Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/147

 MEDIA AND THE DAUGHrERS OF 1'ELIAS. H5 the enemy against whom the oracle had forewarned him. As a means of averting the danger, he imposed upon Jason the des- perate task of bringing back to lolkos the Golden Fleece, the fleece of that ram which had carried Phryxos from Achaia to Kolchis, and which Phryxos had dedicated in the latter country as an offering to the god Ares. The result of this injunction wa3 the memorable expedition of the ship Argo and her crew call- ed the Argonauts, composed of the bravest and noblest youths of Greece which cannot be conveniently included among the legends of the Solids, and is reserved for a separate chapter. The voyage of the Argo was long protracted, and Pelias, per- suaded that neither the ship nor her crew would ever return, put to death both the father and mother of Jason, together with their infant son. ./Eson, the father, being permitted to choose the manner of his own death, drank bull's blood while performing a sacrifice to the gods. At length, however, Jason did return, bringing with him not only the golden fleece, but also Medea, daughter of jEetes, king of Kolchis, as his wife, a woman distinguished for magical skill and cunning, by whose assistance alone the Argo- nauts had succeeded in their project. Though determined to avenge himself upon Pelias, Jason knew he could only succeed by stratagem : he remained with his companions at a short dis- tance from lolkos, while Medea, feigning herself a fugitive from his ill-usage, entered the town alone, and procured access to the daughters of Pelias. By exhibitions of her magical powers she soon obtained unqualified ascendency over their minds. For ex- ample, she selected from the flocks of Pelias a ram in the extrem- ity of old age, cut him up and boiled him in a caldron with herbs, and brought him out in the shape of a young and vigorous lamb: 1 the daughters of Pelias were made to believe that their old father could in like manner be restored to youth. In this persuasion they cut him up with their own hands and cast his linJbs into the 1 This incident was contained in one of the earliest dramas of Euripides, the I7.eAtu<5ef, now lost. Moses of Chore-no (Progymnasm. ap. Maii ad Euseh. p. 43), who gives an extract from the argument, says that the poet ' extreme* inentiendi fines attingit." The 'Pi6ro[ioi of Sophoklos seems also to have turned upon the same catastrophe (sec Fragm. 479, Dindorf.).