Woe! Alas!
Woe for the state, woe for our Kreon slain,
For hapless Glaukê, for our Jason, woe!
But three times woe for her that did the deed—
Her womanhood sham’d; her children basely wrong’d.
Nikias.
Hold back your pity till the tale be told,
For never was there horror like to this.
Ere now in Corinth, haply, you have heard
How she did use for her crime’s instruments
The tender boys sprung from great Jason’s loins;
Bidding them bear the garments wrought in Hell
As bridal gifts to grace the marriage morn
Of gold-hair’d Glaukê. Serpent! Sorceress!
Ægeus.
Alas, consider; so the tigress springs
When that her cubs are menaced. ’Twas her love
That wrought the deed—evil, yet wrought for love.
Nikias.
Spare me such love. I never yet could deem,
Ev’n ere the horror, that Medea held
The love of human mothers in her breast.
For I have seen her, when her children played
Their innocent, aimless sports about her knees,
Or held her gown across the market-place,
Move all unheeding with her swart brows knit
And fierce eyes fixed; not, as is mothers’ wont,
Eager to note the winning infant ways,
A-strain to catch the babbling treble tones
Of soft lips clamouring for a kiss or smile.
And once I marked her (’twas a summer’s morn)
Turn suddenly and, stooping, catch and strain
One tender infant to her breast. She held
Her lips to his and looked into his eyes,
Not gladly, as a mother with her child,
But stirred by some strange passion; then the boy
Cried out with terror, and Medea wept.
Ægeus.
Your tale is strange.
Nikias.