Farther along the same coast the Mysians welcomed and gave a party for them. But once again Hercules behaved like a boor and wouldn't join in the fun. However, this time he had something special to occupy him. He had recently broken his oar and he went off into the forest to look for a pine tree large enough to make an oar suitable to his immense strength.
I have never done any rowing myself, but I should have thought that having one oar much bigger than all the rest would have made things pretty tricky. Still, that's beside the point. With him he took Polyphemus, a pal of his, and a beautiful youth named Hylas, of whom he was very fond.
Having found a pine tree that he liked the look of, Hercules sent young Hylas to fetch some water for their frugal supper, then took off his coat to cut the tree down. Hylas found a lake and was kneeling down on its bank to fill whatever it was he had brought with him when a lot of pretty heads bobbed up nearby. These belonged to Water Nymphs who owned the place. After one look at Hylas these girls decided that they could have a lot of fun with such a good-looking chap if only they could keep him with them. So they pulled him in and he never came up again.
Polyphemus heard his shout and ran to get Hercules. Thinking their young friend had been carried off by robbers, they searched the woods all night and went on searching them for some days afterwards. Meanwhile the other Argonauts were getting a bit restive, because the wind was fair. At length, believing H. and Co. must all be dead, they sailed without them. However, before they had gone far a sea god called Glaucus surfaced near the vessel and said for them not to worry. Hercules was O.K. and before long he would have plenty of other things on his plate, so he wouldn't really mind very much not having been in on getting the Golden Fleece.
Their next call was on the King of the Bebrycians. He was not a nice person, as he was very strong and his fun was to insist that any stranger should box with him, then knock them out. In Pollux, who took him on, he caught a Tartar, for he got knocked out himself.
King Phineus, whose country they came to soon after, they found in very poor shape. He was blind and three horrid creatures called Harpies never ceased from tormenting him. They were enormous vultures with women's faces and every time the blind King tried to eat anything they either snatched it from him or made a nasty mess on it. Why he had not long since starved to death is a mystery, and I don't see either how he managed to govern his kingdom.
Fortunately several of the Argonauts were the sons of gods by good-looking girls, and two of them had been born with wings. So they flapped up into the air and sent the Harpies packing. Anxious to repay the people who had at last enabled him to eat a decent dinner, Phineus warned them that they were heading for two floating islands of icy rock called the Symplegades. These islands had a nasty habit of parting, then when a ship was sailing between them suddenly closing and crushing it to bits* Phineus tipped Jason off to take a dove aboard and let it fly between the islands first.
Jason took this advice and when they came to the icebergs, as that is what they must have been, he sent the dove through the channel. The two 'bergs came together with a clang and, believe it or not, nipped off the dove's tail feathers. But the shock made them bounce apart, and by rowing all out the Argonauts managed to get through just in time. Personally, instead of risking going between them I should have rowed round one of them, but none of our Heroes seems to have thought of that.
By this time they were well up in the cold Black Sea and there they had many other adventures, including being attacked by a flock of enormous birds called the Stymphalides. Their feathers Were made of brass and they could shoot them off like javelins, so to be pulling at an oar beneath them can have been no fun at all. But half the Argonauts kept rowing while the other half banged their spears on their bronze shields, and the noise scared the birds off.
They were now drawing near to Colchis, but before going in lor their attempt to make off with the Fleece, they anchored under the lee of an island some way off the coast. Here they had a stroke of luck, for they came upon four naked youths who had been shipwrecked there. These turned out to be the sons of Phrixus, so they were able to tell the Argonauts all about the court of King Aeetes and guide them to it .
Naturally these young men's mother, Chalciope, was delighted to see them again, and her much younger sister, Medea, instantly took a very good view of Jason. But King Aeetes felt a bit uneasy at his house being filled with all these forceful-looking Argonauts, and after supper, when Jason told him what they had come for, he looked very glum indeed.
Jason related all the perils they had been through and claimed the Fleece as their reward. I am no lawyer, but it doesn't seem to me that even shooting Niagara Falls, climbing Mount Everest, going to the bottom of the sea in a bathysphere then being first man up in the stratosphere would entitle one to ask for the Crown Jewels. King Aeetes saw it as I do, but he made Jason a sporting offer.
He said: 'I've got a couple of dozen brazen bulls that belch fire from their nostrils. You can have a shot at harnessing them and using them to plough a four-acre field. I'll then provide you with a satchel full of dragons' teeth to sow the field with. From each tooth there will spring up a fully armed warrior and you will have to take them on single-handed. If you can get through that programme between dawn and dusk I'll let you have a crack at my sleepless serpent that guards the Golden Fleece.'
Being a Hero, Jason said: 'Done!' and went back to his ship to get some shut-eye. But the two Princesses had got butterflies in the tummy about him. Chalciope was afraid that if Jason fell down on the job her papa would have all the rest of the Argonauts killed, and with them her sons for having brought them there. So she slipped on a dressing-gown and went along to Medea's room to ask her help.
Her reason for hoping that her younger sister might be able to put a fast one over their papa was because Medea was a very clever witch. As Medea already had ants in her pants about Jason, she needed no urging to play. Getting into whatever were the equivalent in those days of gumboots and a warmly lined macintosh, she sneaked out of the palace and went into the woods. There she gathered all sorts of herbs and, having brought them back to the kitchen, stewed them down, while muttering enchantments various, until their juices had become a paste. Putting a veil round her head, she then took the magic ointment she had made down to the Argo, which was moored in the river, and had Jason roused from his sleep. She told him that if he wished to come through next day's ordeal alive he must smear this stuff all over his body and his weapons, then nothing could harm him or break them.
Having guessed who she was and already having the same sort of yen for her that she had for him, he thought he could trust her. But when morning came, being a leery sort of cove, he smeared on the ointment then asked some of his pals to try their weapons on him.
This test having proved satisfactory, he went off quite cheerfully to face anything that was coming his way. When he reached the field he threw his spear, sword and helmet aside and stripped to the buff. But of course in those days the girls who were looking on were quite used to chaps doing that. When the brazen bulls were released from their underground stable, they came roaring up like a couple of camouflaged tanks equipped with flame throwers. But Jason just stood there letting them charge him and dash their horns against his unbreakable shield. Presumably he played them like a Spanish matador until he had taken some of the stuffing out of them. Then he chucked away his shield and put on a rodeo act, seizing the bulls by the horns and throwing them on their backs. How he managed to tackle both of them at once passes my comprehension, but he got them yoked up and goaded them into ploughing the four-acre field.