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Although Ath’a mas, a king in northern Greéce, had two children, Phrixus and Helle, he left his first wife and married again. This second wife, like the traditional step-mother wishing to get rid of the children, persuaded Athanias to sacrifice Phrixus to Zeus, and the sacrifice was about to be accomplished when Hermes sent a ram with golden fleece which carried off the two children on his back. As they passed over the strait now known as the Dardanelles, Helle lost her hold and fell off into the water. That is how this strait in ancient times came to be called the Hellespont. Phrixus kept on to Colchis, on the Euxine (now the Black) Sea, where he offered up the ram to Zeus and gave the golden fleece to Æ e'tes, the king, who hung it on a tree in the sacred grove of Ares, under the guardianship of a sleepless dragon.

Fig. 84. Phrixus and the Ram.

The nephew of Athamus, Pe’li as, king of I ol’ cus, a violent and unjust man, seized the power and possessions that belonged to his half-brother Æson, Fearing for the life of his son Jason, Æson sent him as a baby to be brought up by the centaur Chiron, who, unlike most of the centaurs, was wonderfully wise and just and was famous both as a physician and as the tutor of many of the heroes. Jason had taken part in the Calydonian boar-hunt when he was hardly more than a boy. He had learned from Chiron kindness and courtesy as well as courage; once when he found a feeble old woman .waiting for some one to help her across a raging mountain torrent, he cheerfully took her on his back and set her over. As the old woman happened to be Hera in disguise, he was rewarded for his courtesy by securing a powerful friend. Soon after this, when Pelias was holding a great sacrifice in honor of Poseidon, Jason determined to attend. In crossing a river he lost one sandal in the mud and went on without it. Now Pelias had been warned by an oracle to beware of a man who should come to him wearing one sandal; when, therefore, Jason appeared before him, he determined to put him out of his way. So when the young man quite simply and frankly demanded of him the kingdom that of right belonged to him, Pelias answered cautiously that he would willingly give it up but it seemed only right that Jason should first prove his courage by bringing back from Colchis the famous golden fleece. Thus he thought he should make sure of his death.

Fig. 85. Centaur.

Without delay Jason sent messengers all over Greece to gather comrades for this dangerous enterprise. When assembled they were fifty in all — each one a famous hero, the son or grandson of a god. Chief of all was Heracles, who had just returned from his adventure with the Erymanthian boar. Orpheus was there, the divine musician; Castor and Polydeuces, the twin-brothers of Helen; Meleager of Calydon; Peleus and Telamon, whose sons, Achilles and Ajax, were to be great heroes of the Trojan War; the two sons of Orithyia and Boreas, the north wind, came from Thrace on their dark, cloudy wings scaled with gold, their black hair streaming behind them as they flew. Theseus would surely have been among the company, but at that time he was still a prisoner in Hades. A ship was built by a son of Phrixus, Argus, with the help of Athena herself, and was named from its builder, Argo. In its prow Athena had set a beam from the sacred oak of Dodona, possessed of a voice and prophetic power like that of the trunk from which it was cut. All the city came out to see the heroes depart. From the wooded shore across the bay Chiron waved farewell to his pupil and held out for his father to see Peleus' son, the baby Achilles, who had been given into his charge. The young men dipped their long oars to the music of Orpheus' lyre, the fishes frolicked about the ship, and the gods looked down from high heaven in admiration at the glorious band of heroes.

Many were the adventures on this famous voyage. Sometimes the sea threatened to sink the ship; sometimes the strangers among whom they landed were hostile and they were compelled to fight for their lives. At the island of Lemnos the women, who had recently murdered their husbands and fathers, tried to keep the Argonauts with them, offering them a share of their island. Once they were pursued by a tribe of six-handed giants. Finally when they had landed on the shore of an island to rest, they lost the strongest of their company, Heracles, and two others with him. Heracles had gone into the woods to cut a new oar in place of one that he had broken, and his young friend and follower Hylas had gone to get water from the spring. The nymphs, thinking that this charming young stranger would be a delightful playfellow and partner in the dance, put out their long white arms and drew the boy down into their fountain. One of the company heard his last despairing cry and started to the rescue, calling to Heracles as he ran. Supposing that robbers had stolen him the two scoured the country and were gone so long that the other heroes sailed away leaving them behind.

When at last Jason and his companions had passed through the Bosphorus they came to the home of Phineus. This Phineus, because by his gift of prophecy he told men all the future, Zeus had cursed with blindness and had sent the Harpies (see p. 150) to torment him. These dreadful deities of storm and death snatched away or defiled whatever food was set before their victim. The coming of the Argonauts brought relief to the starving, blind old man, for when the Harpies swooped down upon the banquet set for the hero the two sons of Boreas drew their swords with a great shout and pursued them. Far over the sea they flew, and they would in the end have caught and killed the Harpies, but Iris came between them and forbade it. In return for this good deed Phineus told the voyagers of all that lay before them and especially of the perilous Sympleg’a des, or Clashing Rocks. So when they had set sail again and saw the waves breaking and the foam tossed high from these terrible rocks, they loosed a dove as the seer had bidden them, and when she had passed safely through with only the loss of her tail feathers, they dashed in as the rocks rebounded and forced the ship through, rowing with all their might, before the rocks could close a second time. Yet even so the ship might not have escaped, but Athena pushed it on and held back the rocks with her hand. From that time those rocks have remained rooted fast together, no longer affording that dangerous passage.

The next day, just before dawn, they landed on a small island, and there Apollo met them as he passed on his way to the Hyperboreans. About his head his hair fell in golden curls, in his hand was his silver bow, and under his feet the island quaked. The heroes were amazed when they saw him, and feared to look into the shining eyes of the god. So when he passed on they made sacrifice to him and sang the paean and called that island sacred to Apollo of the Dawn. Then they sailed on by many strange lands and peoples, the coast of the Amazons and the island of Ares. Here there flew out a flock of birds who rained down upon the rowers' heads a rain of feathers, sharp as arrows; but the heroes raised over the ship a covering of their shields, set close together, and so passed by in safety. Further on they saw the Caucasus Mountains rising before them, and a great vulture, with wide-spread wings, flew over the ship, and from the cliff above sounded cries of agony as Prometheus suffered once more his age-long torture; for Heracles had not yet come to free that much-enduring friend of man. (See pp. 10, 223.)

Now as the ship neared Colchis, Hera and Athena in heaven held a council together to plan how they might aid Jason in his adventure. They called Aphrodite and persuaded her to send her son Eros, or Cupid, to Petes' daughter Me de’a to cause her to take Jason's part. The goddess of love found her little son playing dice' with Zeus's young cup-bearer, the boy Ganymede, and by the promise of a golden ball she won him to do what she asked. Meanwhile the heroes had landed and had gone up to the great palace of Æétes, adorned with the work of Hephæstus, four fountains always flowing, one with oil, one with wine, one with milk, and one with water. There King Æétes entertained the travelers royally, while Medea sat by, her heart filled with love and pain as she looked at Jason, for Eros' sharp arrow had pierced deep. Then Jason told the king that he had come to get the golden fleece, and Æétes answered craftily, saying that he would freely give it when he had tried Jason and found that he was worthy to receive it. But first, as proof of his skill and courage, let him harness to a plow the bronze-hoofed bulls that breathed out fire from their nostrils and plow with them the field of Ares. When this was done, let him plant the dragon's teeth that Athena had given. Then, if all this was accomplished between dawn and sunset, he should receive the golden fleece. Though he looked upon it as an impossible task, Jason could do no better than accept the king's conditions, but he returned to his ship and his comrades in utter discouragement. As for Medea, she was in an agony of doubt as to whether to drive this love from her heart and allow Jason to perish or to be disloyal to her father and help with her magic arts. Love got the upper hand, and she took powerful herbs and ointments and went to meet Jason at the shrine of Hecate beyond the walls. As Jason came to meet her the gods made him of nobler bearing and more glorious than before, and he talked to the maiden Medea with winning words. So she gave him a charm made of a flower that grew from the blood drawn from Prometheus by the vulture, and gathered and treated in magic ways. She told him, too, how to propitiate Hecate by mysterious sacrifice performed at midnight, and how afterwards, when he had smeared his body and his weapons with the magic ointment, he could safely sow the dragon's teeth. Jason promised her in return his undying love and gratitude and that he would carry her home with him and make her his wife.

When it was time for the trial, all the people assembled, and the Argonauts looked on with the dread as the fire-breathing bulls rushed upon their leader. But the ointment made him invulnerable to fire, and he grappled with them and forced them to their knees and put the yoke upon their necks. So he plowed the field of Ares and then he sowed the dragon's teeth. Thereupon a crop of armed men sprang up, as they had from the dragon's teeth sowed by Cadmus at the founding of Thebes. Jason remembered Medea's warning and threw into their midst a great stone, and immediately they fell upon one another, and others Jason himself slew with his sword until none were left.

But Æétes had no intention of fulfilling his agreement and giving up the golden fleece, he plotted to burn the ship Argo while the heroes slept. Once more Medea saved Jason, for she told him where to find the tree on which the fleece was hung, and she gave him a sleeping potion to pour over the dragon's eyes, and herself lulled him by a magic song. So in that night they secured the fleece and secretly boarding the ship set sail. When the king knew of their flight and that they had taken not only the famous fleece but his undutiful daughter as well, he started out in. hot pursuit. Then Medea did a horrible thing, for she slaughtered her own brother, whom she had taken with her, and cut up his limbs and cast them behind her on the waters, so that her father, in gathering them up for burial, might be delayed in his pursuit.

About the course followed by the Argonauts on their return voyage there is much uncertainty, but they seem to have met with many of the monsters and strange beings that Odysseus (or Ulysses) afterwards encountered. At last, however, they landed on their native shores and were received with joy by Æson and with feigned satisfaction by Pelias. Years and anxiety had greatly enfeebled Æson, and his son longed to see him young and strong again. Medea undertook to satisfy his wish. Nine nights under the full moon she scoured the earth in her dragon drawn chariot in search of rare herbs and other things of use in the sorcerer's art. Then she built altars to Hecate and the goddess of youth, and sacrificing to the gods of the under world she called upon them by name. The old man she purified three times, with fire, with water, and with sulphur. Then she concocted a brew of magic herbs, of frost got by moonlight, of the wings and flesh of bats, of the vitals of a wolf, the liver of a stag, and the beak and head of a long-lived crow. She stirred it all together with a stick of dry olive-wood; the stick grew green and put forth leaves, and where the liquid spattered on the earth fresh grass sprang up. Then the sorceress opened the veins of her patient, and as the blood flowed out, she poured into his mouth and veins her magic liquid. And his white hairs grew dark again, the color came into his sunken cheeks, and his feeble form grew strong and straight. When Pelias' daughters saw this marvel, they begged to have the same treatment given to their father as well. Medea pretended to consent, and having made a powerless brew of herbs and water, gave the signal for the credulous daughters to slaughter their father.

Fig. 86. Medea preparing the magic brew.

Because of this murder of Pelias, Jason and Medea were obliged to leave lolcus and take refuge in Corinth. In time Jason grew tired of his passionate and mysterious wife and announced his intention of marrying a princess of Corinth. Medea, covering up her bitter resentment with a show of submission, sent the bride as a wedding gift a beautiful robe, but when she put it on it consumed her flesh like fire, and her father in trying to help her perished with her. This was not enough to satisfy Medea's hatred. That the perfidious Jason might not have sons to care for his old age and to perpetuate his race, she conquered her maternal feelings and killed her two children. Then in her dragon-drawn chariot she flew away. In Athens she married Theseus' father Ægeus and almost brought about the hero's death by persuading his father to offer him a poisoned cup. When Ægeus' sudden recognition of his son thwarted this plot, the sorceress flew away and disappeared from story. (See p. 249.)

Fig. 87. Medea preparing to kill her Children.

Jason passed thereafter a forlorn and useless life. His only comfort was to go and sit in the shade of the old ship Argo, the outward symbol of his only great achievement. One day its rotting timbers fell on him and crushed him.