 | Medea |  |
SCENE the FIFTH.
JASON, COLCHIANS, PHÆACIANS and LYCANDER.LYCANDER.
Gods! what new reverse
Hath cast the first of heroes to the earth?
Thy mariners expect thee; haste away.
Too high the ferment rises. Oh! recall
Theano's last presage of black events.
The wild impatience of religious rage
Stings ev'ry bosom. Our Corinthian dames
Range through the streets with torches in their hands,
Invoking Juno, hymeneal Juno.
An impulse more, than natural, directs
Those armed numbers to some hideous act.
They breathe demoniac fury on the palace.
94
I must attend thy flight. Our timely absence
Will save our streets from homicide.
JASON.
No, death
May reach me too.
LYCANDER.
For pity—Ha! the skies
Share in our tumult, and a bloody veil
Hangs o'er the sick'ning sun. The air wheels round us.
Grim Neptune yonder shakes his stormy trident.
Why heaves the loosen'd rock? Why drop these clouds
In threat'ning murmurs from their dusky folds
Streak'd with sulphureous gleams?
[Thunder, lightning and the stage darken'd.
JASON
rising.
This suits my soul
For its infernal journey all prepar'd,
A pale attendant on my children's ghosts
In Tartarus to dwel, while they repose
In blest Elysium.
FIRST COLCHIAN.
Look, the holy priestess
Breaks from the palace in disorder'd haste,
And to her temple flies. In consternation
Old Æson too is nigh.
| Medea | |