him to marry Khalkiope “without gifts of wooing;” at the magical ram’s request, its body was sacrificed and its Golden Fleece was placed in the Garden of Ares at Kolkhis.

Years later, after Phrixus had died of old age, the four sons of Khalkiope and Phrixus (Argus, Kytissoros (Cytissoros), Phrontis, and Melas) set out on a quest to avenge their father’s unjust expulsion from his home in Orkhomenos (Orchomenos); they had not traveled far from Kolkhis when they became shipwrecked on the Island of Ares and were rescued by the Argonauts, who were on their way to Kolkhis to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

When king Aietes found out why the Argonauts had come to his remote kingdom, he became furious and blamed Khalkiope’s sons for bringing the strangers to his shores; Khalkiope begged her sister, Medea, to help the Argonauts and divert the king’s anger from her sons; Khalkiope swore a great oath to return from the Underworld as an avenging Fury if her father harmed her sons; Medea was distressed at her sister’s plight and, under the influence of Eros (god of Love), used her magical powers to assist Iason (Jason) and the Argonauts to take the Golden Fleece and flee Kolkhis; after Medea fled Kolkhis in disgrace and her half-brother, Apsyrtos, was killed in pursuit of the Argonauts, Khalkiope was Aietes’ only child who stayed with him in Kolkhis.

• Argonautika, book 2, lines 1140-1156