Myths and Legends of All Nations — The Golden Fleece, part 2

If I were to tell you all the adventures of the Argonauts it would take me till nightfall and perhaps a great deal longer.

There was no lack of wonderful events, as you may judge from what you have already heard.

At a certain island they were hospitably received by King Cyzicus, its sovereign, who made a feast for them and treated them like brothers.

But the Argonauts saw that this good king looked downcast and very much troubled, and they therefore inquired of him what was the matter.

King Cyzicus hereupon informed them that he and his subjects were greatly abused and incommoded by the inhabitants of a neighboring mountain, who made war upon them and killed many people and ravaged the country.

And while they were talking about it Cyzicus pointed to the mountain and asked Jason and his companions what they saw there.

"I see some very tall objects," answered Jason, "but they are at such a distance that I cannot distinctly make out what they are.

To tell your majesty the truth, they look so very strangely that I am inclined to think them clouds which have chanced to take something like human shapes."

"I see them very plainly," remarked Lynceus, whose eyes, you know, were as far-sighted as a telescope.

"They are a band of enormous giants, all of whom have six arms apiece, and a club, a sword or some other weapon in each of their hands."

"You have excellent eyes," said King Cyzicus.

"Yes, they are six-armed giants, as you say, and these are the enemies whom I and my subjects have to contend with."

The next day, when the Argonauts were about setting sail, down came these terrible giants, stepping a hundred yards at a stride, brandishing their six arms apiece and looking very formidable so far aloft in the air.

Each of these monsters was able to carry on a whole war by himself, for with one of his arms he could fling immense stones and wield a club with another and a sword with a third, while a fourth was poking a long spear at the enemy and the fifth and sixth were shooting him with a bow and arrow.

But luckily, though the giants were so huge and had so many arms, they had each but one heart and that no bigger nor braver than the heart of an ordinary man.

Besides, if they had been like the hundred-armed Briareus, the brave Argonauts would have given them their hands full of fight.

Jason and his friends went boldly to meet them, slew a great many and made the rest take to their heels--so that if the giants had had six legs apiece instead of six arms, it would have served them better to run away with.

Another strange adventure happened when the voyagers came to Thrace, where they found a poor blind king named Phineus, deserted by his subjects and living in a very sorrowful way all by himself.

On Jason's inquiring whether they could do him any service, the king answered that he was terribly tormented by three great winged creatures called Harpies, which had the faces of women and the wings, bodies and claws of vultures.

These ugly wretches were in the habit of snatching away his dinner, and allowed him no peace of his life.

Upon hearing this the Argonauts spread a plentiful feast on the seashore, well knowing from what the blind king said of their greediness that the Harpies would snuff up the scent of the victuals and quickly come to steal them away.

And so it turned out, for hardly was the table set before the three hideous vulture-women came flapping their wings, seized the food in their talons and flew off as fast as they could.

But the two sons of the North Wind drew their swords, spread their pinions and set off through the air in pursuit of the thieves, whom they at last overtook among some islands, after a chase of hundreds of miles.

The two winged youths blustered terribly at the Harpies (for they had the rough temper of their father), and so frightened them with their drawn swords that they solemnly promised never to trouble King Phineus again.

Then the Argonauts sailed onward and met with many other marvelous incidents, any one of which would make a story by itself.

At one time they landed on an island and were reposing on the grass, when they suddenly found themselves assailed by what seemed a shower of steel-headed arrows.

Some of them stuck in the ground, while others hit against their shields and several penetrated their flesh.

The fifty heroes started up and looked about them for the hidden enemy, but could find none nor see any spot on the whole island where even a single archer could lie concealed.

Still, however, the steel-headed arrows came whizzing among them; and at last, happening to look upward, they beheld a large flock of birds hovering and wheeling aloft and shooting their feathers down upon the Argonauts.

These feathers were the steel-headed arrows that had so tormented them.

There was no possibility of making any resistance, and the fifty heroic Argonauts might all have been killed or wounded by a flock of troublesome birds without ever setting eyes on the Golden Fleece if Jason had not thought of asking the advice of the oaken image.

So he ran to the galley as fast as his legs would carry him.

"O daughter of the Speaking Oak," cried he, all out of breath, "we need your wisdom more than ever before!

We are in great peril from a flock of birds, who are shooting us with their steel-pointed feathers.

What can we do to drive them away?"

"Make a clatter on your shields," said the image.

On receiving this excellent counsel, Jason hurried back to his companions (who were far more dismayed than when they fought with the six-armed giants) and bade them strike with their swords upon their brazen shields.

Forthwith the fifty heroes set heartily to work, banging with might and main, and raised such a terrible clatter that the birds made what haste they could to get away; and though they had shot half the feathers out of their wings, they were soon seen skimming among the clouds, a long distance off and looking like a flock of wild geese.

Orpheus celebrated this victory by playing a triumphant anthem on his harp, and sang so melodiously that Jason begged him to desist, lest, as the steel-feathered birds had been driven away by an ugly sound, they might be enticed back again by a sweet one.

While the Argonauts remained on this island they saw a small vessel approaching the shore, in which were two young men of princely demeanor, and exceedingly handsome, as young princes generally were in those days.

Now, who do you imagine these two voyagers turned out to be?

Why, if you will believe me, they were the sons of that very Phrixus, who in his childhood had been carried to Colchis on the back of the golden-fleeced ram.

Since that time Phrixus had married the king's daughter, and the two young princes had been born and brought up at Colchis, and had spent their play days on the outskirts of the grove, in the center of which the Golden Fleece was hanging upon a tree.

They were now on their way to Greece, in hopes of getting back a kingdom that had been wrongfully taken from their father.

When the princes understood whither the Argonauts were going they offered to turn back and guide them to Colchis.

At the same time, however, they spoke as if it were very doubtful whether Jason would succeed in getting the Golden Fleece.

According to their account, the tree on which it hung was guarded by a terrible dragon, who never failed to devour at one mouthful every person who might venture within his reach.

"There are other difficulties in the way," continued the young princes.

"But is not this enough?

Ah, brave Jason, turn back before it is too late!

It would grieve us to the heart if you and your forty-nine brave companions should be eaten up, at fifty mouthfuls, by this execrable dragon."

"My young friends," quietly replied Jason, "I do not wonder that you think the dragon very terrible.

You have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about.

But in my view of the matter, the dragon is merely a pretty large serpent who is not half so likely to snap me up at one mouthful as I am to cut off his ugly head and strip the skin from his body.

At all events, turn back who may, I will never see Greece again unless I carry with me the Golden Fleece."

"We will none of us turn back!"

cried his forty-nine brave comrades.

"Let us get on board the galley this instant, and if the dragon is to make a breakfast of us, much good may it do him."

And Orpheus (whose custom it was to set everything to music) began to harp and sing most gloriously, and made every mother's son of them feel as if nothing in this world were so delectable as to fight dragons and nothing so truly honorable as to be eaten up at one mouthful, in case of the worst.

After this (being now under the guidance of the two princes, who were well acquainted with the way) they quickly sailed to Colchis.

When the king of the country, whose name was Æetes, heard of their arrival, he instantly summoned Jason to court.

The king was a stern and cruel-looking potentate, and though he put on as polite and hospitable an expression as he could, Jason did not like his face a whit better than that of the wicked King Pelias, who dethroned his father.

"You are welcome, brave Jason," said King Æetes.

"Pray, are you on a pleasure voyage?

--or do you meditate the discovery of unknown islands?

--or what other cause has procured me the happiness of seeing you at my court?"

"Great sir," replied Jason, with an obeisance--for Chiron had taught him how to behave with propriety, whether to kings or beggars--"I have come hither with a purpose which I now beg your majesty's permission to execute.

King Pelias, who sits on my father's throne (to which he has no more right than to the one on which your excellent majesty is now seated), has engaged to come down from it and to give me his crown and scepter, provided I bring him the Golden Fleece.

This, as your majesty is aware, is now hanging on a tree here at Colchis; and I humbly solicit your gracious leave to take it away."

In spite of himself, the king's face twisted itself into an angry frown; for, above all things else in the world, he prized the Golden Fleece, and was even suspected of having done a very wicked act in order to get it into his own possession.

It put him into the worst possible humor, therefore, to hear that the gallant Prince Jason and forty-nine of the bravest young warriors of Greece had come to Colchis with the sole purpose of taking away his chief treasure.

"Do you know," asked King Æetes, eyeing Jason very sternly, "what are the conditions which you must fulfill before getting possession of the Golden Fleece?"

"I have heard," rejoined the youth, "that a dragon lies beneath the tree on which the prize hangs, and that whoever approaches him runs the risk of being devoured at a mouthful."

"True," said the king, with a smile that did not look particularly good-natured.

"Very true, young man.

But there are other things as hard, or perhaps a little harder, to be done before you can even have the privilege of being devoured by the dragon.

For example, you must first tame my two brazen-footed and brazen-lunged bulls, which Vulcan, the wonderful blacksmith, made for me.

There is a furnace in each of their stomachs, and they breathe such hot fire out of their mouths and nostrils that nobody has hitherto gone nigh them without being instantly burned to a small, black cinder.

What do you think of this, my brave Jason?"

"I must encounter the peril," answered Jason composedly, "since it stands in the way of my purpose."

"After taming the fiery bulls," continued King Æetes, who was determined to scare Jason if possible, "you must yoke them to a plow and must plow the sacred earth in the grove of Mars and sow some of the same dragon's teeth from which Cadmus raised a crop of armed men.

They are an unruly set of reprobates, those sons of the dragon's teeth, and unless you treat them suitably, they will fall upon you sword in hand.

You and your forty-nine Argonauts, my bold Jason, are hardly numerous or strong enough to fight with such a host as will spring up."

"My master Chiron," replied Jason, "taught me long ago the story of Cadmus.

Perhaps I can manage the quarrelsome sons of the dragon's teeth as well as Cadmus did."

"I wish the dragon had him," muttered King Æetes to himself, "and the four-footed pedant, his schoolmaster, into the bargain.

Why, what a foolhardy, self-conceited coxcomb he is!

We'll see what my fire-breathing bulls will do for him.

Well, Prince Jason," he continued aloud, and as complacently as he could, "make yourself comfortable for today, and tomorrow morning, since you insist upon it, you shall try your skill at the plow."

While the king talked with Jason a beautiful young woman was standing behind the throne.

She fixed her eyes earnestly upon the youthful stranger and listened attentively to every word that was spoken, and when Jason withdrew from the king's presence this young woman followed him out of the room.

"I am the king's daughter," she said to him, "and my name is Medea.

I

know a great deal of which other young princesses are ignorant and can do many things which they would be afraid so much as to dream of.

If you will trust to me I can instruct you how to tame the fiery bulls and sow the dragon's teeth and get the Golden Fleece."

"Indeed, beautiful princess," answered Jason, "if you will do me this service I promise to be grateful to you my whole life long."

Gazing at Medea, he beheld a wonderful intelligence in her face.

She was one of those persons whose eyes are full of mystery; so that while looking into them, you seem to see a very great way, as into a deep well, yet can never be certain whether you see into the furthest depths or whether there be not something else hidden at the bottom.

If Jason had been capable of fearing anything he would have been afraid of making this young princess his enemy; for, beautiful as she now looked, she might the very next instant become as terrible as the dragon that kept watch over the Golden Fleece.

[Illustration: THE DRAGON FELL AT FULL LENGTH UPON THE GROUND] "Princess," he exclaimed, "you seem indeed very wise and very powerful.

But how can you help me to do the things of which you speak?

Are you an enchantress?"

"Yes, Prince Jason," answered Medea, with a smile, "you have hit upon the truth.

I am an enchantress.

Circe, my father's sister, taught me to be one, and I could tell you, if I pleased, who was the old woman with the peacock, the pomegranate and the cuckoo staff, whom you carried over the river; and likewise, who it is that speaks through the lips of the oaken image that stands in the prow of your galley.

I

am acquainted with some of your secrets, you perceive.

It is well for you that I am favorably inclined, for otherwise you would hardly escape being snapped up by the dragon."

"I should not so much care for the dragon," replied Jason, "if I only knew how to manage the brazen-footed and fiery-lunged bulls."

"If you are as brave as I think you, and as you have need to be," said Medea, "your own bold heart will teach you that there is but one way of dealing with a mad bull.

What it is I leave you to find out in the moment of peril.

As for the fiery breath of these animals, I have a charmed ointment here which will prevent you from being burned up and cure you if you chance to be a little scorched."

So she put a golden box into his hand and directed him how to apply the perfumed unguent which it contained, and where to meet her at midnight.

"Only be brave," added she, "and before daybreak the brazen bulls shall be tamed."

The young man assured her that his heart would not fail him.

He then rejoined his comrades, and told them what had passed between the princess and himself, and warned them to be in readiness in case there might be need of their help.

At the appointed hour he met the beautiful Medea on the marble steps of the king's palace.

She gave him a basket, in which were the dragon's teeth, just as they had been pulled out of the monster's jaws by Cadmus long ago.

Medea then led Jason down the palace steps and through the silent streets of the city and into the royal pasture-ground, where the two brazen-footed bulls were kept.

It was a starry night, with a bright gleam along the eastern edge of the sky, where the moon was soon going to show herself.

After entering the pasture the princess paused and looked around.

"There they are," said she, "reposing themselves and chewing their fiery cuds in that furthest corner of the field.

It will be excellent sport, I assure you, when they catch a glimpse of your figure.

My father and all his court delight in nothing so much as to see a stranger trying to yoke them in order to come at the Golden Fleece.

It makes a holiday in Colchis whenever such a thing happens.

For my part, I enjoy it immensely.

You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder."

"Are you sure, beautiful Medea," asked Jason, "quite sure, that the unguent in the gold box will prove a remedy against those terrible burns?"

"If you doubt, if you are in the least afraid," said the princess, looking him in the face by the dim starlight, "you had better never have been born than go a step nigher to the bulls."

But Jason had set his heart steadfastly on getting the Golden Fleece, and I positively doubt whether he would have gone back without it even had he been certain of finding himself turned into a red-hot cinder, or a handful of white ashes the instant he made a step further.

He therefore let go Medea's hand and walked boldly forward in the direction whither she had pointed.

At some distance before him he perceived four streams of fiery vapor, regularly appearing and again vanishing after dimly lighting up the surrounding obscurity.

These, you will understand, were caused by the breath of the brazen bulls, which was quietly stealing out of their four nostrils as they lay chewing their cuds.

At the first two or three steps which Jason made the four fiery streams appeared to gush out somewhat more plentifully, for the two brazen bulls had heard his foot-tramp and were lifting up their hot noses to snuff the air.

He went a little further, and by the way in which the red vapor now spouted forth he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet.

Now he could see glowing sparks and vivid jets of flame.

At the next step each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while the burning breath which they thus belched forth lit up the whole field with a momentary flash.

One other stride did bold Jason make; and suddenly, as a streak of lightning, on came these fiery animals, roaring like thunder and sending out sheets of white flame, which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every object more distinctly than by daylight.

Most distinctly of all he saw the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground and their tails sticking up stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls.

Their breath scorched the herbage before them.

So intensely hot it was, indeed, that it caught a dry tree under which Jason was now standing and set it all in a light blaze.

But as for Jason himself (thanks to Medea's enchanted ointment), the white flame curled around his body without injuring him a jot more than if he had been made of asbestos.

Greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the young man awaited the attack of the bulls.

Just as the brazen brutes fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air he caught one of them by the horn and the other by his screwed-up tail and held them in a grip like that of an iron vise, one with his right hand, the other with his left.

Well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms, to be sure!

But the secret of the matter was that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures and that Jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them.

And ever since that time it has been the favorite method of brave men, when danger assails them, to do what they call "taking the bull by the horns"; and to grip him by the tail is pretty much the same thing--that is, to throw aside fear and overcome the peril by despising it.

It was now easy to yoke the bulls and to harness them to the plow which had lain rusting on the ground for a great many years gone by, so long was it before anybody could be found capable of plowing that piece of land.

Jason, I suppose, had been taught how to draw a furrow by the good old Chiron, who, perhaps, used to allow himself to be harnessed to the plow.

At any rate, our hero succeeded perfectly well in breaking up the greensward; and by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky the plowed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be sown with the dragon's teeth.

So Jason scattered them broadcast and harrowed them into the soil with a brush-harrow, and took his stand on the edge of the field, anxious to see what would happen next.

"Must we wait long for harvest-time?"

he inquired of Medea, who was now standing by his side.

"Whether sooner or later, it will be sure to come," answered the princess.

"A crop of armed men never fails to spring up when the dragon's teeth have been sown."

The moon was now high aloft in the heavens and threw its bright beams over the plowed field, where as yet there was nothing to be seen.

Any farmer, on viewing it, would have said that Jason must wait weeks before the green blades would peep from among the clods, and whole months before the yellow grain would be ripened for the sickle.

But by and by, all over the field, there was something that glistened in the moonbeams like sparkling drops of dew.

These bright objects sprouted higher and proved to be the steel heads of spears.

Then there was a dazzling gleam from a vast number of polished brass helmets, beneath which, as they grew further out of the soil, appeared the dark and bearded visages of warriors, struggling to free themselves from the imprisoning earth.

The first look that they gave at the upper world was a glare of wrath and defiance.

Next were seen their bright breastplates; in every right hand there was a sword or a spear and on each left arm a shield; and when this strange crop of warriors had but half grown out of the earth, they struggled--such was their impatience of restraint--and, as it were, tore themselves up by the roots.

Wherever a dragon's tooth had fallen, there stood a man armed for battle.

They made a clangor with their swords against their shields, and eyed one another fiercely; for they had come into this beautiful world and into the peaceful moonlight full of rage and stormy passions and ready to take the life of every human brother in recompense for the boon of their own existence.

There have been many other armies in the world that seemed to possess the same fierce nature with the one which had now sprouted from the dragon's teeth; but these in the moonlit field were the more excusable, because they never had women for their mothers.

And now it would have rejoiced any great captain who was bent on conquering the world, like Alexander or Napoleon, to raise a crop of armed soldiers as easily as Jason did!

For awhile the warriors stood flourishing their weapons, clashing their swords against their shields and boiling over with the red-hot thirst for battle.

Then they began to shout, "Show us the enemy!

Lead us to the charge!

Death or victory!

Come on, brave comrades!

Conquer or die!"

and a hundred other outcries, such as men always bellow forth on a battle-field and which these dragon people seemed to have at their tongues' ends.

At last the front rank caught sight of Jason, who, beholding the flash of so many weapons in the moonlight, had thought it best to draw his sword.

In a moment all the sons of the dragon's teeth appeared to take Jason for an enemy; and crying with one voice, "Guard the Golden Fleece!"

they ran at him with uplifted swords and protruded spears.

Jason knew that it would be impossible to withstand this bloodthirsty battalion with his single arm, but determined, since there was nothing better to be done, to die as valiantly as if he himself had sprung from a dragon's tooth.

Medea, however, bade him snatch up a stone from the ground.

"Throw it among them quickly!"

cried she.

"It is the only way to save yourself."

The armed men were now so nigh that Jason could discern the fire flashing out of their enraged eyes, when he let fly the stone and saw it strike the helmet of a tall warrior who was rushing upon him with his blade aloft.

The stone glanced from this man's helmet to the shield of his nearest comrade, and thence flew right into the angry face of another, hitting him smartly between the eyes.

Each of the three who had been struck by the stone took it for granted that his next neighbor had given him a blow; and instead of running any further toward Jason, they began to fight among themselves.

The confusion spread through the host, so that it seemed scarcely a moment before they were all hacking, hewing and stabbing at one another, lopping off arms, heads and legs and doing such memorable deeds that Jason was filled with immense admiration; although, at the same time, he could not help laughing to behold these mighty men punishing each other for an offense which he himself had committed.

In an incredibly short space of time (almost as short, indeed, as it had taken them to grow up) all but one of the heroes of the dragon's teeth were stretched lifeless on the field.

The last survivor, the bravest and strongest of the whole, had just force enough to wave his crimson sword over his head and give a shout of exultation, crying, "Victory!

Victory!

Immortal fame!"

when he himself fell down and lay quietly among his slain brethren.

And there was the end of the army that had sprouted from the dragon's teeth.

That fierce and feverish fight was the only enjoyment which they had tasted on this beautiful earth.

"Let them sleep in the bed of honor," said the Princess Medea, with a sly smile at Jason.

"The world will always have simpletons enough, just like them, fighting and dying for they know not what, and fancying that posterity will take the trouble to put laurel wreaths on their rusty and battered helmets.

Could you help smiling, Prince Jason, to see the self-conceit of that last fellow, just as he tumbled down?"

"It made me very sad," answered Jason gravely.

"And to tell you the truth, princess, the Golden Fleece does not appear so well worth the winning, after what I have here beheld."

"You will think differently in the morning," said Medea.

"True, the Golden Fleece may not be so valuable as you have thought it; but then there is nothing better in the world, and one must needs have an object, you know.

Come!

Your night's work has been well performed; and tomorrow you can inform King Æetes that the first part of your allotted task is fulfilled."

Agreeably to Medea's advice, Jason went betimes in the morning to the palace of king Æetes.

Entering the presence chamber, he stood at the foot of the throne and made a low obeisance.

"Your eyes look heavy, Prince Jason," observed the king; "you appear to have spent a sleepless night.

I hope you have been considering the matter a little more wisely and have concluded not to get yourself scorched to a cinder in attempting to tame my brazen-lunged bulls."

"That is already accomplished, may it please your majesty," replied Jason.

"The bulls have been tamed and yoked; the field has been plowed; the dragon's teeth have been sown broadcast and harrowed into the soil; the crop of armed warriors has sprung up and they have slain one another to the last man.

And now I solicit your majesty's permission to encounter the dragon, that I may take down the Golden Fleece from the tree and depart with my forty-nine comrades."

King Æetes scowled and looked very angry and excessively disturbed;

for he knew that, in accordance with his kingly promise, he ought now to permit Jason to win the fleece if his courage and skill should enable him to do so.

But since the young man had met with such good luck in the matter of the brazen bulls and dragon's teeth, the king feared that he would be equally successful in slaying the dragon.

And therefore, though he would gladly have seen Jason snapped up at a mouthful, he was resolved (and it was a very wrong thing of this wicked potentate) not to run any further risk of losing his beloved fleece.

"You never would have succeeded in this business, young man," said he, "if my undutiful daughter Medea had not helped you with her enchantments.

Had you acted fairly, you would have been at this instant a black cinder or a handful of white ashes.

I forbid you, on pain of death, to make any more attempts to get the Golden Fleece.

To speak my mind plainly, you shall never set eyes on so much as one of its glistening locks."

Jason left the king's presence in great sorrow and anger.

He could think of nothing better to be done than to summon together his forty-nine brave Argonauts, march at once to the grove of Mars, slay the dragon, take possession of the Golden Fleece, get on board the Argo and spread all sail for Iolchos.

The success of this scheme depended, it is true, on the doubtful point whether all the fifty heroes might not be snapped up as so many mouthfuls by the dragon.

But as Jason was hastening down the palace steps, the Princess Medea called after him and beckoned him to return.

Her black eyes shone upon him with such a keen intelligence that he felt as if there were a serpent peeping out of them, and although she had done him so much service only the night before, he was by no means very certain that she would not do him an equally great mischief before sunset.

These enchantresses, you must know, are never to be depended upon.

"What says King Æetes, my royal and upright father?"

inquired Medea, slightly smiling.

"Will he give you the Golden Fleece without any further risk or trouble?"

"On the contrary," answered Jason, "he is very angry with me for taming the brazen bulls and sowing the dragon's teeth.

And he forbids me to make any more attempts, and positively refuses to give up the Golden Fleece, whether I slay the dragon or no." "Yes, Jason," said the princess, "and I can tell you more.

Unless you set sail from Colchis before tomorrow's sunrise, the king means to burn your fifty-oared galley and put yourself and your forty-nine brave comrades to the sword.

But be of good courage.

The Golden Fleece you shall have if it lies within the power of my enchantments to get it for you.

Wait for me here an hour before midnight."

At the appointed hour you might again have seen Prince Jason and the Princess Medea, side by side, stealing through the streets of Colchis on their way to the sacred grove, in the center of which the Golden Fleece was suspended to a tree.

While they were crossing the pasture ground the brazen bulls came toward Jason, lowing, nodding their heads and thrusting forth their snouts, which, as other cattle do, they loved to have rubbed and caressed by a friendly hand.

Their fierce nature was thoroughly tamed; and with their fierceness, the two furnaces in their stomachs had likewise been extinguished, insomuch that they probably enjoyed far more comfort in grazing and chewing their cuds than ever before.

Indeed, it had heretofore been a great inconvenience to these poor animals that, whenever they wished to eat a mouthful of grass, the fire out of their nostrils had shriveled it up before they could manage to crop it.

How they contrived to keep themselves alive is more than I can imagine.

But now, instead of emitting jets of flame and streams of sulphurous vapor, they breathed the very sweetest of cow breath.

After kindly patting the bulls, Jason followed Medea's guidance into the Grove of Mars, where the great oak trees that had been growing for centuries threw so thick a shade that the moonbeams struggled vainly to find their way through it.

Only here and there a glimmer fell upon the leaf-strewn earth, or now and then a breeze stirred the boughs aside and gave Jason a glimpse of the sky, lest in that deep obscurity he might forget that there was one overhead.

At length, when they had gone further and further into the heart of the duskiness, Medea squeezed Jason's hand.

"Look yonder," she whispered.

"Do you see it?"

Gleaming among the venerable oaks there was a radiance, not like the moonbeams, but rather resembling the golden glory of the setting sun.

It proceeded from an object which appeared to be suspended at about a man's height from the ground, a little further within the wood.

"What is it?"

asked Jason.

"Have you come so far to seek it," exclaimed Medea, "and do you not recognize the meed of all your toils and perils when it glitters before your eyes?

It is the Golden Fleece."

Jason went onward a few steps further, and then stopped to gaze.

Oh, how beautiful it looked, shining with a marvelous light of its own, that inestimable prize which so many heroes had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it, either by the perils of their voyage or by the fiery breath of the brazen-lunged bulls.

"How gloriously it shines!"

cried Jason in a rapture.

"It has surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset.

Let me hasten onward and take it to my bosom."

"Stay," said Medea, holding him back.

"Have you forgotten what guards it?"

To say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of Jason's memory.

Soon, however, something came to pass that reminded him what perils were still to be encountered.

An antelope that probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise came bounding fleetly through the grove.

He was rushing straight toward the Golden Fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss and the immense head and half the scaly body of the dragon was thrust forth (for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on which the fleece hung), and seizing the poor antelope, swallowed him with one snap of his jaws.

After this feat, the dragon seemed sensible that some other living creature was within reach, on which he felt inclined to finish his meal.

In various directions he kept poking his ugly snout among the trees, stretching out his neck a terrible long way, now here, now there and now close to the spot where Jason and the princess were hiding behind an oak.

Upon my word, as the head came waving and undulating through the air and reaching almost within arm's length of Prince Jason, it was a very hideous and uncomfortable sight.

The gape of his enormous jaws was nearly as wide as the gateway of the king's palace.

"Well, Jason," whispered Medea (for she was ill natured, as all enchantresses are, and wanted to make the bold youth tremble), "what do you think now of your prospect of winning the Golden Fleece?"

Jason answered only by drawing his sword and making a step forward.

"Stay, foolish youth," said Medea, grasping his arm.

"Do not you see you are lost without me as your good angel?

In this gold box I have a magic potion which will do the dragon's business far more effectually than your sword."

The dragon had probably heard the voices, for swift as lightning his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch.

As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat.

Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle--flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again--the dragon fell at full length upon the ground and lay quite motionless.

"It is only a sleeping potion," said the enchantress to Prince Jason.

"One always finds a use for these mischievous creatures sooner or later; so I did not wish to kill him outright.

Quick!

Snatch the prize and let us begone.

You have won the Golden Fleece."

Jason caught the fleece from the tree and hurried through the grove, the deep shadows of which were illuminated as he passed, by the golden glory of the precious object that he bore along.

A little way before him he beheld the old woman whom he had helped over the stream, with her peacock beside her.

She clapped her hands for joy, and beckoning him to haste, disappeared among the duskiness of the trees.

Espying the two winged sons of the North Wind (who were disporting themselves in the moonlight a few hundred feet aloft), Jason bade them tell the rest of the Argonauts to embark as speedily as possible.

But Lynceus, with his sharp eyes, had already caught a glimpse of him, bringing the Golden Fleece, although several stone walls, a hill, and the black shadows of the Grove of Mars intervened between.

By his advice the heroes had seated themselves on the benches of the galley, with their oars held perpendicularly, ready to let fall into the water.

As Jason drew near he heard the Talking Image calling to him with more than ordinary eagerness, in its grave, sweet voice: "Make haste, Prince Jason!

For your life, make haste!"

With one bound he leaped aboard.

At sight of the glorious radiance of the Golden Fleece, the forty-nine heroes gave a mighty shout, and Orpheus, striking his harp, sang a song of triumph, to the cadence of which the galley flew over the water, homeward bound, as if careering along with wings!