Once let me kiss their lips, once twine
Mine arms and touch. . . . Ah, woe is me!
Wouldst love them and entreat? But now
They were as nothing.
Jason.
At the last,
O God, to touch that tender brow!
Medea.
Thy words upon the wind are cast.
Jason.
Thou, Zeus, wilt hear me. All is said
For naught. I am but spurned away
And trampled by this tigress, red
With children's blood. Yet, come what may,
So far as thou hast granted, yea,
So far as yet my strength may stand,
I weep upon these dead, and say
Their last farewell, and raise my hand
To all the daemons of the air
In witness of these things; how she
Who slew them, will not suffer me
To gather up my babes, nor bear
To earth their bodies; whom, O stone
Of women, would I ne'er had known
Nor gotten, to be slain by thee!
[He casts himself upon the earth.