JASON. It was some god that turned her heart to me.
Fast friend was she in many a dangerous pass.
I saw how in her bosom love was born,
Which yet her royal pride bade firm restrain;
No word she spake betrayed her—'twas her looks,
Her deeds that told the secret. Then on me
A madness came, like to a rushing wind.
Her silence but inflamed me; for a new
And warlike venture then I girded me,
For love I struggled with her—and I won!
Mine she became.—Her father cursed his child;
But mine she was, whether I would or no.
'Twas she that won me that mysterious Fleece;
She was my guide to that dank horror-cave
Where dwelt the dragon, guardian of the prize,
The which I slew, and bore the Fleece away.
Since then I see, each time I search her eyes,
That hideous serpent blinking back at me,
And shudder when I call her wife!—
At last
We sailed away. Her brother fell.
KING (quickly).
She slew him?
JASON. The gods' hand smote him down. Her aged father,
With curses on his lips for her, for me,
For all our days to come, with bleeding nails
Dug his own grave, and laid him down to die,
So goes the tale—grim victim of his own
Rash passion.
KING. Dread beginning of your life
Together!
JASON. Ay, and, as the days wore on,
More dreadful still.
KING. Thine uncle—what of him?
JASON. For four long years some god made sport of us
And kept us wandering far from hearth and home
O'er land and sea. Meanwhile, pent up with her
Within the narrow confines of our bark,
Seeing her face each moment of the day,
The edge of my first shuddering fear grew blunt.
The past was past.—So she became my wife.
KING. When home thou camest, what befell thee there?
JASON. Time passed; the memory of those ghastly days
In Colchis dimmer grew and mistier.
I, the proud Greek, now half barbarian grown,
Companioned by my wife, barbarian too,
Sought once again my home-land. Joyfully
The people cried Godspeed! as forth I fared
Long years agone. Of joyfuller greetings now,
When I returned a victor, I had dreamed.
But lo, the busy streets grew still as death
When I approached, and whoso met me, shrank
Back in dismay! The tale, grown big with horrors,
Of all that chanced in Colchis had bred fear
And hatred in this foolish people's hearts.
They fled my face, heaped insults on my wife—
Mine she was, too; who flouted her, struck me!
This evil talk my uncle slily fed;
And when I made demand that he yield up
The kingdom of my fathers, stolen by him
And kept from me by craft, he made reply
That I must put away this foreign wife,
For she was hateful in his eyes, he feared
Her dark and dreadful deeds! If I refused,
My fatherland, his kingdom, I must flee.