r help to Athene, goddess of
wisdom, and a bitter enemy of Ares and his grand-daughter Ino. The
fifty-oared ship Argo was built, and Athene herself placed in the prow
a piece of oak endowed with the power of speaking oracles.

The Quest of the Golden Fleece was a deed worthy of heroes, and none
but heroes were members of the crew. Such men--demigods, most of
them--had never been gathered in a crew before. Orpheus, of the
charmed lyre; Zetes and Calais, sons of the North Wind; Castor and
Pollux, the divine Twins; Meleager, the hunter of the magic boar;
Theseus, the slayer of tyrants; the all-powerful Hercules, son of
Zeus, whose twelve labors were famous in all antiquity; and others of
little lesser fame, were numbered in that gallant company.

Many and strange were their adventures in the _Argo_, of which there
is not space to tell. The tale is one of ever-increasing wonder: the
battle with the Harpies, evil birds with human heads; the peril of the
Sirens, whose deadly singing was drowned by Orpheus' song; the menace
of the Symplegades, or moving rocks, which clashed together when a
ship passed between; the fight with the Stymphalian birds, who used
their feathers of brass as arrows; and many more. The story of the
voyage of the _Argo_ is a story that will never die.

Despite their wanderings and their adventures, the Quest of the Golden
Fleece remained the goal of the Argonauts. After months--or it may
have been years--Jason and the heroes reached the land they sought.
There they presented themselves before Aeetes and demanded the Golden
Fleece.

The king of Colchis looked at these heroes and trembled. Well he knew
that neither he nor his people were a match for such as they. He took
refuge in stratagem, and, as Pelias had done, demanded from Jason the
performance of feats he deemed impossible. He must yoke and tame the
bulls of Hephaestus, god of fire, which snorted flame and had hoofs of
red-hot brass; with these he must plow the field of Ares, god of
battle; that done, he must sow the field with dragon's teeth, from
which a host of armed men would spring, and he must defeat that army.

Truly, the task was one to tax a hero. But, as the gods would have it,
Jason found a new but dangerous ally. This was Medea, the
witch-daughter of Aeetes, grand-daughter of Helios, god of the sun. She
loved her father but little, for her father had imprisoned her for
sorcery and, though she had escaped by means of her black arts,