# The Story of the Golden Fleece/Chapter 3

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THE WINNING OF THE FLEECE
CHAPTER III
the winning of the fleece
NEXT morning the heroes awoke, and left the ship moored in the river’s mouth, hidden by tall reeds, for they took down the mast, lest it should be seen. Then they walked toward the city of Colchis, and they passed through a strange and horrible wood. Dead men, bound together with cords, were hanging from the branches, for the Colchis people buried women, but hung dead men from the branches of trees. Then they came to the palace, where King Æêtes lived, with his young son Absyrtus, and his daughter Chalciope, who had been the wife of Phrixus, ​and his younger daughter, Medea, who was a witch, and the priestess of Brimo, a dreadful goddess. Now Chalciope came out and she welcomed Jason, for she knew the heroes were of her dear husband’s country. And beautiful Medea, the dark witch-girl, saw Jason, and as soon as she saw him she loved him more than her father and her brother and all her father’s house. For his bearing was gallant and his armor golden, and long yellow hair fell over his shoulders, and over the leopard skin that he wore above his armor. And she turned white and then red, and cast down her eyes, but Chalciope took the heroes to the baths, and gave them food. Then Æêtes asked them why they came, and they told him that they desired the Fleece of Gold. Then he was very angry, and ​told them that only to a better man than himself would he give up that Fleece. If any wished to prove himself worthy of it he must tame two bulls which breathed flame from their nostrils, and must plow four acres with these bulls. And then he must sow the field with the teeth of a dragon, and these teeth when sown would immediately grow up into armed men. Jason said that, as it must be, he would try this adventure, but he went sadly enough back to the ship and did not notice how kindly Medea was looking after him as he went.
Now, in the dead of night, Medea could not sleep, because she was so sorry for the stranger, and she knew that she could help him by her magic. Then she remembered how her father would burn her for a witch if she helped Jason, and ​a great shame came on her that she should prefer a stranger to her own people. So she arose in the dark, and stole just as she was to her sister’s room, a white figure roaming like a ghost in the palace. And at her sister’s door she turned back in shame, saying, “No, I will never do it,” and she went back again, and came again, and knew not what to do; but at last she returned to her own bower, and threw herself on her bed, and wept. And her sisters heard her weeping, and came to her, and they cried together, but softly, that no one might hear them. For Chalciope was as eager to help the Greeks for love of her dead husband as Medea was for the love of Jason. And at last Medea promised to carry to the temple of the goddess of whom she was a priestess a drug that ​
“AND BEAUTIFUL MEDEA SAW JASON; AND AS SOON AS SHE SAW HIM SHE LOVED HIM.”
Then Mopsus smiled, and stopped where he was; but Jason went on, where Medea was pretending to play with the girls, her companions. When she saw Jason she felt as if she could not come forward, nor go back, and she was very pale. But Jason told her not to be afraid, and asked her to help him, but for long she could not answer him; ​however, at the last, she gave him the drug, and taught him how to use it. “So shall you carry the fleece to Iolcos, far from here; but what is it to me where you go, when you have gone from here? Still remember the name of me, Medea, as I shall remember you. And may there come to me some voice, or some bird with the message, whenever you have quite forgotten me.”
But Jason answered, “Lady, let the winds blow what voice they will, and what that bird will, let him bring. But no wind or bird shall ever bear the news that I have forgotten you, if you will cross the sea with me, and be my wife.”
Then she was glad, and yet she was afraid, at the thought of that dark voyage, with a stranger, from her father’s home and her own. So they ​parted, Jason to the ship, and Medea to the palace. But in the morning Jason anointed himself and his armor with the drug, and all the heroes struck at him with spears and swords, but the swords would not bite on him nor on his armor. And he felt so strong and light that he leaped in the air with joy, and the sun shone on his glittering shield. Now they all went up together to the field where the bulls were breathing flame. There already was Æêtes, and Medea, and all the Colchians had come to see Jason die. A plow had been brought to which he was to harness the bulls. Then he walked up to them, and they blew fire at him that flamed all round him, but the magic drug protected him. He took a horn of one bull in his right hand, and a horn of the other in his left, and dashed ​
“HE YOKED THEM TO THE PLOW AND DROVE THEM WITH HIS SPEAR.”
​Then Jason went to the king, where he sat looking darkly on, and said, “O King, the field is plowed, the seed is sown, the harvest is reaped. Give me now the Fleece of Gold, and let me be gone.” But the king said, “Enough is done. To-morrow is a new day. To-morrow shall you win the Fleece.”
Then he looked sidewise at Medea, and she knew that he suspected her, and she was afraid.
Now Æêtes went and sat brooding over his wine with the captains of his people; and his mood was bitter, both for loss of the Fleece, and because Jason had won it not by his own prowess, but by the magic aid of Medea. And, as for Medea herself, it was the king’s purpose to put her to a cruel death, and this she needed not her witchery to know. And ​a fire was in her eyes, and terrible sounds were ringing in her ears, and it seemed she had but one choice, to drink poison and die, or to flee with the heroes in the ship “Argo.” But at last flight seemed better than death. So she hid all her engines of witchcraft in the folds of her gown, and she kissed her bed where she would never sleep again, and the posts of the door, and she caressed the very walls with her hand in that last sad farewell. And she cut a long lock of her yellow hair, and left it in the room, a keepsake to her mother dear, in memory of her maiden days. “Good-by, my mother,” she said, “this long lock I leave thee in place of me; good-by, a long good-by to me who am going on a long journey; good-by, my sister Chalciope, good-by! dear house, good-by!”
​Then she stole from the house, and the bolted doors leaped open at their own accord at the swift spell Medea murmured. With her bare feet she ran down the grassy paths, and the daisies looked black against the white feet of Medea. So she sped to the temple of the goddess, and the moon overhead looked down on her. Many a time had she darkened the moon’s face with her magic song, and now the Lady Moon gazed white upon her, and said, “I am not, then, the only one that wanders in the night for love, as I love Endymion the sleeper, who wakens never! Many a time hast thou darkened my face with thy songs, and made night black with thy sorceries. And now, thou, too, art in love! So go thy way, and bid thy heart endure, for a sore fate is before thee.”
​But Medea hastened on till she came to the high river hank, and saw the heroes, merry at their wine in the light of a blazing fire. Thrice she called aloud, and they heard her, and came to her, and she said, “Save me, my friends, for all is known, and my death is sure. And I will give you the Fleece of Gold for the price of my life.”
Then Jason swore that she should be his wife, and more dear to him than all the world. Then she went aboard their boat, and swiftly they rowed to the dark wood where the dragon who never sleeps lay guarding the Fleece of Gold. And she landed, and Jason, and Orpheus with his harp, and through the wood they went, but that old serpent saw them coming, and hissed so loud that women wakened in Colchis town, and children ​cried to their mothers. But Orpheus struck softly on his harp, and he sang a hymn to Sleep, bidding him come and cast a slumber on the dragon’s wakeful eyes. This was the song he sang:
“THEN JASON SET HIS FOOT ON THE DRAGON’S NECK AND HEWED OFF HIS HEAD.”
And now the Fleece was won. But it was weary work bringing it home to Greece, and that is another story. For Medea and Jason did a deed which angered the gods. They slew her brother Absyrtus, who followed after them with a fleet. And the gods would not let them return by the way they had come, but by strange ways where never another ship has sailed. Up the Istes ​(the Danube) they rowed, through countries of savage men, till the “Argo” could go no farther, by reason of the narrowness of the stream. Then they hauled her overland, where no man knows, but they launched her on the Elbe at last, and out into a sea where never sail had been seen. Then they were driven wandering out into Ocean, and to a fairy, far-off isle where Lady Circe dwelt, and to the Sirens’ Isles, where the singing women of the sea beguile the mariners; but about all these there is a better story, which you may some day read, the story of Odysseus, Laertes’s son. And at last the west wind drove them hack through the Pillars of Heracles, and so home to waters they knew, and to Iolcos itself, and there they landed with the Fleece, ​and the heroes all went home. And Jason was crowned king, at last, on his father’s throne, but he had little joy of his kingdom, for between him and beautiful Medea was the memory of her brother, whom they had slain. And the long story ends but sadly, for they had no happiness at home, and at last they went different ways, and Medea sinned again, a dreadful sin to revenge an evil deed of Jason’s. For she was a woman that knew only hate and love, and where she did not love with all her heart, with all her heart she hated. But on his dying day it may be that he remembered her, when all grew dark around him, and down the ways of night the Golden Fleece floated like a cloud upon the wind of death.
THE END.