GORA. Nay, thou shalt not escape my questioning!—One
comfort still is left me in my grief,
And only one: our wretched plight shows clear
That gods still rule in Heaven, and mete out
To guilty men requital, late or soon.
Weep for thy bitter lot; I'll comfort thee.
Only presume not rashly to deny
The gods are just, because thou dost deny
This punishment they send, and all this woe.—
To cure an evil, we must see it clear.
Thy husband—tell me—is he still the same?
MEDEA. What should he be?
GORA. O, toy not so with words!
Is he the same impetuous lover still
Who wooed thee once; who braved a hundred swords
To win thee; who, upon that weary voyage,
Laughed at thy fears and kissed away thy grief,
Poor maid, when thou wouldst neither eat nor drink,
But only pray to die? Ay, all too soon
He won thee with his passionate, stormy love.
Is he thy lover still?—I see thee tremble.
Ay, thou hast need; thou knowest he loves thee not,
But shudders at thee, dreads thee, flees thee, hates thee!
And as thou didst betray thy fatherland,
So shalt thou be betrayed—and by thy lover.
Deep in the earth the symbols of thy crime
Lie buried;—but the crime thou canst not hide.
MEDEA. Be silent!
GORA. Never!
MEDEA (grasping her fiercely by the arm ).
Silence, dame, I say!
What is this madness? Cease these frantic cries!
'Tis our part to await whate'er may come,
Not bid it hasten.—Thou didst say but now
There is no past, no future; when a deed
Is done, 'tis done for all time; we can know
Only this one brief present instant, Now.
Say, if this Now may cradle a dim future,
Why may it not entomb the misty past?
My past! Would God that I could change it—now!
And bitter tears I weep for it, bitterer far
Than thou dost dream of.—Yet, that is no cause
To seek destruction. Rather is there need
Clearly to know myself, face honestly
The thing I am. Here to these foreign shores
And stranger folk a god hath driven us;
And what seemed right in Colchis, here is named
Evil and wickedness; our wonted ways
Win hatred here in Corinth, and distrust.
So, it is meet we change our ways and speech;
If we may be no longer what we would,
Let us at least, then, be e'en what we can.—
The ties that bound me to my fatherland
Here in earth's bosom I have buried deep;
The magic rites my mother taught me, all
Back to the Night that bare them I have given.
Now, but a woman, weak, alone, defenseless,
I throw me in my husband's open arms!
He shuddered at the Colchian witch! But now
I am his true, dear wife; and surely he
Will take me to his loving, shelt'ring arms.—
Lo, the day breaks, fair sign of our new life
Together! The dark past has ceased to be,
The happy future beckons!—Thou, O Earth,
The kind and gentle mother of us all,
Guard well my trust, that in thy bosom lies.
[As she and GORA _approach the tent, it opens, and _JASON appears, talking with a Corinthian rustic, and followed by a slave.]
JASON. Thou saw'st the king himself?
RUSTIC. I did, my lord.