“O Chalkiopê, mine heart for thy sons is disquieted sore,
Lest my father destroy them forthright with the men from the alien shore;
So ghastly a dream, while a moment I slumbered, but now did I see—
And oh may the Gods forefend that the vision accomplished should be,
Forbid that thy love for thy sons should be made heart-anguish to thee!”
So spake she, proving her sister, longing to hear her pray,
Unprompted of her, for her help for her sons in the evil day.
Strong anguish swept o’er the mother’s soul like a surging tide,
For her terror at that she had heard, and with fervent beseeching she cried:
“Yea, and to this same end did I come with eager speed,
If with me thou wouldst haply devise and prepare some help for our need.
But swear thou by Earth and by Heaven that thou wilt conceal in thine heart
Whatsoever I say unto thee, and wilt bear therein thy part.
By the Blessèd I pray thee, by thine own soul, by thy parents’ name,
That thou see not my sons in torment destroyed by a doom of shame
Horribly: else with my dear-loved sons will I die, and come
A hateful vengeance-spirit to haunt thee from Hades’ home!”
So spake she, and straightway gushed her tears in torrent flow;
And around her knees did she fling her arms in a passion of woe,
And adown on her bosom she bowed her head; and there they two
Over each other made piteous lament, and the dim halls through
Went wailing low the sound of anguished women’s cry.
And to her disquieted sorely Medea made reply:
“God help thee!—what healing can I bring thee?—what talk is thine
Of horrible curses and vengeance-spirits!—would God it were mine,
Mine by a power firm-stablished, to save thy sons from bane!
Be witness—the mighty oath of the Kolchians, the oath thou art fain
I should swear—be witness the broad-arched Heaven, and the Earth below,
Mother of Gods, that, so far as the bounds of my strength may go,
I will fail thee not, if thy prayer be a boon that man may bestow.”
So spake she, and Chalkiopê made answer to her, and she said:
“Now couldst thou not dare for the stranger—himself too asketh thine aid—
By wile or by wisdom achievement of this emprise to win
For the sake of my sons? Lo, now is his messenger Argus within,
Praying that I would essay to win for them help of thy grace.
In the mid-court left I him when I came to seek thy face.”
So spake she, and bounded within her Medea’s heart for delight:
Her fair skin suddenly crimsoned, and swam before her sight
A mist, as she flushed and burned; and answer she made thereunto:
“Chalkiopê, according to that which is pleasing to you,
Even so will I do. May I see with mine eyes the dawn not again,
Nor mayst thou behold me long in the land of living men,
If I count aught dearer to me than the lives of thee and thine,
Even thy sons: for verily these be brethren mine,
My kinsmen belovèd, my childhood-playmates: myself I call
Thine own, own sister, my sister’s own little daughter withal,
Since even as them the baby me to thy breast didst thou hold:
So still have I heard the tale by the lips of my mother told.
But go thou, in silence bury this my kindness, that so
I may work out unwares to my parents my promise. At dawn will I go
Unto Hekatê’s fane, to bear thither the drugs that shall cast a spell
On the bulls for the stranger for whose sake all this strife befell.”
So the mother returned from the chamber, and spake to her sons full fain
Of her sister’s help. But now did the tide of shame again
And of terrible fear o’er the soul of Medea in solitude rise,
That she in her sire’s despite for a man such deeds should devise.
Then night drew darkness over the earth; on the lonely sea
The sailors gazed from their ships on the Bear and the flashing three
Of Orion; and came upon every wayfarer longing for sleep,
And on each gate-warder; and mothers, that daylong wont to weep
For children dead, with the peace of slumber were folded around.
No barking of dogs through the city there was any more, no sound
Of voices, but all the blackening gloom was with silence bound.
But not o’er Medea did sleep sweet dews of forgetfulness shake;
For many a care in her yearning for Jason held her awake,
Adread of the mighty strength of the bulls, ’neath the fury of whom
He must die in the War-god’s acre, must die by a shameful doom.
And with thick fast throbbings struggled the heart in her breast alway;
As when on the wall of a dwelling the leaping sunbeams play
Flung up from the water that into a cauldron but now fell plashing,
Or into a pail, and hither and thither the sunbeam flashing
In lightning eddy and flicker is dancing in mad unrest,
So quivered and fluttered the heart within the maiden’s breast.
And the tears from her eyes were flowing for ruth, and through all her frame
Like a smouldering fire her anguish burned, and coiled its flame
Round every fine-strung nerve, and thrilled to her beating brain
Where sharpest of all the pang strikes in, when the shafts of pain
Are shot to the heart by the Loves that rest them never from harm.
And now did she say that the drugs she would give that should bind with a charm
The bulls, and now would she not, but with him would she cease to live.
Swift changed her mood: she would not die, she, nor the drugs would she give,
But in silence endure her fate, the curse that was doomed to betide.
Then, there as she sat, she wavered this way and that, and she cried:
“Oh hapless I, whether this way or that into ruin I fall!
On every hand is despair for my soul: no help is at all
From woe, but it burneth, a furnace unquenchèd!—would God it had been
Mine to be slain ere this by the shafts of the Huntress-queen,
Or ever I saw him, or came to Achaia-land the sons
Of Chalkiopê, whom a God, or the awful Avenging Ones
Hither, for sorrow to us, and for many a tear, have
