The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (56 page)

He feared the power of Creon and Acastus’ threats?

True love is proof against the fear of man. But grant

He was compelled to yield, and pledged his hand in fear:

He might at least have sought his wife with one last word

Of comfort and farewell. But this, though brave in heart,

He feared to do. The cruel terms of banishment

Could Creon’s son-in-law not soften? No. One day

Alone was giv’n for last farewell to both my babes.

But time’s short space I’ll not bewail; though brief in hours,

In consequence it stretches out eternally.

This day shall see a deed that ne‘er shall be forgot.

But now I’ll go and pray the gods, and move high heaven

But I shall work my will!

NURSE: Thy heart all passion-tossed,

I pray thee, mistress, soothe, and calm thy troubled soul.

MEDEA: My troubled soul can never know a time of rest

Until it sees all things o‘erwhelmed in common doom.

All must go down with me! ‘Tis sweet such death to die.

NURSE
(calling after her):
Oh, think what perils thou must meet if thou persist!

No one with safety may defy a sceptered king.

JASON: 0 heartless fate, if frowns or smiles bedeck thy brow,

How often are thy cures far worse than the disease

They seek to cure! If, now, I wish to keep the troth

I plighted to my lawful bride, my life must pay

The forfeit; if I shrink from death, my guilty soul

Must perjured be. I fear no power that man can wield;

But in my heart paternal love unmans me quite;

For well I know that in my death my children’s fate

Is sealed. O sacred Justice, if in heaven thou dwell‘st,

Be witness now, that for my children’s sake I act.

Nay, sure am I that even she, Medea’s self,

Though fierce she is of soul and brooking no restraint,

Will see her children’s good outweighing all her wrongs.

With this good argument my purpose now is fixed,

In humble wise to brave her wrath.

At sight of me

Her raging fury flames anew! Hate, like a shield,

She bears, and in her face is pictured all her woe.

MEDEA: Thou see‘st, Jason, that we flee. ’Tis no new thing

To suffer exile, but the cause of flight is strange;

For with thee I was wont to flee, not from thee. Yes,

I go. But whither dost thou send me whom thou driv‘st

From ouc thy home? Shall I the Colchians seek again,

My royal father’s realm, whose soil is steeped in blood

My brother shed? What country dost thou bid me seek?

What way by sea is open? Shall I fare again

Where once I saved the noble kings of Greece, and thee,

Thou wanton, through the threatening jaws of Pontus’ strait,

The blue Symplegades? Or shall I hie me back

To fair Thessalia’s realms? Lo, all the doors which I,

For thee, have opened wide, I’ve closed upon myself.

But whither dost thou send me now? Thou bid‘st me flee,

But show‘st no way or means of flight.

But ‘tis enough:

The king’s own son-in-law commands and I obey.

Come, heap thy torments on me; I deserve them all.

Let royal wrath oppress me, wanton that I am,

With cruel hand, and load my guilty limbs with chains;

And let me be immured in dungeons black as night:

Still will my punishment be less than my offense.

O ingrate! hast thou then forgot the brazen bull,

And his consuming breath? the fear that smote thee, when,

Upon the field of Mars, the earth-born brood stood forth

To meet thy single sword? ‘Twas by my arts that they,

The monsters, fell by mutual blows. Remember, too,

The long-sought fleece of gold I won for thee, whose guard,

The dragon huge, was lulled to rest at my command;

My brother slain for thee. For thee old Pelias fell,

When, taken by my guile, his daughters slew their sire,

Whose life could not return. All this I did for thee.

In quest of thine advantage have I quite forgot

Mine own.

And now, by all thy fond paternal hopes,

By thine established house, by all the monsters slain

For thee, by these my hands which I have ever held

To work thy will, by all the perils past, by heaven

And sea that witnessed at my wedlock, pity me!

Since thou art blessed, restore me what I lost for thee:

That countless treasure plundered from the swarthy tribes

Of India, which filled our goodly vaults with wealth, And decked our very trees with gold. This costly store

I left for thee, my native land, my brother, sire,

My reputation—all; and with this dower I came.

If now to homeless exile thou dost send me forth,

Give back the countless treasures which I left for thee.

JASON: Though Creon in a vengeful mood would have thy life,

I moved him by my tears to grant thee flight instead.

MEDEA: I thought my exile punishment; ‘tis now, I see,

A gracious boon!

JASON: Oh, flee while still the respite holds;

Provoke him not, for deadly is the wrath of kings.

MEDEA: Not so. ‘Tis for Creüsa’s love thou sayest this;

Thou wouldst remove the hated wanton once thy wife.

JASON: Dost thou reproach me with a guilty love?

MEDEA: Yea, that,

And murder too, and treachery.

JASON: But name me now,

If so thou canst, the crimes that I have done.

MEDEA: Thy crimes—

Whatever I have done.

JASON: Why then, in truth, thy guilt

Must all be mine, if all thy crimes are mine.

MEDEA: They are,

They are all thine; for who by sin advantage gains,

Commits the sin. All men proclaim thy wife defiled.

Do thou thyself protect her, and condone her sin.

Let her be guiltless in thine eyes who for thy gain

Has sinned.

JASON: But gifts which sin has bought ‘twere shame to take.

MEDEA: Why keep‘st thou then the gifts which it were shame to take?

JASON: Nay, curb thy fiery soul! Thy children—for their sake

Be calm.

MEDEA: My children! Them I do refuse, reject,

Renounce! Shall then Creüsa brothers bear to these

My children?

JASON: But the queen can aid thy wretched sons.

MEDEA: May that day never dawn, that day of shame and woe,

When in one house are joined the low born and the high,

The sons of that foul robber Sisyphus, and these,

The sons of Phœbus.

JASON: Wretched one, and wilt thou then

Involve me also in thy fall? Begone, I pray.

MEDEA: Creon hath heard my prayer.

JASON: What wouldst thou have me do?

MEDEA: For me? I’d have thee dare the law.

JASON: The royal power

Doth compass me.

MEDEA: A greater than the king is here:

Medea. Set us front to front and let us strive;

And of this royal strife let Jason be the prize.

JASON: O‘erwearied by my woes I yield. But be thou ware,

Medea, lest too often thou shouldst tempt thy fate.

MEDEA: Yet fortune’s mistress have I ever been.

JASON: But see,

With hostile front Acastus comes, on vengeance bent,

While Creon threatens instant death.

MEDEA: Then flee them both.

I ask thee not to draw thy sword against the king

Nor yet to stain thy pious hands with kindred blood.

Come, flee with me.

JASON: But what resistance can we make,

If war with double visage rear his horrid front,

If Creon and Acastus join in common cause?

MEDEA: Add, too, the Colchian armies with my father’s self

To lead them; join the Scythian and Pelasgian hordes:

In one deep gulf of ruin will I whelm them all.

JASON: Yet on the sceptre do I look with fear.

MEDEA: Beware,

Lest not the fear, but lust of power prevail with thee.

JASON: Too long we strive: have done, lest we suspicion breed.

MEDEA: Now Jove, throughout thy heavens let the thunders roll!

Thy mighty arm in wrath make bare! Thy darting flames

Of vengeance loose, and shake the lofty firmament

With rending storms! At random hurl thy vengeful bolts,

Selecting neither me nor Jason with thy aim;

That thus whoever falls may perish with the brand

Of guilt upon him; for thy hurtling darts can take

No erring flight.

JASON: Recall thee and in calmness speak

With words of peace and reason. Then if any gift

From Creon’s royal house can compensate thy woes,

Take that as solace of thy flight.

MEDEA: My soul doth scorn

The wealth of kings. But let me have my little ones

As comrades of my flight, that in their childish breasts

Their mother’s tears may flow. New sons await thy home.

JASON: My heart inclines to yield to thee, but love forbids.

For these my sons shall never from my arms be reft,

Though Creon’s self demand. My very spring of life,

My sore heart’s comfort, and my joy are these my sons;

And sooner could I part with limbs or vital breath,

Or light of life.

MEDEA (
aside
): Doth he thus love his sons? ‘Tis well;

Then is he bound, and in his armoured strength this flaw

Reveals the place to strike.

(To Jason)
At least, ere I depart,

Grant me this last request: let me once more embrace

My sons. E‘en that small boon will comfort my sad heart.

And this my latest prayer to thee: if, in my grief,

My tongue was over bold, let not my words remain

To rankle in thy heart. Remember happier things

Of me, and let my bitter words be straight forgot.

JASON: Not one shall linger in my soul; and curb, I pray,

Thy too impetuous heart, and gently yield to fate.

For resignation ever soothes the woeful soul.

MEDEA: He’s gone! And can it be? And shall he thus depart,

Forgetting me and all my service? Must I drop,

Like some discarded toy, out of his faithless heart?

It shall not be. Up then, and summon all thy strength

And all thy skill! And, this the fruit of former crime,

Count nothing criminal that works thy will. But lo,

We’re hedged about; scant room is left for our designs.

Now must the attack be made where least suspicion wakes

The least resistance. Now Medea, on! and do

And dare thine utmost, yea, beyond thine utmost power!

(To
the Nurse)
Do thou, my faithful nurse, the comrade of my grief,

And all the devious wanderings of my checkered course,

Assist me now in these my plans. There is a robe,

The glory of our Colchian realm, the precious gift

Of Phœbus’ self to king Æetes as a proof

Of fatherhood; a gleaming circlet, too, all wrought

With threads of gold, the yellow gold bespangled o‘er

With gems, a fitting crown to deck a princess’ head.

These treasures let Medea’s children bear as gifts

To Jason’s bride. But first infuse them with the power

Of magic, and invoke the aid of Hecate;

The woe-producing sacrifices then prepare,

And let the sacred flames through all our courts resound.

CHORUS: No force of flame or raging gale,

Or whizzing bolt so fearful is,

As when a wife, by her lord betrayed, Burns hot with hate.

Not such a force is Auster’s blast,
When he marshals forth the wintry storms;
Nor Hister’s headlong rushing stream,
Which, wrecking bridges in its course,
Pours reckless on;

Nor yet the Rhone, whose current strong Beats back the sea; nor when the snows, Beneath the lengthening days of spring And the sun’s warm rays, melt down in streams From Hæmus’ top.

Blind is the rage of passion’s fire, Will not be governed, brooks no reins, And scoffs at death; nay, hostile swords It gladly courts.

 

Spare, 0 ye gods, be merciful, That he who tamed the sea may live. But much we fear, for the lord of the deep Is wroth that his realm of the second lot Should be subdued.

 

 

The thoughtless youth who dared to drive His father’s sacred chariot, Was by those fires, which o‘er the heavens He scattered in his mad career, Himself consumed.

 

 

The beaten path has never proved The way of danger. Walk ye then Where your forefathers safely trod, And keep great nature’s holy laws Inviolate.

 

 

Whoever dipped the famous oars Of that bold bark in the rushing sea; Whoe‘er despoiled old Pelion Of the thick, dark shade of his sacred groves; Whoever dared the clashing rocks, And, after countless perils passed, His vessel moored on a barbarous shore, Hoping to fare on his homeward way The master of the golden fleece, All by a fearful end appeased The offended sea.