—Let him perish amidst of the struggle, if this be his weird, to be sped
On the fallows of doom!—for how shall I ’scape my parents’ ken
As the drugs I prepare? With what manner of words shall I blind them then?
What wile, what cunning device for mine hero’s help shall I find?
If I see him apart from his friends, shall I meet him with greeting kind?
O ill-starred!—though he should die, yet cannot I hope that so
Assuaging should come of my pain: nay, this should be but for my woe
If he of his life were bereft—oh, get thee behind me, shame!
Beauty, avaunt!—So scatheless by mine endeavour he came
Out of peril, then might he fare wheresoever seemeth him best.
But for me—on the selfsame day when triumphant he bideth the test,
Then let me die, from the rafters straining my neck in the noose,
Or tasting of poisons that rend the soul from the body loose.
Ah, but after my dying!—what scoffs and what mocks will they fling
On my grave!—and far and near how every city will ring
With the tale of my doom; and from lip to lip shall be tossed the jeer,
And a mock shall I be in the mouths of the daughters of Kolchis that sneer,
‘Lo, she that so lovingly cared for a man of an alien race
That she died!—lo, she that on home and on parents heaped disgrace,
Giving reins to her lust!’ What shame should not be loaded on me?
Ah me, my infatuate folly!—better by far should it be
In this same night to forsake my life these chambers within
By a fate of mystery, ’scaping from slander’s fiendish din,
Or ever that hideous befouling, that nameless defilement, I win!”
She spake, and she rose, and a casket she brought, wherein there lay
Many a drug, some helpful to heal, some mighty to slay.
On her knees she laid it, and brake into weeping: her bosom-fold
Was wet with her tears; from the wounds unstanched of her heart they rolled,
As she bitterly wailed for her fate: and her soul was exceeding fain
To choose her a murderous drug, and to taste oblivion of pain.
And the eager fingers now of the hapless maid ’gan part
The bands of the casket, to take it forth—but, with sudden start,
With an awful fear of Hades the hateful shuddered her heart.
Long spellbound sat she in speechless horror: around her thronged
Visions of all sweet things for the which through life she had longed.
She thought of the hours delightsome the lot of the living that fill,
And she thought of her merry playmates, even as a maiden will.
And sweeter than ever was grown the sun unto her to behold—
No marvel, seeing she yearned for all so passionate-souled!
So she put from her knees the casket, and laid it down again
All changed by the promptings of Hêrê: no more did she waver then
In her purpose; but now did she long for the dawning with speed to awake,
For the dayspring to rise, that so to her hero the drugs she might take
For the spell, as her covenant pledged her, and meet him face to face.
And many a time she unbarred the doors of her chamber, to gaze
Forth for the far faint gleam, and welcome flashed upon her
The Child of the Mist, and throughout the city the folk ’gan stir.
Then Argus spake to his brethren, bidding them there to abide
To learn the mind of the maiden, and how should her purpose betide;
But himself turned backward again, and unto the galley he hied.
Now soon as the maiden beheld the splendour of dawn outrolled
O’er the heavens, gathered she up with her hands her tresses of gold,
Which over her shoulders in careless disarray hung loose:
And she bathed her feverish cheeks, and with perfume shed from the cruse
All nectar-scented her body shone; and a robe fair-wrought
She donned, and with brooches cunningly-fashioned its folds upcaught.
And the cloud of a veil did she cast o’er her head unearthly fair,
And as silver it shimmered: she trode the floors of the palace there
Pacing unfaltering to and fro, forgetful of all
Those heaven-sent woes at the door, and of others that yet should befall.
And she summoned her bower-maidens; twelve by tale were they:
Through the night at the entering-in of her odorous chamber they lay,
Young as herself, nor yet on the bridal couch embraced.
And these she commanded to harness the mules to the wain in haste
To bear their lady to Hekatê’s passing-beautiful fane.
Wherefore the bower-maidens hasted and harnessed the mules to the wain.
And Medea the while took forth from the casket a drug of might,
The magic root that they say is the Herb of Prometheus hight.
For if any with midnight sacrifice upon Daira shall call,
The only-begotten, and smear his body therewithal,
No stroke of brazen weapon shall wound the flesh of him,
No, nor from blazing fire shall he flinch; but his strength of limb
And his prowess throughout that day shall all their might confound.
First-born it upshot from the clod in the hour when dropped to the ground
From the ravening eagle’s beak, where the crags of Caucasus frowned,
The ichor, the blood of a God, of Prometheus in torments bound.
And the flower of it blossomed a cubit the face of the earth above:
As the glow of the crocus Corycian, so was the hue thereof,
Upborne upon pale stalks twain, and below in its earthy bed
The root thereof as flesh new-severed was crimson-red.
And the blood thereof, like a mountain-oak’s dark sap, in a shell
From Caspian strand she gathered, to weave thereof a spell,
When seven times she had bathed her in waters unresting that glide,
And seven times upon Brimo the Nursing-mother had cried—
Night-wandering Brimo, the Underworld Goddess, the Queen of the dead—
And in dusky vesture clad through the blackness of night did she tread.
And the dark earth shuddered and quaked deep down with muttering moan,
As the Titan root was severed; yea, and Iapetus’ son
In frenzy of heart-wringing agony groaned a fearful groan.
This, from the casket ta’en, in her odorous girdle she laid,
The girdle enclasping the waist divinely sweet of the maid.
Then forth of the portal she paced, and she set her foot on the wain,
And beside her went upon either hand bower-maidens
