_Sappho_ was as successful on the stage as _The Ancestress_ had been, and the dramatist became the lion of the hour. He was received in audience by Prince Metternich, was lauded in high social circles in Vienna, and was granted an annual pension of 1000 florins for five years, on condition that the _Hofburgtheater_ should have the right to first production of his forthcoming plays. It was, therefore, with great enthusiasm and confidence that he set to work upon his next subject, _The Golden Fleece._ The story of Jason and Medea had long been familiar to him, not only in the tragedies of Euripides and Seneca, but also in German dramas and operas of the eighteenth century which during his youth were frequently produced in Vienna. The immediate impulse to treat this story came to him when, in the summer of 1818, he chanced upon the article _Medea_ in a mythological lexicon. His plan was soon formed and was made to embrace the whole history of the relations of Jason and Medea. For so comprehensive a matter Grillparzer, like Schiller in _Wallenstein,_ found the limits of a single drama too narrow; and as Schiller said of _Wallenstein--_ "His camp alone explains his fault and crime," so Grillparzer rightly perceived that the explanation to modern minds of so incredible a crime as Medea's must be sought and presented in the untoward circumstances under which her relations with Jason began. Accordingly, he showed in _The Guest Friend_ how Phryxus, obedient to what he believed to be the will of the gods, bore the Golden Fleece to Colchis, only to meet death at the hands of Æëtes, the king of that land, who coveted the precious token. Medea, the king's daughter, vainly tries to prevent the crime, but sees herself included in the dying man's curse; for she shares her father's desire for the treasure and is appalled only by the sense of outraged hospitality, even to a haughty intruder. When, in _The Argonauts,_ Jason comes to recover the Fleece, Medea, still an Amazon and an enchantress, is determined with all her arts to aid her father in repulsing the invaders. But the sight of the handsome stranger soon touches her with an unwonted feeling. Against her will she saves the life and furthers the enterprise of Jason; they become partners in the theft of the Fleece; whereupon Jason, fascinated by the dark-eyed barbarian and gratified with the sense of subjugating an Amazon, assures her of his love and takes her and the Fleece in triumph away from Colchis. [Illustration: GRILLPARZER'S HOUSE IN THE SPIEGELGASSE]