[_A cry is heard within._

_A Woman._

Hark! Did ye hear? Heard ye the children's cry?

_Another._

O miserable woman! O abhorred!

_A Child within._

What shall I do? What is it? Keep me fast From mother!

_The Other Child._

I know nothing. Brother! Oh, I think she means to kill us.

_A Woman._

Let me go!

I will--Help! Help!--and save them at the last.

_A Child._

Yes, in G.o.d's name! Help quickly ere we die!

_The Other Child._

She has almost caught me now. She has a sword.

[_Many of the Women are now beating at the barred door to get in. Others are standing apart._

_Women at the door._

Thou stone, thou thing of iron! Wilt verily Spill with thine hand that life, the vintage stored Of thine own agony?

_The Other Women._

A Mother slew her babes in days of yore, One, only one, from dawn to eventide, Ino, G.o.d-maddened, whom the Queen of Heaven Set frenzied, flying to the dark: and she Cast her for sorrow to the wide salt sea, Forth from those rooms of murder unforgiven, Wild-footed from a white crag of the sh.o.r.e, And clasping still her children twain, she died.

O Love of Woman, charged with sorrow sore, What hast thou wrought upon us? What beside Resteth to tremble for?

[_Enter hurriedly_ JASON _and Attendants_.

JASON.

Ye women by this doorway cl.u.s.tering Speak, is the doer of the ghastly thing Yet here, or fled? What hopeth she of flight?

Shall the deep yawn to shield her? Shall the height Send wings, and hide her in the vaulted sky To work red murder on her lords, and fly Unrecompensed? But let her go! My care Is but to save my children, not for her.

Let them she wronged requite her as they may.

I care not. 'Tis my sons I must some way Save, ere the kinsmen of the dead can win From them the payment of their mother's sin.

LEADER.

Unhappy man, indeed thou knowest not What dark place thou art come to! Else, G.o.d wot, Jason, no word like these could fall from thee.

JASON.

What is it?--Ha! The woman would kill me?

LEADER.

Thy sons are dead, slain by their mother's hand.

JASON.

How? Not the children... . I scarce understand... .

O G.o.d, thou hast broken me!

LEADER.

Think of those twain As things once fair, that ne'er shall bloom again.

JASON.

Where did she murder them? In that old room?

LEADER.

Open, and thou shalt see thy children's doom.

JASON.

Ho, thralls! Unloose me yonder bars! Make more Of speed! Wrench out the jointing of the door.

And show my two-edged curse, the children dead, The woman... . Oh, this sword upon her head... .

[_While the Attendants are still battering at the door_ MEDEA _appears on the roof, standing on a chariot of winged Dragons, in which are the children's bodies_.

MEDEA.

What make ye at my gates? Why batter ye With brazen bars, seeking the dead and me Who slew them? Peace! ... And thou, if aught of mine Thou needest, speak, though never touch of thine Shall scathe me more. Out of his firmament My fathers' father, the high Sun, hath sent This, that shall save me from mine enemies' rage.

JASON.

Thou living hate! Thou wife in every age Abhorred, blood-red mother, who didst kill My sons, and make me as the dead: and still Canst take the sunshine to thine eyes, and smell The green earth, reeking from thy deed of h.e.l.l; I curse thee! Now, Oh, now mine eyes can see, That then were blinded, when from savagery Of eastern chambers, from a cruel land, To Greece and home I gathered in mine hand Thee, thou incarnate curse: one that betrayed Her home, her father, her ... Oh, G.o.d hath laid Thy sins on me!--I knew, I knew, there lay A brother murdered on thy hearth that day When thy first footstep fell on Argo's hull... .

Argo, my own, my swift and beautiful That was her first beginning. Then a wife I made her in my house. She bore to life Children: and now for love, for chambering And men's arms, she hath murdered them! A thing Not one of all the maids of Greece, not one, Had dreamed of; whom I spurned, and for mine own Chose thee, a bride of hate to me and death, Tigress, not woman, beast of wilder breath Than Skylla shrieking o'er the Tuscan sea.

Enough! No scorn of mine can reach to thee, Such iron is o'er thine eyes. Out from my road, Thou crime-begetter, blind with children's blood!

And let me weep alone the bitter tide That sweepeth Jason's days, no gentle bride To speak with more, no child to look upon Whom once I reared ... all, all for ever gone!

MEDEA.