"—He spake: and to his aged father came,
Nor came unknown,—to greet the boy, those time-worn eyes plashed tears of joy,
For glad at heart was he, his son to find
Choicest bloom of humankind."
Five days were spent in feasting with his kinsmen, who flocked in from all sides to greet the returned prince. Then on the sixth day he revealed his purpose, and the assembled company sprang from their seats, and escorted Jason to the palace of Pelias.
The interview which followed between the usurper and the youthful claimant to the throne is described in one of the most dramatic passages in all Pindar. Instead of loud invective and rude recrimination, we find exhibited on both sides a perfect courtesy of language; coupled, however, on the part of Jason, with a fearless assertion of his just rights, and on that of Pelias with a crafty dissimulation, in which vague promises and concessions were dexterously nullified by conditions involving, as he hoped, the speedy destruction of his rival. The kingdom should be restored, but Jason must first undertake an enterprise, which was demanded by the duty of the family to its dead ancestor, Phrixus; he must recover from Æëtes, king of the distant Colchos, the Golden Fleece of the ram which had conveyed Phrixus over the Hellespont.
Then follows, in Pindar's most rapid and vigorous style, a sketch of Jason's famous Quest of the Fleece—the voyage of the Argo. The story is not told in detail after the fashion of an epic poem. It is presented
