Page:Medea (Webster 1868).djvu/88

 The Sun, my father's father, gives to me,

A stronghold from the hand of enemies.

Oh loathsome thing, oh woman most abhorred

Of gods and me and all the race of men,

Thou who hast dared to thrust the sword in thy sons

Thyself didst bear, and hast destroyed me out,

Childless. And thou beholdest sun and earth,

Who didst this, daredst this most accursed deed!

Perish. Oh, I am wise now, then unwise,

When from thy home in thy barbarian land

I brought thee with me to a Hellene house,

A monstrous bane; to the land that nurtured thee

And to thy father traitress. Now at me

Have the gods launched thy retributory fiends,

Who, slaying first thy brother at the hearth,

Hiedst thee unto the stately-prowed ship Argo.

Such thy first deeds: then, married to myself

And having borne me children, for a spite

Of beddings and weddings thou hast slaughtered them.

There's not a Hellene woman had so dared;

Above whom I, forsooth, choose thee to wife—