saw Medea’s dragon car. Down flew the dragons, and Medea came from the car and stood between Jason and the princess. Angrily she spoke to him. “I have made the kingdom ready for your return,” she said, “but if you would go there you must first let me deal in my own way with this pretty maiden.” And so fiercely did Medea look upon her that Glance shrank back and clung to Jason for protection. “O, Jason,” she cried, ” thou didst say that I am such a one as thou didst dream of when in the forest with Chiron, before the adventure of the Golden Fleece drew thee away from the Grecian lands. Oh, save me now from the power of her who comes in the dragon car.” And Jason said: “I said all that thou hast said, and I will protect thee, O Glauce.”
And then Medea thought of the king’s house she had left for Jason, and of the brother whom she had let be slain, and of the plot she had carried out to bring Jason back to Iolcus, and a great fury came over her. In her hand she took foam from the jaws of the dragons, and she cast the foam upon Glauce, and the princess fell back into the arms of Jason with the dragon foam burning into her.
Then, seeing in his eyes that he had forgotten all that he owed to her the winning of the Golden Fleece, and the safety of Argo, and the destruction of the power of King Pelias seeing in his eyes that Jason had forgotten all this, Medea went into her dragon-borne car and spoke the words that made the scaly dragons bear her aloft. She flew from Corinth, leaving Jason in King Creon’s garden with Glauce dying in his arms. He lifted her up and laid her upon a bed, but even as her friends came around her the daughter of King Creon died.
And Jason? For long he stayed in Corinth, a famous man indeed, but one sorrowful and alone. But again there grew in him the desire to rule and to have possessions. He called around him again the men whose home was in Iolcus–those who had followed him as bright-eyed youths when he first proclaimed his purpose of winning the Fleece of Gold. He called them around him, and he led them on board the Argo. Once more they lifted sails, and once more they took the Argo into the open sea.
Toward Iolcus they sailed; their passage was fortunate, and in a short time they brought the Argo safely into the harbor of Pagasae. Oh, happy were the crowds that came thronging to see the ship that had the famous Fleece of Gold upon her masthead, and green and sweet smelling were the garlands that the people brought to wreathe the heads of Jason and his companions! Jason looked upon the throngs, and he thought that much had gone from him, but he thought that whatever else had gone something remained to him–to be a king and a great ruler over a people.
And so Jason came back to Iolcus. The Argo he made a blazing pile of in sacrifice to Poseidon, the god of the sea. The Golden Fleece he hung in the temple of the gods. Then he took up the rule of the kingdom that Cretheus had founded, and he became the greatest of the kings of Greece.
And to Iolcus there came, year after year, young men who would look upon the gleaming thing that was hung there in the temple of the gods. And as they looked upon it, young man after young man, the thought would come to each that he would make himself strong enough and heroic enough to win for his country something as precious as Jason’s GOLDEN FLEECE. And for all their lives they kept in mind the words that Jason had inscribed upon a pillar that was placed beside the Fleece of Gold–the words that Triton spoke to the Argonauts when they were fain to win their way out of the inland sea:–
THAT IS THE OUTLET TO THE SEA, WHERE THE DEEP WATER LIES UNMOVED AND DARK; ON EACH SIDE ROLL WHITE BREAKERS WITH SHINING CRESTS; AND THE WAY BETWEEN FOR YOUR PASSAGE OUT IS NARROW. BUT GO IN JOY, AND AS FOR LABOR LET THERE BE NO GRIEVING THAT LIMBS IN YOUTHFUL VIGOR SHOULD STILL TOIL.