So he
promised, and leapt down the mountain, to take his fortune like a man.
He went down through the arbutus thickets, and across the downs of
thyme, till he came to the vineyard walls, and the pomegranates and the
olives in the glen; and among the olives roared Anauros, all foaming
with a summer flood.
And on the bank of Anauros sat a woman, all wrinkled gray, and old; her
head shook palsied on her breast, and her hands shook palsied on her
knees; and when she saw Jason, she spoke whining: "Who will carry me
across the flood?"
Jason was bold and hasty, and was just going to leap into the flood; and
yet he thought twice before he leapt, so loud roared the torrent down,
all brown from the mountain rains, and silver veined with melting snow;
while underneath he could hear the boulders rumbling like the tramp of
horsemen or the roll of wheels, as they ground along the narrow channel,
and shook the rocks on which he stood.
But the old woman whined all the more: "I am weak and old, fair youth.
For Hera's sake, carry me over the torrent."
And Jason was going to answer her scornfully, when Cheiron's words came
to his mind.
So he said: "For Hera's sake, the Queen of the Immortals on Olympus, I
will carry you over the torrent, unless we both are drowned midway."
Then the old dame leapt upon his back, as nimbly as a goat; and Jason
staggered in, wondering; and the first step was up to his knees.
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