[Exit Jason.
Scene III
Medea, Nurse.
Medea. He's gone! And can it be he leaves me so,
Forgetting me and all my guilt? Forgot?
Nay, never shall Medea be forgot!
Up! Act! Call all thy power to aid thee now;
This fruit of crime is thine, to shun no crime! 565
Deceit is useless, so they fear my guile.
Strike where they do not dream thou canst be feared.
Medea, haste, be bold to undertake
The possible—yea, that which is not so!
Thou, faithful nurse, companion of my griefs 570
And varying fortunes, aid my wretched plans.
I have a robe, gift of the heavenly powers,
An ornament of a king's palace, given
By Phœbus to my father as a pledge
Of sonship; and a necklace of wrought gold; 575
And a bright diadem, inlaid with gems,
With which they used to bind my hair. These gifts,
Endued with poison by my magic arts,
My sons shall carry for me to the bride.
Pay vows to Hecate, bring the sacrifice, 580
Set up the altars. Let the mounting flame
Envelop all the house.
Scene IV
Chorus. Fear not the power of flame, nor swelling gale,
Nor hurtling dart, nor cloudy wain that brings
The winter storms; fear not when Danube sweeps 585
Unchecked between its widely severed shores,
Nor when the Rhone hastes seaward, and the sun
Has broken up the snow upon the hills,
And Hermes flows in rivers.
A wife deserted, loving while she hates, 590
Fear greatly; blindly burns her anger's flame,
For kings she cares not, will not bear the curb.
Ye gods, we ask your grace divine for him
Who safely crossed the seas; the ocean's lord
Is angry for his conquered kingdom's sake; 595
Spare Jason, we entreat!
Th' impetuous youth who dared to drive the car
Of Phœbus, keeping not the wonted course,
Died in the furious fires himself had lit.
Few are the evils of the well-known way; 600
Seek the old paths your fathers safely trod,
The sacred federations of the world
Keep still inviolate.
The men who dipped the oars of that brave ship;
Who plundered of their shade the sacred groves 605
Of Pelion; passed between the unstable cliffs;
Endured so many hardships on the deep;
And cast their anchor on a savage coast,
Passing again with ravished foreign gold,
Atoned with fearful death upon the sea 610
For violated law.
The angry deep demanded punishment:
Tiphys to an unskillful pilot left
The rudder. On a foreign coast he fell,
Far from his father's kingdom, and he lies 615
With nameless shades, under a lowly tomb.
Becalmed in her still harbor Aulis held
The impatient ships, remembering in wrath
The king that she lost thence.
The fair Camena's son, who touched his lyre 620
So sweetly that the floods stood still, the winds
Were silent, and the birds forgot to sing,
And forests followed him, on Thracian fields
Lies dead, his head borne down by Hebrus' stream.
He touched again the Styx and Tartarus, 625
But not again returns.
Alcides overthrew the north wind's sons;
He slew that son of Neptune who could take
Unnumbered forms; but after he had made
Peace between land and sea, and opened wide 630
The realm of Dis, lying on Œta's top
He gave his body to the cruel fire,
Destroyed by his wife's gift—the fatal robe
Poisoned with Centaur's blood.
Ankæus fell a victim to the boar 635
Of Caledonia; Meleager slew
His mother's brother, stained his hands with blood
Of his own mother. They have merited
Their lot, but what the crime that he atoned
By death whom Hercules long sought in vain— 640
The tender Hylas drawn beneath safe waves?
Go now, brave soldiers, boldly plow the main,
But fear the gentle streams.
Idmon the serpents buried in the sands
Of Libya, though he knew the future well. 645
Mopsus, to others true, false to himself,
Fell far from Thebes; and he who tried to burn
The crafty Greeks fell headlong to the deep:
Such death was meet for crime.
Oileus, smitten by the thunderbolt, 650
Died on the ocean; and Pheræus' wife
Fell for her husband, so averting fate;
He who commanded that the golden spoil
Be carried to the ships had traveled far,
But, plunged in seething cauldron, Pelias died 655
In narrow limits. 'Tis enough, ye gods;
Ye have avenged the sea!
ACT IV
Scene I
Nurse. I shrink with horror! Ruin threatens us!
How terribly her wrath inflames itself!
Her former force awakes, thus I have seen 660
Medea raging and attacking god,
Compelling heaven. Greater crime than then
She now prepares, for as with frantic step
She sought the sanctuary of her crimes,
She poured forth all her threats; and what before 665
She feared she now brings forth; lets loose a host
Of poisonous evils, arts mysterious;
With sad left hand outstretched invokes all ills
That Libyan sands with their fierce heat create,
Or frost-bound Taurus with perpetual snow 670
Encompasses. Drawn by her magic spell
The serpent drags his heavy length along,
Darts his forked tongue, and seeks his destined prey.
Hearing her incantation, he draws back
And knots his swelling body coiling it.— 675
'They are but feeble poisons earth brings forth,
And harmless darts,' she says, 'heaven's ills I seek.
Now is the time for deeper sorcery.
The dragon like a torrent shall descend,
Whose mighty folds the Great and Lesser Bear 680
Know well; Ophiuchus shall loose his grasp
And poison flow. Be present at my call,
Python, who dared to fight twin deities.
The Hydra slain by Hercules shall come
Healed of his wound. Thou watchful Colchian one, 685
Be present with the rest—thou, who first slept
Lulled by my incantations.' When the brood
Of serpents has been called she blends the juice
Of poisonous herbs; all Eryx' pathless heights
Bear, or the open top of Caucasus 690
Wet with Prometheus' blood, where winter reigns;
All that the rich Arabians use to tip
Their poisoned shafts, or the light Parthians,
Or warlike Medes; all the brave Suabians cull
In the Hyrcanian forests in the north; 695
All poisons that the earth brings forth in spring
When birds are nesting; or when winter cold
Has torn away the beauty of the groves
And bound the world in icy manacles.
Whatever herb gives flower the cause of death, 700
Or juice of twisted root, her hands have culled.
These on Thessalian Athos grew, and those
On mighty Pindus; on Pangæus' height
She cut the tender herbs with bloody scythe.
These Tigris nurtured with its current deep, 705
The Danube those; Hydaspes rich in gems
Flowing with current warm through levels dry,
Bætis that gives its name to neighboring lands
And meets the western ocean languidly,
Have nurtured these. Those have been cut at dawn; 710
These other herbs at dead of night were reaped;
And these were gathered with the enchanted hook.
Death-dealing plants she chooses, wrings the blood
Of serpents, and she takes ill-omened birds,
The sad owl's heart, the quivering entrails cut 715
From the horned owl living;—sorts all these.
In some the eager force of flame is found,
In some the bitter cold of sluggish ice;
To these she adds the venom of her words
As greatly to be feared. She stamps her feet; 720
She sings, and the world trembles at her song.