Once more Argo was swimming through the azure sea and when at dawn the Argonauts saw an island, they immediately recognized it as Crete. They had to land and collect fresh water, whose supplies had dried up. But to land on this island turned out to be not so easy.
The island of Crete was ruled by the king Minos who was no less greedy and evil than Aeates.
During his long life, Minos has accumulated countless structural piles of treasure. He shivered over them like a miser, and was forever afraid that he was be robbed by some strangers. But re-cently he became especially suspicious, after a court architect Daedalus had departed from the king with his son Icarus on artfully made wings. Not trusting anybody, Minos forbade foreigners to approach the shores of benevolent Crete and to ensure that no one would violate the ban, had put a watchman on the shore, the giant Talos.
Talos was no mere giant. He was forged from copper by Hephaestus - the artisan-god of fire. But Hephaestus breathed a living soul into his rigid body, and the giant ate and drank, heard, saw and said, as other people do. Day and night he strode around Crete on copper legs, shaking the entire island, and flung rocks at ships that stopped at Crete.
Once Argo approached the island, the giant appeared from behind a mountain and shouted in a copper voice for the boat to swim away. To back up his words, he threw a heavy rock at their ship. The flat rock loudly banged on water and leapt, like a cleverly shot stone, over the Argo. Then it drowned in the waves. And the giant grinned and laughed, terribly pleased with his work.
Despite this threat, the Argonauts is not turned back, but still floated near the shore. "Do not throw stones at us!" they shouted. "We need fresh water. According to the law of hospitality you do not dare us to refuse us."
But Talos did not want to know about the laws of hospitality. One after the other, shaking up, he was throw rocks, and Tifius barely managed to dodge from them. "We will have to go without water," the always unhappy Boreades grumbled. "And here the misfortune haunts us ..."
But Medea knew in advance of the end of the Boreades speech, and she did not give them a chance to finish it.
"Wait a minute," she said, "give me a bronze shield and wine. I came up with the idea how to subdue the giant."
Jason brought her his shield, and the twin brothers cut a sack of the wine, the gift of Atlas, and poured into the upturned shield as into a huge cup. Medea, for her part, mixed some sleeping herbs into wine, which she gathered on the small island on the day of the murder of Absirt, and coming onto the bow of the ship, she cried: "Don't get mad at us, good Talos! We want to treat you with nectar, the drink of the gods. The one, who will taste the holy nectar, will become im-mortal as the gods are. And in exchange for immortality ... you will give us water."
The foolish Talos thought becoming immortal would not be so bad. He stopped throwing the stones and waded knee deep in water to meet guests for the promised treat. With a huge gulp he drained Jason"s entire shield, smacking from pleasure, he licked his lips of copper.
"Give me more," he asked Medea.
"No," said Medea, "if you drink even a mouthful more, you will die. Be happy with that you have become immortal, and bring us water."
Talos made a clever face and laughed.
"Did I promised to bring you water?" he answered, laughing. "Better leave now or I will throw this mountain onto you."
"Oh how you are cunning and treacherous!" Medea said. "We hope that you are a kind and just giant".
"And made a mistake," said Talos, smiling up to his ears. "I'm a terribly cunning and treacherous. There is no one smarter than me in the world."
And he strode toward the shore, singing a eulogy about the cunning and the wit of the immortal Talos. But no sooner had the copper braggart come ashore, his knees buckled, and his eyelids closed. He fell face first into sand and snored over the whole island.
"To the shore!" cried Medea. "Kill him, as long as he sleeps."
"How to do it?" Telamon asked. "A copper neck can"t be cut with a sword."
"Killing him is simple," answered the wise Orpheus, who knew everything in the world. "In the body of Talos there is only one copper tube that contains the magical blood like a sinew. This tube is plugged up by a golden nail by Hephaestus. If you pull out the nail, the blood will spill onto the ground, and the giant will die."
Not waiting for Orpheus to finish, Jason jumped into the bright waves, swam quickly to the shore, and quickly pulled the nail out of the crown of the giant"s head and liquid lava, instead of live human blood, flowed from the hole into the sea. The water boiled, steam rose over the sea, and the copper giant turned into a huge copper mountain, very similar to a sleeping human in shape. The Argonauts collected fresh water and were gone from Crete for their part.