After many wanderings and perils, the Argonauts came to the Greek coast, and the Argo entered again the sea of their own beloved country. They reached Iolkos, bringing the world-famous Golden Fleece with them, and the people received them in triumph. But Pelias still refused to give up the throne to Jason, although he gladly took the Golden Fleece which the young hero had brought him. So Jason slew him and made himself King of Iolkos; and as Medea’s father had once reigned in Corinth, he added that country to his kingdom.
Jason lived in peace ten happy years in Kolchis, and his kingdom prospered; but a great trouble came upon his household. Medea, with her black arts of witchery and enchantment and her evil heart, could not always please him or hold his affections. He went to Corinth, where he met the gentle-hearted Kreusa, and her peaceful, kindly disposition won his heart. Now in those days a man was not despised and looked upon as a law-breaker if he married more than one wife, for the people had a different standard of right and wrong from that of the present day. And Jason in an unlucky hour took Kreusa for his wife.
Medea was maddened with jealousy when she heard of this, and she consulted the evil spirits of her witchcraft to find out how she could do away with Kreusa. She took a beautiful dress and a crown, and having sprinkled them with an enchanted juice, sent them to Kreusa. Her rival accepted the gifts and put them on, but she could never get them off again. They clung to her and burned into her flesh, so that she died. Then Medea took further revenge by burning Kreusa’s home; and when she found that Jason was angry with her she slew her children and fled from Iolkos in a fiery chariot drawn by winged serpents. Poor Jason, beside himself with grief, went to his good ship Argo, which was now kept as a sacred place for the worship of the gods, and there he died.
CHAPTER XXIII
ORPHEUS, THE HERO OF THE LYRE
In the same land of Thrace in which Jason’s family ruled, Orpheus, the greatest musician of Greece, was born. It was said that his mother was the Goddess of Song, and such was the power of his voice and his art of playing on the lyre that he could move stones and trees. When the wild beasts heard his music they left their dens and lay down at his feet, the birds in the trees stopped singing, and the fishes came to the surface of the sea to listen to him.
Orpheus had a wife, Eurydike, celebrated for her beauty and virtue, and he loved her very dearly. One day when Eurydike was gathering flowers on the bank of a lake a venomous snake bit her foot and she died. Orpheus could not be consoled. He went off into the wildest waste that he could find and there he mourned day and night till all nature shared in his grief. At last he made up his mind to go down into Hades and beg her back of King Pluto, for life was worthless without her.
Orpheus took his lyre, and singing as he went, found his way down to Hades through a dismal abyss. Grim Cerberus himself held his breath to listen to the marvellous music. Not one bark did he give from any of his three terrible heads, and when Orpheus passed him he crouched at his feet. So Orpheus entered Hades unhindered, and standing before the throne of Pluto and his pale queen Persephone, he said: “Oh, king and queen, I have not come down into Hades to see the gloomy Tartaros, nor in order to carry away the three-headed warder of your kingdom, the dreadful Cerberus. I came down to implore you to give me back my beloved wife, Eurydike. I cannot bear life without her. To me the world is a desert, and life a burden. Why should she die, so young and beautiful? Have pity on me! If I may not take her back, then I will not again see the light of the sun, but I, too, will remain in the gloomy Hades.”
Pluto and Persephone listened in silence to the pleadings of Orpheus. His pathetic voice and the sweet tones of his melodious lyre held them like a charm. The shades of the dead came flocking around him and mourned. Tantalos forgot his thirst and listened to the singer’s complaints. Sisyphos, who was compelled to roll a stone to the top of a mountain whence it always dashed back again to the bottom, ceased his dreadful labor to listen, and the Furies themselves first shed tears.
