They drove the boar to bay at last, and, after a desperate struggle, Meleager gave it its death-blow. All his companions rejoiced at his good fortune; but when he gave the boar’s head, as a trophy, to Atalanta, the two brothers of Althæa stood forth and said:—
“It is not right to give such honor to a woman—a woman who has no more right to it than we. Such trophies are for men!”
So saying, they tried to seize it from her. But Meleager, enraged at the insult to Atalanta, defended her with his sword, and so unfortunately well that both his uncles were slain.
Althæa, watching from her window for the return of the hunters, at last saw them pass mournfully, bearing the bodies of her dead brothers. “Who has done this?” she cried; and being told it was Meleager, she cursed him, and, in her grief and passion, threw the fatal brand upon the hearth, where it was caught by a flame. Meleager, though still far off, was forthwith seized with scorching pains in all his limbs. As the brand burned, so he burned also, and when it was consumed, a flame seemed to clutch his heart, and he fell dead in Atalanta’s arms.
Althæa, overwhelmed, when it was too late, with horror at the result of her rage, slew herself with her own hand. And such was the miserable ending of the Hunt of Calydon.
The Argonauts, having now returned to Greece, parted, and went each to his own home. Jason drew the Argo on shore near Corinth, consecrating it to Neptune, and leaving it there as a monument of so famous a voyage. Then he returned to Iolcos, bringing the Golden Fleece with him.
He was received with triumph and rejoicing, and a great feast was prepared to welcome him home. But, to his sorrow, he found his father Æson so enfeebled by old age as not to be able to be present at the festival.
“Do not trouble yourself about that,” said Medea. “Let Æson only put himself in my hands, and he shall be as young as you.”
Jason, knowing his wife’s power, consented. So she drew all the blood out of Æson’s veins, and filled them with the juice of certain herbs; and he came to the festival as young-looking and as vigorous as his own son.
But Pelias, the usurper, who hated Jason, was getting old, too; and his daughters, when they saw what had happened to Æson, besought Medea that she would make their father also young and strong again.