Fear me not thou!—that I should brave the wrath
Of princes?“[[31]]
Creon sees that she is trying to placate him, and harshly repeats his decree. He even threatens her, when she continues her entreaties, with force from his soldiery; and Medea, shrinking in horror from the thought of personal violence, instantly ceases her petition. She pretends to yield; and in feigned humility, begs on her knees for one day’s respite. Creon, partly deceived, and entirely convinced that she can do no harm in so short a time, reluctantly consents. But he has hardly gone when Medea breaks into a torrent of speech which, in its fierce exultation over Creon, its wild leap to the height of daring and its rallying cry to her own spirit, comes very near to madness. All the shapeless thoughts of vengeance on which she had brooded spring into vivid life as she rapidly cons now this plot, now that, to reach her end. Of the end itself there can be no doubt; she must kill these three—the king, and Jason and his bride—in the few hours left to her. And for this she will need every resource of strategy and courage.
“Awake thee now, Medea! Whatso plot
Thou hast, or cunning, strive and falter not.
On to the peril-point! Now comes the strain
Of daring. Shall they trample thee again?“[[31]]
No wonder that the Chorus sing, as she rushes into the house, of a strange reversal of all the order of nature; of woman made terrible because man has forgotten God. They take up the story of Medea’s broken life: of the wonder and the pity of it: of her distant home: of her surpassing love for Jason, and of her betrayal. In the beauty and grace of the songs the emotional strain is lightened: but they have a further purpose. For while they tell the old story over in tender phrases, Jason himself enters and Medea again comes out of the house. The two stand face to face at last and the crux of the drama is reached. Jason is the first to speak; and one feels all the spirit of the man in his opening words—cold, ambitious, prudent, with ideals faded and every generous emotion dead. He protests that he has acted from motives of policy and considerations of their best interest: for the welfare of Medea and their children as well as for himself. The new marriage was the only way, in a land to which they were strangers, to secure a home for them all, and princely connexions for his sons. But Medea has spoiled everything by her ungovernable anger: and he has come, since nothing else is possible now, to make provision for the children in their exile.
The speech is clear, terse, moderate in tone, and pitilessly logical from Jason’s point of view. From that point, too, it is not unkind: he wishes to do what may be done to soften their lot. But to the woman who loves him his words are a mere blur of sound, the logic meaningless, the untroubled manner a thing of contempt. In tone and look and gesture one fact is certain—that her husband has ceased to love her, and is content to cast her off. It has clamoured in her ears while he spoke, drowning every other sound; and when she replies it is that which prompts her. It inspires her great indictment—the case for the woman against injustice throughout all time—and it evokes a shuddering recoil from baseness which she feels to be literally a pollution.
“Evil—most Evil ...