After a while they all went out to a plot of grass at the cave’s mouth, and there they boxed, and ran, and wrestled, and laughed till the stones fell from the cliffs.
Then Chiron took his lyre, and all the lads joined hands; and as he played, they danced to his measure, in and out, and round and round. There they danced hand in hand, till the night fell over land and sea, while the black glen shone with their broad white limbs and the gleam of their golden hair.
And the lad danced with them, delighted, and then slept a wholesome sleep, upon fragrant leaves of bay, and myrtle, and marjoram, and flowers of thyme; and rose at the dawn, and bathed in the torrent, and became a school-fellow to the heroes’ sons, and forgot Iolcos, and his father, and all his former life. But he grew strong, and brave, and cunning, upon the pleasant downs of Pelion, in the keen hungry mountain air. And he learned to wrestle, and to box, and to hunt, and to play upon the harp; and next he learned to ride, for old Chiron used to mount him on his back; and he learned the virtues of all herbs, and how to cure all wounds; and Chiron called him Jason the healer, and that is his name until this day.
HOW JASON LOST HIS SANDAL
By Charles Kingsley
Ten years came and went, and Jason was grown to be a mighty man. Some of his fellows were gone, and some were growing up by his side. Æsculapius was gone into Peloponnesus to work his wondrous cures on men; and some say he used to raise the dead to life. And Hercules was gone to Thebes to fulfil those famous labors which have become a proverb among men. Peleus had married a sea-nymph, and his wedding is famous to this day. And Æneas was gone home to Troy, and many a noble tale you will read of him, and of all the other gallant heroes, the scholars of Chiron the just.
Now it happened on a day that Jason stood on the mountain, and looked north and south and east and west; and Chiron stood by him and watched him, for he knew that the time was come. And Jason looked and saw the plains of Thessaly, where the Lapithæ breed their horses; and the lake of Boibé, and the stream which runs northward to Peneus and Tempe; and he looked north, and saw the mountain wall which guards the Magnesian shore; Olympus, the seat of the Immortals, and Ossa, and Pelion, where he stood. Then he looked east and saw the bright blue sea, which stretched away forever toward the dawn. Then he looked south, and saw a pleasant land, with white-walled towns and farms, nestling along the shore of a land-locked bay, while the smoke rose blue among the trees; and he knew it for the bay of Pagasai, and the rich lowlands of Hæmonia, and Iolcos by the sea.
Then he sighed, and asked, “Is it true what the heroes tell me—that I am heir of that fair land?”
“And what good would it be to you, Jason, if you were heir of that fair land?”