This was the Promethean flower. It had come out of the earth first when the vulture that tore at Prometheus’s liver had let fall to earth a drop of his blood. With a Caspian shell that she had brought with her Medea gathered the dark juice of this flower—the juice that went to make her most potent charm. All night she went through the grove gathering the juice of secret herbs; then she mingled them in a phial that she put away in her girdle. She went from that grove and along the river. When the sun shed its first rays upon snowy Caucasus she stood outside the temple of Hecate. She waited, but she had not long to wait, for, like the bright star Sirius rising out of Ocean, soon she saw Jason coming toward her. She made a sign to him, and he came and stood beside her in the portals of the temple. They would have stood face to face if Medea did not have her head bent. A blush had come upon her face, and Jason seeing it, and seeing how her head was bent, knew how grievous it was to her to meet and speak to a stranger in this way. He took her hand and he spoke to her reverently, as one would speak to a priestess. “Lady,” he said, “I implore you by Hecate and by Zeus who helps all strangers and suppliants to be kind to me and to the men who have come to your country with me. Without your help I cannot hope to prevail in the grievous trial that has been laid upon me. If you will help us, Medea, your name will be renowned throughout all Greece. And I have hopes that you will help us, for your face and form show you to be one who can be kind and gracious.” The blush of shame had gone from Medea’s face and a softer blush came over her as Jason spoke. She looked upon him and she knew that she could hardly live if the breath of the brazen bulls withered his life or if the Earth-born Men slew him. She took the charm from out her girdle; ungrudgingly she put it into Jason’s hands. And as she gave him the charm that she had gained with such danger, the fear and trouble that was around her heart melted as the dew melts from around the rose when it is warmed by the first light of the morning. Then they spoke standing close together in the portal of the temple. She told him how he should anoint his body all over with the charm; it would give him, she said, boundless and untiring strength, and make him so that the breath of the bulls could not wither him nor the horns of the bulls pierce him. She told him also to sprinkle his shield and his sword with the charm. And then they spoke of the dragon’s teeth and of the Earth-born Men who would spring from them. Medea told Jason that when they arose out of the earth he was to cast a great stone amongst them. The Earth-born Men would struggle about the stone, and they would slay each other in the contest.