ome, as young princes generally were, in those
days. Now, who do you imagine these two voyagers turned out to be? Why,
if you will believe me, they were the sons of that very Phrixus, who,
in his childhood, had been carried to Colchis on the back of the
golden-fleeced ram. Since that time, Phrixus had married the king's
daughter; and the two young princes had been born and brought up at
Colchis, and had spent their play-days in the outskirts of the grove, in
the center of which the Golden Fleece was hanging upon a tree. They were
now on their way to Greece, in hopes of getting back a kingdom that had
been wrongfully taken from their father.

When the princes understood whither the Argonauts were going, they
offered to turn back, and guide them to Colchis. At the same time,
however, they spoke as if it were very doubtful whether Jason would
succeed in getting the Golden Fleece. According to their account, the
tree on which it hung was guarded by a terrible dragon, who never failed
to devour, at one mouthful, every person who might venture within his
reach.

"There are other difficulties in the way," continued the young princes.
"But is not this enough? Ah, brave Jason, turn back before it is too
late. It would grieve us to the heart, if you and your nine and forty
brave companions should be eaten up, at fifty mouthfuls, by this
execrable dragon."

"My young friends," quietly replied Jason, "I do not wonder that you
think the dragon very terrible. You have grown up from infancy in the
fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that
children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have
talked to them about. But, in my view of the matter, the dragon is
merely a pretty large serpent, who is not half so likely to snap me up
at one mouthful as I am to cut off his ugly head, and strip the skin
from his body. At all events, turn back who may, I will never see Greece
again, unless I carry with me the Golden Fleece."

"We will none of us turn back!" cried his nine and forty brave comrades.
"Let us get on board the galley this instant; and if the dragon is to
make a breakfast of us, much good may it do him."

And Orpheus (whose custom it was to set everything to music) began to
harp and sing most gloriously, and made every mother's son of them feel
as if nothing in this world were so delectable as to fight dragons, and
nothing so truly honorable as to be eaten up at one mouthful, in case