THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

From what was probably a maritime adventure that plundered some
wealthy country at a period when navigation was in its infancy
among the Greeks, we get the fable of the Argonautic Expedition.
The generally accepted story of this expedition is as follows:
Pe'lias, a descendant of AE'o-lus, the mystic progenitor of the
Great AEol'ic race, had deprived his half-brother AE'son of the
kingdom of Iol'cus in Thessaly. When Jason, son of AEson, had
attained to manhood, he appeared before his uncle and demanded
the throne. Pelias consented only on condition that Jason should
first capture and bring to him the golden fleece of the ram which
had carried Phrix'us and Hel'le when they fled from their stepmother
I'no. Helle dropped into the sea between Sigae'um and the
Cher'sonese, which was named from her Hellespon'tus; but Phrixus
succeeded in reaching Col'chis, a country at the eastern extremity
of the Euxine, or Black Sea. Here he sacrificed the ram, and
nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars, where it was
guarded by a sleepless dragon.

Joined by the principal heroes of Greece, Hercules among the
number, Jason set sail from Iolcus in the ship Argo, after first
invoking the favor of Jupiter, the winds, and the waves, for the
success of the expedition. The ceremony on this occasion, as
descried by the poets, reads like an account of the "christening
of the ship" in modern times, but we seem to have lost the full
significance of the act.

And soon as by the vessel's bow