Jason was rather surprised to find everything so easy, and his uncle so friendly. Indeed he hardly knew what to say.
“I am only eager to enter upon my duties,” said he at last; “and I shall look to you to help me to govern well.”
“That is the right spirit,” said Pelias. “So I will tell you the first of your duties; one that I rejoice to give over to better and younger hands than mine. It is difficult and even dangerous—”
“All the better,” said Jason. “It will bring all the more glory.”
“You are an admirable young man! Well, you must know that many generations ago King Athamas of Thebes married a princess of Cloudland, named Nephele, and had two children, Phryxus and Helle. Nephele going mad, he divorced her, and married the princess Ino, and had two children more. Ino hated Nephele’s children, because they stood in the way of her own. So, being a witch, she desolated Thebes by a plague, and got a false oracle to declare that the plague should never cease so long as Phryxus and Helle were alive. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” said Jason. “Except that I don’t see what all this old family history has to do with me.”
“Patience, and you will see,” said Pelias. “Just as Phryxus and his sister Helle were about to be sacrificed, a winged ram, with a fleece of pure gold, came out of the sea, took the brother and sister on his back, and flew away with them through the air. Unluckily, while they were flying, Helle turned giddy, tumbled off the ram’s back, and was drowned. You have heard of the Hellespont, I suppose? Well, that is the part of the sea where Helle fell. Phryxus, however, arrived safely at the Court of Æetes, King of Colchis, beyond the great Black Sea, where he sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, out of gratitude for his escape; but kept the golden fleece and married the king’s daughter. At last Æetes, wanting the fleece for himself, murdered Phryxus. There—do you see your royal duty now?”
“I cannot,” said Jason, “honestly say that I do.”
“What? Why, Phryxus was the son of Athamas, who was the son of Æolus, who was the father of Cretheus, who was the father of Æson, who is the father of you. It is as clear as day that Phryxus was your own first cousin once removed. And what duty can be clearer than avenging the murder of a first cousin once removed? Especially when the murderer has a fleece of pure gold waiting for some brave man to bring away. It is so clear a duty that, if you decline it, I will undertake the adventure myself, old as I am, rather than let the wrongs of our royal house go unavenged.”
Now glory was Jason’s ruling passion. He would have felt disgraced if he had declined any adventure, however difficult it might be: and the greater the danger, the greater the glory.