The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

So, on a weary, hopeless day, she said:
“Ah, poor Medea, art thou then betrayed
By that thou trustedst? Art thou brought to nought
By that which erst, with wonders strangely wrought,
Thou madest live through happy days and long?
Lo, now shall be avenged those poor maids' wrong,
Who, in that temple o'er the murmuring sea,
Ran maddening here and there; and now shall be
That word accomplished that I uttered then,
Nor yet believed—that to all earthly men,
In spite of right and wrong, and love and hate,
One day shall come the turn of luckless Fate.
Alas! then I believed it not, when I
Saw Argo's painted prow triumphantly
Cleave the grey seas, and knew that I it was,

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My very self, who brought those things to pass,
And lit those eyes unseen. How could I know
Unto what cruel folly men will grow?”

She wept therewith—and once more on that night
She stole abroad about the mirk midnight,
Once more upon a wood's edge from her feet
She stripped the shoes and bared her shoulder sweet.
Once more that night over the lingering fire
She hung with sick heart famished of desire.
Once more she turned back when her work was done:
Once more she fled the coming of the sun;
Once more she reached her dusky, glimmering room;
Once more she lighted up the dying gloom;
Once more she lay adown, and in sad sleep
Her weary body and sick heart did steep.
Alas! no more did tender Love come down
And smooth her troubled face of fear and frown;
No more with hope half-opened lips did smile.

Not long she slept, but in a little while,
Sighing, she rose when now the sun was high,
And, going to her wallet wearily,
Took forth a phial thence, which she unstopped
And a small driblet therefrom slowly dropped
Upon a shred of linen, which straightway
In the sun's gleaming pathway did she lay;
But when across it the first sunbeam came,
Therefrom there burst a colourless bright flame,
Which still burnt on when every shred was gone
Of that which seemed to feed the flame alone;
Nor burnt it less for water, that she threw
Across it and across. Thereon she drew
A linen tunic from a brazen chest,
Wherein lay hid the fairest and the best
Of all her raiment; this she held, and said:
“Jason, thy love is fair by likelihead,
Pity it were to hide her overmuch,
And when this garment her fair limbs shall touch,

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So will it hide them as the water green
Hid Citheræa, when she first was seen.”

Soothly she spoke, because the web was fair
And thin, and delicate beyond compare,
And had been woven in no common loom,
For she herself within her fair-hung room
Had set the warp and watched the fine web glide
Up from the roller, while from side to side,
Scarce seen, the shuttle flew from fingers thin
Of a dark Indian maid, whom gold did win
From some Phœnician, that loved nought but gold.

But sighing now the raiment to behold,
She poured into a well-wrought bowl of brass
The thing that in the phial hidden was,
And therein, fold by fold, the linen laid,
Then for a little while her hands she stayed,
Till it had drunk the moisture thoroughly;
Whereon she took it forth and laid it by,
Far from the sunlight, on her royal bed,
Saying: “O thou who hast the hardihead,
Whoe'er thou art, to take from me mine own,
It had been better for thee that of stone
Thy limbs were wrought, nor made to suffer pain,
If this morn's deed has not been quite in vain.”

So saying, did she mutter moodily,
Watching the spread-out linen slowly dry;
At last she took it and within a bright
Fair silver casket hid it from the sight.

This done, about the noble house she went,
And bitterly full oft her eyes she bent
On man and maid, and things grown old and dear,
'Midst hope of rest, no longer hoped for there.