Hospitably received by him, and married to his daughter Chalciŏpē, he had sacrificed the ram, and hung its fleece up in the grove of Arēs, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. The task of fetching it back was laid upon Jason by his uncle Pĕliās, son of Poseidōn and Tȳrō, who had deprived his half-brother Æson of the sovereignty of Iolcŏs in Thessaly. Æson, to protect his son from the plots of Pelias, had conveyed him secretly to the centaur Chīrōn on Mount Pēliŏn, who brought him up till he was twenty years of age. Then Jason came home, and without a shoe on his left foot, having lost it in wading through a mountain torrent, presented himself before Pelias, demanding his father's restoration to his sovereignty. The crafty Pelias, whom an oracle had warned against a one-shoed man, promised on his oath to do what he asked, if Jason would go instead of himself to fetch the golden fleece. This task the oracle had imposed upon himself, but he was too old to perform it. Another version of the story is, that Jason, after completing his education with Chiron, preferred to live in the country; that he came, with one shoe on, to a sacrifice that Pelias was offering to Poseidōn on the seashore; that Pelias asked him what he would do if he were king and had been forewarned of his death at the hand of a subject; and that, upon Jason answering that he would make him fetch the golden fleece, Pelias gave him the commission. Hera had put that answer in Jason's mouth, because she regarded him with favour, and wished to punish Pelias for having slain Sidērō in her temple. (See Salmoneus.)
The vessel for the voyage, the fifty-oared Argo, is said to have been named after its builder Argos, a son of Phrixus, after his return to Orchŏmĕnus, the home of his fathers. The ship was built of the pines of Pelion under the direction of Athēna, like Hera, a protectress of Jason, who inserted in the prow a piece of the speaking oak of Dōdōna. The heroes who at Jason's call took part in the expedition, fifty all told according to the number of the oars, were originally, in the version to which the Minyan family gave currency, Minyans of Iolcos, Orchomenus, Pylos, and other places. Among them were Acastus the son of Pelias, a close friend of Jason, Admētus, Ergīnus, Euphēmus, Pericly̌mĕnus, and Tiphys. But, as the story spread, all the Greek heroes that could have been living at the time were included among the number of the Argonauts, e.g. Hērăclēs, Castor and Polydeucēs, Idās and Lynceus, Calăïs and Zētēs the sons of Borĕās, Peleus, Tydeus, Meleāger, Amphiarāüs, Orpheus, Mopsus and Idmōn the prophets of the expedition, and even the huntress Atalantē. Jason takes the command, and Tiphys manages the helm. Setting sail from Păgăsæ the port of Iolcos, the Argonauts make the Island of Lemnos, where only women dwell, and after some considerable stay there (see Hypsipyle) go past Samothrace and through the Hellespont to the island of Cyzĭcus, where they are hospitably received by Cyzĭcus, the king of the Doliŏnĕs, but attempting to proceed, are beaten back by a storm at night, and being taken by their late friends for pirates, are attacked, and have the ill-fortune to kill their young king. On the coast of Mysia they leave Heracles behind to look for Hylās (q.v.) who has been carried off by nymphs. On the Bithynian shore Polydeuces vanquishes the Bebry̌cian king Amy̌cus (q.v.) in a boxing match. At Salmydēssus in Thrace the blind seer Phīneus, whom Calăïs and Zētēs had rid of the Harpies, his tormentors, instructs them with regard to the rest of their journey, and especially how to sail through the Symplēgădēs, two floating rocks that clash together at the entrance to the Black Sea. By his advice Jason sends a dove before him, and as she has only her tail-feathers cut off by the colliding rocks, they venture on the feat of rowing the Argo through. By Hera's help, or, according to another account, that of Athena, they do what no man has done before; they pass through, the ship only losing her rudder. Skirting the southern shore of the Pontus, they meet with a friendly reception from Lycus, king of the Maryandīni, though here the seer Idmon is killed by a wild boar in hunting, and the helmsman Tiphys dies of a disease, whereupon Ancæus takes his place. Past the land of Amazons they come to the Island of Arētiās, whence they scare away the Stymphalian birds (see Heracles), and take on board the sons of Phrixus, who had been shipwrecked there on their way to Greece. At length they reach the mouth of the Phasis in the land of the Colchians. Upon Jason's demand, Æētēs promises to give up the golden fleece, on condition that Jason catches two brazen-hoofed, fire-breathing bulls, yokes them to a brazen plough, and ploughs with them the field of Ares, sows the furrows with dragons' teeth, and overcomes the mail-clad men that are to
