e attendants bathed him, pouring
hot water over him. And they anointed his head with oil, and clothed him
in new raiment, and brought him back to the hall, and set him down at a
table beside the king, and gave him meat and drink.

When he had eaten and was refreshed, the king said: 'Now it is time to
ask the stranger who he is, and who his parents are, and whence he comes
to Iolcos?'

And Jason answered, 'I am Jason, son of the rightful king, Aeson, and I
am come to take back my kingdom.'

The king grew pale again, but he was cunning, and he leaped up and
embraced the lad, and made much of him, and caused a gold circlet to be
twisted in his hair. Then he said he was old, and weary of judging the
people. 'And weary work it is,' he said, 'and no joy therewith shall any
king have. For there is a curse on the country, that shall not be taken
away till the Fleece of Gold is brought home, from the land of the
world's end. The ghost of Phrixus stands by my bedside every night,
wailing and will not be comforted, till the Fleece is brought home
again.'

When Jason heard that he cried, 'I shall take the curse away, for by the
splendour of Lady Hera's brow, I shall bring the Fleece of Gold from the
land of the world's end before I sit on the throne of my father.'

Now this was the very thing that the king wished, for he thought that if
once Jason went after the Fleece, certainly he would never come back
living to Iolcos. So he said that it could never be done, for the land
was far away across the sea, so far that the birds could not come and go
in one year, so great a sea was that and perilous. Also, there was a
dragon that guarded the Fleece of Gold, and no man could face it and
live.

But the idea of fighting a dragon was itself a temptation to Jason, and
he made a great vow by the water of Styx, an oath the very gods feared
to break, that certainly he would bring home that Fleece to Iolcos. And
he sent out messengers all over Greece, to all his old friends, who were
with him in the Centaur's cave, and bade them come and help him, for
that there was a dragon to kill, and that there would be fighting. And
they all came, driving in their chariots down dales and across hills:
Heracles, the strong man, with the bow that none other could bend; and
Orpheus with his harp, and Castor and Polydeuces, and Zetes and Calais
of the golden wings, and Tiphys, the steersman, and young Hylas, still a
boy, and as fair as a girl, who always