When the crew returned to Iolcus, they had only been absent four months; and Jason gave the fleece to his uncle Pelias, and dedicated the Argo to Neptune. He found his father Æson grown very old, but Medea undertook to restore him to youth. She went forth by moonlight, gathered a number of herbs, and then, putting them in a caldron, she cut old Æson into pieces, threw them in, and boiled them all night. In the morning Æson appeared as a lively black-haired young man, no older than his son. Pelias’ daughters came and begged her to teach them the same spell. She feigned to do so, but she did not tell them the true herbs, and thus the poor maidens only slew their father, and did not bring him to life again. The son of Pelias drove the treacherous Medea and her husband from Iolcus, and they went to Corinth, where they lived ten years, until Jason grew weary of Medea, and put her away, in order to marry Creusa, the king’s daughter. In her rage, Medea sent the bride the fatal gift of a poisoned robe, then she killed her own children, and flew away, in a chariot drawn by winged serpents, to the east, where she became the mother of a son named Medus, from whom the nation of Medes was descended. As to Jason, he had fallen asleep at noon one hot day under the shade of the Argo, where it was drawn up on the sand by Neptune’s temple, when a bit of wood broke off from the prow, fell on his head, and killed him. [Picture: Corinth] Of the other Argonauts, Orpheus went to Thessaly, and there taught and softened the people much by his music. He married a fair maiden named Eurydice, with whom he lived happily and peacefully, till she was bitten by a venomous serpent and died. Orpheus was so wretched that he set forth to try to bring her back from Tartarus. He went with nothing but his lyre, and his music was so sweet that Cerberus stood listening, and let him pass, and all the torments of the Danaids, Sisyphus and all the rest, ceased while he was playing. His song even brought tears into Pluto’s eyes, and Proserpine, who guarded the female dead, gave him leave to take back Eurydice to the light of day, provided he did not once look back as he led her out of Tartarus. Orpheus had to walk first, and, as he went up the long, dark cavern, with Eurydice behind him, he carefully obeyed, till, just as he was reaching the upper air, he unhappily forgot, and turned his head to see whether she were following. He just saw her stretch out her hands to him, and then she was drawn back, and vanished from his sight. The gates were closed, and he had lost her again. After this he wandered sadly about, all his songs turned to woe, until at last the Bacchanal women, in fury at his despising the foul rites of their god, tore him limb from limb. The Muses collected his remains, and gave them funeral rites, and Jupiter placed his lyre in the skies, where you may know it by one of the brightest of all our stars.