At the entrance to the Black Sea, where the silver corridor of the Bosphorus now opens, the passage was blocked by two strange rocks called the Simplegades. Every minute they converged as if they wanted to hug, and again dispersed, opening for a moment the passage. Neither the ship was able to sail there because it could be crushed in the stone vice of these rocks. The Argonauts, on the advice of Phineus, stopped at the Simplegads themselves and first released the pigeon. The bird flew so fast that the cliffs that joined together tore only a few feathers from its tail. The heroes, taking advantage of the minute when the rocks parted, joined the oars together and sailed so fast that the rocks only managed to smash a piece of wood at the stern of the ship. The symplegades froze and have not moved since then. Orpheus, who during the dangerous crossing all the time played the lyre and sang divine songs, later told that it was his magical music that stopped the Simplegades.
A few days later, the Argonauts arrived at the shores of Colchis. The heroes tied the ship to the rocks on the pier with strong ropes and headed to the capital. At the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, where when Prometheus suffered, there was a magnificent palace. Bronze columns supported balconies and terraces overgrown with ivy, grapes, and flowers. There were four fountains in the courtyard. Milk and wine poured from two, fragrant oil from the third, and a magic stream flowed from the fourth, in winter it was hot and in summer cold as ice. Hercules did not share the admiration of his comrades, he said that he had already seen this with Queen Omfala and elsewhere.
King Eet, behind a polite smile, concealed his embarrassment, which gripped him at the sight of mighty warriors. After hearing what they had come, the king said: “I do not refuse the noble Jason of the golden rune, although this is a talisman that gives happiness to my land. But let him, according to the knightly custom, show his strength and courage. I have a pair of bulls - a gift from Hephaestus. They are bronze, and a crushing fire explodes from their mouths and nostrils. Let Jason harness these bulls to the plow, plow the Aresovo field, sow the dragon’s teeth, which I will give him, and defeat the soldiers who will be born from this sowing. And then it will only remain to deal with the dragon, guarding the golden fleece in the grove.
The next day, as soon as the dawn drove shining stars out of the sky, all living things hurried to the sacred Ares field. Separately, kolkhidyas and separately, the Greeks, led by Jason. King Eet, in purple and with a scepter in his hand, sat on a dais. In the middle was a large empty area. The bulls of Hephaestus wheezed frantically on it, throwing flames from diamond nostrils. The grass burned out from their breath. Silence reigned, as Jason walked toward the bulls - naked, shiny with oil, with which he smeared his body, beautiful, like a statue of a god. Terrible heads with iron horns turned towards him, bronze hooves ominously hit the ground, a formidable roar burst into the blue sky. Jason walked without fear. He approached the monsters, as if not feeling their poisonous breath, with a bold hand bent their necks under the yoke, harnessed it to the plow and drove through the field. Colchis were shocked. The Greeks cried out joyfully.
