Exodos

(Enter hurriedly JASON and Attendants.)

JASON.Ye women by this doorway clusteringSpeak, is the doer of the ghastly thingYet here, or fled? What hopeth she of flight?Shall the deep yawn to shield her? Shall the heightSend wings, and hide her in the vaulted skyTo work red murder on her lords, and flyUnrecompensed? But let her go! My careIs 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 waySave, ere the kinsmen of the dead can winFrom them the payment of their mother's sin.

LEADER.Unhappy man, indeed thou knowest notWhat dark place thou art come to! Else, God 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 God, thou hast broken me!

LEADER.Think of those twainAs 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 moreOf 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 yeWith brazen bars, seeking the dead and meWho slew them? Peace! . . . And thou, if aught of mineThou needest, speak, though never touch of thineShall scathe me more. Out of his firmamentMy fathers' father, the high Sun, hath sentThis, that shall save me from mine enemies' rage.

JASON.Thou living hate! Thou wife in every ageAbhorred, blood-red mother, who didst killMy sons, and make me as the dead: and stillCanst take the sunshine to thine eyes, and smellThe green earth, reeking from thy deed of hell;I curse thee! Now, Oh, now mine eyes can see,That then were blinded, when from savageryOf eastern chambers, from a cruel land,To Greece and home I gathered in mine handThee, thou incarnate curse: one that betrayedHer home, her father, her . . . Oh, God hath laidThy sins on me!--I knew, I knew, there layA brother murdered on thy hearth that dayWhen thy first footstep fell on Argo's hull. . . .Argo, my own, my swift and beautifulThat was her first beginning. Then a wifeI made her in my house. She bore to lifeChildren: and now for love, for chamberingAnd men's arms, she hath murdered them! A thingNot one of all the maids of Greece, not one,Had dreamed of; whom I spurned, and for mine ownChose thee, a bride of hate to me and death,Tigress, not woman, beast of wilder breathThan 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 tideThat sweepeth Jason's days, no gentle brideTo speak with more, no child to look uponWhom once I reared . . . all, all for ever gone!

MEDEA.An easy answer had I to this swellOf 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 bedForgotten and my heart uncomforted,Thou nor thy princess: nor the king that plannedThy 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 lust 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 God; quick curses round thy head!

MEDEA.The Gods 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 stillGreen sepulchre, where Hera by the HillHath precinct holy, that no angry menMay break their graves and cast them forth againTo evil. So I lay on all this shoreOf Corinth a high feast for evermoreAnd rite, to purge them yearly of the stainOf this poor blood. And I, to Pallas' plainI go, to dwell beside Pandion's son,Aegeus.--For thee, behold, death draweth on,Evil and lonely, like thine heart: the handsOf thine old Argo, rotting where she stands,Shall smite thine head in twain, and bitter beTo the last end thy memories of me.

(She rises on the chariot and is slowly borne away.)

JASON.May They that hear the weeping childBlast thee, and They that walk in blood!

MEDEA.Thy broken vows, thy friends beguiledHave shut for thee the ears of God.

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.Not yet! Age cometh and long years.

JASON.My sons, mine own!

MEDEA.Not thine, but mine . . .

JASON.. . . Who slew them!

MEDEA.Yes: to torture thee.

JASON.Once let me kiss their lips, once twineMine arms and touch. . . . Ah, woe is me!

MEDEA.Wouldst love them and entreat? But nowThey were as nothing.

JASON.At the last,O God, to touch that tender brow!

MEDEA.Thy words upon the wind are cast.

JASON.Thou, Zeus, wilt hear me. All is saidFor naught. I am but spurned awayAnd trampled by this tigress, redWith children's blood. Yet, come what may,So far as thou hast granted, yea,So far as yet my strength may stand,I weep upon these dead, and sayTheir last farewell, and raise my hand

To all the daemons of the airIn witness of these things; how sheWho slew them, will not suffer meTo gather up my babes, nor bearTo earth their bodies; whom, O stoneOf women, would I ne'er had knownNor gotten, to be slain by thee!

(He casts himself upon the earth.)

CHORUS.Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven,From whence to man strange dooms be given,Past hope or fear.And the end men looked for cometh not,And a path is there where no man thought:So hath it fallen here.