Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/122

104 Medea is preparing. For, but now, did she With step of frenzy hurry off until she readied Her stricken home. There, in her chamber, all her stores Of magic wonders are revealed; once more she views The things herself hath held in fear these many years, Unloosing one by one her ministers of ill, Occult, unspeakable, and wrapt in mystery; And, grasping with her hand the sacred altar-horn, With prayers, she straightly summons all destructive powers, The creatures bred in Libya's sands, and on the peaks Of frigid Taurus, clad in everlasting snows. Obedient to her potent charms, the scaly brood Of serpents leave their darksome lairs and swarm to her; One savage creature rolls his monstrous length along, And darts his forked tongue with its envenomed sting, Death-dealing; at the charming sound he stops amazed, And fold on fold his body writhes in nerveless coils. "But these are petty ills; unworthy of my hand," She cries, "are such weak, earth-born weapons. Potent charms Are bred in heaven. Now, now 'tis time to summon powers Transcending common magic. Down I'll draw from heaven That serpent huge whose body lies athwart the sky Like some great ocean stream, in whose constricting folds The greater and the lesser Bears are held enthralled, The greater set as guide for Grecian ships, the less For Sidon's mariners! Let Ophiuchus loose His hand and pour forth venom from his captive thrall! And let the Python huge, that dared to rear its head  Against the heavenly twins, be present at my prayer! Let Hydra's writhing heads, which by Alcides' hand Were severed, all return to life and give me aid! Thou too be near and leave thy ancient Colchian home, Thou watchful dragon, to whose eyes the first sleep came In answer to my incantations." When she thus Had summoned all the serpent brood, she cast her store Of baleful herbs together; all the poisons brewed Amid the rocky caves of trackless Eryx; plants That flourish on the snowy peaks of Caucasus,