While the venison was cooking, they bathed in the snow-torrent and washed away the dust.
And then all ate till they could eat no more, for they had tasted nothing since the dawn, and drank of the clear spring water, for wine is not fit for growing lads.
When the remnants of the meal were put away, they all lay down upon the skins and leaves about the fire, and each took the lyre in turn, and sang and played with all his heart.
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 Cheiron 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 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 flowers of thyme.
He rose at the dawn and bathed in the torrent, and became a schoolfellow to the heroes' sons, and forgot Iolcos by the sea, 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.