wedlock.

But when Aietes had set in the midst a plough of adamant, and oxen
that from tawny jaws breathed flame of blazing fire, and with bronze
hoofs smote the earth in alternate steps, and had led them and yoked
them single-handed, he marked out in a line straight furrows, and for
a fathom's length clave the back of the loamy earth; then he spake
thus: 'This work let your king, whosoever he be that hath command
of the ship, accomplish me, and then let him bear away with him the
imperishable coverlet, the fleece glittering with tufts of gold.'

He said, and Jason flung off from him his saffron mantle, and putting
his trust in God betook himself to the work; and the fire made him not
to shrink, for that he had had heed to the bidding of the stranger
maiden skilled in all pharmacy. So he drew to him the plough and
made fast by force the bulls' necks in the harness, and plunged the
wounding goad into the bulk of their huge sides, and with manful
strain fulfilled the measure of his work. And a cry without speech
came from Aietes in his agony, at the marvel of the power he beheld.

Then to the strong man his comrades stretched forth their hands, and
crowned him with green wreaths, and greeted him with gracious words.
And thereupon the wondrous son[16] of Helios told him in what place
the knife of Phrixos had stretched the shining fell; yet he trusted
that this labour at least should never be accomplished by him. For it
lay in a thick wood and grasped by a terrible dragon's jaws, and he in
length and thickness was larger than their ship of fifty oars, which
the iron's blows had welded.

Long were it for me to go by the beaten track, for the time is nigh