CREUSA. Look, my father!

KING. Ay, bring her with thee.

CREUSA. Wilt thou come, Medea?

MEDEA. I'll follow gladly, whereso'er thou goest.
Have pity on me, lone, unfriended, sad,
And hide me from the king's stern, pitiless eyes!

(_To the_ KING.)

Now may'st thou gaze thy fill. My fears are fled,
E'en while I know thy musings bode me ill.
Thy child is tenderer than her father.

CREUSA. Come!
He would not harm thee. Come, ye children, too.

[CREUSA _leads_ MEDEA _and the children away_.]

KING. Hast heard?

JASON. I have.

KING. And so, that is thy wife!
That thou wert wedded, Rumor long since cried,
But I believed not. Now, when I have seen,
Belief is still less easy. She--thy wife?

JASON. 'Tis but the mountain's peak thou seest, and not
The toilsome climb to reach it, nor those steps
By which alone the climber guides his feet.--
I sailed away, a hot, impetuous youth,
O'er distant seas, upon the boldest quest
That e'er within the memory of man
Was ventured. To this life I said farewell,
And, the world well forgot, I fixed my gaze
Solely upon that radiant Golden Fleece
That, through the night, a star in the storm, shone out.
And none thought on return, but one and all,
As though the hour that saw the trophy won
Should be their last, strained every nerve to win.
And so, a valorous band, we sailed away,
Boastful and thirsting deep for daring deeds,
O'er sea and land, through storm and night and rocks,
Death at our heels, Death beckoning us before.
And what at other times we had thought full
Of terror, now seemed gentle, mild, and good;
For Nature was more awful than the worst
That man could do. And, as we strove with her,
And with barbarian hordes that blocked our path,
The hearts of e'en the mildest turned to flint.
Lost were those standards whereby men at home
Judge all things calmly; each became a law
Unto himself amid these savag