Medea. By future hopes,
By the king's happy marriage, by the strength
Of thrones, which fickle fortune sometimes shakes,
I pray thee grant the exile some delay
That she, perchance about to die, may press 295
A last kiss on her children's lips.
Creon. Thou seekst
Time to commit new crime.
Medea. In so brief time
What crime were possible?
Creon. No time too short
For him who would do ill.
Medea. Dost thou deny
To misery short space for tears? 300
Creon. Deep dread
Warns me against thy prayer; yet I will grant
One day in which thou mayst prepare for flight.
Medea. Too great the favor! Of the time allowed,
Something withdraw. I would depart in haste.
Creon. Before the coming day is ushered in 305
By Phœbus, leave the city or thou diest.
The bridal calls me, and I go to pay
My vows to Hymen.
Scene III
Chorus. He rashly ventured who was first to make
In his frail boat a pathway through the deep; 310
Who saw his native land behind him fade
In distance blue; who to the raging winds
Trusted his life, his slender keel between
The paths of life and death. Our fathers dwelt
In an unspotted age, and on the shore 315
Where each was born he lived in quietness,
Grew old upon his father's farm content;
With little rich, he knew no other wealth
Than his own land afforded. None knew yet
The changing constellations, nor could use 320
As guides the stars that paint the ether; none
Had learned to shun the rainy Hyades,
The Goat, or Northern Wain, that follows slow
By old Boötes driven; none had yet
To Boreas or Zephyr given names. 325
Rash Tiphys was the first to tempt the deep
With spreading canvas; for the winds to write
New laws; to furl the sail; or spread it wide
When sailors longed to fly before the gale,
And the red topsail fluttered in the breeze. 330
The world so wisely severed by the seas
The pine of Thessaly united, bade
The distant waters bring us unknown fears.
The cursed leader paid hard penalty
When the two cliffs, the gateway of the sea, 335
Moved as though smitten by the thunderbolt,
And the imprisoned waters smote the stars.
Bold Tiphys paled, and from his trembling hand
Let fall the rudder; Orpheus' music died,
His lyre untouched; the Argo lost her voice. 340
When, belted by her girdle of wild dogs,
The maid of the Sicilian straits gives voice
From all her mouths, who fears not at her bark?
Who does not tremble at the witching song
With which the Sirens calm the Ausonian sea? 345
The Thracian Orpheus' lyre had almost forced
Those hinderers of ships to follow him!
What was the journey's prize? The golden fleece,
Medea, fiercer than the raging sea,—
Worthy reward for those first mariners! 350
The sea forgets its former wrath; submits
To the new laws; and not alone the ship
Minerva builded, manned by sons of kings,
Finds rowers; other ships may sail the deep.
Old metes are moved, new city walls spring up 355
On distant soil, and nothing now remains
As it has been. The cold Araxes' stream
The Indian drinks; the Persian quaffs the Rhine;
And the times come with the slow-rolling years
When ocean shall strike off the chains from earth, 360
And a great world be opened. Tiphys then,
Another Tiphys, shall win other lands,
And Thule cease to be earth's utmost bound.