Page:Medea (Webster 1868).djvu/85



Ho! in the gods' name, rescue! There is need.

For we are in the toils, beneath the knife.

Oh cruel, what, of stone or steel art thou,

Thou who that bloom

Of sons thyself didst bear wouldst see die now

By thine hands' doom?

One woman have I heard of, one alone

And of the far-off days, whose deathful hand

Was laid upon the babes that were her own,

Ino by gods distraught when from her land

She by the queenly spouse of Zeus was banned,

Sent to roam to and fro;

And, seeking her sons' death, she, wild with woe,

Stretched forth her foot from off the sea's rough strand,

Whelmed her with them into the waves below,

And, they so dying with her, died.

Henceforth can aught called strange or dread betide?