else who should be our leader in
this voyage."

So Heracles said, and the Argonauts all stood up and raised a cry for
Jason. Then Jason stepped forward, and he took the hand of each
Argonaut in his hand, and he swore that he would lead them with all the
mind and all the courage that he possessed. And he prayed the gods that
it would be given to him to lead them back safely with the Golden
Fleece glittering on the mast of the Argo.

They drew lots for the benches they would sit at; they took the places
that for the length of the voyage they would have on the ship. They
made sacrifice to the gods and they waited for the breeze of the
morning that would help them away from Iolcus.

And while they waited AEson, the father of Jason, sat at his own hearth,
bowed and silent in his grief. Alcimide, his wife, sat near him, but
she was not silent; she lamented to the women of Iolcus who were
gathered around her. "I did not go down to the ship," she said, "for
with my grief I would not be a bird of ill omen for the voyage. By this
hearth my son took farewell of me--the only son I ever bore. From the
doorway I watched him go down the street of the city, and I heard the
people shout as he went amongst them, they glorying in my son's
splendid appearance. Ah, that I might live to see his return and to
hear the shout that will go up when the people look on Jason again! But
I know that my life will not be spared so long; I will not look on my
son when he comes back from the dangers he will run in the quest of the
Golden Fleece."

Then the women of Iolcus asked her to tell them of the Golden Fleece,
and Alcimide told them of it and of the sorrows that were upon the race
of Aeolus.

Cretheus, the father of AEson, and Pelias, was of the race of Aeolus,
and of the race of Aeolus, too, was Athamas, the king who ruled in
Thebes at the same time that Cretheus ruled in Iolcus. And the first
children of Athamas were Phrixus and Helle.

"Ah, Phrixus and ah, Helle," Alcimide lamented, "what griefs you have
brought on the race of Aeolus! And what griefs you yourselves suffered!
The evil that Athamas, your father, did you lives to be a curse to the
line of Aeolus!

"Athamas was wedded first to Nephele, the mother of Phrixus and Helle,
the youth and maiden. But Athamas married again while the mother of
these children was still living, and Ino, the new queen, drove Nephele
and her children out of the king's palace.

"And now was Nephele mo