Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/118

100 For resignation ever soothes the woeful soul. [Exit Jason.] Medea: He's gone! And can it be? And shall he thus depart, Forgetting me and all my service? Must I drop, Like some discarded toy, out of his faithless heart? It shall not be. Up then, and summon all thy strength And all thy skill! And, this the fruit of former crime, Count nothing criminal that works thy will. But lo, We're hedged about; scant room is left for our designs. Now must the attack be made where least suspicion wakes The least resistance. Now Medea, on! and do And dare thine utmost, yea, beyond thine utmost power! [To the Nurse.] Do thou, my faithful nurse, the comrade of my grief, And all the devious wanderings of my checkered course, Assist me now in these my plans. There is a robe, The glory of our Colchian realm, the precious gift Of Phoebus' self to king Aeetes as a proof Of fatherhood; a gleaming circlet, too, all wrought With threads of gold, the yellow gold bespangled o'er With gems, a fitting crown to deck a princess' head. These treasures let Medea's children bear as gifts To Jason's bride. But first infuse them with the power Of magic, and invoke the aid of Hecate; The woe-producing sacrifices then prepare, And let the sacred flames through all our courts resound.

Chorus: No force of flame or raging gale, Or whizzing bolt so fearful is, As when a wife, by her lord betrayed, Burns hot with hate.

Not such a force is Auster's blast, When he marshals forth the wintry storms; Nor Hister's headlong rushing stream, Which, wrecking bridges in its course, Pours reckless on;

Nor yet the Rhone, whose current strong Beats back the sea; nor when the snows,