hought they saw before them THE GOLDEN FLEECE; darkness
surrounded it; it seemed to the dreaming Argonauts that the darkness
was the magic power that King AEetes possessed.

PART II. The Return To Greece

I. KING AEETES

They had come into a country that was the strangest of all countries,
and amongst a people that were the strangest of all peoples. They were
in the land, this people said, before the moon had come into the sky.
And it is true that when the great king of Egypt had come so far,
finding in all other places men living on the high hills and eating the
acorns that grew on the oaks there, he found in Colchis the city of Aea
with a wall around it and with pillars on which writings were graven.
That was when Egypt was called the Morning Land.

And many of the magicians of Egypt who had come with King Sesostris
stayed in that city of Aea, and they taught people spells that could
stay the moon in her going and coming, in her rising and setting.
Priests of the Moon ruled the city of Aea until King AEetes came.

AEetes had no need of their magic, for Helios, the bright Sun, was his
father, as he thought. Also, Hephaestus, the artisan of the gods, was
his friend, and Hephaestus made for him many wonderful things to be his
protection. Medea, too, his wise daughter, knew the secrets taught by
those who could sway the moon.

But AEetes once was made afraid by a dream that he had: he dreamt that a
ship had come up the Phasis, and then, sailing on a mist, had rammed
his palace that was standing there in all its strength and beauty until
it had fallen down. On the morning of the night that he had had this
dream AEetes called Medea, his wise daughter, and he bade her go to the
temple of Hecate, the Moon, and search out spells that might destroy
those who came against his city.

That morning the Argonauts, who had passed the night in the backwater
of the river, had two youths come to them. They were in a broken ship,
and they had one oar only. When Jason, after giving them food and fresh
garments, questioned them, he found out that these youths were of the
city of Aea, and that they were none others than the sons of
Phrixus--of Phrixus who had come there with the Golden Ram.

And the youths, Phrontis and Melas, were as amazed as was Jason when
they found out whose ship they had come aboard. For Jason was the
grandson of Cretheus, and Cretheus was the brother of Athamas, their
grandfather. They had ventured