{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_35451/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_35451","id":"gutenberg_35451","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35451","summary":null,"tags":["Best Books Ever Listings","Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Medea, consort of Aegeus, King of Athens (Mythological character) -- Drama"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Barbara Watson and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                THE MEDEA\n                                   OF\n                                EURIPIDES\n\n\n                  TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE\n                        WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY\n\n                       GILBERT MURRAY, M.A., LL.D.\n\n              SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY\n                        OF GLASGOW; FELLOW OF NEW\n                             COLLEGE, OXFORD\n\n\n                         OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS\n                             AMERICAN BRANCH\n                      NEW YORK: 35 WEST 32ND STREET\n                                  1912\n\n\n\n\n                           Copyright, 1906, by\n                         OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS\n                             AMERICAN BRANCH\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe _Medea_, in spite of its background of wonder and enchantment, is\nnot a romantic play but a tragedy of character and situation. It deals,\nso to speak, not with the romance itself, but with the end of the\nromance, a thing which is so terribly often the reverse of romantic. For\nall but the very highest of romances are apt to have just one flaw\nsomewhere, and in the story of Jason and Medea the flaw was of a fatal\nkind.\n\nThe wildness and beauty of the Argo legend run through all Greek\nliterature, from the mass of Corinthian lays older than our present\nIliad, which later writers vaguely associate with the name of Eumelus,\nto the Fourth Pythian Ode of Pindar and the beautiful Argonautica of\nApollonius Rhodius. Our poet knows the wildness and the beauty; but it\nis not these qualities that he specially seeks. He takes them almost for\ngranted, and pierces through them to the sheer tragedy that lies below.\n\nJason, son of Aeson, King of Iolcos, in Thessaly, began his life in\nexile. His uncle Pelias had seized his father's kingdom, and Jason was\nborne away to the mountains by night and given, wrapped in a purple\nrobe, to Chiron, the Centaur. When he reached manhood he came down to\nIolcos to demand, as Pindar tells us, his ancestral honour, and stood in\nthe market-place, a world-famous figure, one-sandalled, with his\npard-skin, his two spears and his long hair, gentle and wild and\nfearless, as the Wise Beast had reared him. Pelias, cowed but loath to\nyield, promised to give up the kingdom if Jason would make his way to\nthe unknown land of Colchis and perform a double quest. First, if I read\nPindar aright, he must fetch back the soul of his kinsman Phrixus, who\nhad died there far from home; and, secondly, find the fleece of the\nGolden Ram which Phrixus had sacrificed. Jason undertook the quest:\ngathered the most daring heroes from all parts of Hellas; built the\nfirst ship, Argo, and set to sea. After all manner of desperate\nadventures he reached the land of Aietes, king of the Colchians, and\nthere hope failed him. By policy, by tact, by sheer courage he did all\nthat man could do. But Aietes was both hostile and treacherous. The\nArgonauts were surrounded, and their destruction seemed only a question\nof days when, suddenly, unasked, and by the mercy of Heaven, Aietes'\ndaughter, Medea, an enchantress as well as a princess, fell in love with\nJason. She helped him through all his trials; slew for him her own\nsleepless serpent, who guarded the fleece; deceived her father, and\nsecured both the fleece and the soul of Phrixus. At the last moment it\nappeared that her brother, Absyrtus, was about to lay an ambush for\nJason. She invited Absyrtus to her room, stabbed him dead, and fled with\nJason over the seas. She had given up all, and expected in return a\nperfect love.\n\nAnd what of Jason? He could not possibly avoid taking Medea with him. He\nprobably rather loved her. She formed at the least a brilliant addition\nto the glory of his enterprise. Not many heroes could produce a\nbarbarian princess ready to leave all and follow them in blind trust.\nFor of course, as every one knew without the telling in fifth-century\nAthens, no legal marriage was possible between a Greek and a barbarian\nfrom Colchis.\n\nAll through the voyage home, a world-wide baffled voyage by the Ister\nand the Eridanus and the African Syrtes, Medea was still in her element,\nand proved a constant help and counsellor to the Argonauts. When they\nreached Jason's home, where Pelias was still king, things began to be\ndifferent. An ordered and law-abiding Greek state was scarcely the place\nfor the untamed Colchian. We only know the catastrophe. She saw with\nsmothered rage how Pelias hated Jason and was bent on keeping the\nkingdom from him, and she determined to do her lover another act of\nsplendid service. Making the most of her fame as an enchantress, she\npersuaded Pelias that he could, by a certain process, regain his youth.\nHe eagerly caught at the hope. His daughters tried the process upon him,\nand Pelias died in agony. Surely Jason would be grateful now!\n\nThe real result was what it was sure to be in a civilised country. Medea\nand her lover had to fly for their lives, and Jason was debarred for\never from succeeding to the throne of Iolcos. Probably there was another\nresult also in Jason's mind: the conclusion that at all costs he must\nsomehow separate himself from this wild beast of a woman who was ruining\nhis life. He directed their flight to Corinth, governed at the time by a\nruler of some sort, whether \"tyrant\" or king, who was growing old and\nhad an only daughter. Creon would naturally want a son-in-law to support\nand succeed him. And where in all Greece could he find one stronger or\nmore famous than the chief of the Argonauts? If only Medea were not\nthere! No doubt Jason owed her a great debt for her various services.\nStill, after all, he was not married to her. And a man must not be weak\nin such matters as these. Jason accepted the princess's hand, and when\nMedea became violent, found it difficult to be really angry with Creon\nfor instantly condemning her to exile. At this point the tragedy begins.\n\nThe _Medea_ is one of the earliest of Euripides' works now preserved to\nus. And those of us who have in our time glowed at all with the religion\nof realism, will probably feel in it many of the qualities of youth.\nNot, of course, the more normal, sensuous, romantic youth, the youth of\n_Romeo and Juliet_; but another kind--crude, austere, passionate--the\nyouth of the poet who is also a sceptic and a devotee of truth, who so\nhates the conventionally and falsely beautiful that he is apt to be\nunduly ascetic towards beauty itself. When a writer really deficient in\npoetry walks in this path, the result is purely disagreeable. It\nproduces its best results when the writer, like Euripides or Tolstoy, is\nso possessed by an inward flame of poetry that it breaks out at the\ngreat moments and consumes the cramping theory that would hold it in.\nOne can feel in the _Medea_ that the natural and inevitable romance of\nthe story is kept rigidly down. One word about Medea's ancient serpent,\ntwo or three references to the Clashing Rocks, one startling flash of\nlight upon the real love of Jason's life, love for the ship Argo, these\nare almost all the concessions made to us by the merciless delineator\nof disaster into whose hands we are fallen. Jason is a middle-aged man,\nwith much glory, indeed, and some illusions; but a man entirely set upon\nbuilding up a great career, to whom love and all its works, though at\ntimes he has found them convenient, are for the most part only\nirrational and disturbing elements in a world which he can otherwise\nmould to his will. And yet, most cruel touch of all, one feels this man\nto be the real Jason. It is not that he has fallen from his heroic past.\nIt is that he was really like this always. And so with Medea. It is not\nonly that her beauty has begun to fade; not only that she is set in\nsurroundings which vaguely belittle and weaken her, making her no more a\nbountiful princess, but only an ambiguous and much criticised foreigner.\nHer very devotion of love for Jason, now turned to hatred, shows itself\nto have been always of that somewhat rank and ugly sort to which such a\nchange is natural.\n\nFor concentrated dramatic quality and sheer intensity of passion few\nplays ever written can vie with the _Medea_. Yet it obtained only a\nthird prize at its first production; and, in spite of its immense fame,\nthere are not many scholars who would put it among their favourite\ntragedies. The comparative failure of the first production was perhaps\ndue chiefly to the extreme originality of the play. The Athenians in 432\nB.C. had not yet learnt to understand or tolerate such work as this,\nthough it is likely enough that they fortified their unfavourable\nopinion by the sort of criticisms which we still find attributed to\nAristotle and Dicaearchus.\n\nAt the present time it is certainly not the newness of the subject: I do\nnot think it is Aegeus, nor yet the dragon chariot, much less Medea's\ninvoluntary burst of tears in the second scene with Jason, that really\nproduces the feeling of dissatisfaction with which many people must rise\nfrom this great play. It is rather the general scheme on which the drama\nis built. It is a scheme which occurs again and again in Euripides, a\nstudy of oppression and revenge. Such a subject in the hands of a more\nordinary writer would probably take the form of a triumph of oppressed\nvirtue. But Euripides gives us nothing so sympathetic, nothing so cheap\nand unreal. If oppression usually made people virtuous, the problems of\nthe world would be very different from what they are. Euripides seems at\ntimes to hate the revenge of the oppressed almost as much as the\noriginal cruelty of the oppressor; or, to put the same fact in a\ndifferent light, he seems deliberately to dwell upon the twofold evil of\ncruelty, that it not only causes pain to the victim, but actually by\nmeans of the pain makes him a worse man, so that when his turn of\ntriumph comes, it is no longer a triumph of justice or a thing to make\nmen rejoice. This is a grim lesson; taught often enough by history,\nthough seldom by the fables of the poets.\n\nSeventeen years later than the _Medea_ Euripides expressed this\nsentiment in a more positive way in the _Trojan Women_, where a depth of\nwrong borne without revenge becomes, or seems for the moment to become,\na thing beautiful and glorious. But more plays are constructed like the\n_Medea_. The _Hecuba_ begins with a noble and injured Queen, and ends\nwith her hideous vengeance on her enemy and his innocent sons. In the\n_Orestes_ all our hearts go out to the suffering and deserted prince,\ntill we find at last that we have committed ourselves to the\nblood-thirst of a madman. In the _Electra_, the workers of the vengeance\nthemselves repent.\n\nThe dramatic effect of this kind of tragedy is curious. No one can call\nit undramatic or tame. Yet it is painfully unsatisfying. At the close of\nthe _Medea_ I actually find myself longing for a _deus ex machina_, for\nsome being like Artemis in the _Hippolytus_ or the good Dioscuri of the\n_Electra_, to speak a word of explanation or forgiveness, or at least\nleave some sound of music in our ears to drown that dreadful and\ninsistent clamour of hate. The truth is that in this play Medea herself\nis the _dea ex machina_. The woman whom Jason and Creon intended simply\nto crush has been transformed by her injuries from an individual human\nbeing into a sort of living Curse. She is inspired with superhuman\nforce. Her wrongs and her hate fill all the sky. And the judgment\npronounced on Jason comes not from any disinterested or peace-making\nGod, but from his own victim transfigured into a devil.\n\nFrom any such judgment there is an instant appeal to sane human\nsympathy. Jason has suffered more than enough. But that also is the way\nof the world. And the last word upon these tragic things is most often\nsomething not to be expressed by the sentences of even the wisest\narticulate judge, but only by the unspoken _lacrimae rerum_.\n\n                                                              G. M.\n\n\n\n\n                                  MEDEA\n\n\n\n\n                         CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY\n\n\nMEDEA, _daughter of Aietes, King of Colchis_.\nJASON, _chief of the Argonauts; nephew of Pelias, King of Iolcos in\n    Thessaly_.\nCREON, _ruler of Corinth_.\nAEGEUS, _King of Athens_.\nNURSE _of Medea_.\nTWO CHILDREN _of Jason and Medea_.\nATTENDANT _on the children_.\nA MESSENGER.\n\nCHORUS of Corinthian Women, with their LEADER.\nSoldiers and Attendants.\n\n_The scene is laid in Corinth. The play was first acted when Pythodorus\nwas Archon, Olympiad 87, year_ 1 (B.C. 431). _Euphorion was first,\nSophocles second, Euripides third, with Medea, Philoctetes, Dictys, and\nthe Harvesters, a Satyr-play._\n\n\n\n\n                 MEDEA\n\n\n_The Scene represents the front of_ MEDEA'S _House in Corinth. A road to\n    the right leads towards the royal castle, one on the left to the\n    harbour. The_ NURSE _is discovered alone_.\n\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n  Would God no Argo e'er had winged the seas\n  To Colchis through the blue Symplegades:\n  No shaft of riven pine in Pelion's glen\n  Shaped that first oar-blade in the hands of men\n  Valiant, who won, to save King Pelias' vow,\n  The fleece All-golden! Never then, I trow,\n  Mine own princess, her spirit wounded sore\n  With love of Jason, to the encastled shore\n  Had sailed of old Iolcos: never wrought\n  The daughters of King Pelias, knowing not,\n  To spill their father's life: nor fled in fear,\n  Hunted for that fierce sin, to Corinth here\n  With Jason and her babes. This folk at need\n  Stood friend to her, and she in word and deed\n  Served alway Jason. Surely this doth bind,\n  Through all ill days, the hurts of humankind,\n  When man and woman in one music move.\n    But now, the world is angry, and true love\n  Sick as with poison. Jason doth forsake\n  My mistress and his own two sons, to make\n  His couch in a king's chamber. He must wed:\n  Wed with this Creon's child, who now is head\n  And chief of Corinth. Wherefore sore betrayed\n  Medea calleth up the oath they made,\n  They two, and wakes the clasped hands again,\n  The troth surpassing speech, and cries amain\n  On God in heaven to mark the end, and how\n  Jason hath paid his debt.\n                             All fasting now\n  And cold, her body yielded up to pain,\n  Her days a waste of weeping, she hath lain,\n  Since first she knew that he was false. Her eyes\n  Are lifted not; and all her visage lies\n  In the dust. If friends will speak, she hears no more\n  Than some dead rock or wave that beats the shore:\n  Only the white throat in a sudden shame\n  May writhe, and all alone she moans the name\n  Of father, and land, and home, forsook that day\n  For this man's sake, who casteth her away.\n  Not to be quite shut out from home . . . alas,\n  She knoweth now how rare a thing that was!\n  Methinks she hath a dread, not joy, to see\n  Her children near. 'Tis this that maketh me\n  Most tremble, lest she do I know not what.\n  Her heart is no light thing, and useth not\n  To brook much wrong. I know that woman, aye,\n  And dread her! Will she creep alone to die\n  Bleeding in that old room, where still is laid\n  Lord Jason's bed? She hath for that a blade\n  Made keen. Or slay the bridegroom and the king,\n  And win herself God knows what direr thing?\n  'Tis a fell spirit. Few, I ween, shall stir\n  Her hate unscathed, or lightly humble her.\n    Ha! 'Tis the children from their games again,\n  Rested and gay; and all their mother's pain\n  Forgotten! Young lives ever turn from gloom!\n\n            [_The_ CHILDREN _and their_ ATTENDANT _come in_.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n  Thou ancient treasure of my lady's room,\n  What mak'st thou here before the gates alone,\n  And alway turning on thy lips some moan\n  Of old mischances? Will our mistress be\n  Content, this long time to be left by thee?\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n  Grey guard of Jason's children, a good thrall\n  Hath his own grief, if any hurt befall\n  His masters. Aye, it holds one's heart! . . .\n      Meseems\n  I have strayed out so deep in evil dreams,\n  I longed to rest me here alone, and cry\n  Medea's wrongs to this still Earth and Sky.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n  How? Are the tears yet running in her eyes?\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n  'Twere good to be like thee! . . . Her sorrow lies\n  Scarce wakened yet, not half its perils wrought.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nMad spirit! . . . if a man may speak his thought\nOf masters mad.--And nothing in her ears\nHath sounded yet of her last cause for tears!\n\n                [_He moves towards the house, but the_ NURSE\n                   _checks him_.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\nWhat cause, old man? . . . Nay, grudge me not one word.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n'Tis nothing. Best forget what thou hast heard.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\nNay, housemate, by thy beard! Hold it not hid\nFrom me. . . . I will keep silence if thou bid.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nI heard an old man talking, where he sate\nAt draughts in the sun, beside the fountain gate,\nAnd never thought of me, there standing still\nBeside him. And he said, 'Twas Creon's will,\nBeing lord of all this land, that she be sent,\nAnd with her her two sons, to banishment.\nMaybe 'tis all false. For myself, I know\nNo further, and I would it were not so.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\nJason will never bear it--his own sons\nBanished,--however hot his anger runs\nAgainst their mother!\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n                      Old love burneth low\nWhen new love wakes, men say. He is not now\nHusband nor father here, nor any kin.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\nBut this is ruin! New waves breaking in\nTo wreck us, ere we are righted from the old!\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nWell, hold thy peace. Our mistress will be told\nAll in good time. Speak thou no word hereof.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\nMy babes! What think ye of your father's love?\nGod curse him not, he is my master still:\nBut, oh, to them that loved him, 'tis an ill\nFriend. . . .\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n  And what man on earth is different? How?\nHast thou lived all these years, and learned but now\nThat every man more loveth his own head\nThan other men's? He dreameth of the bed\nOf this new bride, and thinks not of his sons.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\nGo: run into the house, my little ones:\nAll will end happily! . . . Keep them apart:\nLet not their mother meet them while her heart\nIs darkened. Yester night I saw a flame\nStand in her eye, as though she hated them,\nAnd would I know not what. For sure her wrath\nWill never turn nor slumber, till she hath . . .\nGo: and if some must suffer, may it be\nNot we who love her, but some enemy!\n\n                 VOICE (_within_).\n\n      Oh shame and pain: O woe is me!\n      Would I could die in my misery!\n\n                [_The_ CHILDREN _and the_ ATTENDANT _go in_.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n    Ah, children, hark! She moves again\n      Her frozen heart, her sleeping wrath.\n      In, quick! And never cross her path,\n    Nor rouse that dark eye in its pain;\n\n    That fell sea-spirit, and the dire\n      Spring of a will untaught, unbowed.\n      Quick, now!--Methinks this weeping cloud\n    Hath in its heart some thunder-fire,\n\n    Slow gathering, that must flash ere long.\n      I know not how, for ill or well,\n      It turns, this uncontrollable\n    Tempestuous spirit, blind with wrong.\n\n                 VOICE (_within_).\n\n    Have I not suffered? Doth it call\n    No tears? . . . Ha, ye beside the wall\n    Unfathered children, God hate you\n    As I am hated, and him, too,\n      That gat you, and this house and all!\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n    For pity! What have they to do,\n      Babes, with their father's sin? Why call\n      Thy curse on these? . . . Ah, children, all\n    These days my bosom bleeds for you.\n\n    Rude are the wills of princes: yea,\n      Prevailing alway, seldom crossed,\n      On fitful winds their moods are tossed:\n    'Tis best men tread the equal way.\n\n    Aye, not with glory but with peace\n      May the long summers find me crowned:\n      For gentleness--her very sound\n    Is magic, and her usages.\n\n    All wholesome: but the fiercely great\n      Hath little music on his road,\n      And falleth, when the hand of God\n    Shall move, most deep and desolate.\n\n          [_During the last words the_ LEADER _of the Chorus\n               has entered. Other women follow her._\n\n                 LEADER.\n\n        I heard a voice and a moan,\n          A voice of the eastern seas:\n          Hath she found not yet her ease?\n              Speak, O aged one.\n        For I stood afar at the gate,\n          And there came from within a cry,\n        And wailing desolate.\n          Ah, no more joy have I,\n        For the griefs this house doth see,\n        And the love it hath wrought in me.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n    There is no house! 'Tis gone. The lord\n      Seeketh a prouder bed: and she\n    Wastes in her chamber, not one word\n      Will hear of care or charity.\n\n                 VOICE (_within_).\n\n        O Zeus, O Earth, O Light,\n          Will the fire not stab my brain?\n            What profiteth living? Oh,\n            Shall I not lift the slow\n            Yoke, and let Life go,\n        As a beast out in the night,\n          To lie, and be rid of pain?\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n               _Some Women_\n\n                    A.\n\n        \"O Zeus, O Earth, O Light:\"\n         The cry of a bride forlorn\n         Heard ye, and wailing born\n             Of lost delight?\n\n                    B.\n\n         Why weariest thou this day,\n             Wild heart, for the bed abhorred,\n         The cold bed in the clay?\n         Death cometh though no man pray,\n             Ungarlanded, un-adored.\n                 Call him not thou.\n\n                    C.\n\n         If another's arms be now\n             Where thine have been,\n             On his head be the sin:\n         Rend not thy brow!\n\n                    D.\n\n         All that thou sufferest,\n           God seeth: Oh, not so sore\n         Waste nor weep for the breast\n           That was thine of yore.\n\n                 VOICE (_within_).\n\n         Virgin of Righteousness,\n         Virgin of hallowed Troth,\n         Ye marked me when with an oath\n         I bound him; mark no less\n         That oath's end. Give me to see\n         Him and his bride, who sought\n         My grief when I wronged her not,\n         Broken in misery,\n         And all her house. . . . O God,\n         My mother's home, and the dim\n         Shore that I left for him,\n         And the voice of my brother's blood. . . .\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n  Oh, wild words! Did ye hear her cry\n      To them that guard man's faith forsworn,\n      Themis and Zeus? . . . This wrath new-born\n  Shall make mad workings ere it die.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n              _Other Women._\n\n                    A.\n\n        Would she but come to seek\n          Our faces, that love her well,\n          And take to her heart the spell\n              Of words that speak?\n\n                    B.\n\n        Alas for the heavy hate\n          And anger that burneth ever!\n        Would it but now abate,\n        Ah God, I love her yet.\n          And surely my love's endeavour\n              Shall fail not here.\n\n                    C.\n\n        Go: from that chamber drear\n            Forth to the day\n        Lead her, and say, Oh, say\n            That we love her dear.\n\n                    D.\n\n        Go, lest her hand be hard\n          On the innocent: Ah, let be!\n        For her grief moves hitherward,\n            Like an angry sea.\n\n                 NURSE.\n\n  That will I: though what words of mine\n    Or love shall move her? Let them lie\n    With the old lost labours! . . . Yet her eye--\n  Know ye the eyes of the wild kine,\n\n  The lion flash that guards their brood?\n    So looks she now if any thrall\n    Speak comfort, or draw near at all\n  My mistress in her evil mood.\n\n                         [_The_ NURSE _goes into the house_.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n                _A Woman._\n\n      Alas, the bold blithe bards of old\n        That all for joy their music made,\n      For feasts and dancing manifold,\n        That Life might listen and be glad.\n\n      But all the darkness and the wrong,\n        Quick deaths and dim heart-aching things,\n      Would no man ease them with a song\n        Or music of a thousand strings?\n\n      Then song had served us in our need.\n        What profit, o'er the banquet's swell\n      That lingering cry that none may heed?\n        The feast hath filled them: all is well!\n\n                 _Others._\n\n    I heard a song, but it comes no more.\n        Where the tears ran over:\n    A keen cry but tired, tired:\n    A woman's cry for her heart's desired,\n      For a traitor's kiss and a lost lover.\n    But a prayer, methinks, yet riseth sore\n      To God, to Faith, God's ancient daughter--\n    The Faith that over sundering seas\n    Drew her to Hellas, and the breeze\n    Of midnight shivered, and the door\n      Closed of the salt unsounded water.\n\n                    [_During the last words_ MEDEA _has come\n                       out from the house_.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWomen of Corinth, I am come to show\nMy face, lest ye despise me. For I know\nSome heads stand high and fail not, even at night\nAlone--far less like this, in all men's sight:\nAnd we, who study not our wayfarings\nBut feel and cry--Oh we are drifting things,\nAnd evil! For what truth is in men's eyes,\nWhich search no heart, but in a flash despise\nA strange face, shuddering back from one that ne'er\nHath wronged them? . . . Sure, far-comers anywhere,\nI know, must bow them and be gentle. Nay,\nA Greek himself men praise not, who alway\nShould seek his own will recking not. . . . But I--\nThis thing undreamed of, sudden from on high,\nHath sapped my soul: I dazzle where I stand,\nThe cup of all life shattered in my hand,\nLonging to die--O friends! He, even he,\nWhom to know well was all the world to me,\nThe man I loved, hath proved most evil.--Oh,\nOf all things upon earth that bleed and grow,\nA herb most bruised is woman. We must pay\nOur store of gold, hoarded for that one day,\nTo buy us some man's love; and lo, they bring\nA master of our flesh! There comes the sting\nOf the whole shame. And then the jeopardy,\nFor good or ill, what shall that master be;\nReject she cannot: and if he but stays\nHis suit, 'tis shame on all that woman's days.\nSo thrown amid new laws, new places, why,\n'Tis magic she must have, or prophecy--\nHome never taught her that--how best to guide\nToward peace this thing that sleepeth at her side.\nAnd she who, labouring long, shall find some way\nWhereby her lord may bear with her, nor fray\nHis yoke too fiercely, blessed is the breath\nThat woman draws! Else, let her pray for death.\nHer lord, if he be wearied of the face\nWithindoors, gets him forth; some merrier place\nWill ease his heart: but she waits on, her whole\nVision enchained on a single soul.\nAnd then, forsooth, 'tis they that face the call\nOf war, while we sit sheltered, hid from all\nPeril!--False mocking! Sooner would I stand\nThree times to face their battles, shield in hand,\nThan bear one child.\n                          But peace! There cannot be\nEver the same tale told of thee and me.\nThou hast this city, and thy father's home,\nAnd joy of friends, and hope in days to come:\nBut I, being citiless, am cast aside\nBy him that wedded me, a savage bride\nWon in far seas and left--no mother near,\nNo brother, not one kinsman anywhere\nFor harbour in this storm. Therefore of thee\nI ask one thing. If chance yet ope to me\nSome path, if even now my hand can win\nStrength to requite this Jason for his sin,\nBetray me not! Oh, in all things but this,\nI know how full of fears a woman is,\nAnd faint at need, and shrinking from the light\nOf battle: but once spoil her of her right\nIn man's love, and there moves, I warn thee well,\nNo bloodier spirit between heaven and hell.\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nI will betray thee not. It is but just,\nThou smite him.--And that weeping in the dust\nAnd stormy tears, how should I blame them? . . .\n    Stay:\n'Tis Creon, lord of Corinth, makes his way\nHither, and bears, methinks, some word of weight.\n\n_Enter from the right_ CREON, _the King, with armed Attendants_.\n\n                 CREON.\n\nThou woman sullen-eyed and hot with hate\nAgainst thy lord, Medea, I here command\nThat thou and thy two children from this land\nGo forth to banishment. Make no delay:\nSeeing ourselves, the King, are come this day\nTo see our charge fulfilled; nor shall again\nLook homeward ere we have led thy children twain\nAnd thee beyond our realm's last boundary.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nLost! Lost!\nMine haters at the helm with sail flung free\nPursuing; and for us no beach nor shore\nIn the endless waters! . . . Yet, though stricken sore,\nI still will ask thee, for what crime, what thing\nUnlawful, wilt thou cast me out, O King?\n\n                 CREON.\n\nWhat crime? I fear thee, woman--little need\nTo cloak my reasons--lest thou work some deed\nOf darkness on my child. And in that fear\nReasons enough have part. Thou comest here\nA wise-woman confessed, and full of lore\nIn unknown ways of evil. Thou art sore\nIn heart, being parted from thy lover's arms.\nAnd more, thou hast made menace . . . so the alarms\nBut now have reached mine ear . . . on bride and groom,\nAnd him who gave the bride, to work thy doom\nOf vengeance. Which, ere yet it be too late,\nI sweep aside. I choose to earn thine hate\nOf set will now, not palter with the mood\nOf mercy, and hereafter weep in blood.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n'Tis not the first nor second time, O King,\nThat fame hath hurt me, and come nigh to bring\nMy ruin. . . . How can any man, whose eyes\nAre wholesome, seek to rear his children wise\nBeyond men's wont? Much helplessness in arts\nOf common life, and in their townsmen's hearts\nEnvy deep-set . . . so much their learning brings!\nCome unto fools with knowledge of new things,\nThey deem it vanity, not knowledge. Aye,\nAnd men that erst for wisdom were held high,\nFeel thee a thorn to fret them, privily\nHeld higher than they. So hath it been with me.\nA wise-woman I am; and for that sin\nTo divers ill names men would pen me in;\nA seed of strife; an eastern dreamer; one\nOf brand not theirs; one hard to play upon . . .\nAh, I am not so wondrous wise!--And now,\nTo thee, I am terrible! What fearest thou?\nWhat dire deed? Do I tread so proud a path--\nFear me not thou!--that I should brave the wrath\nOf princes? Thou: what has thou ever done\nTo wrong me? Granted thine own child to one\nWhom thy soul chose.--Ah, _him_ out of my heart\nI hate; but thou, meseems, hast done thy part\nNot ill. And for thine houses' happiness\nI hold no grudge. Go: marry, and God bless\nYour issues. Only suffer me to rest\nSomewhere within this land. Though sore oppressed,\nI will be still, knowing mine own defeat.\n\n                 CREON.\n\nThy words be gentle: but I fear me yet\nLest even now there creep some wickedness\nDeep hid within thee. And for that the less\nI trust thee now than ere these words began.\nA woman quick of wrath, aye, or a man,\nIs easier watching than the cold and still.\n  Up, straight, and find thy road! Mock not my will\nWith words. This doom is passed beyond recall;\nNor all thy crafts shall help thee, being withal\nMy manifest foe, to linger at my side.\n\n    MEDEA (_suddenly throwing herself down\n              and clinging to_ CREON).\n\nOh, by thy knees! By that new-wedded bride . . .\n\n                 CREON.\n\n'Tis waste of words. Thou shalt not weaken me.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWilt hunt me? Spurn me when I kneel to thee?\n\n                 CREON.\n\n'Tis mine own house that kneels to me, not thou.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nHome, my lost home, how I desire thee now!\n\n                 CREON.\n\nAnd I mine, and my child, beyond all things.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nO Loves of man, what curse is on your wings!\n\n                 CREON.\n\nBlessing or curse, 'tis as their chances flow.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nRemember, Zeus, the cause of all this woe!\n\n                 CREON.\n\nOh, rid me of my pains! Up, get thee gone!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWhat would I with thy pains? I have mine own.\n\n                 CREON.\n\nUp: or, 'fore God, my soldiers here shall fling . . .\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nNot that! Not that! . . . I do but pray, O King . . .\n\n                 CREON.\n\nThou wilt not? I must face the harsher task?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI accept mine exile. 'Tis not that I ask.\n\n                 CREON.\n\nWhy then so wild? Why clinging to mine hand?\n\n                 MEDEA (_rising_).\n\nFor one day only leave me in thy land\nAt peace, to find some counsel, ere the strain\nOf exile fall, some comfort for these twain,\nMine innocents; since others take no thought,\nIt seems, to save the babes that they begot.\n  Ah! Thou wilt pity them! Thou also art\nA father: thou hast somewhere still a heart\nThat feels. . . . I reck not of myself: 'tis they\nThat break me, fallen upon so dire a day.\n\n                 CREON.\n\nMine is no tyrant's mood. Aye, many a time\nEre this my tenderness hath marred the chime\nOf wisest counsels. And I know that now\nI do mere folly. But so be it! Thou\nShalt have this grace . . . But this I warn thee clear,\nIf once the morrow's sunlight find thee here\nWithin my borders, thee or child of thine,\nThou diest! . . . Of this judgment not a line\nShall waver nor abate. So linger on,\nIf thou needs must, till the next risen sun;\nNo further. . . . In one day there scarce can be\nThose perils wrought whose dread yet haunteth me.\n\n                             [_Exit_ CREON _with his suite_.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n      O woman, woman of sorrow,\n        Where wilt thou turn and flee?\n      What town shall be thine to-morrow,\n        What land of all lands that be,\n      What door of a strange man's home?\n        Yea, God hath hunted thee,\n      Medea, forth to the foam\n          Of a trackless sea.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nDefeat on every side; what else?--But Oh,\nNot here the end is: think it not! I know\nFor bride and groom one battle yet untried,\nAnd goodly pains for him that gave the bride.\n  Dost dream I would have grovelled to this man,\nSave that I won mine end, and shaped my plan\nFor merry deeds? My lips had never deigned\nSpeak word with him: my flesh been never stained\nWith touching. . . . Fool, Oh, triple fool! It lay\nSo plain for him to kill my whole essay\nBy exile swift: and, lo, he sets me free\nThis one long day: wherein mine haters three\nShall lie here dead, the father and the bride\nAnd husband--mine, not hers! Oh, I have tried\nSo many thoughts of murder to my turn,\nI know not which best likes me. Shall I burn\nTheir house with fire? Or stealing past unseen\nTo Jason's bed--I have a blade made keen\nFor that--stab, breast to breast, that wedded pair?\nGood, but for one thing. When I am taken there,\nAnd killed, they will laugh loud who hate me. . . .\n                                            Nay,\nI love the old way best, the simple way\nOf poison, where we too are strong as men.\nAh me!\nAnd they being dead--what place shall hold me then?\nWhat friend shall rise, with land inviolate\nAnd trusty doors, to shelter from their hate\nThis flesh? . . . None anywhere! . . . A little more\nI needs must wait: and, if there ope some door\nOf refuge, some strong tower to shield me, good:\nIn craft and darkness I will hunt this blood.\nElse, if mine hour be come and no hope nigh,\nThen sword in hand, full-willed and sure to die,\nI yet will live to slay them. I will wend\nMan-like, their road of daring to the end.\n  So help me She who of all Gods hath been\nThe best to me, of all my chosen queen\nAnd helpmate, Hecate, who dwells apart,\nThe flame of flame, in my fire's inmost heart:\nFor all their strength, they shall not stab my soul\nAnd laugh thereafter! Dark and full of dole\nTheir bridal feast shall be, most dark the day\nThey joined their hands, and hunted me away.\n  Awake thee now, Medea! Whatso plot\nThou hast, or cunning, strive and falter not.\nOn to the peril-point! Now comes the strain\nOf daring. Shall they trample thee again?\nHow? And with Hellas laughing o'er thy fall\nWhile this thief's daughter weds, and weds withal\nJason? . . . A true king was thy father, yea,\nAnd born of the ancient Sun! . . . Thou know'st the way;\nAnd God hath made thee woman, things most vain\nFor help, but wondrous in the paths of pain.\n\n                               [MEDEA _goes into the House_.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\nBack streams the wave on the ever running river:\n  Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod.\nMan shall be the slave, the affrighted, the low-liver!\n        Man hath forgotten God.\nAnd woman, yea, woman, shall be terrible in story:\n  The tales too, meseemeth, shall be other than of yore.\nFor a fear there is that cometh out of Woman and a glory,\n  And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more!\n\nThe old bards shall cease, and their memory that lingers\n  Of frail brides and faithless, shall be shrivelled as with fire.\nFor they loved us not, nor knew us: and our lips were dumb, our fingers\n        Could wake not the secret of the lyre.\nElse, else, O God the Singer, I had sung amid their rages\n  A long tale of Man and his deeds for good and ill.\nBut the old World knoweth--'tis the speech of all his ages--\n  Man's wrong and ours: he knoweth and is still.\n\n              _Some Women._\n\n      Forth from thy father's home\n        Thou camest, O heart of fire,\n    To the Dark Blue Rocks, to the clashing foam,\n        To the seas of thy desire:\n\n      Till the Dark Blue Bar was crossed;\n        And, lo, by an alien river\n      Standing, thy lover lost,\n          Void-armed for ever,\n\n      Forth yet again, O lowest\n        Of landless women, a ranger\n      Of desolate ways, thou goest,\n          From the walls of the stranger.\n\n                _Others._\n\n      And the great Oath waxeth weak;\n        And Ruth, as a thing outstriven,\n      Is fled, fled, from the shores of the Greek,\n        Away on the winds of heaven.\n\n      Dark is the house afar,\n        Where an old king called thee daughter;\n      All that was once thy star\n          In stormy water,\n\n      Dark: and, lo, in the nearer\n        House that was sworn to love thee,\n      Another, queenlier, dearer,\n          Is throned above thee.\n\n      _Enter from the right_ JASON.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nOft have I seen, in other days than these,\nHow a dark temper maketh maladies\nNo friend can heal. 'Twas easy to have kept\nBoth land and home. It needed but to accept\nUnstrivingly the pleasure of our lords.\nBut thou, for mere delight in stormy words,\nWilt lose all! . . . Now thy speech provokes not me.\nRail on. Of all mankind let Jason be\nMost evil; none shall check thee. But for these\nDark threats cast out against the majesties\nOf Corinth, count as veriest gain thy path\nOf exile. I myself, when princely wrath\nWas hot against thee, strove with all good will\nTo appease the wrath, and wished to keep thee still\nBeside me. But thy mouth would never stay\nFrom vanity, blaspheming night and day\nOur masters. Therefore thou shalt fly the land.\n  Yet, even so, I will not hold my hand\nFrom succouring mine own people. Here am I\nTo help thee, woman, pondering heedfully\nThy new state. For I would not have thee flung\nProvisionless away--aye, and the young\nChildren as well; nor lacking aught that will\nOf mine can bring thee. Many a lesser ill\nHangs on the heels of exile. . . . Aye, and though\nThou hate me, dream not that my heart can know\nOr fashion aught of angry will to thee.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nEvil, most evil! . . . since thou grantest me\nThat comfort, the worst weapon left me now\nTo smite a coward. . . . Thou comest to me, thou,\nMine enemy! (_Turning to the_ CHORUS.) Oh, say, how call ye this,\nTo face, and smile, the comrade whom his kiss\nBetrayed? Scorn? Insult? Courage? None of these:\n'Tis but of all man's inward sicknesses\nThe vilest, that he knoweth not of shame\nNor pity! Yet I praise him that he came . . .\nTo me it shall bring comfort, once to clear\nMy heart on thee, and thou shalt wince to hear.\n  I will begin with that, 'twixt me and thee,\nThat first befell. I saved thee. I saved thee--\nLet thine own Greeks be witness, every one\nThat sailed on Argo--saved thee, sent alone\nTo yoke with yokes the bulls of fiery breath,\nAnd sow that Acre of the Lords of Death;\nAnd mine own ancient Serpent, who did keep\nThe Golden Fleece, the eyes that knew not sleep,\nAnd shining coils, him also did I smite\nDead for thy sake, and lifted up the light\nThat bade thee live. Myself, uncounselled,\nStole forth from father and from home, and fled\nWhere dark Iolcos under Pelion lies,\nWith thee--Oh, single-hearted more than wise!\nI murdered Pelias, yea, in agony,\nBy his own daughters' hands, for sake of thee;\nI swept their house like War.--And hast thou then\nAccepted all--O evil yet again!--\nAnd cast me off and taken thee for bride\nAnother? And with children at thy side!\nOne could forgive a childless man. But no:\nI have borne thee children . . .\n                           Is sworn faith so low\nAnd weak a thing? I understand it not.\nAre the old gods dead? Are the old laws forgot,\nAnd new laws made? Since not my passioning,\nBut thine own heart, doth cry thee for a thing\nForsworn.\n\n                   [_She catches sight of her own hand which\n                        she has thrown out to denounce him._\n\n            Poor, poor right hand of mine, whom he\nDid cling to, and these knees, so cravingly,\nWe are unclean, thou and I; we have caught the stain\nOf bad men's flesh . . . and dreamed our dreams in vain.\n  Thou comest to befriend me? Give me, then,\nThy counsel. 'Tis not that I dream again\nFor good from thee: but, questioned, thou wilt show\nThe viler. Say: now whither shall I go?\nBack to my father? Him I did betray,\nAnd all his land, when we two fled away.\nTo those poor Peliad maids? For them 'twere good\nTo take me in, who spilled their father's blood. . . .\nAye, so my whole life stands! There were at home\nWho loved me well: to them I am become\nA curse. And the first friends who sheltered me,\nWhom most I should have spared, to pleasure thee\nI have turned to foes. Oh, therefore hast thou laid\nMy crown upon me, blest of many a maid\nIn Hellas, now I have won what all did crave,\nThee, the world-wondered lover and the brave;\nWho this day looks and sees me banished, thrown\nAway with these two babes, all, all, alone . . .\nOh, merry mocking when the lamps are red:\n\"Where go the bridegroom's babes to beg their bread\nIn exile, and the woman who gave all\nTo save him?\"\n               O great God, shall gold withal\nBear thy clear mark, to sift the base and fine,\nAnd o'er man's living visage runs no sign\nTo show the lie within, ere all too late?\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nDire and beyond all healing is the hate\nWhen hearts that loved are turned to enmity.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nIn speech at least, meseemeth, I must be\nNot evil; but, as some old pilot goes\nFurled to his sail's last edge, when danger blows\nToo fiery, run before the wind and swell,\nWoman, of thy loud storms.--And thus I tell\nMy tale. Since thou wilt build so wondrous high\nThy deeds of service in my jeopardy,\nTo all my crew and quest I know but one\nSaviour, of Gods or mortals one alone,\nThe Cyprian. Oh, thou hast both brain and wit,\nYet underneath . . . nay, all the tale of it\nWere graceless telling; how sheer love, a fire\nOf poison-shafts, compelled thee with desire\nTo save me. But enough. I will not score\nThat count too close. 'Twas good help: and therefor\nI give thee thanks, howe'er the help was wrought.\nHowbeit, in my deliverance, thou hast got\nFar more than given. A good Greek land hath been\nThy lasting home, not barbary. Thou hast seen\nOur ordered life, and justice, and the long\nStill grasp of law not changing with the strong\nMan's pleasure. Then, all Hellas far and near\nHath learned thy wisdom, and in every ear\nThy fame is. Had thy days run by unseen\nOn that last edge of the world, where then had been\nThe story of great Medea? Thou and I . . .\nWhat worth to us were treasures heaped high\nIn rich kings' rooms; what worth a voice of gold\nMore sweet than ever rang from Orpheus old,\nUnless our deeds have glory?\n                               Speak I so,\nTouching the Quest I wrought, thyself did throw\nThe challenge down. Next for thy cavilling\nOf wrath at mine alliance with a king,\nHere thou shalt see I both was wise, and free\nFrom touch of passion, and a friend to thee\nMost potent, and my children . . . Nay, be still!\n  When first I stood in Corinth, clogged with ill\nFrom many a desperate mischance, what bliss\nCould I that day have dreamed of, like to this,\nTo wed with a king's daughter, I exiled\nAnd beggared? Not--what makes thy passion wild--\nFrom loathing of thy bed; not over-fraught\nWith love for this new bride; not that I sought\nTo upbuild mine house with offspring: 'tis enough,\nWhat thou hast borne: I make no word thereof:\nBut, first and greatest, that we all might dwell\nIn a fair house and want not, knowing well\nThat poor men have no friends, but far and near\nShunning and silence. Next, I sought to rear\nOur sons in nurture worthy of my race,\nAnd, raising brethren to them, in one place\nJoin both my houses, and be all from now\nPrince-like and happy. What more need hast thou\nOf children? And for me, it serves my star\nTo link in strength the children that now are\nWith those that shall be.\n                          Have I counselled ill?\nNot thine own self would say it, couldst thou still\nOne hour thy jealous flesh.--'Tis ever so!\nWho looks for more in women? When the flow\nOf love runs plain, why, all the world is fair:\nBut, once there fall some ill chance anywhere\nTo baulk that thirst, down in swift hate are trod\nMen's dearest aims and noblest. Would to God\nWe mortals by some other seed could raise\nOur fruits, and no blind women block our ways!\nThen had there been no curse to wreck mankind.\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nLord Jason, very subtly hast thou twined\nThy speech: but yet, though all athwart thy will\nI speak, this is not well thou dost, but ill,\nBetraying her who loved thee and was true.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nSurely I have my thoughts, and not a few\nHave held me strange. To me it seemeth, when\nA crafty tongue is given to evil men\n'Tis like to wreck, not help them. Their own brain\nTempts them with lies to dare and dare again,\nTill . . . no man hath enough of subtlety.\nAs thou--be not so seeming-fair to me\nNor deft of speech. One word will make thee fall.\nWert thou not false, 'twas thine to tell me all,\nAnd charge me help thy marriage path, as I\nDid love thee; not befool me with a lie.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nAn easy task had that been! Aye, and thou\nA loving aid, who canst not, even now,\nStill that loud heart that surges like the tide!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nThat moved thee not. Thine old barbarian bride,\nThe dog out of the east who loved thee sore,\nShe grew grey-haired, she served thy pride no more.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nNow understand for once! The girl to me\nIs nothing, in this web of sovranty\nI hold. I do but seek to save, even yet,\nThee: and for brethren to our sons beget\nYoung kings, to prosper all our lives again.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nGod shelter me from prosperous days of pain,\nAnd wealth that maketh wounds about my heart.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nWilt change that prayer, and choose a wiser part?\nPray not to hold true sense for pain, nor rate\nThyself unhappy, being too fortunate.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAye, mock me; thou hast where to lay thine head,\nBut I go naked to mine exile.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n                             Tread\nThine own path! Thou hast made it all to be.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nHow? By seducing and forsaking thee?\n\n                 JASON.\n\nBy those vile curses on the royal halls\nLet loose. . . .\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                    On thy house also, as chance falls,\nI am a living curse.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n                      Oh, peace! Enough\nOf these vain wars: I will no more thereof.\nIf thou wilt take from all that I possess\nAid for these babes and thine own helplessness\nOf exile, speak thy bidding. Here I stand\nFull-willed to succour thee with stintless hand,\nAnd send my signet to old friends that dwell\nOn foreign shores, who will entreat thee well.\nRefuse, and thou shalt do a deed most vain.\nBut cast thy rage away, and thou shalt gain\nMuch, and lose little for thine anger's sake.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI will not seek thy friends. I will not take\nThy givings. Give them not. Fruits of a stem\nUnholy bring no blessing after them.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nNow God in heaven be witness, all my heart\nIs willing, in all ways, to do its part\nFor thee and for thy babes. But nothing good\nCan please thee. In sheer savageness of mood\nThou drivest from thee every friend. Wherefore\nI warrant thee, thy pains shall be the more.\n\n                                     [_He goes slowly away._\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nGo: thou art weary for the new delight\nThou wooest, so long tarrying out of sight\nOf her sweet chamber. Go, fulfil thy pride,\nO bridegroom! For it may be, such a bride\nShall wait thee,--yea, God heareth me in this--\nAs thine own heart shall sicken ere it kiss.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n    Alas, the Love that falleth like a flood,\n        Strong-winged and transitory:\n    Why praise ye him? What beareth he of good\n        To man, or glory?\n    Yet Love there is that moves in gentleness,\n    Heart-filling, sweetest of all powers that bless.\n    Loose not on me, O Holder of man's heart,\n        Thy golden quiver,\n    Nor steep in poison of desire the dart\n        That heals not ever.\n\n    The pent hate of the word that cavilleth,\n        The strife that hath no fill,\n    Where once was fondness; and the mad heart's breath\n        For strange love panting still:\n    O Cyprian, cast me not on these; but sift,\n    Keen-eyed, of love the good and evil gift.\n    Make Innocence my friend, God's fairest star,\n        Yea, and abate not\n    The rare sweet beat of bosoms without war,\n        That love, and hate not.\n\n                _Others._\n\n    Home of my heart, land of my own,\n        Cast me not, nay, for pity,\n    Out on my ways, helpless, alone,\n    Where the feet fail in the mire and stone,\n        A woman without a city.\n    Ah, not that! Better the end:\n        The green grave cover me rather,\n    If a break must come in the days I know,\n    And the skies be changed and the earth below;\n    For the weariest road that man may wend\n        Is forth from the home of his father.\n\n    Lo, we have seen: 'tis not a song\n        Sung, nor learned of another.\n    For whom hast thou in thy direst wrong\n    For comfort? Never a city strong\n        To hide thee, never a brother.\n    Ah, but the man--cursed be he,\n        Cursed beyond recover,\n    Who openeth, shattering, seal by seal,\n    A friend's clean heart, then turns his heel,\n    Deaf unto love: never in me\n        Friend shall he know nor lover.\n\n        [_While_ MEDEA _is waiting downcast, seated upon her\n             door-step, there passes from the left a traveller\n             with followers. As he catches sight of_ MEDEA\n             _he stops_.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nHave joy, Medea! 'Tis the homeliest\nWord that old friends can greet with, and the best.\n\n                 MEDEA (_looking up, surprised_).\n\nOh, joy on thee, too, Aegeus, gentle king\nOf Athens!--But whence com'st thou journeying?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nFrom Delphi now and the old encaverned stair. . . .\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWhere Earth's heart speaks in song? What mad'st thou there?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nPrayed heaven for children--the same search alway.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nChildren? Ah God! Art childless to this day?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nSo God hath willed. Childless and desolate.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWhat word did Phoebus speak, to change thy fate?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nRiddles, too hard for mortal man to read.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWhich I may hear?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n                    Assuredly: they need\nA rarer wit.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                How said he?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n                            Not to spill\nLife's wine, nor seek for more. . . .\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                                     Until?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n                                              Until\nI tread the hearth-stone of my sires of yore.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAnd what should bring thee here, by Creon's shore?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nOne Pittheus know'st thou, high lord of Trozen?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAye, Pelops' son, a man most pure of sin.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nHim I would ask, touching Apollo's will.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nMuch use in God's ways hath he, and much skill.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nAnd, long years back he was my battle-friend,\nThe truest e'er man had.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                           Well, may God send\nGood hap to thee, and grant all thy desire.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nBut thou . . . ? Thy frame is wasted, and the fire\nDead in thine eyes.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                        Aegeus, my husband is\nThe falsest man in the world.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n                                 What word is this?\nSay clearly what thus makes thy visage dim?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nHe is false to me, who never injured him.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nWhat hath he done? Show all, that I may see.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nTa'en him a wife; a wife, set over me\nTo rule his house.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n                        He hath not dared to do,\nJason, a thing so shameful?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                              Aye, 'tis true:\nAnd those he loved of yore have no place now.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nSome passion sweepeth him? Or is it thou\nHe turns from?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                    Passion, passion to betray\nHis dearest!\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n                  Shame be his, so fallen away\nFrom honour!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n              Passion to be near a throne,\nA king's heir!\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\n              How, who gives the bride? Say on.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nCreon, who o'er all Corinth standeth chief.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nWoman, thou hast indeed much cause for grief.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n'Tis ruin.--And they have cast me out as well.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nWho? 'Tis a new wrong this, and terrible.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nCreon the king, from every land and shore. . . .\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nAnd Jason suffers him? Oh, 'tis too sore!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nHe loveth to bear bravely ills like these!\n  But, Aegeus, by thy beard, oh, by thy knees,\nI pray thee, and I give me for thine own,\nThy suppliant, pity me! Oh, pity one\nSo miserable. Thou never wilt stand there\nAnd see me cast out friendless to despair.\nGive me a home in Athens . . . by the fire\nOf thine own hearth! Oh, so may thy desire\nOf children be fulfilled of God, and thou\nDie happy! . . . Thou canst know not; even now\nThy prize is won! I, I will make of thee\nA childless man no more. The seed shall be,\nI swear it, sown. Such magic herbs I know.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nWoman, indeed my heart goes forth to show\nThis help to thee, first for religion's sake,\nThen for thy promised hope, to heal my ache\nOf childlessness. 'Tis this hath made mine whole\nLife as a shadow, and starved out my soul.\nBut thus it stands with me. Once make thy way\nTo Attic earth, I, as in law I may,\nWill keep thee and befriend. But in this land,\nWhere Creon rules, I may not raise my hand\nTo shelter thee. Move of thine own essay\nTo seek my house, there thou shalt alway stay,\nInviolate, never to be seized again.\nBut come thyself from Corinth. I would fain\nEven in foreign eyes be alway just.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n'Tis well. Give me an oath wherein to trust\nAnd all that man could ask thou hast granted me.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nDost trust me not? Or what thing troubleth thee?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI trust thee. But so many, far and near,\nDo hate me--all King Pelias' house, and here\nCreon. Once bound by oaths and sanctities\nThou canst not yield me up for such as these\nTo drag from Athens. But a spoken word,\nNo more, to bind thee, which no God hath heard. . .\nThe embassies, methinks, would come and go:\nThey all are friends to thee. . . . Ah me, I know\nThou wilt not list to me! So weak am I,\nAnd they full-filled with gold and majesty.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nMethinks 'tis a far foresight, this thine oath.\nStill, if thou so wilt have it, nothing loath\nAm I to serve thee. Mine own hand is so\nThe stronger, if I have this plea to show\nThy persecutors: and for thee withal\nThe bond more sure.--On what God shall I call?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nSwear by the Earth thou treadest, by the Sun,\nSire of my sires, and all the gods as one. . . .\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nTo do what thing or not do? Make all plain.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nNever thyself to cast me out again.\nNor let another, whatsoe'er his plea,\nTake me, while thou yet livest and art free.\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nNever: so hear me, Earth, and the great star\nOf daylight, and all other gods that are!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n'Tis well: and if thou falter from thy vow . . . ?\n\n                 AEGEUS.\n\nGod's judgment on the godless break my brow!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nGo! Go thy ways rejoicing.--All is bright\nAnd clear before me. Go: and ere the night\nMyself will follow, when the deed is done\nI purpose, and the end I thirst for won.\n\n                             [AEGEUS _and his train depart_.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n    Farewell: and Maia's guiding Son\n      Back lead thee to thy hearth and fire,\n      Aegeus; and all the long desire\n    That wasteth thee, at last be won:\n    Our eyes have seen thee as thou art,\n    A gentle and a righteous heart.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nGod, and God's Justice, and ye blinding Skies!\nAt last the victory dawneth! Yea, mine eyes\nSee, and my foot is on the mountain's brow.\nMine enemies! Mine enemies, oh, now\nAtonement cometh! Here at my worst hour\nA friend is found, a very port of power\nTo save my shipwreck. Here will I make fast\nMine anchor, and escape them at the last\nIn Athens' walled hill.--But ere the end\n'Tis meet I show thee all my counsel, friend:\nTake it, no tale to make men laugh withal!\n  Straightway to Jason I will send some thrall\nTo entreat him to my presence. Comes he here,\nThen with soft reasons will I feed his ear,\nHow his will now is my will, how all things\nAre well, touching this marriage-bed of kings\nFor which I am betrayed--all wise and rare\nAnd profitable! Yet will I make one prayer,\nThat my two children be no more exiled\nBut stay. . . . Oh, not that I would leave a child\nHere upon angry shores till those have laughed\nWho hate me: 'tis that I will slay by craft\nThe king's daughter. With gifts they shall be sent,\nGifts to the bride to spare their banishment,\nFine robings and a carcanet of gold.\nWhich raiment let her once but take, and fold\nAbout her, a foul death that girl shall die\nAnd all who touch her in her agony.\nSuch poison shall they drink, my robe and wreath!\n  Howbeit, of that no more. I gnash my teeth\nThinking on what a path my feet must tread\nThereafter. I shall lay those children dead--\nMine, whom no hand shall steal from me away!\nThen, leaving Jason childless, and the day\nAs night above him, I will go my road\nTo exile, flying, flying from the blood\nOf these my best-beloved, and having wrought\nAll horror, so but one thing reach me not,\nThe laugh of them that hate us.\n                                   Let it come!\nWhat profits life to me? I have no home,\nNo country now, nor shield from any wrong.\nThat was my evil hour, when down the long\nHalls of my father out I stole, my will\nChained by a Greek man's voice, who still, oh, still,\nIf God yet live, shall all requited be.\nFor never child of mine shall Jason see\nHereafter living, never child beget\nFrom his new bride, who this day, desolate\nEven as she made me desolate, shall die\nShrieking amid my poisons. . . . Names have I\nAmong your folk? One light? One weak of hand?\nAn eastern dreamer?--Nay, but with the brand\nOf strange suns burnt, my hate, by God above,\nA perilous thing, and passing sweet my love!\nFor these it is that make life glorious.\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nSince thou has bared thy fell intent to us\nI, loving thee, and helping in their need\nMan's laws, adjure thee, dream not of this deed!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nThere is no other way.--I pardon thee\nThy littleness, who art not wronged like me.\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nThou canst not kill the fruit thy body bore!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nYes: if the man I hate be pained the more.\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nAnd thou made miserable, most miserable?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nOh, let it come! All words of good or ill\nAre wasted now.\n\n                [_She claps her hands: the_ NURSE _comes out\n                     from the house_.\n\n                    Ho, woman; get thee gone\nAnd lead lord Jason hither. . . . There is none\nLike thee, to work me these high services.\nBut speak no word of what my purpose is,\nAs thou art faithful, thou, and bold to try\nAll succours, and a woman even as I!\n\n                                     [_The_ NURSE _departs_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n    The sons of Erechtheus, the olden,\n      Whom high gods planted of yore\n    In an old land of heaven upholden,\n      A proud land untrodden of war:\n    They are hungered, and, lo, their desire\n      With wisdom is fed as with meat:\n    In their skies is a shining of fire,\n      A joy in the fall of their feet:\n    And thither, with manifold dowers,\n      From the North, from the hills, from the morn,\n    The Muses did gather their powers,\n      That a child of the Nine should be born;\n    And Harmony, sown as the flowers,\n      Grew gold in the acres of corn.\n\n    And Cephisus, the fair-flowing river--\n      The Cyprian dipping her hand\n    Hath drawn of his dew, and the shiver\n      Of her touch is as joy in the land.\n    For her breathing in fragrance is written,\n      And in music her path as she goes,\n    And the cloud of her hair, it is litten\n      With stars of the wind-woven rose.\n    So fareth she ever and ever,\n      And forth of her bosom is blown,\n    As dews on the winds of the river,\n      An hunger of passions unknown.\n    Strong Loves of all godlike endeavour,\n      Whom Wisdom shall throne on her throne.\n\n              _Some Women._\n\n  But Cephisus the fair-flowing,\n    Will he bear thee on his shore?\n      Shall the land that succours all, succour thee,\n    Who art foul among thy kind,\n    With the tears of children blind?\n  Dost thou see the red gash growing,\n      Thine own burden dost thou see?\n          Every side, Every way,\n      Lo, we kneel to thee and pray:\n        By thy knees, by thy soul, O woman wild!\n      One at least thou canst not slay,\n                  Not thy child!\n\n                _Others._\n\n  Hast thou ice that thou shalt bind it\n    To thy breast, and make thee dead\n      To thy children, to thine own spirit's pain?\n    When the hand knows what it dares,\n    When thine eyes look into theirs,\n  Shalt thou keep by tears unblinded\n      Thy dividing of the slain?\n          These be deeds Not for thee:\n      These be things that cannot be!\n        Thy babes--though thine hardihood be fell,\n      When they cling about thy knee,\n                  'Twill be well!\n\n             _Enter_ JASON.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nI answer to thy call. Though full of hate\nThou be, I yet will not so far abate\nMy kindness for thee, nor refuse mine ear.\nSay in what new desire thou hast called me here.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nJason, I pray thee, for my words but now\nSpoken, forgive me. My bad moods. . . . Oh, thou\nAt least wilt strive to bear with them! There be\nMany old deeds of love 'twixt me and thee.\nLo, I have reasoned with myself apart\nAnd chidden: \"Why must I be mad, O heart\nOf mine: and raging against one whose word\nIs wisdom: making me a thing abhorred\nTo them that rule the land, and to mine own\nHusband, who doth but that which, being done,\nWill help us all--to wed a queen, and get\nYoung kings for brethren to my sons? And yet\nI rage alone, and cannot quit my rage--\nWhat aileth me?--when God sends harbourage\nSo simple? Have I not my children? Know\nI not we are but exiles, and must go\nBeggared and friendless else?\" Thought upon thought\nSo pressed me, till I knew myself full-fraught\nWith bitterness of heart and blinded eyes.\nSo now--I give thee thanks: and hold thee wise\nTo have caught this anchor for our aid. The fool\nWas I; who should have been thy friend, thy tool;\nGone wooing with thee, stood at thy bed-side\nServing, and welcomed duteously thy bride.\nBut, as we are, we are--I will not say\nMere evil--women! Why must thou to-day\nTurn strange, and make thee like some evil thing,\nChildish, to meet my childish passioning?\nSee, I surrender: and confess that then\nI had bad thoughts, but now have turned again\nAnd found my wiser mind.      [_She claps her hands._\n                             Ho, children! Run\nQuickly! Come hither, out into the sun,\n\n              [_The_ CHILDREN _come from the house, followed\n                   by their_ ATTENDANT.\n\nAnd greet your father. Welcome him with us,\nAnd throw quite, quite away, as mother does,\nYour anger against one so dear. Our peace\nIs made, and all the old bad war shall cease\nFor ever.--Go, and take his hand. . . .\n\n             [_As the_ CHILDREN _go to_ JASON, _she suddenly\n                  bursts into tears. The_ CHILDREN _quickly\n                  return to her: she recovers herself, smiling\n                  amid her tears_.\n\n                                            Ah me,\nI am full of hidden horrors! . . . Shall it be\nA long time more, my children, that ye live\nTo reach to me those dear, dear arms? . . . Forgive!\nI am so ready with my tears to-day,\nAnd full of dread. . . . I sought to smooth away\nThe long strife with your father, and, lo, now\nI have all drowned with tears this little brow!\n\n                              [_She wipes the child's face._\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nO'er mine eyes too there stealeth a pale tear:\nLet the evil rest, O God, let it rest here!\n\n                 JASON.\n\nWoman, indeed I praise thee now, nor say\nIll of thine other hour. 'Tis nature's way,\nA woman needs must stir herself to wrath,\nWhen work of marriage by so strange a path\nCrosseth her lord. But thou, thine heart doth wend\nThe happier road. Thou hast seen, ere quite the end,\nWhat choice must needs be stronger: which to do\nShows a wise-minded woman. . . . And for you,\nChildren; your father never has forgot\nYour needs. If God but help him, he hath wrought\nA strong deliverance for your weakness. Yea,\nI think you, with your brethren, yet one day\nShall be the mightiest voices in this land.\nDo you grow tall and strong. Your father's hand\nGuideth all else, and whatso power divine\nHath alway helped him. . . . Ah, may it be mine\nTo see you yet in manhood, stern of brow,\nStrong-armed, set high o'er those that hate me. . . .\n                                           How?\nWoman, thy face is turned. Thy cheek is swept\nWith pallor of strange tears. Dost not accept\nGladly and of good will my benisons?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n'Tis nothing. Thinking of these little ones. . . .\n\n                 JASON.\n\nTake heart, then. I will guard them from all ill.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI do take heart. Thy word I never will\nMistrust. Alas, a woman's bosom bears\nBut woman's courage, a thing born for tears.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nWhat ails thee?--All too sore thou weepest there.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI was their mother! When I heard thy prayer\nOf long life for them, there swept over me\nA horror, wondering how these things shall be.\n  But for the matter of my need that thou\nShould speak with me, part I have said, and now\nWill finish.--Seeing it is the king's behest\nTo cast me out from Corinth . . . aye, and best,\nFar best, for me--I know it--not to stay\nLonger to trouble thee and those who sway\nThe realm, being held to all their house a foe. . . .\nBehold, I spread my sails, and meekly go\nTo exile. But our children. . . . Could this land\nBe still their home awhile: could thine own hand\nBut guide their boyhood. . . . Seek the king, and pray\nHis pity, that he bid thy children stay!\n\n                 JASON.\n\nHe is hard to move. Yet surely 'twere well done.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nBid her--for thy sake, for a daughters boon. . . .\n\n                 JASON.\n\nWell thought! Her I can fashion to my mind.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nSurely. She is a woman like her kind. . . .\nYet I will aid thee in thy labour; I\nWill send her gifts, the fairest gifts that lie\nIn the hands of men, things of the days of old,\nFine robings and a carcanet of gold,\nBy the boys' hands.--Go, quick, some handmaiden,\nAnd fetch the raiment.\n\n                          [_A handmaid goes into the house._\n\n                      Ah, her cup shall then\nBe filled indeed! What more should woman crave,\nBeing wed with thee, the bravest of the brave,\nAnd girt with raiment which of old the sire\nOf all my house, the Sun, gave, steeped in fire,\nTo his own fiery race?\n\n             [_The handmaid has returned bearing the Gifts._\n\n                          Come, children, lift\nWith heed these caskets. Bear them as your gift\nTo her, being bride and princess and of right\nBlessed!--I think she will not hold them light.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nFond woman, why wilt empty thus thine hand\nOf treasure? Doth King Creon's castle stand\nIn stint of raiment, or in stint of gold?\nKeep these, and make no gift. For if she hold\nJason of any worth at all, I swear\nChattels like these will not weigh more with her.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAh, chide me not! 'Tis written, gifts persuade\nThe gods in heaven; and gold is stronger made\nThan words innumerable to bend men's ways.\nFortune is hers. God maketh great her days:\nYoung and a crowned queen! And banishment\nFor those two babes. . . . I would not gold were spent,\nBut life's blood, ere that come.\n                                  My children, go\nForth into those rich halls, and, bowing low,\nBeseech your father's bride, whom I obey,\nYe be not, of her mercy, cast away\nExiled: and give the caskets--above all\nMark this!--to none but her, to hold withal\nAnd keep. . . . Go quick! And let your mother know\nSoon the good tiding that she longs for. . . . Go!\n\n         [_She goes quickly into the house._ JASON _and the_\n              CHILDREN _with their_ ATTENDANT _depart_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\nNow I have no hope more of the children's living;\n  No hope more. They are gone forth unto death.\nThe bride, she taketh the poison of their giving:\n  She taketh the bounden gold and openeth;\nAnd the crown, the crown, she lifteth about her brow,\nWhere the light brown curls are clustering. No hope now!\n\nO sweet and cloudy gleam of the garments golden!\n  The robe, it hath clasped her breast and the crown her head.\nThen, then, she decketh the bride, as a bride of olden\n  Story, that goeth pale to the kiss of the dead.\nFor the ring hath closed, and the portion of death is there;\nAnd she flieth not, but perisheth unaware.\n\n              _Some Women._\n\nO bridegroom, bridegroom of the kiss so cold,\nArt thou wed with princes, art thou girt with gold,\n        Who know'st not, suing\n        For thy child's undoing,\n  And, on her thou lovest, for a doom untold?\n  How art thou fallen from thy place of old!\n\n                _Others._\n\nO Mother, Mother, what hast thou to reap,\nWhen the harvest cometh, between wake and sleep?\n          For a heart unslaken,\n          For a troth forsaken,\nLo, babes that call thee from a bloody deep:\nAnd thy love returns not. Get thee forth and weep!\n\n             [_Enter the_ ATTENDANT _with the two_ CHILDREN:\n                  MEDEA _comes out from the house_.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nMistress, these children from their banishment\nAre spared. The royal bride hath mildly bent\nHer hand to accept thy gifts, and all is now\nPeace for the children.--Ha, why standest thou\nConfounded, when good fortune draweth near?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAh God!\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n            This chimes not with the news I bear.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nO God, have mercy!\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\n                     Is some word of wrath\nHere hidden that I knew not of? And hath\nMy hope to give thee joy so cheated me?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nThou givest what thou givest: I blame not thee.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nThy brows are all o'ercast: thine eyes are filled. . . .\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nFor bitter need, Old Man! The gods have willed,\nAnd my own evil mind, that this should come.\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nTake heart! Thy sons one day will bring thee home.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nHome? . . . I have others to send home. Woe's me!\n\n                 ATTENDANT.\n\nBe patient. Many a mother before thee\nHath parted from her children. We poor things\nOf men must needs endure what fortune brings.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI will endure.--Go thou within, and lay\nAll ready that my sons may need to-day.\n\n                     [_The_ ATTENDANT _goes into the house_.\n\nO children, children mine: and you have found\nA land and home, where, leaving me discrowned\nAnd desolate, forever you will stay,\nMotherless children! And I go my way\nTo other lands, an exile, ere you bring\nYour fruits home, ere I see you prospering\nOr know your brides, or deck the bridal bed,\nAll flowers, and lift your torches overhead.\n  Oh cursed be mine own hard heart! 'Twas all\nIn vain, then, that I reared you up, so tall\nAnd fair; in vain I bore you, and was torn\nWith those long pitiless pains, when you were born.\nAh, wondrous hopes my poor heart had in you,\nHow you would tend me in mine age, and do\nThe shroud about me with your own dear hands,\nWhen I lay cold, blessed in all the lands\nThat knew us. And that gentle thought is dead!\nYou go, and I live on, to eat the bread\nOf long years, to myself most full of pain.\nAnd never your dear eyes, never again,\nShall see your mother, far away being thrown\nTo other shapes of life. . . . My babes, my own,\nWhy gaze ye so?--What is it that ye see?--\nAnd laugh with that last laughter? . . . Woe is me,\nWhat shall I do?\n                  Women, my strength is gone,\nGone like a dream, since once I looked upon\nThose shining faces. . . . I can do it not.\nGood-bye to all the thoughts that burned so hot\nAforetime! I will take and hide them far,\nFar, from men's eyes. Why should I seek a war\nSo blind: by these babes' wounds to sting again\nTheir father's heart, and win myself a pain\nTwice deeper? Never, never! I forget\nHenceforward all I laboured for.\n                               And yet,\nWhat is it with me? Would I be a thing\nMocked at, and leave mine enemies to sting\nUnsmitten? It must be. O coward heart,\nEver to harbour such soft words!--Depart\nOut of my sight, ye twain.      [_The_ CHILDREN _go in_.\n                             And they whose eyes\nShall hold it sin to share my sacrifice,\nOn their heads be it! My hand shall swerve not now.\n\n  Ah, Ah, thou Wrath within me! Do not thou,\nDo not. . . . Down, down, thou tortured thing, and spare\nMy children! They will dwell with us, aye, there\nFar off, and give thee peace.\n                                 Too late, too late!\nBy all Hell's living agonies of hate,\nThey shall not take my little ones alive\nTo make their mock with! Howsoe'er I strive\nThe thing is doomed; it shall not escape now\nFrom being. Aye, the crown is on the brow,\nAnd the robe girt, and in the robe that high\nQueen dying.\n                   I know all. Yet . . . seeing that I\nMust go so long a journey, and these twain\nA longer yet and darker, I would fain\nSpeak with them, ere I go.\n\n              [_A handmaid brings the_ CHILDREN _out again_.\n\n                           Come, children; stand\nA little from me. There. Reach out your hand,\nYour right hand--so--to mother: and good-bye!\n\n              [_She has kept them hitherto at arm's length:\n                 but at the touch of their hands, her resolution\n                 breaks down, and she gathers them passionately\n                 into her arms._\n\nOh, darling hand! Oh, darling mouth, and eye,\nAnd royal mien, and bright brave faces clear,\nMay you be blessed, but not here! What here\nWas yours, your father stole. . . . Ah God, the glow\nOf cheek on cheek, the tender touch; and Oh,\nSweet scent of childhood. . . . Go! Go! . . . Am I blind? . . .\nMine eyes can see not, when I look to find\nTheir places. I am broken by the wings\nOf evil. . . . Yea, I know to what bad things\nI go, but louder than all thought doth cry\nAnger, which maketh man's worst misery.\n\n               [_She follows the_ CHILDREN _into the house_.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n      My thoughts have roamed a cloudy land,\n      And heard a fierier music fall\n      Than woman's heart should stir withal:\n      And yet some Muse majestical,\n      Unknown, hath hold of woman's hand,\n      Seeking for Wisdom--not in all:\n      A feeble seed, a scattered band,\n      Thou yet shalt find in lonely places,\n      Not dead amongst us, nor our faces\n      Turned alway from the Muses' call.\n\n      And thus my thought would speak: that she\n      Who ne'er hath borne a child nor known\n      Is nearer to felicity:\n      Unlit she goeth and alone,\n      With little understanding what\n      A child's touch means of joy or woe,\n      And many toils she beareth not.\n\n      But they within whose garden fair\n      That gentle plant hath blown, they go\n      Deep-written all their days with care--\n      To rear the children, to make fast\n      Their hold, to win them wealth; and then\n      Much darkness, if the seed at last\n      Bear fruit in good or evil men!\n      And one thing at the end of all\n      Abideth, that which all men dread:\n      The wealth is won, the limbs are bred\n      To manhood, and the heart withal\n      Honest: and, lo, where Fortune smiled,\n      Some change, and what hath fallen? Hark!\n      'Tis death slow winging to the dark,\n      And in his arms what was thy child.\n\n      What therefore doth it bring of gain\n      To man, whose cup stood full before,\n      That God should send this one thing more\n      Of hunger and of dread, a door\n      Set wide to every wind of pain?\n\n                    [MEDEA _comes out alone from the house_.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nFriends, this long hour I wait on Fortune's eyes,\nAnd strain my senses in a hot surmise\nWhat passeth on that hill.--Ha! even now\nThere comes . . . 'tis one of Jason's men, I trow.\nHis wild-perturbed breath doth warrant me\nThe tidings of some strange calamity.\n\n                                         [_Enter_ MESSENGER.\n\n                 MESSENGER.\n\nO dire and ghastly deed! Get thee away,\nMedea! Fly! Nor let behind thee stay\nOne chariot's wing, one keel that sweeps the seas. . . .\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAnd what hath chanced, to cause such flights as these?\n\n                 MESSENGER.\n\nThe maiden princess lieth--and her sire,\nThe king--both murdered by thy poison-fire.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nMost happy tiding! Which thy name prefers\nHenceforth among my friends and well-wishers.\n\n                 MESSENGER.\n\nWhat say'st thou? Woman, is thy mind within\nClear, and not raving? Thou art found in sin\nMost bloody wrought against the king's high head,\nAnd laughest at the tale, and hast no dread?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI have words also that could answer well\nThy word. But take thine ease, good friend, and tell,\nHow died they? Hath it been a very foul\nDeath, prithee? That were comfort to my soul.\n\n                 MESSENGER.\n\nWhen thy two children, hand in hand entwined,\nCame with their father, and passed on to find\nThe new-made bridal rooms, Oh, we were glad,\nWe thralls, who ever loved thee well, and had\nGrief in thy grief. And straight there passed a word\nFrom ear to ear, that thou and thy false lord\nHad poured peace offering upon wrath foregone.\nA right glad welcome gave we them, and one\nKissed the small hand, and one the shining hair:\nMyself, for very joy, I followed where\nThe women's rooms are. There our mistress . . . she\nWhom now we name so . . . thinking not to see\nThy little pair, with glad and eager brow\nSate waiting Jason. Then she saw, and slow\nShrouded her eyes, and backward turned again,\nSick that thy children should come near her. Then\nThy husband quick went forward, to entreat\nThe young maid's fitful wrath. \"Thou will not meet\nLove's coming with unkindness? Nay, refrain\nThy suddenness, and turn thy face again,\nHolding as friends all that to me are dear,\nThine husband. And accept these robes they bear\nAs gifts: and beg thy father to unmake\nHis doom of exile on them--for my sake.\"\nWhen once she saw the raiment, she could still\nHer joy no more, but gave him all his will.\nAnd almost ere the father and the two\nChildren were gone from out the room, she drew\nThe flowered garments forth, and sate her down\nTo her arraying: bound the golden crown\nThrough her long curls, and in a mirror fair\nArranged their separate clusters, smiling there\nAt the dead self that faced her. Then aside\nShe pushed her seat, and paced those chambers wide\nAlone, her white foot poising delicately--\nSo passing joyful in those gifts was she!--\nAnd many a time would pause, straight-limbed, and wheel\nHer head to watch the long fold to her heel\nSweeping. And then came something strange. Her cheek\nSeemed pale, and back with crooked steps and weak\nGroping of arms she walked, and scarcely found\nHer old seat, that she fell not to the ground.\n  Among the handmaids was a woman old\nAnd grey, who deemed, I think, that Pan had hold\nUpon her, or some spirit, and raised a keen\nAwakening shout; till through her lips was seen\nA white foam crawling, and her eyeballs back\nTwisted, and all her face dead pale for lack\nOf life: and while that old dame called, the cry\nTurned strangely to its opposite, to die\nSobbing. Oh, swiftly then one woman flew\nTo seek her father's rooms, one for the new\nBridegroom, to tell the tale. And all the place\nWas loud with hurrying feet.\n                            So long a space\nAs a swift walker on a measured way\nWould pace a furlong's course in, there she lay\nSpeechless, with veiled lids. Then wide her eyes\nShe oped, and wildly, as she strove to rise,\nShrieked: for two diverse waves upon her rolled\nOf stabbing death. The carcanet of gold\nThat gripped her brow was molten in a dire\nAnd wondrous river of devouring fire.\nAnd those fine robes, the gift thy children gave--\nGod's mercy!--everywhere did lap and lave\nThe delicate flesh; till up she sprang, and fled,\nA fiery pillar, shaking locks and head\nThis way and that, seeking to cast the crown\nSomewhere away. But like a thing nailed down\nThe burning gold held fast the anadem,\nAnd through her locks, the more she scattered them,\nCame fire the fiercer, till to earth she fell\nA thing--save to her sire--scarce nameable,\nAnd strove no more. That cheek of royal mien,\nWhere was it--or the place where eyes had been?\nOnly from crown and temples came faint blood\nShot through with fire. The very flesh, it stood\nOut from the bones, as from a wounded pine\nThe gum starts, where those gnawing poisons fine\nBit in the dark--a ghastly sight! And touch\nThe dead we durst not. We had seen too much.\n  But that poor father, knowing not, had sped,\nSwift to his daughter's room, and there the dead\nLay at his feet. He knelt, and groaning low,\nFolded her in his arms, and kissed her: \"Oh,\nUnhappy child, what thing unnatural hath\nSo hideously undone thee? Or what wrath\nOf gods, to make this old grey sepulchre\nChildless of thee? Would God but lay me there\nTo die with thee, my daughter!\" So he cried.\nBut after, when he stayed from tears, and tried\nTo uplift his old bent frame, lo, in the folds\nOf those fine robes it held, as ivy holds\nStrangling among your laurel boughs. Oh, then\nA ghastly struggle came! Again, again,\nUp on his knee he writhed; but that dead breast\nClung still to his: till, wild, like one possessed,\nHe dragged himself half free; and, lo, the live\nFlesh parted; and he laid him down to strive\nNo more with death, but perish; for the deep\nHad risen above his soul. And there they sleep,\nAt last, the old proud father and the bride,\nEven as his tears had craved it, side by side.\n  For thee--Oh, no word more! Thyself will know\nHow best to baffle vengeance. . . . Long ago\nI looked upon man's days, and found a grey\nShadow. And this thing more I surely say,\nThat those of all men who are counted wise,\nStrong wits, devisers of great policies,\nDo pay the bitterest toll. Since life began,\nHath there in God's eye stood one happy man?\nFair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less\nOf fortune, but to no man happiness.\n\n                                          [_Exit_ MESSENGER.\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n              _Some Women._\n\nWrath upon wrath, meseems, this day shall fall\nFrom God on Jason! He hath earned it all.\n\n              _Other Women._\n\nO miserable maiden, all my heart\nIs torn for thee, so sudden to depart\nFrom thy king's chambers and the light above\nTo darkness, all for sake of Jason's love!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWomen, my mind is clear. I go to slay\nMy children with all speed, and then, away\nFrom hence; not wait yet longer till they stand\nBeneath another and an angrier hand\nTo die. Yea, howsoe'er I shield them, die\nThey must. And, seeing that they must, 'tis I\nShall slay them, I their mother, touched of none\nBeside. Oh, up and get thine armour on,\nMy heart! Why longer tarry we to win\nOur crown of dire inevitable sin?\nTake up thy sword, O poor right hand of mine,\nThy sword: then onward to the thin-drawn line\nWhere life turns agony. Let there be naught\nOf softness now: and keep thee from that thought,\n'Born of thy flesh,' 'thine own beloved.' Now,\nFor one brief day, forget thy children: thou\nShalt weep hereafter. Though thou slay them, yet\nSweet were they. . . . I am sore unfortunate.\n\n                                 [_She goes into the house._\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n              _Some Women._\n\n          O Earth, our mother; and thou\n            All-seer, arrowy crown\n          Of Sunlight, manward now\n            Look down, Oh, look down!\n          Look upon one accurst,\n            Ere yet in blood she twine\n            Red hands--blood that is thine!\n          O Sun, save her first!\n          She is thy daughter still,\n            Of thine own golden line;\n          Save her! Or shall man spill\n              The life divine?\n  Give peace, O Fire that diest not! Send thy spell\n    To stay her yet, to lift her afar, afar--\n  A torture-changed spirit, a voice of Hell\n    Wrought of old wrongs and war!\n\n                _Others._\n\n              Alas for the mother's pain\n                Wasted! Alas the dear\n              Life that was born in vain!\n                Woman, what mak'st thou here,\n              Thou from beyond the Gate\n                Where dim Symplegades\n                Clash in the dark blue seas,\n              The shores where death doth wait?\n              Why hast thou taken on thee,\n                To make us desolate,\n              This anger of misery\n                  And guilt of hate?\nFor fierce are the smitings back of blood once shed\n  Where love hath been: God's wrath upon them that kill,\nAnd an anguished earth, and the wonder of the dead\n      Haunting as music still. . . .\n\n                                   [_A cry is heard within._\n\n               _A Woman._\n\nHark! Did ye hear? Heard ye the children's cry?\n\n               _Another._\n\n  O miserable woman! O abhorred!\n\n            _A Child within._\n\n    What shall I do? What is it? Keep me fast\n      From mother!\n\n            _The Other Child._\n\n                     I know nothing. Brother! Oh,\n      I think she means to kill us.\n\n               _A Woman._\n\n                                  Let me go!\n    I will--Help! Help!--and save them at the last.\n\n               _A Child._\n\nYes, in God's name! Help quickly ere we die!\n\n            _The Other Child._\n\n  She has almost caught me now. She has a sword.\n\n           [_Many of the Women are now beating at the barred\n              door to get in. Others are standing apart._\n\n           _Women at the door._\n\nThou stone, thou thing of iron! Wilt verily\n  Spill with thine hand that life, the vintage stored\n          Of thine own agony?\n\n            _The Other Women._\n\nA Mother slew her babes in days of yore,\n  One, only one, from dawn to eventide,\n    Ino, god-maddened, whom the Queen of Heaven\n      Set frenzied, flying to the dark: and she\n      Cast her for sorrow to the wide salt sea,\n    Forth from those rooms of murder unforgiven,\nWild-footed from a white crag of the shore,\n  And clasping still her children twain, she died.\n\nO Love of Woman, charged with sorrow sore,\n  What hast thou wrought upon us? What beside\n          Resteth to tremble for?\n\n                  [_Enter hurriedly_ JASON _and Attendants_.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nYe women by this doorway clustering\nSpeak, is the doer of the ghastly thing\nYet here, or fled? What hopeth she of flight?\nShall the deep yawn to shield her? Shall the height\nSend wings, and hide her in the vaulted sky\nTo work red murder on her lords, and fly\nUnrecompensed? But let her go! My care\nIs but to save my children, not for her.\nLet them she wronged requite her as they may.\nI care not. 'Tis my sons I must some way\nSave, ere the kinsmen of the dead can win\nFrom them the payment of their mother's sin.\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nUnhappy man, indeed thou knowest not\nWhat dark place thou art come to! Else, God wot,\nJason, no word like these could fall from thee.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nWhat is it?--Ha! The woman would kill me?\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nThy sons are dead, slain by their mother's hand.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nHow? Not the children. . . . I scarce understand. . . .\nO God, thou hast broken me!\n\n                 LEADER.\n\n                                   Think of those twain\nAs things once fair, that ne'er shall bloom again.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nWhere did she murder them? In that old room?\n\n                 LEADER.\n\nOpen, and thou shalt see thy children's doom.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nHo, thralls! Unloose me yonder bars! Make more\nOf speed! Wrench out the jointing of the door.\nAnd show my two-edged curse, the children dead,\nThe woman. . . . Oh, this sword upon her head. . . .\n\n           [_While the Attendants are still battering at the\n              door_ MEDEA _appears on the roof, standing on\n              a chariot of winged Dragons, in which are the\n              children's bodies_.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nWhat make ye at my gates? Why batter ye\nWith brazen bars, seeking the dead and me\nWho slew them? Peace! . . . And thou, if aught of mine\nThou needest, speak, though never touch of thine\nShall scathe me more. Out of his firmament\nMy fathers' father, the high Sun, hath sent\nThis, that shall save me from mine enemies' rage.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nThou living hate! Thou wife in every age\nAbhorred, blood-red mother, who didst kill\nMy sons, and make me as the dead: and still\nCanst take the sunshine to thine eyes, and smell\nThe green earth, reeking from thy deed of hell;\nI curse thee! Now, Oh, now mine eyes can see,\nThat then were blinded, when from savagery\nOf eastern chambers, from a cruel land,\nTo Greece and home I gathered in mine hand\nThee, thou incarnate curse: one that betrayed\nHer home, her father, her . . . Oh, God hath laid\nThy sins on me!--I knew, I knew, there lay\nA brother murdered on thy hearth that day\nWhen thy first footstep fell on Argo's hull. . . .\nArgo, my own, my swift and beautiful\n  That was her first beginning. Then a wife\nI made her in my house. She bore to life\nChildren: and now for love, for chambering\nAnd men's arms, she hath murdered them! A thing\nNot one of all the maids of Greece, not one,\nHad dreamed of; whom I spurned, and for mine own\nChose thee, a bride of hate to me and death,\nTigress, not woman, beast of wilder breath\nThan Skylla shrieking o'er the Tuscan sea.\nEnough! No scorn of mine can reach to thee,\nSuch iron is o'er thine eyes. Out from my road,\nThou crime-begetter, blind with children's blood!\nAnd let me weep alone the bitter tide\nThat sweepeth Jason's days, no gentle bride\nTo speak with more, no child to look upon\nWhom once I reared . . . all, all for ever gone!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAn easy answer had I to this swell\nOf speech, but Zeus our father knoweth well,\nAll I for thee have wrought, and thou for me.\nSo let it rest. This thing was not to be,\nThat thou shouldst live a merry life, my bed\nForgotten and my heart uncomforted,\nThou nor thy princess: nor the king that planned\nThy marriage drive Medea from his land,\nAnd suffer not. Call me what thing thou please,\nTigress or Skylla from the Tuscan seas:\nMy claws have gripped thine heart, and all things shine.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nThou too hast grief. Thy pain is fierce as mine.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nI love the pain, so thou shalt laugh no more.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nOh, what a womb of sin my children bore!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nSons, did ye perish for your father's shame?\n\n                 JASON.\n\nHow? It was not my hand that murdered them.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n'Twas thy false wooings, 'twas thy trampling pride.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nThou hast said it! For thy lust of love they died.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nAnd love to women a slight thing should be?\n\n                 JASON.\n\nTo women pure!--All thy vile life to thee!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nThink of thy torment. They are dead, they are dead!\n\n                 JASON.\n\nNo: quick, great God; quick curses round thy head!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nThe Gods know who began this work of woe.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nThy heart and all its loathliness they know.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nLoathe on. . . . But, Oh, thy voice. It hurts me sore.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nAye, and thine me. Wouldst hear me then no more?\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nHow? Show me but the way. 'Tis this I crave.\n\n                 JASON.\n\nGive me the dead to weep, and make their grave.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\nNever! Myself will lay them in a still\nGreen sepulchre, where Hera by the Hill\nHath precinct holy, that no angry men\nMay break their graves and cast them forth again\nTo evil. So I lay on all this shore\nOf Corinth a high feast for evermore\nAnd rite, to purge them yearly of the stain\nOf this poor blood. And I, to Pallas' plain\nI go, to dwell beside Pandion's son,\nAegeus.--For thee, behold, death draweth on,\nEvil and lonely, like thine heart: the hands\nOf thine old Argo, rotting where she stands,\nShall smite thine head in twain, and bitter be\nTo the last end thy memories of me.\n\n       [_She rises on the chariot and is slowly borne away._\n\n                 JASON.\n\n    May They that hear the weeping child\n      Blast thee, and They that walk in blood!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n    Thy broken vows, thy friends beguiled\n      Have shut for thee the ears of God.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n    Go, thou art wet with children's tears!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n      Go thou, and lay thy bride to sleep.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n      Childless, I go, to weep and weep.\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n    Not yet! Age cometh and long years.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n    My sons, mine own!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                      Not thine, but mine . . .\n\n                 JASON.\n\n    . . . Who slew them!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n                          Yes: to torture thee.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n    Once let me kiss their lips, once twine\n      Mine arms and touch. . . . Ah, woe is me!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n    Wouldst love them and entreat? But now\n      They were as nothing.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n                                 At the last,\n    O God, to touch that tender brow!\n\n                 MEDEA.\n\n      Thy words upon the wind are cast.\n\n                 JASON.\n\n    Thou, Zeus, wilt hear me. All is said\n      For naught. I am but spurned away\n    And trampled by this tigress, red\n      With children's blood. Yet, come what may,\n    So far as thou hast granted, yea,\n      So far as yet my strength may stand,\n    I weep upon these dead, and say\n      Their last farewell, and raise my hand\n\n    To all the daemons of the air\n      In witness of these things; how she\n      Who slew them, will not suffer me\n    To gather up my babes, nor bear\n    To earth their bodies; whom, O stone\n    Of women, would I ne'er had known\n      Nor gotten, to be slain by thee!\n\n                         [_He casts himself upon the earth._\n\n                 CHORUS.\n\n      Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven,\n      From whence to man strange dooms be given,\n              Past hope or fear.\n      And the end men looked for cometh not,\n      And a path is there where no man thought:\n              So hath it fallen here.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES TO MEDEA\n\n\nP. 3, l. 2, To Colchis through the blue Symplegades.]--The Symplegades\n(\"Clashing\") or Kuaneai (\"Dark blue\") were two rocks in the sea which\nused to clash together and crush anything that was between them. They\nstood above the north end of the Bosphorus and formed the Gate (l. 1264,\np. 70) to the Axeinos Pontos, or \"Stranger-less Sea,\" where all Greeks\nwere murdered. At the farthest eastern end of that sea was the land of\nColchis.\n\nP. 3, l. 3, Pelion.]--The great mountain in Thessaly. Iolcos, a little\nkingdom between Pelion and the sea, ruled originally by Aeson, Jason's\nfather, then by the usurping Pelias.\n\nP. 3, l. 9, Daughters of Pelias.]--See Introduction, p. vii.\n\nP. 4, l. 18, Wed.]--Medea was not legally married to Jason, and could\nnot be, though in common parlance he is sometimes called her husband.\nIntermarriage between the subjects of two separate states was not\npossible in antiquity without a special treaty. And naturally there was\nno such treaty with Colchis.\n\nThis is, I think, the view of the play, and corresponds to the normal\nAthenian conceptions of society. In the original legend it is likely\nenough that Medea belongs to \"matriarchal\" times before the institution\nof marriage.\n\nP. 4, l. 18, Head of Corinth.]--A peculiar word ([Greek: aisumnan])\nafterwards used to translate the Roman _dictator_. Creon is, however,\napparently descended from the ancient king Sisyphus.\n\nP. 4, l. 40, She hath a blade made keen, &c.]--These lines (40, 41) are\nrepeated in a different context later on, p. 23, ll. 379, 380. The sword\nwhich to the Nurse suggested suicide was really meant for murder. There\nis a similar and equally dramatic repetition of the lines about the\ncrown and wreath (786, 949, pp. 46, 54), and of those about the various\ncharacters popularly attributed to Medea (ll. 304, 808, pp. 18, 46).\n\nP. 5, l. 48, ATTENDANT.]--Greek _Paidagogos_, or \"pedagogue\"; a\nconfidential servant who escorted the boys to and from school, and in\nsimilar ways looked after them. Notice the rather light and cynical\ncharacter of this man, compared with the tenderness of the Nurse.\n\nP. 5, l. 57, To this still earth and sky.]--Not a mere stage\nexplanation. It was the ancient practice, if you had bad dreams or\nterrors of the night, to \"show\" them to the Sun in the morning, that he\nmight clear them away.\n\nP. 8, l. 111, Have I not suffered?]--Medea is apparently answering some\nwould-be comforter. Cf. p. 4. (\"If friends will speak,\" &c.)\n\nP. 9, l. 131, CHORUS.]--As Dr. Verrall has remarked, the presence of the\nChorus is in this play unusually awkward from the dramatic point of\nview. Medea's plot demands most absolute secrecy; and it is incredible\nthat fifteen Corinthian women, simply because they were women, should\nallow a half-mad foreigner to murder several people, including their\nown Corinthian king and princess--who was a woman also--rather than\nreveal her plot. We must remember in palliation (1) that these women\nbelong to the faction in Corinth which was friendly to Medea and hostile\nto Creon; (2) that the appeal to them as women had more force in\nantiquity than it would now, and the princess had really turned traitor\nto her sex. (See note on this subject at the end of the present writer's\ntranslation of the _Electra_.) (3) The non-interference of the Chorus\nseems monstrous: yet in ancient times, when law was weak and punishment\nwas chiefly the concern of the injured persons, and of no one else, the\nreluctance of bystanders to interfere was much greater than it is now in\nan ordered society. Some oriental countries, and perhaps even California\nor Texas, could afford us some startling instances of impassiveness\namong bystanders.\n\nP. 12, l. 167, Oh, wild words!]--The Nurse breaks in, hoping to drown\nher mistress's dangerous self-betrayal. Medea's murder of her brother\n(see Introduction, p. vi) was by ordinary standards her worst act, and\nseems not to have been known in Corinth. It forms the climax of Jason's\ndenunciation, l. 1334, p. 74.\n\nP. 13, l. 190, Alas, the brave blithe bards, &c.]--Who is the speaker?\nAccording to the MSS. the Nurse, and there is some difficulty in taking\nthe lines from her. Yet (1) she has no reason to sing a song outside\nafter saying that she is going in; and (2) it is quite necessary that\nshe should take a little time indoors persuading Medea to come out. The\nwords seem to suit the lips of an impersonal Chorus.\n\nThe general sense of the poem is interesting. It is an apology for\ntragedy. It gives the tragic poet's conception of the place of his art\nin the service of humanity, as against the usual feeling of the public,\nwhose serious work is devoted to something else, and who \"go to a play\nto be amused.\"\n\nP. 14, l. 214, Women of Corinth, I am come, &c.]--These opening lines\nare a well-known _crux interpretum_. It is interesting to note, (1) that\nthe Roman poet Ennius (ca. 200 B.C.) who translated the _Medea_, did not\nunderstand them in the least; while, on the other hand, the earliest\nGreek commentators seem not to have noticed that there was any\ndifficulty in them worth commenting upon. That implies that while the\nacting tradition was alive and unbroken, the lines were easily\nunderstood; but when once the tradition failed, the meaning was lost.\n(The first commentator who deals with the passage is Irenaeus, a scholar\nof the Augustan time.)\n\nP. 15, l. 231, A herb most bruised is woman.]--This fine statement of\nthe wrongs of women in Athens doubtless contains a great deal of the\npoet's own mind; but from the dramatic point of view it is justified in\nseveral ways. (1) Medea is seeking for a common ground on which to\nappeal to the Corinthian women. (2) She herself is now in the position\nof all others in which a woman is most hardly treated as compared with a\nman. (3) Besides this, one can see that, being a person of great powers\nand vehement will, she feels keenly her lack of outlet. If she had men's\nwork to do, she could be a hero: debarred from proper action (from\n[Greek: to prassein], _Hip._ 1019) she is bound to make mischief. Cf. p.\n24, ll. 408, 409. \"Things most vain, &c.\"\n\nThere is a slight anachronism in applying the Attic system of doweries\nto primitive times. Medea's contemporaries either lived in a\n\"matriarchal\" system without any marriage, or else were bought by their\nhusbands for so many cows.\n\nP. 17, l. 271, CREON.]--Observe the somewhat archaic abruptness of this\nscene, a sign of the early date of the play.\n\nP. 18, l. 295, Wise beyond men's wont.]--Medea was a \"wise woman\" which\nin her time meant much the same as a witch or enchantress. She did\nreally know more than other women; but most of this extra knowledge\nconsisted--or was supposed to consist--either in lore of poisons and\ncharms, or in useless learning and speculation.\n\nP. 18, l. 304, A seed of strife, an Eastern dreamer, &c.]--The meaning\nof these various \"ill names\" is not certain. Cf. l. 808, p. 46. Most\nscholars take [Greek: thaterou tropou] (\"of the other sort\") to mean\n\"the opposite of a dreamer.\"\n\nP. 20, ll. 333-4, What would I with thy pains?]--A conceit almost in the\nElizabethan style, as if by taking \"pains\" away from Creon, she would\nhave them herself.\n\nP. 20, l. 335, Not that! Not that!]--Observe what a dislike Medea has of\nbeing touched: cf. l. 370 (\"my flesh been never stained,\" &c.) and l.\n496 (\"poor, poor right hand of mine!\"), pp. 22, and 28.\n\nP. 22, l. 364, Defeat on every side.]--Observe (1) that in this speech\nMedea's vengeance is to take the form of a clear fight to the death\nagainst the three guilty persons. It is both courageous and, judged by\nthe appropriate standard, just. (2) She wants to save her own life, not\nfrom cowardice, but simply to make her revenge more complete. To kill\nher enemies and escape is victory. To kill them and die with them is\nonly a drawn battle. Other enemies will live and \"laugh.\" (3) Already in\nthis first soliloquy there is a suggestion of that strain of madness\nwhich becomes unmistakable later on in the play. (\"Oh, I have tried so\nmany thoughts of murder,\" &c., and especially the lashing of her own\nfury, \"Awake thee now, Medea.\")\n\nP. 24, l. 405, Thief's daughter: lit. \"a child of Sisyphus.\"]--Sisyphus,\nan ancient king of Corinth, was one of the well-known sinners punished\nin Tartarus. Medea's father, Aietes, was a brother of Circe, and born of\nthe Sun.\n\nP. 24, l. 409, Things most vain for help.]--See on ll. 230 ff.\n\nP. 24. ll. 410-430, CHORUS.]--The song celebrates the coming triumph of\nWoman in her rebellion against Man; not by any means Woman as typifying\nthe domestic virtues, but rather as the downtrodden, uncivilised,\nunreasoning, and fiercely emotional half of humanity. A woman who in\ndefence of her honour and her rights will die sword in hand, slaying the\nman who wronged her, seems to the Chorus like a deliverer of the whole\nsex.\n\nP. 24. l. 421, Old bards.]--Early literature in most countries contains\na good deal of heavy satire on women: _e.g._ Hesiod's \"Who trusts a\nwoman trusts a thief;\" or Phocylides' \"Two days of a woman are very\nsweet: when you marry her and when you carry her to her grave.\"\n\nIt is curious how the four main Choruses of the _Medea_ are divided\neach into two parts, distinct in subject and in metre.\n\nP. 25, l. 439, Faith is no more sweet.]--Copied from a beautiful passage\nin Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 198 ff.: \"There shall be no more sweetness\nfound in the faithful man nor the righteous. . . . And at last up to\nOlympus from the wide-wayed earth, shrouding with white raiment their\nbeautiful faces, go Ruth and Rebuking.\" (Aidos and Nemesis: _i.e._ the\nRuth or Shame that you feel with reference to your own actions, and the\nIndignation or Disapproval that others feel.)\n\nP. 27, ll. 478 ff., Bulls of fiery breath.]--Among the tasks set him by\nAietes, Jason had to yoke two fire-breathing bulls, and plough with them\na certain Field of Ares, sow the field with dragon's teeth, and reap a\nharvest of earth-born or giant warriors which sprang from the seed. When\nall this was done, there remained the ancient serpent coiled round the\ntree where the Golden Fleece was hanging.\n\nP. 29, l. 507, The first friends who sheltered me.]--_i.e._ the kindred\nof Pelias.\n\nP. 29, l. 509, Blest of many a maid in Hellas.]--Jason was, of course,\nthe great romantic hero of his time. Cf. his own words, l. 1340, p. 74.\n\nPp. 29 ff., ll. 523-575.--Jason's defence is made the weaker by his\nreluctance to be definitely insulting to Medea. He dares not say: \"You\nthink that, because you conceived a violent passion for me,--to which, I\nadmit, I partly responded--I must live with you always; but the truth\nis, you are a savage with whom a civilised man cannot go on living.\"\nThis point comes out unveiled in his later speech, l. 1329, ff., p. 74.\n\nP. 30, ll. 536 ff., Our ordered life and justice.]--Jason has brought\nthe benefits of civilisation to Medea! He is doubtless sincere, but the\npeculiar ironic cruelty of the plea is obvious.\n\nP. 30, ll. 541 ff., The story of Great Medea, &c. . . . Unless our deeds\nhave glory.]--This, I think, is absolutely sincere. To Jason ambition is\neverything. And, as Medea has largely shared his great deeds with him,\nhe thinks that she cannot but feel the same. It seems to him\ncontemptible that her mere craving for personal love should outweigh all\nthe possible glories of life.\n\nP. 31, l. 565, What more need hast thou of children?]--He only means,\n\"of more children than you now have.\" But the words suggest to Medea a\ndifferent meaning, and sow in her mind the first seed of the\nchild-murder. See on the Aegeus scene below.\n\nP. 34, l. 608, A living curse.]--Though she spoke no word, the existence\nof a being so deeply wronged would be a curse on her oppressors. So a\nmurdered man's blood, or an involuntary cry of pain (Aesch. _Ag._ 237)\non the part of an injured person is in itself fraught with a curse.\n\nP. 35. ll. 627-641, CHORUS. Alas, the Love, &c.]--A highly\ncharacteristic Euripidean poem, keenly observant of fact, yet with a\nlyrical note penetrating all its realism. A love which really produces\n\"good to man and glory,\" is treated in the next chorus, l. 844 ff., p.\n49.\n\nPp. 37 ff., ll. 663-759, AEGEUS.]--This scene is generally considered\nto be a mere blot on the play, not, I think, justly. It is argued that\nthe obvious purpose which the scene serves, the provision of an asylum\nfor Medea, has no keen dramatic interest. The spectator would just as\nsoon, or sooner, have her die. And, besides, her actual mode of escape\nis largely independent of Aegeus. Further, the arrival of Aegeus at this\nmoment seems to be a mere coincidence (_Ar. Poetics_, 61 b, 23), and one\ncannot help suspecting that the Athenian poet was influenced by mere\nlocal interests in dragging in the Athenian king and the praises of\nAthens where they were not specially appropriate.\n\nTo these criticisms one may make some answer. (1) As to the coincidence,\nit is important to remember always that Greek tragedies are primarily\nhistorical plays, not works of fiction. They are based on definite\n_Logoi_ or traditions (_Frogs_, l. 1052. p. 254) and therefore can, and\nshould, represent accidental coincidences when it was a datum of the\ntradition that these coincidences actually happened. By Aristotle's time\nthe practice had changed. The tragedies of his age were essentially\nfiction; and he tends to criticise the ancient tragedies by fictional\nstandards.\n\nNow it was certainly a datum in the Medea legend that she took refuge\nwith Aegeus, King of Athens, and was afterwards an enemy to his son\nTheseus; but I think we may go further. This play pretty certainly has\nfor its foundation the rites performed by the Corinthians at the Grave\nof the Children of Medea in the precinct of Hera Acraia near Corinth.\nSee on l. 1379. p. 77. The legend in such cases is usually invented to\nexplain the ritual; and I suspect that in the ritual, and,\nconsequently, in the legend, there were two other data: first, a pursuit\nof Medea and her flight on a dragon-chariot, and, secondly, a meeting\nbetween Medea and Aegeus. (Both subjects are frequent on vase paintings,\nand may well be derived from historical pictures in some temple at\nCorinth.)\n\nThus, the meeting with Aegeus is probably not the free invention of\nEuripides, but one of the data supplied to him by his subject. But he\nhas made it serve, as von Arnim was the first to perceive, a remarkable\ndramatic purpose. Aegeus was under a curse of childlessness, and his\ndesolate condition suggests to Medea the ultimate form of her vengeance.\nShe will make Jason childless. Cf. l. 670, \"Children! Ah God, art\nchildless?\" (A childless king in antiquity was a miserable object:\nlikely to be deposed and dishonoured, and to miss his due worship after\ndeath. See the fragments of Euripides' _Oineus_.)\n\nThere is also a further purpose in the scene, of a curious and\ncharacteristic kind. In several plays of Euripides, when a heroine\nhesitates on the verge of a crime, the thing that drives her over the\nbrink is some sudden and violent lowering of her self-respect. Thus\nPhaedra writes her false letter immediately after her public shame.\nCreusa in the _Ion_ turns murderous only after crying in the god's ears\nthe story of her seduction. Medea, a princess and, as we have seen, a\nwoman of rather proud chastity, feels, after the offer which she makes\nto Aegeus in this scene (l. 716 ff., p. 42). that she need shrink from\nnothing.\n\nP. 38, l. 681, The hearth-stone of my sires of yore.]--This sounds\nas if it meant Aegeus' own house: in reality, by an oracular riddle, it\nmeant the house of Pittheus, by whose daughter, Aethra, Aegeus became\nthe father of Theseus.\n\nP. 43, l. 731, An oath wherein to trust.]--Observe that Medea is\ndeceiving Aegeus. She intends to commit a murder before going to him,\nand therefore wishes to bind him down so firmly that, however much he\nwish to repudiate her, he shall be unable. Hence this insistence on the\noath and the exact form of the oath. (At this time, apparently, she\nscarcely thinks of the children, only of her revenge.)\n\nP. 46, l. 808, No eastern dreamer, &c.]--See on l. 304.\n\nP. 47. l. 820, _The_ NURSE _comes out_.]--There is no indication in the\noriginal to show who comes out. But it is certainly a woman; as\ncertainly it is not one of the Chorus; and Medea's words suit the Nurse\nwell. It is an almost devilish act to send the Nurse, who would have\ndied rather than take such a message had she understood it.\n\nP. 48, ll. 824--846, The sons of Erechtheus, &c.]--This poem is\ninteresting as showing the ideal conception of Athens entertained by a\nfifth century Athenian. One might compare with it Pericles' famous\nspeech in Thucydides, ii., where the emphasis is laid on Athenian \"plain\nliving and high thinking\" and the freedom of daily life. Or, again, the\nspeeches of Aethra in Euripides' _Suppliant Women_, where more stress is\nlaid on mercy and championship of the oppressed.\n\nThe allegory of \"Harmony,\" as a sort of Kore, or Earth-maiden, planted\nby all the Muses in the soil of Attica, seems to be an invention of the\npoet. Not any given Art or Muse, but a spirit which unites and\nharmonises all, is the special spirit of Athens. The Attic connection\nwith Eros, on the other hand, is old and traditional. But Euripides has\ntransformed the primitive nature-god into a mystic and passionate\nlonging for \"all manner of high deed,\" a Love which, different from that\ndescribed in the preceding chorus, really ennobles human life.\n\nThis first part of the Chorus is, of course, suggested by Aegeus; the\nsecond is more closely connected with the action of the play. \"How can\nMedea dream of asking that stainless land to shelter her crimes? But the\nwhole plan of her revenge is not only wicked but impossible. She simply\ncould not do such a thing, if she tried.\"\n\nPp. 50 ff., l. 869, The second scene with Jason.]--Dicaearchus, and\nperhaps his master Aristotle also, seems to have complained of Medea's\nbursting into tears in this scene, instead of acting her part\nconsistently--a very prejudiced criticism. What strikes one about\nMedea's assumed role is that in it she remains so like herself and so\nunlike another woman. Had she really determined to yield to Jason, she\nwould have done so in just this way, keen-sighted and yet passionate.\nOne is reminded of the deceits of half-insane persons, which are due not\nso much to conscious art as to the emergence of another side of the\npersonality.\n\nP. 54, l. 949, Fine robings, &c.]--Repeated from l. 786, p. 46, where it\ncame full in the midst of Medea's avowal of her murderous purpose. It\nstartles one here, almost as though she had spoken out the word \"murder\"\nin some way which Jason could not understand.\n\nP. 56, l. 976, CHORUS.]--The inaction of the Chorus women during the\nlast scene will not bear thinking about, if we regard them as real human\nbeings, like, for instance, the Bacchae and the Trojan Women in the plays\nthat bear their name. Still there is not only beauty, but, I think,\ngreat dramatic value in the conventional and almost mystical quality of\nthis Chorus, and also in the low and quiet tone of that which follows,\nl. 1081 ff.\n\nP. 59, ll. 1021 ff., Why does Medea kill her children?]--She acts not\nfor one clearly stated reason, like a heroine in Sardou, but for many\nreasons, both conscious and subconscious, as people do in real life. Any\nanalysis professing to be exact would be misleading, but one may note\nsome elements in her feeling: (1) She had played dangerously long with\nthe notion of making Jason childless. (2) When she repented of this (l.\n1046, p. 60) the children had already been made the unconscious\nmurderers of the princess. They were certain to be slain, perhaps with\ntortures, by the royal kindred. (3) Medea might take them with her to\nAthens and trust to the hope of Aegeus' being able and willing to\nprotect them. But it was a doubtful chance, and she would certainly be\nin a position of weakness and inferiority if she had the children to\nprotect. (4) In the midst of her passionate half-animal love for the\nchildren, there was also an element of hatred, because they were\nJason's: cf. l. 112, p. 8. (5) She also seems to feel, in a sort of\nwild-beast way, that by killing them she makes them more her own: cf. l.\n793, p. 46, \"Mine, whom no hand shall steal from me away;\" l. 1241, p,\n68, \"touched of none beside.\" (6) Euripides had apparently observed how\ncommon it is, when a woman's mind is deranged by suffering, that her\nmadness takes the form of child-murder. The terrible lines in which\nMedea speaks to the \"Wrath\" within her, as if it were a separate being\n(l. 1056, p. 60), seem to bear out this view.\n\nP. 59. l. 1038, Other shapes of life.]--A mystical conception of death.\nCf. _Ion_, 1067, where almost exactly the same phrase is used.\n\nP. 61, l. 1078, I know to what bad deeds, &c.]--This expression of\ndouble consciousness was immensely famous in antiquity. It is quoted by\nLucian, Plutarch, Clement, Galen, Synesius, Hierocles, Arrian,\nSimpicius, besides being imitated, _e.g._ by Ovid: \"video meliora\nproboque, Deteriora sequor.\"\n\nP. 63, l. 1123 ff., MESSENGER.]--A pendant to the Attendant's entrance\nabove, l. 1002. The Attendant, bringing apparently good news, is\nreceived with a moan of despair, the Messenger of calamity with serene\nsatisfaction. Cf. the Messenger who announces the death of Pentheus in\nthe _Bacchae_.\n\nP. 65, l. 1162, Dead self.]--The reflection in the glass, often regarded\nas ominous or uncanny in some way.\n\nP. 66, l. 1176, The cry turned strangely to its opposite.]--The\nnotion was that an evil spirit could be scared away by loud cheerful\nshouts--_ololugae_. But while this old woman is making an _ololuge_, she\nsees that the trouble is graver than she thought, and the cheerful cry\nturns into a wail.\n\nP. 68, l. 1236, Women, my mind is clear.]--With the silence in which\nMedea passes over the success of her vengeance compare Theseus' words,\n_Hip._, l. 1260, \"I laugh not, neither weep, at this fell doom.\"\n\nP. 69, l. 1249, Thou shalt weep hereafter.]--Cf. _Othello_, v. ii., \"Be\nthus when thou art dead, and I will kiss thee, And love thee after.\"\n\nP. 69, ll. 1251 ff.--This curious prayer to the Sun to \"save\"\nMedea--both from the crime of killing her children and the misfortune of\nbeing caught by her enemies--is apparently meant to prepare us for the\nscene of the Dragon Chariot. Notice the emphasis laid on the divine\norigin of Medea's race and her transformation to \"a voice of Hell.\"\n\nP. 71, ll. 1278 ff., Death of the children.]--The door is evidently\nbarred, since Jason has to use crowbars to open it in l. 1317. Cf. the\nend of Maeterlinck's _Mort de Tintagiles_.\n\nP. 71, l. 1281, A mother slew her babes in days of yore, &c.]--Ino, wife\nof Athamas, King of Thebes, nursed the infant Dionysus. For this Hera\npunished her with madness. She killed her two children, Learchus and\nMelicertes, and leaped into the sea. (There are various versions of the\nstory.)--Observe the technique: just as the strain is becoming\nintolerable, we are turned away from tragedy to pure poetry. See on\n_Hip._ 731.\n\nP. 74, l. 1320, This, that shall save me from mine enemies'\nrage.]--There is nothing in the words of the play to show what \"this\"\nis, but the Scholiast explains it as a chariot drawn by winged serpents,\nand the stage tradition seems to be clear on the subject. See note to\nthe Aegeus scene (p. 88).\n\nThis first appearance of Medea \"above, on the tower\" (Scholiast) seems\nto me highly effective. The result is to make Medea into something like\na _dea ex machina_, who prophesies and pronounces judgment. See\nIntroduction.\n\nP. 76, l. 1370, They are dead, they are dead!]--This wrangle, though\nrather like some scenes in Norse sagas, is strangely discordant for a\nGreek play. It seems as if Euripides had deliberately departed from his\nusual soft and reflective style of ending in order to express the\npeculiar note of discord which is produced by the so-called\n\"satisfaction\" of revenge. Medea's curious cry: \"Oh, thy voice! It hurts\nme sore!\" shows that the effect is intentional.\n\nP. 77, l. 1379, A still green sepulchre.]--There was a yearly festival\nin the precinct of Hera Acraia, near Corinth, celebrating the deaths of\nMedea's children. This festival, together with its ritual and \"sacred\nlegend,\" evidently forms the germ of the whole tragedy. Cf. the\nTrozenian rites over the tomb of Hippolytus, _Hip._ 1424 ff.\n\nP. 77, l. 1386, The hands of thine old Argo.]--Jason, left friendless\nand avoided by his kind, went back to live with his old ship, now\nrotting on the shore. While he was sleeping under it, a beam of wood\nfell upon him and broke his head. It is a most grave mistake to treat\nthe line as spurious.\n\n\n\n\n_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\n\nHISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE.\n\nANDROMACHE: A Play.\n\nCARLYON SAHIB: A Play.\n\nTHE EXPLOITATION OF INFERIOR RACES, IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES:\n  An Essay in \"Liberalism and the Empire.\"\n\nEURIPIDIS FABULAE: Brevi Adnotatione Critica Instructae,\n  Vols. I. and II.\n\nEURIPIDES: Hippolytus; Bacchae; Aristophanes' 'Frogs.'\n  Translated into English verse.\n\nEURIPIDES: The Trojan Women. Translated into English verse.\n\nEURIPIDES: Electra. Translated into English verse.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE\n\nThe following changes were made to the original text:\nPage 40: mav --> may\nPage 42: eves --> eyes\nPage 81: P[)e]lias --> Pelias\n\nOther than the addition of missing periods, minor variations in\nspelling and punctuation have been preserved.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Medea of Euripides","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":20797}