to the sacred grove, seeking the huge
oak tree on which was hung the fleece, like to a cloud that blushes red
with the fiery beams of the rising sun. But right in front the serpent
with his keen sleepless eyes saw them coming, and stretched out his long
neck and hissed in awful wise; and all round the long banks of the river
echoed and the boundless grove. Those heard it who dwelt in the Colchian
land very far from Titanian Aea, near the outfall of Lycus, the river
which parts from loud-roaring Araxes and blends his sacred stream with
Phasis, and they twain flow on together in one and pour their waters
into the Caucasian Sea. And through fear young mothers awoke, and round
their new-born babes, who were sleeping in their arms, threw their hands
in agony, for the small limbs started at that hiss. And as when above a
pile of smouldering wood countless eddies of smoke roll up mingled with
soot, and one ever springs up quickly after another, rising aloft from
beneath in wavering wreaths; so at that time did that monster roll his
countless coils covered with hard dry scales. And as he writhed, the
maiden came before his eyes, with sweet voice calling to her aid Sleep,
highest of gods, to charm the monster; and she cried to the queen of the
underworld, the night-wanderer, to be propitious to her enterprise. And
Aeson's son followed in fear, but the serpent, already charmed by her
song, was relaxing the long ridge of his giant spine, and lengthening
out his myriad coils, like a dark wave, dumb and noiseless, rolling over
a sluggish sea; but still he raised aloft his grisly head, eager to
enclose them both in his murderous jaws. But she with a newly cut spray
of juniper, dipping and drawing untempered charms from her mystic brew,
sprinkled his eyes, while she chanted her song; and all around the
potent scent of the charm cast sleep; and on the very spot he let his
jaw sink down; and far behind through the wood with its many trees were
those countless coils stretched out.

Hereupon Jason snatched the golden fleece from the oak, at the maiden's
bidding; and she, standing firm, smeared with the charm the monster's
head, till Jason himself bade her turn back towards their ship, and she
left the grove of Ares, dusky with shade. And as a maiden catches on her
finely wrought robe the gleam of the moon at the full, as it rises above
her high-roofed chamber; and her heart rejoices as she beholds the fair
ray; so at that time did Jason up