I have no heart to plan or think at all.
Over the silent abyss
Let dark night brood!

GORA. If thou wouldst flee, then whither?

MEDEA (_sorrowfully_).

Whither? Ah, whither?

GORA. Here in this stranger-land
There is no place for us. They hate thee sore,
These Greeks, and they will slay thee!

MEDEA. Slay me? Me?
Nay, it is I will slay them!

GORA. And at home,
There in far Colchis, danger waits us, too!

MEDEA. O Colchis, Colchis! O my fatherland!

GORA. Thou hast heard the tale, how thy father died
When thou wentest forth, and didst leave thy home,
And thy brother fell? He died, says the tale,
But methinks 'twas not so? Nay, he gripped his grief,
Sharper far than a sword, and, raging 'gainst Fate,
'Gainst himself, fell on death!

MEDEA. Dost thou, too, join my foes?
Wilt thou slay me?

GORA. Nay, hark! I warned thee. I said:
"Flee these strangers, new-come; most of all flee this man,
Their leader smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor!"

MEDEA. "Smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor"
--were these thy words?

GORA. Even these.

MEDEA. And I would not believe?

GORA. Thou wouldst not; but into the deadly net
Didst haste, that now closes over thine head.

MEDEA. "A smooth-tongued traitor!" Yea, that is the word!
Hadst thou said but that, I had known in time;
But thou namedst him foe to us, hateful, and dread,
While friendly he seemed and fair, and I hated him not.

GORA. Thou lovest him, then?

MEDEA. I? Love?
I hate and shudder at him
As at falsehood, treachery,
Black horrors--as at myself!

GORA. Then punish him, strike him low!
Avenge thy brother, thy sire,
Our fatherland and our gods,
Our shame-yea, mine, and thine!

MEDEA. First I will have my babes;
All else is hidden in night.
What think'st thou of this?--When he comes
Treading proud to his bridal with her,
That maid whom I hate,
If, from the roof of the palace above him,
Medea crash down at his feet a