"I would send such a man," said he, "in quest of the Golden Fleece!"
There was hardly a hope, or a possibility, that any young man who should undertake this voyage would either succeed in obtaining the Golden Fleece, or would survive to return home, and tell of the perils he had run.
You were created by my father a Knight of the Garter that is an order which all the kings of Europe cannot bear; by the queen regent, Knight of the Holy Ghost -- which is an order not less illustrious; I join to it that of the
Golden Fleece sent me by the king of France, to whom the king of Spain, his father-in-law, gave two on the occasion of his marriage; but in return, I have a service to ask of you."
Then arrived, two by two, with a gravity which made a contrast in the midst of the frisky ecclesiastical escort of Charles de Bourbon, the eight and forty ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria, having at their head the reverend Father in God, Jehan, Abbot of Saint-Bertin, Chancellor of the
Golden Fleece, and Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, Grand Bailiff of Ghent.
And the family knew his feet were itching and his brain was tingling with the old madness, when he lifted his hoarse-cracked voice, now falsetto-cracked, in: Like Argus of the ancient times, We leave this modern Greece, Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum, To shear the Golden Fleece.
Those below, without firewood, on the bitter rim of Crater Lake, heard from the driving obscurity above them a weird voice chanting: "Like Argus of the ancient times, We leave this modern Greece, Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum, To shear the Golden Fleece."
"You will then obtain the
Golden Fleece, if you are still in the ministry."
It was immortal and was given them by their mother Nephele, and had a
golden fleece, as Hesiod and Pherecydes say.
There was his Excellency the Prince of Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman tightly girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red collar of the
Golden Fleece round his neck.
Bound to Thomas Curzon, hosier,
Golden Fleece, Aldgate.
As Indian Moors obey their Spanish lords, So shall the spirits of every element Be always serviceable to us three; Like lions shall they guard us when we please; Like Almain rutters with their horsemen's staves, Or Lapland giants, trotting by our sides; Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids, Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows Than have the white breasts of the queen of love: From Venice shall they drag huge argosies, And from America the
golden fleece That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury; If learned Faustus will be resolute.
"And, a propos of Spain, you have not the '
Golden Fleece,' Monsieur d'Almeda.
Golden Fleece - in Greek mythology, a fleece of gold owned by the king of Colchis and guarded in a sacred grove by a dragon; recovered by Jason and the Argonauts