Two brothers came who were to be special friends of Jason's--Peleus and
Telamon. Both were still youthful and neither had yet achieved any
notable deed. Afterward they were to be famous, but their sons were to
be even more famous, for the son of Telamon was strong Aias, and the
son of Peleus was great Achilles.
Another who came was Admetus; afterward he became a famous king. The
God Apollo once made himself a shepherd and he kept the flocks of King
Admetus.
And there came two brothers, twins, who were a wonder to all who beheld
them. Zetes and Calais they were named; their mother was Oreithyia, the
daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens, and their father was Boreas,
the North Wind. These two brothers had on their ankles wings that
gleamed with golden scales; their black hair was thick upon their
shoulders, and it was always being shaken by the wind.
With Zetes and Calais there came a youth armed with a great sword whose
name was Theseus. Theseus's father was an unknown king; he had bidden
the mother show their son where his sword was hidden. Under a great
stone the king had hidden it before Theseus was born. Before he had
grown out of his boyhood Theseus had been able to raise the stone and
draw forth his father's sword. As yet he had done no great deed, but he
was resolved to win fame and to find his unknown father.
On the day that the messengers had set out to bring through Greece the
word of Jason's going forth in quest of the Golden Fleece the
woodcutters made their way up into the forests of Mount Pelion; they
began to fell trees for the timbers of the ship that was to make the
voyage to far Colchis.
Great timbers were cut and brought down to Pagasae, the harbor of
Iolcus. On the night of the day he had helped to bring them down Jason
had a dream. He dreamt that she whom he had seen in the forest ways and
afterward by the River Anaurus appeared to him. And in his dream the
goddess bade him rise early in the morning and welcome a man whom he
would meet at the city's gate--a tall and gray-haired man who would
have on his shoulders tools for the building of a ship.
He went to the city's gate and he met such a man. Argus was his name.
He told Jason that a dream had sent him to the city of Iolcus. Jason
welcomed him and lodged him in the king's palace, and that day the word
went through the city that the building of the great ship would soon be
begun.
But not with the timbers brought from Mount Pelion did Argus begin.
Walking through the palace with Jason he noted a great beam in the
roof. That beam, he said, had been shown him in his dream; it was from
an oak tree in Dodona, the grove of Zeus. A sacred power was in the
beam, and from it the prow of the ship should be fashioned. Jason had
them take the beam from the roof of the palace; it was brought to where
the timbers were, and that day the building of the great ship was begun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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