Graded Literature Readers: Fourth Book

56. At the appointed hour he met the beautiful Medea on the marble steps of the king's palace. She gave him a basket in which were the dragon's teeth, just as they had been pulled out of the monster's jaws by Cadmus long ago. Medea then led Jason down the palace steps, and through the silent streets of the city, and into the royal pasture ground, where the two brazen-footed bulls were kept. It was a starry night, with a bright gleam along the eastern edge of the sky, where the moon was soon going to show herself.

57. At some distance before him he perceived four streams of fiery vapor, regularly appearing and again vanishing, after dimly lighting up the surrounding obscurity. These, you will understand, were caused by the breath of the brazen bulls, which was quietly stealing out of their four nostrils as they lay chewing their cuds.

58. At the first two or three steps which Jason made, the four fiery streams appeared to gush out somewhat more plentifully; for the two brazen bulls had heard his foot tramp and were lifting up their hot noses to snuff the air. He went a little farther, and by the way in which the red vapor now spouted forth he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet. Now he could see glowing sparks and vivid jets of flame.

59. Suddenly as a streak of lightning, on came the fiery animals, roaring like thunder and sending out sheets of white flame. Most distinctly Jason saw the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground, and their tails sticking up stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls.

60. Their breath scorched the herbage before them. But as for Jason himself, thanks to Medea's enchanted ointment, the white flame curled around his body without injuring him a jot.

61. Greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the young man awaited the attack of the bulls. Just as the brazen brutes fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air, he caught one of them by the horn and the other by his screwed-up tail, and held them in a grip like that of an iron vise, one with his right hand, and the other with his left. Well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms, to be sure.

Jason and the Brazen Bulls

62. But the secret of the matter was that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures, and that Jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them.

63. It was now easy to yoke the bulls and to harness them to the plow, and by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky the plowed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be sown with the dragon's teeth. So Jason scattered them broadcast.

The moon was now high aloft in the heavens and threw its bright beams over the plowed field, where as yet there was nothing to be seen.

64. But by and by all over the field there was something that glistened in the moonbeams like sparkling drops of dew. These bright objects sprouted higher, and proved to be the steel heads of spears. Then there was a dazzling gleam from a vast number of polished brass helmets, beneath which, as they grew farther out of the soil, appeared the dark and bearded visages of warriors struggling to free themselves from the imprisoning earth.

65. The first look that they gave at the upper world was a glare of wrath and defiance. Next were seen their bright breastplates; in every right hand there was a sword or a spear, and on each left arm a shield; and when this strange crop of warriors had but half grown out of the earth, they struggled – such was their impatience of restraint – and, as it were, tore themselves up by the roots.

66. Wherever a dragon's tooth had fallen, there stood a man armed for battle. They made a clangor with their swords against their shields, and eyed one another fiercely; for they had come into this beautiful world, and into the peaceful moonlight, full of rage and stormy passions, and ready to take the life of every human brother, in recompense of the boon of their own existence.

67. For a while the warriors stood flourishing their weapons, clashing their swords against their shields, and boiling over with the red-hot thirst for battle. At last the front rank caught sight of Jason, who, beholding the flash of so many weapons in the moonlight, had thought it best to draw his sword.

68. In a moment all the sons of the dragon's teeth appeared to take Jason for an enemy; and crying with one voice, "Guard the Golden Fleece!" they ran at him with uplifted swords and protruded spears. Jason knew that it would be impossible to withstand this bloodthirsty battalion with his single arm, but determined, since there was nothing better to be done, to die as valiantly as if he himself had sprung from a dragon's tooth.

69. Medea, however, bade him snatch up a stone from the ground.

"Throw it among them quickly!" cried she. "It is the only way to save yourself."

The armed men were now so nigh that Jason could discern the fire flashing out of their enraged eyes, when he let fly the stone, and saw it strike the helmet of a tall warrior who was rushing upon him with his blade aloft.

70. The stone glanced from this man's helmet to the shield of his nearest comrade, and thence flew right into the angry face of another, hitting him smartly between the eyes.

Each of the three who had been struck by the stone took it for granted that his next neighbor had given him a blow; and instead of running any farther towards Jason, they began a fight among themselves.

71. The confusion spread through the host, so that it seemed scarcely a moment before they were all hacking, hewing, and stabbing at one another.

In an incredibly short space of time – almost as short, indeed, as it had taken them to grow up – all of the heroes of the dragon's teeth were stretched lifeless on the field.

And there was the end of the army that had sprouted from the dragon's teeth. That fierce and feverish fight was the only enjoyment which they had tasted on this beautiful earth.

VI

72. Agreeably to Medea's advice, Jason went in the morning to the palace of King Æetes. Entering the presence chamber, he stood at the foot of the throne and made a low obeisance.

"Your eyes look heavy, Prince Jason," observed the king; "you appear to have spent a sleepless night. I hope you have been considering the matter a little more wisely, and have concluded not to get yourself scorched to a cinder in attempting to tame my brazen-lunged bulls."

73. "That is already accomplished, may it please your majesty," replied Jason. "The bulls have been tamed and yoked; the field has been plowed; the dragon's teeth have been sown broadcast and harrowed into the soil; the crop of armed warriors have sprung up, and they have slain one another to the last man. And now I solicit your majesty's permission to encounter the dragon, that I may take down the Golden Fleece from the tree and depart with my nine and forty comrades."

74. King Æetes scowled and looked very angry and greatly disturbed; for he knew that, in accordance with his kingly promise, he ought now to permit Jason to win the Fleece if his courage and skill should enable him to do so.

75. "You never would have succeeded in this business, young man," said he, "if my undutiful daughter Medea had not helped you with her enchantments. Had you acted fairly, you would have been at this instant a black cinder or a handful of white ashes. I forbid you, on pain of death, to make any more attempts to get the Golden Fleece. To speak my mind plainly, you shall never set eyes on so much as one of its glistening locks."

76. Jason left the king's presence in great sorrow and anger. But, as he was hastening down the palace steps, the Princess Medea called after him and beckoned him to return.

"What says King Æetes, my royal and upright father?" inquired Medea, slightly smiling. "Will he give you the Golden Fleece without any further risk or trouble?"

77. "On the contrary," answered Jason, "he is very angry with me for taming the brazen bulls and sowing the dragon's teeth. And he forbids me to make any more attempts, and positively refuses to give up the Golden Fleece whether I slay the dragon or no."

78. "Yes, Jason," said the princess, "and I can tell you more. Unless you set sail from Colchis before to-morrow's sunrise, the king means to burn your fifty-oared galley and put yourself and your forty-nine brave comrades to the sword. But be of good courage. The Golden Fleece you shall have, if it lies within the power of my enchantments to get it for you. Wait for me here an hour before midnight."

79. At the appointed hour you might again have seen Prince Jason and the Princess Medea, side by side, stealing through the streets of Colchis, on their way to the sacred grove, in the center of which the Golden Fleece was suspended to a tree.

80. Jason followed Medea's guidance into the Grove of Mars, where the great oak trees that had been growing for centuries threw so thick a shade that the moonbeams struggled vainly to find their way through it. Only here and there a glimmer fell upon the leaf-strewn earth, or now and then a breeze stirred the boughs aside and gave Jason a glimpse of the sky, lest, in that deep obscurity, he might forget that there was one overhead.

81. At length, when they had gone farther and farther into the heart of the duskiness, Medea squeezed Jason's hand.

"Look yonder," she whispered. "Do you see it?"

Gleaming among the venerable oaks there was a radiance, not like the moonbeams, but rather resembling the golden glory of the setting sun. It proceeded from an object which appeared to be suspended at about a man's height from the ground, a little farther within the wood.

82. "What is it?" asked Jason.

"Have you come so far to seek it," exclaimed Medea, "and do you not recognize the meed of all your toils and perils when it glitters before your eyes? It is the Golden Fleece."

83. Jason went onward a few steps farther, and then stopped to gaze. Oh, how beautiful it looked, shining with a marvelous light of its own, that prize which so many heroes had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it either by the perils of their voyage or by the fiery breath of the brazen-lunged bulls!

84. "How gloriously it shines!" cried Jason, in a rapture. "It has surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset. Let me hasten onward and take it to my bosom."

"Stay," said Medea, holding him back. "Have you forgotten what guards it?"

85. To say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of Jason's memory. Soon, however, something came to pass that reminded him what perils were still to be encountered.

86. An antelope, that probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise, came bounding fleetly through the grove. He was rushing straight towards the Golden Fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and the immense head and half the scaly body of the dragon were thrust forth – for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on which the Fleece hung – and seizing the poor antelope, swallowed him with one snap of his jaws.

87. The dragon had probably heard the voices; for, swift as lightning, his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed a magic potion right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle, flinging his tail up to the tiptop of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again, the dragon fell at full length upon the ground and lay quite motionless.

88. "It is only a sleeping potion," said the enchantress to Prince Jason. "Quick! Snatch the prize and let us begone. You have won the Golden Fleece."

Jason caught the Fleece from the tree and hurried through the grove, the deep shadows of which were illuminated, as he passed, by the golden glory of the precious object that he bore along.

89. Jason found the heroes seated on the benches of the galley, with their oars held perpendicularly, ready to let fall into the water.

As he drew near, he heard the Talking Image calling to him with more than ordinary eagerness in its grave, sweet voice: