Dirtbag Jason and the Argonauts

by Mallory Ortberg · March 9, 2016

HYPSIPYLE: welcome to Lemnos
you will find there are no men here
as we have murdered all our husbands

JASON: niiiice

HYPSIPYLE: you see, we neglected our worship of Aphrodite and as punish – what?

JASON: aw yeah I like a challenge

HYPSIPYLE: you misunderstand
this place is cursed
no man –

JASON: I see you’re admiring my coat
Athena made it
ever heard of her?

HYPSIPYLE: woe betide any man who –

JASON: you can murder me anytime you want
if you know what I mean
sexually

HYPSIPYLE: I –

JASON: you can straight up murder my dick with sex
fuck me right up, fuck-wise

JASON: hey babe I gotta head out early
if it turns out I got you pregnant I don’t want you raising my son
I mean…you’re crazy, you kill men
so give it to your parents
k?
obviously it goes without saying that if you have a girl throw both it and yourself into the sea
I mean I’ll say it just in case you weren’t planning on it, but
I don’t trust you to raise my son and I don’t feel like waiting around to see if you have one so just give him to the people who raised you and things should work out fine
I gotta go find part of a sheep

JASON: all right let’s get out of here

TELAMON: should we make sure everyone is on board first

JASON: “should we make sure everyone is on board first”
hey if anyone’s not on board, speak up now

TELAMON: Jason

JASON: SHUT UP
I’M WAITING TO HEAR IF ANYBODY WHO ISN’T ON BOARD WANTS TO SAY SOMETHING

TELAMON: Hylas isn’t here

JASON: who

TELAMON: Hylas
squire and lover to Hercules

JASON: who

TELAMON: HERCULES
strongest man living, son of Zeus
one of our sworn companions

JASON: a of all “and lover” is implied when you say squire
you don’t need to add it on
obviously we are all having sex with our squires
that is just a given
and second of b
if they’re BOTH missing
it cancels each other out

TELAMON: what

JASON: both is the same as neither
Jesus, it’s MATH
one subtracts the other

TELAMON: I don’t –

JASON [pulling up the anchor]: Let’s GOOO
ive already fucked everything on this island
i wanna go somewhere else now

AETES: welcome to Colchis
I know what you have come for
and you may have the Golden Fleece only if you pass a series of tests designed to challenge you to the utmost of your strength and cunning

JASON: you got it

MEDEA: Jason, I love you, I would die for you
from the first moment I saw you I knew I would do anything for you

JASON: oh wow
well obviously I feel the same way
and also this is super convenient for me because I actually have a huge favor I need to ask you
help me defeat all your father’s trials and also just in general help me defeat him as a person

MEDEA: all I ask for is your fidelity and anything I have is yours
but I warn you
do not promise me something you cannot keep
for if you were ever to betray me after I cast aside my own family for you
I would swear revenge so black, so foul, the gods themse –

JASON: yeah absolutely
fidelity is like my number one favorite thing
let’s do this
i’m all in, Mads

MEDEA: my name is Medea

JASON: I know that
I knew that
that’s just my special nickname for you
my special fidelity nickname

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

126 Comments

  1. OoTheHumanities +202

    OK, is there enough dirtbag material for a full book yet, and where can I buy it?

      1. cmrnga +9

        Let’s talk tipping! This is an awesome story and I really want to tip for it but I hate doing all the rigmarole for a few dollars so I end up just donating 20 bucks to the Toast in general and not tipping the individual story which is so fantastic.
        I would be more likely to tip if I could make a 20 tip purchase and donate them out a bit at a time to individual stories? How are you guys doing the tipping?

    2. theshehulkchef +63

      Seriously. I would go for a Toast anthology actually – the Dirtbags, the Monks, the Women in Art History, the Why Are You In My Head Narrating My Crippling Anxiety…

      1. emmysuhweeks +60

        Probably just a series of textbooks, right? Volume I: Dirtbags, Volume II: Art History, next semester we will tackle Medieval Art in Vol. III…

          1. OoTheHumanities +62

            Note to whomever develops the Toast Shop: I would buy the hell out of a hoodie for Toast University.

          6. Alli525 +7

            Now visions of ivy-covered halls and large pristine quads are dancing through my head. It’s going to be hard to do work today with hearts-for-eyes.

  3. gothicfemale +127

    I am currently re-reading Euripides’ Medea and I just have to say, Jason is an exemplary dirt-bag. Thank you.

    1. fcjaugusta +10

      I KNOW, and it’s a little distressing how much of a dirtbag he is, even by Greek standards, and nobody in antiquity seems to care that much. I mean, at least they mostly acknowledge that Agamemnon got what he had coming, and I think he’s the only one who really rivals Jason in true dirtbagness.

      1. gothicfemale +7

        YES. Though I’ve also recently re-read The Oresteia, and it sounds very much like Aeschylus was on Team Agamenmon. I was specifically looking for the possibility that he wasn’t really condemning Clytemnestra and I really didn’t see that. Euripides does defend her, a bit, in Electra…but I think it’s debatable how much Euripides’ views reflect the general culture of the time. He is, after all, the one who gave us an infanticidal Medea who gets away with it. (For the record, although I was a Classics major, I have a woefully thin myth/lit background so I might be wrong)

        1. fcjaugusta +13

          I mean, Greek tragedy kind of does away with the whole “good guy/bad guy” thing, and that’s especially the point of the Oresteia. Klytemnestra *obviously* did a horrible thing and should die, but she did it because Agamemnon *obviously* did a horrible thing and should die. And if Orestes kills Klytemnestra he’ll totally be carrying out divine justice, but then he’ll also be a matricide, which is *obviously* a horrible thing and he should die, so Athena jumps in and is like, “Civilization, dudes. Maybe there should be laws?” On the other hand, Jason just kind of skates because he didn’t piss off any gods badly enough.

  4. LacaunaKale +136

    If those two dirtbags, Jason and Medea, couldn’t make it work what hope is there for the rest of us?

    1. zachariahary +113

      Hey whenever I’m in a relationship I just jot down a couple notes for success on my palm that consist of “1. Don’t surprise marry someone else. 2. Infanticide a no-no.”
      Cuz jeez, you forgot either of those things for, like, just a minute, things go south fast.

      1. geekcrackteam +37

        Yeah they really don’t like that and it’s such a bummer.

        There’s already so much I have to remember like his name and shit.

  5. threatqualitypress +89

    Yeah, Jason gives some A+ dirtbag material. A lot of those Greek heroes were dirtbags, no question there, but Jason was maybe the dirtiest-baggiest.

    1. sneepsnake +13

      Are we including the gods? Because in my book Zeus was the biggest fucking dirtbag, bar none.

  6. theharpoon +114

    Hmm I didn’t know about special fidelity nicknames before, this explains a lot.

    2. Goomaly +48

      how would one explain a variety of babe, love, honey, sweetie, anything except any version of my name?

      Spoiler: he was cheating

      1. OoTheHumanities +20

        This seems the right time to tell you that your username/tagline combo tickles me to no end. Like, all I have to do is think of it and my day improves, it’s not just when I’m Toasting.

        P.S. I hope that’s not creepy because I mean it sincerely.

        1. Goomaly +9

          It’s not creepy! I’m glad you’re amused. And here I was thinking the ninjas with a shopping cart was the funny part of my profile.

  7. fatslut +190

    LATER:

    Medea: *ollies over the bodies of her children on her dragon-drawn chariot*

      2. PettyVengeanceFetish +17

        Leeeeeeeeeet’s get ready toooooooo treeeeeeembleeeeeeee, with fear and horror

  8. backupandround +179

    “a of all”

    “second of b”

    Mallory, can I maybe marry all your delightful turns of phrase?

  9. Orla +30

    For real had to take an actually-choking-from-laughter break from this after the first conversation.
    Finished spluttering, imbibed some water and (just about) made it through the rest.

    It was worth it.

    10/10 would almost literally die laughing while reading again.

    1. extrayarn +8

      Jason and every student I ever tried to teach Medea-the-play to. If I ever go back to the classroom I’m making a giant poster.

  11. Libbie +160

    How is it possible that no one has commented on Jason’s artfully draped and intricately knotted junk-swag?

    6. laureleye +29

      I was just coming down here to ask opinions on whether that knot in front is like, tied around his dick? or just strategically positioned in front of it. Cause it really looks like the only thing keeping it up is that it’s tied to his dick.

    7. irishup +17

      Absolutely here in comments hoping for discussion of Jason’s A+ dickribbonry game.

  12. zachariahary +111

    Nobody dirtbags like the Greeks.
    A people primarily remembered for inventing democracy, that dude who had a weird thing for beans who did a math, and a level of dirtbaggery the world has not known since.

      1. grumblyqueer +57

        Technically bisexuality- basically all the famous queer dudes had wives, and even Sappho writes about men and women. And technically-technically you can’t use modern sexualities because Greeks were bigger on performance than orientation, so your sexuality was whatever role you played in the act. It got to the the point where a guy could fuck all the guys he wanted and still be manly and “normal” so long as nobody fucked him.
        That said though, Greece was in fact queerer than an all-drag production of Grease.

          1. ScarlettHairdye +18

            This is literally the only version of Grease I would willingly watch again.

          2. grumblyqueer +17

            The Pink Ladies and T Birds are outrageous caricatures of traditional gender roles anyway, might as well go the full 9 yards.

  13. emmysuhweeks +106

    “a of all “and lover” is implied when you say squire
    you don’t need to add it on”

    Grade A comedy right there.

    1. readerbeth +18

      Seconding. That line is one of the greatest lines in the history of language.

      1. thewhelk +41

        “obviously we are all having sex with our squires” works for like, the bulk of the Western canon too

      1. unleavings +12

        Right? I’m admittedly a stranger to the geometry of dicks, but it seems like it wouldn’t hold.

        1. backupandround +12

          It’s the only thing that makes sense. I mean, dick ribbons in Western Art History lean towards the physics-defying, but this is a truly exceptional example.

    2. mikelywhiplash +31

      “I will cover my dick with a rope that looks exactly like a dick. I really want people to know about my dick, and it’s not colorful enough on its own/”

      1. nopemobile +62

        “I really want people to know about my dick” explains so much of western dude-literature

  15. Herberta1 +102

    I know someone named Medea, and all I can think when I see her name is “What were your parents thinking?”

    2. Borednow +83

      That men would know better than to cheat on her?

      That being said, I remember a dear prudence letter from years ago about a couple who wanted to name their daughter ,”Lolita ” because they were literary people who loved the book and my mind is boggling to this day.

      1. OoTheHumanities +45

        WHOA. I mean, Dolores at least gives you plausible deniability and you could keep the wink-nod literary reference to yourselves FFS.

      2. Libbie +23

        I know, right? I love Lolita almost as much as I love Wolf Hall (which is A LOT) and while I can get behind naming children after great novels, Lolita is not where you should go. :'(

        Though I do plan to have a sailboat someday, which I will name the Dolly Lo in Lolita’s honor.

        1. askelade +81

          I will give you a million dollars if you name a baby (it doesn’t have to be yours!!) Wolf Hall.

        1. Zelenka +10

          And she referred to herself as Dolly.
          I have feelings about people who read Lolita as a love story.

      4. askelade +38

        But what about the maybe-apocryphal* boast of V. Nabokov that his greatest influence on the world was that no one was ever going to name a baby Lolita EVER AGAIN????

        * as in, I’m too short on time to do some internet research, but not too short on time to comment here.

        1. ScriptioPlena +13

          …Because everyone in the world is an English speaker whose primary association with the name is that book. *quiet facepalm*

          1. Phasma Felis +7

            If Nabokov did say that, it’s *just possible* that he was being a teensy bit hyperbolic.

      5. CaroWR +24

        Oh wow, that’s so much worse than my friend telling me that his intern was named Emma, after Austen’s Emma, which…she’s a bit of a jerk, but she Learns a Lesson, so it’s fine, and her older sister was named Tess. I was like ‘As in Tess of the d’Urbervilles? Did they hate her?’

        Nothing good happened to ol’ Tess.

        1. xTinsel +13

          YES. My English teacher named her daughter Tess after Tess of the d’Ubervilles. Like, she read that book, studied it, TAUGHT it and then somehow still went “yep, this is what I want to call my child.”

        1. Libbie +40

          Oh, you are so right about this. I once (briefly) dated a guy named Jason; his screen name (in the AIM days) was an allusion to the Jason and the Argonauts thing. On a scale from 1 (no dirtbaggery) to 10 (epic dirtbaggery on a level not witnessed since the days of ancient Greece itself), he turned out to be an 11.

        4. alliana07 +22

          Me: I mean I did talk to/pseudo-date a guy named Jason once. He was a feminist, and in the surprisingly-good-male-feminist way, so I guess he wasn’t bad…
          Me: Although he did then ghost on me after our first date so hm.
          Me: ….. Yep, dirtbag.

        5. catcet +25

          As my parents were going to name me Jason if I’d been a boy I feel like a dodged a bullet? Does it count as dodging a bullet if you avoided BEING the bad thing that happens to someone?

          1. catcet +12

            Wait, actually I just double checked and I would have been a Justin. That’s better, right?

        7. rebeccalibrarian +15

          I did not realize that I was not alone in this. Pretty much every Jason I have ever known has been a dirtbag in some way. I decided when I was like 15 that if I ever had a son I would never in a billion years name him Jason because it would only spell doom for him.

    4. VioletandIrises +46

      I always cringe when I hear Cassandra. Yes, it’s a pretty name, but do you know the history behind it? I’ll give you a hint: it’s bad.

      1. ScriptioPlena +43

        Kassandra here. Yes, they know, but if I’d been a boy like I was supposed to be I would’ve been Orestes (actually a reasonably common name in Greece). And I have cousins on the Greek side named Jocasta and Iphigenia. Those names just get dropped in this “mythical/historical” bucket without much attention to who the original bearer was.

        1. fromthelandwithlove +24

          It’s like all of the Jewish girls named Dina and/or Tamar. Why would you do that to your child?????

        2. laureleye +33

          I sort of feel like you don’t need to know the specific story to know that naming a child after a figure from Greek mythology is a bad call. I mean, a passing familiarity with any Greek myths at all should be enough to tell you that nothing goes well and nobody comes out looking good.

        3. ScriptioPlena +54

          …Oh, and Iphigenia named her daughter Elektra, because at a certain point, you just run clear out of fucks to give.

          3. cmrnga +17

            Because Iphigenia spent her entire life spelling out that monstrosity to strangers and thought (wrongly) Elektra was easier? (K or C?)

        4. Charcoal Tree +2

          I have to admit, I kind of love the name Jocasta and actually considered it, when I was pregnant and saw it in the baby names book. Then I realized where I heard it before. I was a little mad that it was even in the book to tempt me. Fricken Jocasta. You could have been my daughter. Sigh.

    5. phlippin +31

      Was she Georgian? There are a lot of Georgian women named Medea, mostly because they believe the first Medea was Georgian. They’re geographically in the right spot (Eastern shore of the Black Sea) and there are legends about Georgians using sheep fleeces to filter gold out of the streams. It’s a slightly infamous association, but better than naming kids after their other infamous countryman, Stalin!

    6. Glen H +5

      Well, they weren’t planning on a long and happy relationship with the grandkids, that’s for sure.

    7. trashofthething +21

      Oh, I don’t know. Medea gets things done! True, most of those things are murder, but…

  17. Frumiosa +63

    Glad you specified “and the Argonauts” cuz there are a lotta dirtbag Jasons out there tbh.

    1. cosmeticsandkayaks +22

      Yup.I have a Jason moratorium after one divorce and a broken engagement, both with Jasons.

  18. Marthooh +27

    Sure Jason’s a dirtbag, but I always thought of him as more hypocritical and self- deceptive about it:

    DB MEDEA: I will now butcher my little brother for you, sweet Jason.

    DB JASON: What bae can’t hear you, I’ll just be over here humming tunelessly to myself, gazing off into the distance with my hands in my pockets if you need me, but you probably won’t, I bet…

    …

    DB JASON: Bae I don’t want a divorce!

    DB MEDEA: That’s a good thing.

    DB JASON: But my peeps, well they insist, because, you know, you ARE a little barbaric sometimes. Just sometimes, a little.

    DB MEDEA: … … …

    DB JASON: But hey I’m sure we can be civilized about this. And not kill any underage relatives.

    DB MEDEA: Oh so you’re sure about that. Well Jason it’s a good thing you’re SURE I didn’t really mean it about revenge.

    DB JASON: Ha, now, that’s my Mads!

  19. damanoid +18

    Remember when Medea and her hummingbird army helped Jason slay the dreaded Parrot of Colchis and recover the Divine Pillar of Pawnshop Summoning? That was great.

  20. danielmelleno +62

    In addition, Jason also has absolutely The Best death of any of the Greek “heroes.”

    Sitting on the dock all miserable and crushed to death by a rotting piece of the Argos. The Best.

    2. maryoftheassumptions +13

      Right? Hera’s one big shot at her own hero, and in the end he’s so lame she has to drop his own boat on him. Gotta be a disappointment.

  21. Alex +13

    Odysseus: also a dirtbag. Killed all the Trojans with a sneaky trick, told Circe he had a wife at home then stayed for a YEAR, would have definitely made it with a Siren had they not turned out to be foul-smelling hags with the bodies of birds

  24. thekatriarch +11

    Greek myth really has an embarrassment of dirtbag riches, but Jason is the one that makes me feel PERSONALLY AFFRONTED. Fuck you, Jason! #TeamMedea.

    1. Narvi

      I mean, I know where you’re coming from, since I feel personally offended that Medea totally wrecked her little bro just for her new ho

      But then again I’m a member of Little Bros United

    1. halloweenjack64 +6

      Was going to ask if anyone else always read the “dirtbag” stuff in H. Jon Benjamin’s voice.

  26. Halloween Jack

    Was going to ask if anyone else always read the "dirtbag" stuff in H. Jon Benjamin's voice.

  27. halloweenjack64 +10

    “‘Golden fleece’, huh? So what you’re saying is, the carpet matches the drapes.”

    “…”

    “…unless you went Brazilian? Hey, do we know about Brazil yet?”

  28. Halloween Jack

    "'Golden fleece', huh? So what you're saying is, the carpet matches the drapes."

    "…"

    "…unless you went Brazilian? Hey, do we know about Brazil yet?"