An easy answer had I to this swell Of speech, but Zeus our father knoweth well, All I for thee have wrought, and thou for me.

So let it rest. This thing was not to be, That thou shouldst live a merry life, my bed Forgotten and my heart uncomforted, Thou nor thy princess: nor the king that planned Thy marriage drive Medea from his land, And suffer not. Call me what thing thou please, Tigress or Skylla from the Tuscan seas: My claws have gripped thine heart, and all things shine.

JASON.

Thou too hast grief. Thy pain is fierce as mine.

MEDEA.

I love the pain, so thou shalt laugh no more.

JASON.

Oh, what a womb of sin my children bore!

MEDEA.

Sons, did ye perish for your father's shame?

JASON.

How? It was not my hand that murdered them.

MEDEA.

'Twas thy false wooings, 'twas thy trampling pride.

JASON.

Thou hast said it! For thy l.u.s.t of love they died.

MEDEA.

And love to women a slight thing should be?

JASON.

To women pure!--All thy vile life to thee!

MEDEA.

Think of thy torment. They are dead, they are dead!

JASON.

No: quick, great G.o.d; quick curses round thy head!

MEDEA.

The G.o.ds know who began this work of woe.

JASON.

Thy heart and all its loathliness they know.

MEDEA.

Loathe on... . But, Oh, thy voice. It hurts me sore.

JASON.

Aye, and thine me. Wouldst hear me then no more?

MEDEA.

How? Show me but the way. 'Tis this I crave.

JASON.

Give me the dead to weep, and make their grave.

MEDEA.

Never! Myself will lay them in a still Green sepulchre, where Hera by the Hill Hath precinct holy, that no angry men May break their graves and cast them forth again To evil. So I lay on all this sh.o.r.e Of Corinth a high feast for evermore And rite, to purge them yearly of the stain Of this poor blood. And I, to Pallas' plain I go, to dwell beside Pandion's son, Aegeus.--For thee, behold, death draweth on, Evil and lonely, like thine heart: the hands Of thine old Argo, rotting where she stands, Shall smite thine head in twain, and bitter be To the last end thy memories of me.

[_She rises on the chariot and is slowly borne away._

JASON.

May They that hear the weeping child Blast thee, and They that walk in blood!

MEDEA.

Thy broken vows, thy friends beguiled Have shut for thee the ears of G.o.d.

JASON.

Go, thou art wet with children's tears!

MEDEA.

Go thou, and lay thy bride to sleep.

JASON.

Childless, I go, to weep and weep.

MEDEA.