who was there to see?
Or who would trust thy tale?

MEDEA. Thou!

JASON. Even then,
What can I do, how clear thee?--It were vain!
Come, let us yield to Fate, not stubbornly
Defy it! Let us each repentance seek,
And suffer our just doom, thou fleeing forth
Because thou may'st not stay, I tarrying here
When I would flee.

MEDEA. Methinks thou dost not choose
The harder lot!

JASON. Is it so easy, then,
To live, a stranger, in a stranger's house,
Subsisting on a stranger's pitying gifts?

MEDEA. Nay, if it seem so hard, why dost not choose
To fly with me?

JASON. But whither? Ay, and how?

MEDEA. There was a time thou hadst not shown thyself
So over-prudent, when thou camest first
To Colchis from the city of thy sires,
Seeking the glitter of an empty fame
In distant lands.

JASON. I am not what I was;
Broken my strength, the courage in my breast
A dead thing. And 'tis thou I have to thank
For such misfortune! Bitter memories
Of days long past lie like a weight of lead
Upon my anxious soul; I cannot raise
Mine eyes for heaviness of heart. And, more,
The boy of those far days is grown a man,
No longer, like a wanton, sportive child,
Gambols amid bright flow'rs, but reaches out
For ripened fruit, for what is real and sure.
Babes I have got, but have no place where they
May lay their heads; my task it is to make
An heritage for these. Shall Jason's stock
Be but a withered weed beside the road,
By all men spurned and trampled? If thou e'er
Hast truly loved me, if I e'er was dear
To thee, oh, give me proof thereof, restore
Myself to me again, and yield a grave
To me in this, my homeland!

MEDEA. And in this
Same homeland a new marriage-bed, forsooth I
Am I not right?

JASON. What idle talk is this?

MEDEA. Have I not heard how Creon named thee son,
And husband of his daughter? She it is,
Creusa, that doth charm thee, hold thee fast
In Corinth!