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'Therewith he plunged beneath the heaving deep. And she conceived and bare Pelias and Neleus, who both grew to be mighty men, servants of Zeus. Pelias dwelt in wide Iolcos, and was rich in flocks; and that other abode in sandy Pylos. And the queen of women bare yet other sons to Cretheus, even Aeson and Pheres and Amythaon, whose joy was in chariots.
And being come to the strength of a man, Jason determined to set all this business to rights and to punish the wicked Pelias for wronging his dear father, and to cast him down from the throne and seat himself there instead.
The people had now withdrawn from around him, so that the youth stood in an open space, near the smoking altar, front to front with the angry King Pelias. "Who are you?" cried the king, with a terrible frown. "And how dare you make this disturbance, while I am sacrificing a black bull to my father Neptune?" "It is no fault of mine," answered Jason.
And he asked Pelias boldly, "Men say that you are terrible, and a man of blood; but I find you a kind and hospitable man; and as you are to me, so will I be to you. Yet why did you drive my father out?" Pelias smiled and sighed: "Men have slandered me in that, as in all things. Your father was growing old and weary, and he gave the kingdom up to me of his own will.
Not for the slaying of Pelias art thou blameworthy, but for the misery that thou hast brought upon his daughters by bringing them into the guilt of the slaying. Go from the city, daughter of King Ætes; never, never wilt thou come back into it." But little heed did Medea pay to the ancient priestess, Iphias.
There died of this disease, amongst those of the most ancient times, Acastus, the son of Pelias; of later date, Alcman the poet, Pherecydes the theologian, Callisthenes the Olynthian, in the time of his imprisonment, as also Mucius the lawyer; and if we may mention ignoble, but notorious names, Eunus the fugitive, who stirred up the slaves of Sicily to rebel against their masters, after he was brought captive to Rome, died of this creeping sickness.
And at night Pelias feasted them like a king, and they slept in his palace-porch. But Jason went away to the northward, and into the land of Thrace, till he found Orpheus, the prince of minstrels, where he dwelt in his cave under Rhodope, among the savage Cicon tribes.
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.
Rather recall, from your early explorations in Lemprière's Dictionary, how Medea renewed the youth of Pelias by simply cutting him to pieces and boiling him; whereon my Lord Bacon justly remarks, that "there may be some boiling required in the matter, but the cutting to pieces is not needful."
Sometimes he seemed to see the eyes of Hera, and to hear her words again, "Call on me in the hour of need, and see if the Immortals can forget." On the morrow Jason went to Pelias and said, "Give me a lamb, that I may sacrifice to Hera." And as he stood by the altar Hera sent a thought into his mind.
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