him her cheek flames red, her eyes grow dim, consciousness seems to leave her, and she is fixed to the ground unable to move forward or backward.  After Jason has spoken to her, assuring her that the gods themselves would reward her for saving the lives of so many brave men, she takes the salve from her bosom, and she would have plucked her heart from it to give him had he asked for it.  The eyes of both are modestly turned to the ground, but when they meet longing speaks from them.  Then, after explaining to him the use of the salve, she seizes his hand and begs him after he shall have reached his home again, to remember her, as she will bear him in mind, even against her parents’ wishes.  Should he forget her, she hopes messengers will bring news of him, or that she herself may be able to cross the seas and appear an unexpected guest to remind him how she had saved him.

Such was the love of Medea, which historians have proclaimed such a new thing in literature—­“romantic love on the higher side.”  For my part I cannot see in this description—­in which no essential trait is omitted—­anything different from what we have found in Homer, in Sappho, and in Euripides.  The unwomanly lack of coyness which Medea displays when she practically proposes to Jason, expecting him to marry her out of gratitude, is copied after the Nausicaea of the Odyssey.  The flaming cheeks, dim eyes, loss of consciousness, and paralysis are copied from Sappho; while the Hippolytus of Euripides furnished the model for the dwelling on the subjective symptoms of the “pernicious passion of love.”  The stale trick too, of making this love originate in a wound inflicted by Cupid’s arrows is everlastingly Greek; and so is the device of representing the woman alone as being consumed by the flames of love.  For Jason is about as unlike a modern lover as a caricaturist could make him.  His one idea is to save his life and get the Fleece.  “Necessity compels me to clasp your knees and ask your aid,” he exclaims when he meets her; and when she gives him that broad hint “do not forget me; I shall never forget you,” his reply is a long story about his home.  Not till after she has threatened to visit him does he declare “But should you come to my home, you would be honored by all ... in that case I hope you may grace my bridal couch.”  And again in the fourth book he relates that he is taking Medea home to be his wife “in accordance with her wishes!” Without persiflage, his attitude may be summed up in these words:  “I come to you because I am in danger of my precious life.  Help me to get back the Golden Fleece and I promise you that, on condition that I get home safe and sound, I will condescend to marry you.”  Is this, perhaps, the “romantic love on the higher side” which Professor Murray found in this story?  But there is more to come.