So they came down to Iolcos, and all the city came out to meet them, and
were never tired with looking at their height, and their beauty, and
their gallant bearing, and the glitter of their inlaid arms. And some
said, "Never was such a gathering of the heroes since the Hellenes
conquered the land." But the women sighed over them, and whispered,
"Alas! they are all going to the death."
Then they felled the pines on Pelion, and shaped them with the axe, and
Argus taught them to build a galley, the first long ship which ever
sailed the seas. They pierced her for fifty oars, an oar for each hero
of the crew, and pitched her with coal-black pitch, and painted her bows
with vermilion; and they named her Argo after Argus, and worked at her
all day long. And at night Pelias feasted them like a king, and they
slept in his palace porch.
But Jason went away to the northward, and into the land of Thrace, till
he found Orpheus, the prince of minstrels, where he dwelt in his cave
under Rhodope, among the savage Cicon tribes. And he asked him: "Will
you leave your mountains, Orpheus, my fellow scholar in old times, and
cross Strymon once more with me, to sail with the heroes of the Minuai,
and bring home the golden fleece, and charm for us all men and all
monsters with your magic harp and song?"
Then Orpheus sighed: "Have I not had enough of toil and of weary
wandering far and wide, since I lived in Cheiron's cave, above Iolcos by
the sea? In vain is the skill and the voice which my goddess mother gave
me; in vain have I sung and laboured; in vain I went down to the dead,
and charmed all the kings of Hades, to win back Eurydice my bride.
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