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Aeson is amazed at himself, and remembers that such as he now is, he was in his youthful days, forty years before. Medea used her arts here for a good purpose, but not so in another instance, where she made them the instruments of revenge. Pelias, our readers will recollect, was the usurping uncle of Jason, and had kept him out of his kingdom.
But I hope for some ease before I die for the ease that is in king's houses, with good food to eat, and rest, and servants to wait upon one's aged body. These are the things I desire, O Pelias, even as you desire youth. You can give me such things, and I have come to you who desire youth eagerly rather than to kings who have a less eager desire for it.
"Go, then, and at the peril of your life bring me back the Golden Fleece!" "I go," answered Jason composedly. "If I fail, you need not fear that I will ever come back to trouble you again. But if I return to Iolchos with the prize, then, King Pelias, you must hasten down from your lofty throne and give me your crown and scepter." "That I will," said the king, with a sneer.
Whether of the two was the stronger and the fiercer it would be hard to tell. But after a moment Pelias spoke gently, "Why so rash, my son? I have not harmed you. You will go, and that gladly, for you have a hero's heart within you, and the love of glory." Jason knew that he was entrapped, but he cried aloud, "You have well spoken, cunning uncle of mine, I love glory.
He looked on the shining apple and he felt its fragrance and he could not help thinking, old trembling Pelias, that this apple might be the means of bringing him back to the fullness of health and courage that he had had before. He sent for the ancient woman who had brought it that she might tell him where it had come from and who it was that had sent it to him.
When they wished Medea to restore Pelias to the vigor of youth, his daughters cut the old king's body to pieces and boiled it in a cauldron, for there can be no new existence without a prior dissolution. We must pull down before we can rebuild; the analysis of death is the first step towards the synthesis of life.
Then saw he other females: Tyro, who when she lived was the paramour of Neptune, and by him had Pelias and Neleus. Antiope, who bore two like sons to Jove, Amphion and Zethus, founders of Thebes. Alcmena, the mother of Hercules, with her fair daughter, afterwards her daughter-in-law, Megara.
Thus he spake, and mildly also did Pelias make reply: 'I will be even as thou wilt, but now the sere of life alone remaineth to me, whereas the flower of thy youth is but just burgeoning; thou art able to take away the sin that maketh the powers beneath the earth wroth with us: for Phrixos biddeth us lay his ghost, and that we go to the house of Aietes, and bring thence the thick-fleeced hide of the ram, whereby of old he was delivered from the deep and from the impious weapons of his stepmother.
Now when all things had been made ready by the thralls, all things that fully-equipped ships are furnished withal when men's business leads them to voyage across the sea, then the heroes took their way through the city to the ship where it lay on the strand that men call Magnesian Pagasae; and a crowd of people hastening rushed together; but the heroes shone like gleaming stars among the clouds; and each man as he saw them speeding along with their armour would say: "King Zeus, what is the purpose of Pelias?
"And what good would it be to you, Jason, if you were heir of that fair land?" "I would take it and keep it." "A strong man has taken it and kept it long. Are you stronger than your uncle Pelias the Terrible?" "I can try my strength with his," said Jason.
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