MEDEA.  Quiet, thou sayst, and patient?  Were my heart
             Not closed to thee e’en now, as e’er it was,
             Then couldst thou see the bitter, smarting pain
             Which, ever swelling like an angry sea,
             Tosses, now here, now there, the laboring wreck
             That is my grief, and, veiling it from sight
             In awful desolation, sweeps it forth
             O’er boundless ocean-wastes!  I sorrow not
             Because the babes are dead; my only grief
             Is that they ever lived, that thou and I
             Must still live on!

JASON.  Alas!

MEDEA.  Bear thou the lot
             That fortune sends thee; for, to say the truth,
             Thou richly hast deserved it!—­Even as thou
             Before me liest on the naked earth,
             So lay I once in Colchis at thy feet
             And craved protection—­but thou wouldst not hear! 
             Nay, rather didst thou stretch thine eager hands
             In blind unreason forth, to lay them swift
             Upon the golden prize, although I cried,
             “’Tis Death that thou dost grasp at!”—­Take it, then,
             That prize that thou so stubbornly didst seek,
             Even Death! 
             I leave thee now, forevermore. 
             ’Tis the last time-for all eternity
             The very last—­that I shall speak with thee,
             My husband!  Fare thee well!  Ay, after all
             The joys that blessed our happy, happy youth,
             ’Mid all the bitter woes that hem us in
             On every side, in face of all the grief
             That threatens for the future, still I say,
             “Farewell, my husband!” Now there dawns for thee
             A life of heavy sorrows; but, let come
             What may, abide it firmly, show thyself
             Stronger in suffering than in doing deeds
             Men named heroic!  If thy bitter woe
             Shall make thee yearn for death, then think on me,
             And it shall comfort thee to know how mine
             Is bitterer far, because I set my hand
             To deeds, to which thou only gav’st assent. 
             I go my way, and take my heavy weight
             Of sorrow with me through the wide, wide world. 
             A dagger-stroke were blest release indeed;
             But no! it may not be!  It were not meet
             Medea perish at Medea’s hands. 
             My earlier life, before I stooped to sin,
             Doth make me worthy of a better judge
             Than I could be—­I go to Delphi’s shrine,
             And there, before the altar of the god,
             The very spot whence Phrixus long ago
             Did steal the prize, I’ll hang it up again,