The Argonauts now stemm’d the foaming tide,
And to Arcadia’s shore their course applied;
Where sightless Phineus spent his age in grief,
But Boreas’ sons engage in his relief,
And those unwelcome guests, the odious race
Of harpies, from the monarch’s table chase.
With Jason, then, they greater toils sustain,
And Phasis’ slimy banks at last they gain.
Here boldly they demand the golden prize
Of Scythia’s king, who sternly thus replies:
“That mighty labours they must first o’ercome,
Or sail their Argo thence unfreighted home.”
Meanwhile Medea, seized with fierce desire,
By reason strives to quench the raging fire;
But strives in vain;—“Some god,” she said, “withstands,
And Reason’s baffled counsel countermands.
What unseen power does this disorder move?
’Tis love—at least ’tis like what men call love.
Else wherefore should the king’s commands appear
To me too hard?—But so indeed they are.
Why should I for a stranger fear, lest he
Should perish, whom I did but lately see?
His death or safety, what are they to me?
Wretch! from thy virgin breast this flame expel,
And soon—O! could I, all would then be well.
But love, resistless love, my soul invades:
Discretion this, affection that, persuades.
I see the right, and I approve it too,
Condemn the wrong, and yet—the wrong pursue.
Why, royal maid, shouldst thou desire to wed
A wanderer, and court a foreign bed?
Thy native land, though barb’rous, can present
A bridegroom worth a royal bride’s consent;
And whether this adventurer lives or dies,
In Fate and Fortune’s fickle pleasure lies.
Yet may he live! for to the powers above,
A virgin, led by no impulse of love,
So just a suit may, for the guiltless, move.
Whom would not Jason’s valour, youth, and blood,
Invite? or, could these merits be withstood,
At least his charming person must incline
The hardest heart—I’m sure ’tis so with mine!
Yet, if I help him not, the flaming breath
Of bulls, and earthborn foes, must be his death:
Or, should he through these dangers force his way,
At last he must be made the dragon’s prey.
If no remorse for such distress I feel,
I am a tigress, and my breast is steel.
Why do I scruple then to see him slain,
And with the tragic scene my eyes profane?
My magic’s art employ, not to assuage
The savages, but to inflame their rage?
His earthborn foes to fiercer fury move,
And accessary to his niurder prove?
The gods forbid!—but prayers are idle breath,
When action only can prevent his death.
Shall I betray my father, and the state,
To intercept a rambling hero’s fate,
Who may sail off next hour, and, saved from harms
By my assistance, bless another’s arms?
While I, not only of my hopes bereft,
But to unpitied punishment am left.
If he is false, let the ingrateful bleed!
But no such symptom in his looks I read.
Nature would ne’er have lavish’d so much grace
Upon his person, if his soul were base.
Besides, he first shall plight his faith, and swear
By all the gods; what therefore canst thou fear?
Medea haste, from danger set him free,
Jason shall thy eternal debtor be.
And thou, his queen, with sovereign state install’d,
By Grecian dames, the kind preserver call’d.
Hence! idle dreams, by lovesick fancy bred;
Wilt thou, Medea, by vain wishes led,
To sister, brother, father, bid adieu?
Forsake thy country’s gods, and country too?
My father’s harsh, my brother but a child,
My sister rivals me, my country’s wild;
And, for its gods, the greatest of them all
Inspires my breast, and I obey his call.
That great endearments I forsake, is true,
But greater far the hopes that I pursue.
The pride of having saved the youths of Greece
(Each life more precious than our golden fleece);
A nobler soil by me shall be possess’d,
I shall see towns with arts and manners bless’d;
And, what I prize above the world beside,
Enjoy my Jason—and when once his bride,
Be more than mortal, and to gods allied.
They talk of hazards I must first sustain,
Of floating islands justling in the main;
Our tender bark exposed to dreadful shocks
Of fierce Charybdis’ gulf, and Scylla’s rocks,
Where breaking waves in whirling eddies roll,
And ravenous dogs that in deep caverns howl:
Amid these terrors, while I lie possess’d
Of him I love, and lean on Jason’s breast,
In tempests unconcern’d I will appear,
Or only for my husband’s safety fear.
Didst thou say husband?—canst thou so deceive
Thyself, fond maid, and thy own cheat believe?
In vain thou strivest to varnish o’er thy shame,
And grace thy guilt with wedlock’s sacred name.
Pull off the cozening mask, and, O! in time
Discover and avoid the fatal crime.”
She ceased—the Graces now, with kind surprise,
And Virtue’s lovely train, before her eyes
Present themselves, and vanquish’d Cupid flies.
She then retires to Hecate’s shrine, that stood
Far in the covert of a shady wood:
She finds the fury of her flames assuaged,
But, seeing Jason there, again they raged.
Blushes and paleness did by turns invade
Her tender cheeks, and secret grief betray’d.
As fire, that sleeping under ashes lies,
Fresh blown, and roused, does up in blazes rise,
So flamed the virgin’s breast—
New kindled by her lover’s sparkling eyes.
For chance, that day, had, with uncommon grace
Adorn’d the lovely youth, and through his face
Display’d an air so pleasing, as might charm
A goddess, and a vestal’s bosom warm.
Her rayish’d eyes survey him o’er and o’er,
As some gay wonder never seen before;
Transported to the skies she seems to be,
And thinks she gazes on a deity.
But, when he spoke, and press’d her trembling hand,
And did, with tender words, her aid demand,
With vows, and oaths, to make her soon his bride,
She wept a flood of tears, and thus replied:
“I see my error, yet to ruin move,
Nor owe my fate to ignorance, but love:
Your life I’ll guard, and only crave of you
To swear once more, and—to your oath be true.”
He swears, by Hecate he would all fulfil,
And by her grandfather’s prophetic skill,
By every thing that doubting love could press,
His present danger, and desired success.
She credits him, and kindly does produce
Enchanted herbs, and teaches him their use.
Their mystic names and virtues he admires,
And with his booty joyfully retires.
Impatient for the wonders of the day,
Aurora drives the loit’ring stars away.
Now Mars’s mount the pressing people fill,
The crowd below, the nobles crown the hill;
The king himself high-throned above the rest,
With iv’ry sceptre, and in purple dress’d.
Forthwith the brass-hoof’d bulls are set at large,
Whose furious nostrils sulph’rous flame discharge:
The blasted herbage by their breath expires;
As forges rumble with excessive fires,
And furnaces with fiercer fury glow,
When water on the panting mass ye throw,
With such a noise, from their convulsive breast,
Through bellowing throats the struggling vapour press’d.
Yet Jason marches up without concern
While on the advent’rous youth the monsters turn
Their glaring eyes, and, eager to engage,
Brandish their steel-tipp’d horns in threat’ning rage;
With brazen hoofs they beat the ground, and choke
The ambient air with clouds of dust and smoke:
Each gazing Grecian for his champion shakes,
While bold advances he securely makes
Through singing blasts; such wonders magic art
Can work, when Love conspires, and plays his part.
The passive savages like statues stand,
While he their dewlaps strokes with soothing hand;
To unknown yokes their brawny necks they yield,
And, like tame oxen, plough the wond’ring field.
The Colchians stare; the Grecians shout, and raise
Their champion’s courage with inspiring praise.
Imbolden’d now, on fresh attempts he goes,
With serpent’s teeth the fertile furrows sows;
The glebe fermenting, with enchanted juice,
Makes the snake’s teeth a human crop produce:
For, as an infant, pris’ner to the womb,
Contented sleeps, till to perfection come,
Then does the cell’s obscure confinement scorn,
He tosses, throbs, and presses to be born,
So, from the lab’ring earth, no single birth,
But a whole troop of lusty youths, rush forth;
And, what’s more strange, with martial fury warm’d,
And for encounter all completely arm’d;
In rank and file, as they were sow’d, they stand,
Impatient for the signal of command.
No foe but the Aemonian youth appears;
At him they level their steel-pointed spears;
His frighted friends, who triumph’d just before,
With peals of sighs, his desperate case deplore;
And where such hardy warriors are afraid,
What must the tender and enamour’d maid?
Her spirits sink, the blood her cheek forsook;
She fears, who for his safety undertook;
She knew the virtue of the spells she gave,
She knew the force, and knew her lover brave:
But what’s a single champion to a host?
Yet, scorning thus to see him tamely lost,
Her strong reserve of secret arts she brings,
And last, her never-failing song she sings.
Wonders ensue; among his gazing foes
The massy fragment of a rock he throws;
This charm in civil war engaged them all;
By mutual wounds those earthborn brothers fall.
The Greeks, transported with the strange success,
Leap from their seats the conq’ror to caress;
Commend, and kiss, and clasp him in their arms
So would the kind contriver of the charms;
But her, who felt the tenderest concern,
Honour condemns in secret flames to burn;
Committed to a double guard of fame,
Awed by a virgin’s and a princess’ name.
But thoughts are free, and fancy unconfined,
She kisses, courts, and hugs him in her mind;
To fav’ring powers her silent thanks she gives,
By whose indulgence her loved hero lives.
One labour more remains, and, though the last,
In danger far surmounting all the past;
That enterprise, by Fates, in store was kept,
To make the dragon sleep, that never slept,
Whose crest shoots dreadful lustre; from his jaws
A triple tire of forked stings he draws,
With fangs, and wings of a prodigious size:
Such was the guardian of the golden prize.
Yet him, besprinkled with Lethaean dew,
The fair enchantress into slumber threw;
And then, to fix him, thrice she did repeat
The rhyme, that makes the raging winds retreat;
In stormy seas can halcyon seasons make,
Turn rapid streams into a standing lake;
While the soft guest his drowsy eyelids seals,
The unguarded golden fleece the stranger steals;
Proud to possess the purchase of the toil,
Proud of his royal bride, the richer spoil;
To sea both prize and patroness he bore,
And lands triumphant on his native shore.