Kitap 7
years four times ten before that day!—
238
Bacchus, from his celestial vantage saw
this marvel, and convinced his nurses might
then all regain their former vigor, he
pled with Medea to restore their youth.
The Colchian woman granted his request.
but so her malice might be satisfied
297
Medea feigned she had a quarrel with
her husband, and for safety she had fled
to Pelias. There, since the king himself
was heavy with old age, his daughters gave
her generous reception. And these girls
the shrewd Medea in a short time won,
by her false show of friendliness; and while
among the most remarkable of her
achievements she was telling how she had
rejuvenated Aeson, and she dwelt
particularly, on that strange event,
these daughters were induced to hope that by
some skill like this their father might regain
his lost youth also. And they begged of her
this boon, persuading her to name the price;
no matter if it was large. She did not
reply at once and seemed to hesitate,
and so she held their fond minds in a deep
suspense by her feigned meditation. When
she had at length declared she would restore
his youth, she said to them: “That you may have
strong confidence in this my promised boon,
the oldest leader of your flock of sheep shall be
changed to a lamb again by my prized drugs.”
Straightway a wooly ram, worn out with length
of untold years was brought, his great horns curved
around his hollow temples. After she
had cut his scrawny throat with her sharp knife
Thessalian, barely staining it with his
thin blood, Medea plunged his carcass in
a bronze-made kettle, throwing in it at
the same time juices of great potency.
These made his body shrink and burnt away
