The Story of the Golden Fleece/Chapter 3

by Andrew Lang

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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

The Story of the Golden Fleece.

“AND BEAUTIFUL MEDEA SAW JASON; AND AS SOON AS SHE SAW HIM SHE LOVED HIM.”

would tame the bulls. But still she wept and wished that she were dead, and had a mind to slay herself; yet, all the time, she was longing for the dawn, that she might go and see Jason, and give him the drug, and see his face once more, if she was never to see him again. So, at dawn she bound up her hair, and bathed her face, and took the drug, which was pressed from a flower. That flower first blossomed when the eagle shed the blood of Prometheus on the earth. The virtue of the juice of the flower was this, that if a man anointed himself with it, he could not that day be wounded by swords, and fire could not burn him. So she placed it in a vial beneath her girdle, and so she went secretly to the temple of the goddess. And Jason had been warned by Chalciope to meet her there, and he was coming with Mopsus who knew the speech of birds. Then Mopsus heard a crow that sat on a poplar tree speaking to another crow, saying: “Here comes a silly prophet, and sillier than a goose. He is walking with a young man to meet a maid, and does not know that, while he is there to hear, the maid will not say a word that is in her heart. Go away, foolish prophet; it is not you she cares for.”

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

The Story of the Golden Fleece.

“HE YOKED THEM TO THE PLOW AND DROVE THEM WITH HIS SPEAR.”

their heads together so mightily that they fell. When they rose, all trembling, he yoked them to the plow, and drove them with his spear, till all the field was plowed in straight ridges and furrows. Then he dipped his helmet in the river, and drank water, for he was weary; and next he sowed the dragon’s teeth on the right and left. Then you might see spear points, and sword points, and crests of helmets break up from the soil like shoots of corn, and presently the earth was shaken like sea waves, as armed men leaped out of the furrows, all furious for battle. But Jason, as Medea had told him to do, caught up a great rock, and threw it among them, and he who was struck said to his neighbor, “You struck me; take that!” and ran his spear through that man’s breast, but before he could draw it out another man had cleft his helmet with a stroke, and so it went. A few minutes of striking and shouting, while the sparks of fire sprang up from helmet and breastplate and shield. And the furrow ran red with blood, and wounded men crawled on hands and knees to strike or stab those that were yet standing and fighting. So ax and sword and spear flashed and fell, till now all the men were down but one, taller and stronger than the rest. Round him he looked, and saw only Jason standing there, and he staggered toward him, bleeding, and lifting his great ax above his head. But Jason only stepped aside from the blow which would have cloven him to the waist, the last blow of the Men of the Dragon’s Teeth, for he who struck fell, and there he lay and died.

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:

Sleep! King of Gods and men!
Come to my call again,
Swift over field and fen,
 Mountain and deep:
Come, bid the waves be still;
Sleep, streams on height and hill;
Beasts, birds, and snakes, thy will
 Conquereth, Sleep!
Come on thy golden wings,
Come ere the swallow sings,
Lulling all living things,
 Fly they or creep!
Come with thy leaden wand,
Come with thy kindly hand,
Soothing on sea or land
 Mortals that weep.
Come from the cloudy west,
Soft over brain and breast,
Bidding the Dragon rest,
 Come to me, Sleep!

This was Orpheus’s song, and he sang so sweetly that the bright, small eyes of the dragon closed, and all his hard coils softened and uncurled. Then Jason set his foot on the dragon’s neck and hewed off his head, and lifted down the Golden Fleece from the sacred oak tree, and it shone like a golden cloud at dawn. But he waited not to wonder at it, but he and Medea and Orpheus hurried through the wet wood-paths to the ship, and threw it on board, cast a cloak over it, and bade the heroes sit down to the oars, half of them, but the others to take their shields and stand each beside the oarsmen, to guard them from the arrows of the Colchians. Then he cut the stern cables with his sword, and softly they rowed, under the bank, down the dark river to the sea. But by this time the hissing of

The Story of the Golden Fleece.

“THEN JASON SET HIS FOOT ON THE DRAGON’S NECK AND HEWED OFF HIS HEAD.”

the dragon had awakened the Colchians, and lights were flitting by the palace windows, and Æêtes was driving in his chariot with all his men down to the banks of the river. Then their arrows fell like hail about the ship, but they rebounded from the shields of the heroes, and the swift ship sped over the bar, and leaped as she felt the first waves of the salt sea.

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.