_What Was the End of the Heroes_

And now I wish that I could end my story pleasantly; but it is no fault
of mine that I cannot. The old songs end it sadly, and I believe that
they are right and wise; for though the heroes were purified at Malea,
yet sacrifices cannot make bad hearts good, and Jason had taken a wicked
wife, and he had to bear his burden to the last.

And first she laid a cunning plot, to punish that poor old Pelias,
instead of letting him die in peace.

For she told his daughters: "I can make old things young again; I will
show you how easy it is to do." So she took an old ram and killed him,
and put him in a cauldron with magic herbs; and whispered her spells
over him, and he leapt out again a young lamb. So that "Medeia's
cauldron" is a proverb still, by which we mean times of war and change,
when the world has become old and feeble, and grows young again through
bitter pains.

Then she said to Pelias's daughters: "Do to your father as I did to this
ram, and he will grow young and strong again." But she only told them
half the spell; so they failed, while Medeia mocked them; and poor old
Pelias died, and his daughters came to misery. But the songs say she
cured Æson, Jason's father, and he became young and strong again.

But Jason could not love her, after all her cruel deeds. So he was
ungrateful to her, and wronged her: and she revenged herself on him. And
a terrible revenge she took--too terrible to speak of here. But you will
hear of it yourselves when you grow up, for it has been sung in noble