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It is true, Circe has divine honors paid her by our colony of Circæum; therefore you call her a Goddess; but what will you say of Medea, the granddaughter of the Sun and the Ocean, and daughter of Æetes and Idyia? What will you say of her brother Absyrtus, whom Pacuvius calls Ægialeus, though the other name is more frequent in the writings of the ancients?
This was guarded by a dragon, but Medea prepared a potion that put this perilous sentinel to sleep, seized the fleece, and accompanied Jason in his flight, taking with her on the Argo Absyrtus, her youthful brother. The Argonauts, seizing their oars, rowed with all haste from the dreaded locality.
In order to detain him, Medea slays her little brother Absyrtus, and scatters his limbs in the sea. Æetes stays to collect them, and the pair are able to reach Jason's home with the fleece. Each of these facts requires a deep elucidation. The fleece is something belonging to man, and infinitely precious to him.
Then Medeia, the dark witch-maiden, laid a cruel and a cunning plot; for she killed Absyrtus her young brother, and cast him into the sea, and said, 'Ere my father can take up his corpse and bury it, he must wait long, and be left far behind.
So at midnight they went up the bank, and found Medeia; and beside came Absyrtus her young brother, leading a yearling lamb. Then Medeia brought them to a thicket, beside the War-god's gate; and there she bade Jason dig a ditch, and kill the lamb and leave it there, and strew on it magic herbs and honey from the honeycomb.
Then Medeia, the dark witch maiden, laid a cruel and a cunning plot; for she killed Absyrtus her young brother, and cast him into the sea, and said: "Ere my father can take up his corpse and bury it, he must wait long, and be left far behind."
"But I do not have Medea here," she said; "I play her part myself, and I make her different. She was too cunning and had wicked thoughts in her heart, and so the poor Heroes suffered. If she had been good and true and had not killed Absyrtus, things might have had a different ending.
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