to our desires, and to devise weal for the time to come. Though
thou knowest it yet will I tell thee, how that the same mother bare
Kretheus and rash Salmoneus, and in the third generation we again were
begotten and look upon the strength of the golden sun. Now if there
be enmity between kin, the Fates stand aloof and would fain hide the
shame. Not with bronze-edged swords nor with javelins doth it beseem
us twain to divide our forefathers' great honour, nor needeth it,
for lo! all sheep and tawny herds of kine I yield, and all the lands
whereon thou feedest them, the spoil of my sires wherewith thou makest
fat thy wealth. That these things furnish forth thy house moveth me
not greatly; but for the kingly sceptre and throne whereon the son of
Kretheus sate of old and dealt justice to his chivalry, these without
wrath between us yield to me, lest some new evil arise up therefrom.'

Thus he spake, and mildly also did Pelias make reply: 'I will be even
as thou wilt, but now the sere of life alone remaineth to me, whereas
the flower of thy youth is but just burgeoning; thou art able to take
away the sin that maketh the powers beneath the earth wroth with us:
for Phrixos biddeth us lay his ghost, and that we go to the house of
Aietes, and bring thence the thick-fleeced hide of the ram, whereby of
old he was delivered from the deep and from the impious weapons of his
stepmother. This message cometh to me in the voice of a strange dream:
also I have sent to ask of the oracle at Kastalia whether it be worth
the quest, and the oracle chargeth me straightway to send a ship on
the sacred mission. This deed do thou offer me to do, and I swear to
give thee up the sway and kingly rule. Let Zeus the ancestral god of
thee and me be witness of my oath and stablish it surely in thine
eyes.'

So they made this covenant and parted; but Jason straightway bade