and spake words of comfort: "Lady, let Zeus of Olympus
himself be witness to my oath, and Hera, queen of marriage, bride of
Zeus, that I will set thee in my halls my own wedded wife, when we have
reached the land of Hellas on our return."

(ll. 99-108) Thus he spake, and straightway clasped her right hand in
his; and she bade them row the swift ship to the sacred grove near at
hand, in order that, while it was still night, they might seize and
carry off the fleece against the will of Aeetes. Word and deed were one
to the eager crew. For they took her on board, and straightway thrust
the ship from shore; and loud was the din as the chieftains strained
at their oars, but she, starting back, held out her hands in despair
towards the shore. But Jason spoke cheering words and restrained her
grief.

(ll. 109-122) Now at the hour when men have cast sleep from their
eyes~huntsmen, who, trusting to their bounds, never slumber away the
end of night, but avoid the light of dawn lest, smiting with its white
beams, it efface the track and scent of the quarry--then did Aeson's son
and the maiden step forth from the ship over a grassy spot, the "Ram's
couch" as men call it, where it first bent its wearied knees in rest,
bearing on its back the Minyan son of Athamas. And close by, all
smirched with soot, was the base of the altar, which the Aeolid Phrixus
once set up to Zeus, the alder of fugitives, when he sacrificed the
golden wonder at the bidding of Hermes who graciously met him on the
way. There by the counsels of Argus the chieftains put them ashore.

(ll. 123-161) And they two by the pathway came 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 smoulderin