his triumph,
trusting in the gods’ justice hereafter, the fields where
the meek
are kings and queens, and the powerful on earth are
like whipped dogs.
There’s moral victory!” But she threw back her hair with
a violent head shake
and clenched her teeth. “—So any craven slave will tell
you,
smiling at his coward’s wounds, whimpering to the gods.
Shall I make
my hand so limp, my waste so trivial? — But no, no, no! Repent, mad child of Aietes! Though a thousand curses
rise
like stones turned judges in the wilderness, all justifying in one loud cry your scheme, yet this alone is true: If you strike for pride, for just and absolute revenge,
the stroke
is wasted; for who will call it pride or justice, from you? ‘Her father was mad in the selfsame way and to the
same degree,’
they’ll say, and they’ll wrinkle their broad Akhaian brows
and wipe
cool tears away. Dear gods! Even as an instrument of
death
they’ve made me nothing, meaningless! And yet though
Jason
robs me even of human free will — takes from me even my soul’s conviction of freedom — I still can give pain.
Even now,
crowned by the wreath, swathed in her golden robe, his
bride
is perishing. I see it in my heart. You’ve served me well,
good sons.
One more journey I must send you on, now that we’re
home.
Run in! Go quickly! I’ll follow you soon.” She opened the
gate
and clung to it, weeping. The boys went timidly in
toward light.
But for all her wailing, her mind was not for an instant
deflected
from what she was seeing. For her witch-heart saw it all,
from the beginning:
Before she was aware that his sons were with him,
the princess turned
with an eager welcoming glance toward Jason. But then,
drawing
her veil before her eyes, she turned her white cheek
away,
loath to have them come near. The children paused,
frightened,
but Jason said quickly to the princess, “Do not be hostile
to friends.
Forget your anger and turn your face toward me again. Accept as loved ones all whom your husband holds dear;
and accept
their gifts — worthy of a goddess — look! Then plead with
your father
that he soften toward these children and excuse them—
for my sake, Pyripta.”
The princess, seeing that golden gown, could resist no
longer
but yielded to his will, and gladly. And scarcely had
Jason left
with his children and their old attendant, than the
princess put on the new dress
and circled her hair with the golden wreath. In her
shining mirror
she ranged her locks, smiling back at the lifeless image, then rose from her seat and around the room went
stepping, half-dancing—
her blue-white feet treading delicately — Pyripta exulting, casting her eyes down many a time at her pointed foot.
But now suddenly the princess turned pale, and
reeling back
with limbs a-tremble, she sank down quickly to a
cushioned seat—
an instant more and she’d have tottered to the ground.
An old black handmaid,
thinking it perhaps some frenzy sent by Pan, cried out in prayer. Then, lo, through the bride’s bright lips she saw white foam-flakes issue — saw her eyeballs roll out of sight, no blood in her face. Then the slave sent out a shriek far different
from the first.
At once, one slave went flying upstairs to Kreon’s
chamber,
another to Jason to tell him the news. The whole vast
house
echoed with footsteps, hurrying to and fro. Before a swift walker with long, sure strides could have paced
a furlong
she opened her blue eyes wide from her speechless agony and groaned. From the golden chaplet wreathing
Pyripta’s head
a stream of ravening fire came flying like water down a
cliff,
and below, the gown was eating the poor girl’s fair white
flesh.
She fled crazily this way and that, aflame all over, shrieking and tossing her hair to be rid of the wreath,
but the gold
clung firmly fixed. As she tossed her locks, the fire
burned brighter,
and soon all the palace was heavy with the smell of her
burning hair
and flesh. She sank to the ground, her throat too swollen
for screams,
a dark, foul shape that even her father might scarcely
know.
Her features melted; from her head ran blood in a
stream, all melled
with fire. From her bones flesh dripped like the gum of
a pine — a sight
to silence even the eternally whispering slaves. Lord
Jason
stared, rooted to the ground where he stood — nor would
anyone else
go near that body. But wretched Kreon, with a wild bawl threw himself over the corpse, closing his arms around
it
and kissing it, howling his sorrow to the gods. “Now
life’s stripped bare,”
he sobbed. “O, O that I too might die! — these many
years
ripe for the tomb, and thou barely ripe for womanhood!” So old Kreon wept and wailed; and when he could
mourn
no more and thought he would raise again his ancient
limbs,
he found to his horror that she clung to him as ivy clings to laurel boughs. The slaves and the guards of the
palace stood helpless,
an army of useless friends. The fat king
wrestled with his daughter. When he pulled away with
the whole of his strength,
his agèd flesh tore free of his bones. Too spent at last to struggle further with the corpse or howl in pain, he
sobbed,
dryly, resigned to death. The slave Ipnolebes
stood over him, watching with empty eyes. The old king
whispered,
“Nothing works! All we’ve learned is that!” And he died. Ipnolebes said nothing. Then, all around the room, the slaves began to whisper again. A sound like fire.
Then Jason covered his eyes with his hands and
moaned, for at last
he saw to the end. And then he was running in the wild
hope
that still there was time. He flew down the palace
steps — no guards
in sight there now — and down through that smoky,
endless rain,
the clattering thunder and the sudden bursts of fire out
of heaven,
to his own locked gate. He hurled his shoulder against it
with the force
of Herakles’ club, and the huge bronze hinges snapped
like wood.
The Corinthian women inside all ran to the windows in
fear,
hearing the racket of his coming. But he came no
further. Above
his head, like a hovering lightning shape, Medeia
appeared
in a chariot drawn by dragons — beside her, the bodies
of his sons.
Squinting, throwing up his arm against that blood-red
light,
his throat convulsing till his words were barely
intelligible,
he shouted, “Monster! Female serpent abhorred by
mankind,