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CHAPTER XXII
JASON FINDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE

When the Argonauts had drawn their ship up on the beach, Jason presented himself before the king and said: “Oh, king, we have come to ask thee for the Golden Fleece, which belongs to the Greeks at Iolkos. The ram which it covered was given to Phrixos and he dedicated it to Zeus; but the Fleece he hung up in the garden sacred to Ares. Moreover, the King of Iolkos has sent me to bring it back to Hellas.”

The king answered: “Oh, stranger, thou art welcome to the Fleece. Take it back to Hellas, I pray thee. But first thou must yoke two wild bulls, which no one has ever yet been able to manage, to a plough, and turn up furrows in a field and sow it with dragons’ teeth. The bulls snort fire with every breath and have brass hoofs. Beware lest they turn upon thee and burn thee to death with the fire of their nostrils, and trample thee into the earth.”

Jason did not know how to tame the terrible bulls, and began to ponder. But Medea, the daughter of the king, saw Jason and pitied him. Medea was very much of a witch and could make all sorts of charms and mixtures of enchantment. She gave a magic ointment to Jason and said: “Stranger, I would gladly help thee to tame the wild bulls. Take this box of magic ointment and anoint thyself, also the end of thy spear and thy shield. It will make thee proof against fire and steel for one day, so that they cannot harm thee.

“And thou shouldst know that out of the dragons’ teeth which thou art to sow, men will spring up all clad in armor. Hide thyself where these men cannot see thee, and when they stand close together throw stones among them.” Jason took the drug and did as he was told. He anointed himself and his spear and shield, and went in search of the fiery bulls.

As soon as he found them he went boldly up and hitched them to a plough. They breathed fire at him and tried to strike him with their brazen hoofs. But he ploughed the field, turning back furrow after furrow. Then he went back to sow the field with dragons’ teeth and hid himself nearby. Soon armed giants arose out of the ground. Jason threw a large stone into the midst of them, which made them think that some one of their own company was attacking the others. They began fighting among themselves, and became so furious with one another that they did not see Jason approach. He took his sword and slew them all. Then he returned to the king to receive the Golden Fleece.

But the king was surprised, for he had no intention of keeping his promise. He expected that Jason would be slain and never come back. And he was contriving a plot to burn the ship Argo, and kill Jason’s companions.

Jason had done all that the king had required of him and would not give up the idea of taking the Fleece, and the king refused to let him have it. Then Jason went back to Medea for advice. Her admiration for the hero was greater than ever, since she had seen how fearlessly he went about his tasks.

She led him to the grove where hung the Golden Fleece, and with her magic drugs put the watchful dragon that guarded it to sleep. Jason snatched the Fleece and made for the ship, taking Medea, who had promised to be his wife, with him. When the old king missed his daughter he was very angry, and gave pursuit. But Jason and his companions pushed the boat out into the sea, and unfurling the sails, they swiftly took their way over the waters toward their own land.

After many wanderings and perils, the Argonauts came to the Greek coast, and the Argo entered again the sea of their own beloved country. They reached Iolkos, bringing the world-famous Golden Fleece with them, and the people received them in triumph. But Pelias still refused to give up the throne to Jason, although he gladly took the Golden Fleece which the young hero had brought him. So Jason slew him and made himself King of Iolkos; and as Medea’s father had once reigned in Corinth, he added that country to his kingdom.

Jason lived in peace ten happy years in Kolchis, and his kingdom prospered; but a great trouble came upon his household. Medea, with her black arts of witchery and enchantment and her evil heart, could not always please him or hold his affections. He went to Corinth, where he met the gentle-hearted Kreusa, and her peaceful, kindly disposition won his heart. Now in those days a man was not despised and looked upon as a law-breaker if he married more than one wife, for the people had a different standard of right and wrong from that of the present day. And Jason in an unlucky hour took Kreusa for his wife.

Medea was maddened with jealousy when she heard of this, and she consulted the evil spirits of her witchcraft to find out how she could do away with Kreusa. She took a beautiful dress and a crown, and having sprinkled them with an enchanted juice, sent them to Kreusa. Her rival accepted the gifts and put them on, but she could never get them off again. They clung to her and burned into her flesh, so that she died. Then Medea took further revenge by burning Kreusa’s home; and when she found that Jason was angry with her she slew her children and fled from Iolkos in a fiery chariot drawn by winged serpents. Poor Jason, beside himself with grief, went to his good ship Argo, which was now kept as a sacred place for the worship of the gods, and there he died.

CHAPTER XXIII
ORPHEUS, THE HERO OF THE LYRE

In the same land of Thrace in which Jason’s family ruled, Orpheus, the greatest musician of Greece, was born. It was said that his mother was the Goddess of Song, and such was the power of his voice and his art of playing on the lyre that he could move stones and trees. When the wild beasts heard his music they left their dens and lay down at his feet, the birds in the trees stopped singing, and the fishes came to the surface of the sea to listen to him.

Orpheus had a wife, Eurydike, celebrated for her beauty and virtue, and he loved her very dearly. One day when Eurydike was gathering flowers on the bank of a lake a venomous snake bit her foot and she died. Orpheus could not be consoled. He went off into the wildest waste that he could find and there he mourned day and night till all nature shared in his grief. At last he made up his mind to go down into Hades and beg her back of King Pluto, for life was worthless without her.

Orpheus took his lyre, and singing as he went, found his way down to Hades through a dismal abyss. Grim Cerberus himself held his breath to listen to the marvellous music. Not one bark did he give from any of his three terrible heads, and when Orpheus passed him he crouched at his feet. So Orpheus entered Hades unhindered, and standing before the throne of Pluto and his pale queen Persephone, he said: “Oh, king and queen, I have not come down into Hades to see the gloomy Tartaros, nor in order to carry away the three-headed warder of your kingdom, the dreadful Cerberus. I came down to implore you to give me back my beloved wife, Eurydike. I cannot bear life without her. To me the world is a desert, and life a burden. Why should she die, so young and beautiful? Have pity on me! If I may not take her back, then I will not again see the light of the sun, but I, too, will remain in the gloomy Hades.”

Pluto and Persephone listened in silence to the pleadings of Orpheus. His pathetic voice and the sweet tones of his melodious lyre held them like a charm. The shades of the dead came flocking around him and mourned. Tantalos forgot his thirst and listened to the singer’s complaints. Sisyphos, who was compelled to roll a stone to the top of a mountain whence it always dashed back again to the bottom, ceased his dreadful labor to listen, and the Furies themselves first shed tears.

Persephone and Pluto were pitiless gods. Their hearts were long since hardened to the cries of the living who prayed for the restoration of their loved ones. But they could not resist the power of the enchanting sounds that Orpheus made. They called the spirit of the beautiful Eurydike to them and said to the musician: “Take thy wife Eurydike and go up again to the light of the sun. Let her gaze on the smiling sky and see the fields of the upper world. But beware of one thing. Let her follow thee and do not turn around to look at her before reaching the world of the living. If thou shouldst turn and look upon her she will return at once to her place among the dead.”

Orpheus left Hades in great haste and Eurydike followed him. In the midst of deepest silence they ascended through dismal rocky places. They neared their journey’s end. They could almost see the green earth when Orpheus was seized with a dreadful doubt. “I hear no sound whatever behind me,” he said to himself. “Is my beloved Eurydike really following me?” He turned his head a little. He saw Eurydike, who followed him like a shadow. But suddenly she began to be drawn backward. She stretched out her arms toward Orpheus as if imploring his help. Orpheus hurried to take her in his arms, but she vanished from his sight and Orpheus was alone again.

Yet he did not despair. Again he descended into Hades and reached the river which separates this world from that of the dead, but the boatman, Charon, refused to ferry him across. Seven days and seven nights Orpheus remained there without drink or food, weeping and mourning. The decree of the gods was not to be changed. When Orpheus found that he could effect nothing he returned to the earth. He wandered alone over the mountains and glens of Thrace, which resounded with his plaintive songs day and night.

One day as he sat upon a grassy spot and played his lyre a troop of wild women who were celebrating a festival rushed upon him and tried to make him play for them to dance. Orpheus indignantly refused, and they grew angry and handled him so roughly that he died. Where he was buried the nightingales sang more sweetly than elsewhere. And his lyre, which was thrown into the sea, was caught by the waves, which made sweet music upon it as they rose and fell.

Orpheus was honored by the gods, and after his death they brought him to the Abode of the Blessed, where he found his beloved Eurydike and was reunited to her.

CHAPTER XXIV
PELOPS, THE HERO OF THE PELOPONNESOS

Some of the heroes famed in Greek song and story, and whose descendants lived in Greece, had come from foreign countries, many of them from Asia Minor. Greece and Asia Minor had always been closely connected. Travellers from each were in the habit of visiting the other country. Sometimes they traded together and sometimes made war on each other.

One of the most powerful kingdoms of Asia Minor was Phrygia, and it was ruled by a king of the name of Tantalos, who had at first governed wisely and in the fear of the gods. He was made arrogant by prosperity, and at length grew so overbearing and cruel even to his own son, Pelops, that the gods determined to make an example of him. They sent him living to Tartaros, the portion of Hades reserved for the very worst offenders, there to endure a terrible punishment forever.

He was placed up to his waist in the midst of running water, clear and cool, under hanging boughs laden with lovely fruit. Yet he could not reach the water or the fruit, and was always faint with hunger and thirst. Whenever he bent down to get a drink of water it rapidly rushed away from him, and if he lifted up his hand to pluck some of the ripe fragrant fruit, a sudden gust of wind tossed the branches high up into the air. Poor Tantalos never came nearer than this to quenching his thirst or satisfying his hunger.

To make his misery more unbearable, a huge block of rock was poised above his head, so lightly that it moved with every breeze, and he was in perpetual fear of its falling down on him. Pelops, the son whom he had abused in childhood, became a great favorite with the gods, and they wished to make up to him for his father’s cruelty. They gave him a shoulder of ivory to replace the shoulder of which his father had deprived him. When he grew up the gods helped him to leave his native land, where he had been ill-treated, and they guided him across the Ægean Sea, and around the southern point of Greece to Elis, where Herakles had cleaned out the stables of Augeias. The capital of Elis was the city of Pisa, where a king ruled who had a beautiful daughter named Hippodameia. She must have been very fond of sports and athletics, for her name means “The Tamer of Horses.”

Hippodameia had many suitors, but her father, Œnomaos, had heard that he would be dethroned by his daughter’s husband, and so he did not wish her to marry. He was very warlike, being a son of Ares, the God of War, and he determined to kill all the suitors. So he proposed a chariot race with each of the wooers, and promised that the one who succeeded in winning the race should have his daughter in marriage; on the other hand, if the suitor lost the race he should be put to death by the king.

Œnomaos was a famous charioteer, and he had steeds which were swifter than the wind. The race-course began at Pisa, and stretched as far as the Isthmus of Corinth to the altar of Poseidon. Œnomaos believed in himself and in his own skill. So great was his self-reliance, and so sure was he of the swiftness of his horses, that whenever a suitor came along he let him go ahead with his chariot drawn by four horses, while he himself first sacrificed a ram to Zeus, and only at the end of the ceremony mounted his chariot, having as driver, Myrtilos, and being armed with a strong spear. Then he would overtake the suitor and kill him. Thus he had already killed a great many.

Pelops, on his arrival at Pisa, saw Hippodameia, and at once had a strong desire to make her his wife. When he saw that he could not conquer Œnomaos by fair means he planned a trick. He secretly approached the king’s charioteer, Myrtilos, and said to him: “Myrtilos, hear what I have to say to thee. Help me to win the race and I will give thee half the kingdom when I become King of Pisa.”

Hippodameia, too, who greatly admired the young man, advised the charioteer to lend them his aid. Myrtilos accepted the proposal of Pelops. On the day of the race Œnomaos again waited to sacrifice a ram to Zeus, leaving Pelops to drive on ahead, and only mounted his chariot after the offering was over, being sure that he should overtake the suitor as he had done with the others.

But suddenly a wheel flew off from the king’s chariot, and Œnomaos fell to the ground, hurting himself badly. Myrtilos had removed the pin which held the wheel on to the axle. Thus Pelops reached the Isthmus before the king and won the race.

Œnomaos died of his injuries, and Pelops married Hippodameia, and took possession of the kingdom. Then Myrtilos demanded half the kingdom as it had been promised him by Pelops. But Pelops carried him to the sea and cast him into it. On account of this crime the descendants of Pelops, the Pelopides, had to suffer many misfortunes. Crime and craft may answer an immediate purpose, but they are followed by divine wrath.

Pelops instituted the famous Olympic games, which were celebrated every fourth year, and lasted five days. And he did many other things which were of great use to his people. In honor of Pelops, the great peninsula, south of the Isthmus of Corinth, was called Peloponnesos, which means Pelops’ Island. The name was not quite correct at the time, for the land was not an island but a peninsula. But after all these thousands of years it has curiously come to pass that the old name is a true one, for it was only a few years ago that the Isthmus of Corinth was cut in two, and the Peloponnesos was in truth made an island.

CHAPTER XXV
PERSEUS, THE HERO OF ARGOS

Less than sixty miles in a straight line to the southwest of Athens there is a barren, swampy plain. It is in the Peloponnesos and is bounded on all sides by mountains except to the south, where it is bounded by the sea. In this plain lies the market-town, Argos, at the foot of a lofty hill, its acropolis, Larisa. There is a citadel on this acropolis which looks off to a high mountain at the north near the Isthmus of Corinth, and the white-streaked hills beyond. And nearer to the citadel, on the north, is a higher mountain, the highest of the Peloponnesos, where the people used to pray to Zeus and Hera for rain. To the southeast the Larisa looks over a great prison on a fortified mountain.

We have said that the Peloponnesos was the shape of a man’s hand. The thumb of this hand is a peninsula pointing toward the east and south. In more ancient times this thumb was called the peninsula of Argos. The town, Argos, shares its name with the barren plain in which it is situated, and in olden times it shared it with the peninsula also. The peninsula of Argos was quite separate from a larger district, called Argolis, until the Romans conquered Greece. But now it is one with the entire district, and Argos the town, and Argos the plain, and Argos the peninsula, are all in Argolis.

Hera, wife of Zeus and goddess of the heavens, was the patron deity of Argos. It is said that she had a contest with Poseidon to see which should name the land, and as she brought the most valuable gift, the honor fell to her. The river Inachos flows through Argos the plain. The first king of Argos was a son of the river-god, Inachos, and the ocean-nymph, Melia, was his mother.

The earliest people of Argos must have worked hard to keep the country rightly irrigated. They were called Danaæ, doubtless because their work resembled that of the Danaïds, who were said to be punished in the lower world by carrying water in pitchers to fill a broken cistern. As fast as they poured water in the cistern it ran out through the cracks at the bottom. So, too, the Danaæ carried water to the sandy soil, but it ran into the earth without doing very much good.

The Danaæ came from Egypt and were accustomed to farming in the sand. They knew the unsparing pains that must be taken to conquer it, and kept at work until the land became fertile enough to repay them. But in modern times the plain has lost its fertility because the farmers do not take the same trouble in cultivating the soil.

One of the earliest of the Argive kings, Danaos, sent his daughters out to search for springs as he would have sent them to bring water from the Nile if they had remained in Egypt. Poseidon, seeing how fair one of them was, loved her and caused a spring to flow at Lerna, and it is called by her own name, Amyone, to the present time. It was this spring that created the marsh where the terrible Hydra was slain by Herakles.

Danaos had many descendants, one after another succeeding him as king. The fifth successor was Akrisios and he had a daughter, Danäe. Some oracle had told him that he would be slain by a son of Danäe if she ever had one. This worried the king and he determined that she should never marry. He built a high tower of brass and shut her up in it so that no one could get to her.

Danäe grew very lonely, shut up in the tower, and she used to watch from the window to try to catch a glimpse of the people below. No one looked up to notice her, but Zeus saw her from his abode in the heavens and was struck with her beauty and loneliness. He sent a golden shower of sunbeams to console her in her prison, and a little babe was born to her, and she called him Perseus, the son of Light.

Akrisios, the king, heard the child’s voice and called his daughter to a holy sanctuary and bade her tell the truth about the babe. This she did, but the king would not believe her. He put her into a box and the child with her and cast the box into the sea to sink or float. The box did float and the kind waves carried it to the island of Seriphos. A good old fisherman caught it in a net and took it to his own little hut, and thus Danäe and her babe were saved.

Perseus grew up to be a strong, handsome lad, and was often seen with his beautiful mother wandering over the island. As Perseus grew older he became his mother’s protector and champion and could never do enough for her. They continued to live at the cottage of the fisherman, who had adopted them as members of his own family.

The fisherman had a brother, Polydektes, who was king of the island, and he was as proud and cruel as the fisherman was simple and kind. Polydektes saw the beautiful Danäe and resolved to add her to his possessions and make her subject to his whims. He feared Perseus, however, and studied how to get him out of the way. So he called his friends together, among them Perseus, and said that he was looking for quaint gifts to send to the wedding of Hippodameia, the daughter of Œnomaos.

All the young men came to the court of the king and listened to his request, and each one promised to go on some quest and find a present worthy of the princess. Perseus wanted to outdo all the others, and said he would bring the head of Medusa if the king desired it. Polydektes took him at his word and ordered him to go for it at once.