And he implored her to bestow the gift at once; but she, facing him with kindly words, touched his cheeks, kissed him and drew him to her, and replied with a smile: "Be witness now thy dear head and mine, that surely I will give thee the gift and deceive thee not, if thou wilt strike with thy shaft Aeetes' daughter." She spoke, and he gathered up his dice, and having well counted them all threw them into his mother's gleaming lap.

And straightway with golden baldric he slung round him his quiver from where it leant against a tree-trunk, and took up his curved bow.

And he fared forth through the fruitful orchard of the palace of Zeus.

Then he passed through the gates of Olympus high in air; hence is a downward path from heaven; and the twin poles rear aloft steep mountain tops--the highest crests of earth, where the risen sun grows ruddy with his first beams.

And beneath him there appeared now the life-giving earth and cities of men and sacred streams of rivers, and now in turn mountain peaks and the ocean all around, as he swept through the vast expanse of air.
Now the heroes apart in ambush, in a back-water of the river, were met in council, sitting on the benches of their ship.