And well-dissembled friendship, she beguiles:
The strange achievements of her art she tells,
With Aeson’s cure, and long on that she dwells,
Till them to firm persuasion she has won,
The same for their old father may be done:
For him they court her to employ her skill,
And put upon the cure what price she will.
At first she’s mute, and with a grave pretence
Of difficulty, holds them in suspense
Then promises, and bids them from the fold
Choose out a ram, the most infirm and old;
That so by facts their doubts may be removed,
And first on him the operation proved.
A wreath-horn’d ram is brought, so far o’ergrown
With years, his age was to that age unknown;
Of sense too dull the piercing point to feel,
And scarce sufficient blood to stain the steel.
His carcass she into a cauldron threw,
With drugs whose vital qualities she knew;
His limbs grow less, he casts his horns and years,
And tender bleatings strike their wond’ring ears.
Then instantly leaps forth a frisking lamb,
That seeks (too young to graze) a suckling dam.
The sisters, thus confirm’d with the success,
Her promise with renew’d entreaty press.
To countenance the cheat, three nights and days
Before experiment the enchantress stays;
Then into limpid water, from the springs,
Woods and ingredients of no force she flings;
With antique ceremonies for pretence,
And rambling rhymes without a word of sense.
Meanwhile the king, with all his guards, lay bound
In magic sleep, scarce that of death so sound;
The daughters now are by the sorc’ress led
Into his chamber, and surround his bed.
“Your father’s health’s concern’d, and can ye stay?
Unnatural nymphs, why this unkind delay?
Unsheath your swords, dismiss his lifeless blood,
And I’ll recruit it with a vital flood.
Your father’s life and health are in your hand,
And can ye thus like idle gazers stand?
Unless you are of common sense bereft,
If yet one spark of piety is left,
Despatch a father’s cure, and disengage
The monarch from his toilsome load of age:
Come, drench your weapons in his putrid gore;
’Tis charity to wound, when wounding will restore.”
Thus urged, the poor deluded maids proceed,
Betray’d by zeal to an inhuman deed,
And, in compassion, make a father bleed.
Yes, she who had the kindest, tend’rest heart,
Is foremost to perform the bloody part.
Yet, though to act the butchery betray’d,
They could not bear to see the wounds they made;
With looks averted, backward they advance,
Then strike and stab, and leave the blows to chance.
Waking in consternation, he essays
(Welt’ring in blood) his feeble arms to raise,
Environ’d with so many swords. “From whence
This barb’rous usage? what is my offence?
What fatal fury, what infernal charm,
’Gainst a kind father does his daughters arm?”
Hearing his voice, as thunderstruck, they stopp’d,
Their resolution and their weapons dropp’d;
Medea then the mortal blow bestows,
And, that perform’d, the tragic scene to close,
His corpse into the boiling cauldron throws.
Then, dreading the revenge that must ensue,
High mounted on her dragon coach she few;
And in her stately progress through the skies,
Beneath her shady Pelion first she spies,
With Othrys, that above the clouds did rise,
With skilful Chiron’s cave, and neighb’ring ground,
For old Cerambus’ strange escape renown’d,
By nymphs deliver’d when the world was drown’d,
Who him with unexpected wings supplied,
When deluged hills a safe retreat denied.
Aeolian Pitane on her left hand
She saw, and there the statued dragon stand,
With Ida’s grove, where Bacchus, to disguise
His son’s bold theft, and to secure the prize,
Made the stolen steer a stag to represent;
Cocytus’ father’s sandy monument;
And fields that held the murder’d sire’s remains,
Where howling Moera frights the startled plains:
Euryphilus’ high town, with towers defaced
By Hercules and matrons more disgraced,
With sprouting horns, in signal punishment,
From Juno or resenting Venus sent.
Then Rhodes, which Phoebus did so dearly prize,
And Jove no less severely did chastise;
For he the wizard native’s pois’ning sight,
That used the farmer’s hopeful crops to blight,
In rage o’erwhelm’d with everlasting night.
Cartheia’s ancient walls come next in view,
Where once the sire almost a statue grew;
With wonder, which a strange event did move,
His daughter turn’d into a turtle-dove.
Then Hyrie’s lake and Tempe’s field o’erran,
Famed for the boy who there became a swan;
For there enamour’d Phyllius, like a slave,
Perform’d what tasks his paramour would crave.
For presents he had mountain-vultures caught,
And from the desert a tame lion brought;
Then a wild bull commanded to subdue;
The conquer’d savage by the horns he drew;
But, mock’d so oft, the treatment he disdains,
And from the craving boy this prize detains.
Then thus in choler the resenting lad:
“Won’t you deliver him? You’ll wish you had.”
No sooner said, but, in a peevish mood,
Leap’d from the precipice on which he stood.
The standers-by were struck with fresh surprise,
Instead of falling, to behold him rise
A snowy swan, and soaring to the skies.
But dearly the rash prank his mother cost,
Who ignorantly gave her son for lost;
For his misfortune wept, till she became
A lake, and still renown’d with Hyrie’s name.
Thence to Latona’s isle, where once was seen,
Transform’d to birds, a monarch and his queen.
Far off she saw how old Cephisus mourn’d
His son, into a seal by Phoebus turn’d;
And where, astonish’d at a stranger sight,
Eumelus gazed on his wing’d daughter’s flight.
Aetolian Pleuron she did next survey,
Where sons a mother’s murder did essay;
But sudden plumes the matron bore away.
On her right hand, Cyllene, a fair soil,
Fair, till Menephron there the beauteous hill
Attempted with foul incest to defile.
Her harness’d dragons now direct she drives
For Corinth, and at Corinth she arrives,
Where, if what old tradition tells be true,
In former ages men from mushrooms grew.
But here Medea finds her bed supplied,
During her absence, by another bride,
And, hopeless to recover her lost game,
She sets both bride and palace in a flame:
Nor could a rival’s death her wrath assuage,
Nor stopp’d at Creon’s family her rage:
She murders her own infants, in despite
To faithless Jason, and in Jason’s sight;
Yet ere his sword could reach her, up she springs,
Securely mounted on her dragon’s wings.
Story of Aegeus
From Corinth Medea proceeds to Athens, where she becomes the wife of Aegeus, and attempts to poison his son Theseus: the hero, however, is fortunately recognised by his father, who compels his cruel queen to quit the Athenian territories—In the meantime, Minos, king of Crete, threatens to invade Athens, in order to revenge the murder of his son Androgeus—For this purpose he forms
