MEDEA.  Say on.

GORA.  All I foretold has come to pass. 
             ’Tis scarce one moon since the revolted sea
             Cast you ashore, seducer and seduced;
             And yet e ’en now these folk flee from thy face,
             And horror follows wheresoe’er thou goest. 
             The people shudder at the Colchian witch
             With fearful whispers of her magic dark. 
             Where thou dost show thyself, there all shrink back
             And curse thee.  May the same curse smite them all!—­
             As for thy lord, the Colchian princess’ spouse,
             Him, too, they hate, for his sake, and for thine. 
             Did not his uncle drive him from his palace? 
             Was he not banished from his fatherland
             What time that uncle perished, none knows how? 
             Home hath he none, nor resting-place, nor where
             To lay his head.  What canst thou hope from him?

MEDEA.  I am his wife!

GORA.  And hop’st—?

MEDEA.  To follow him
             In need and unto death.

GORA.  Ay, need and death! 
             AEtes’ daughter in a beggar’s hut!

MEDEA.  Let us pray Heaven for a simple heart;
             So shall our humble lot be easier borne.

GORA.  Ha!—­And thy husband—?

MEDEA.  Day breaks.  Let us go.

GORA.  Nay, thou shalt not escape my questioning!—­One
             comfort still is left me in my grief,
             And only one:  our wretched plight shows clear
             That gods still rule in Heaven, and mete out
             To guilty men requital, late or soon. 
             Weep for thy bitter lot; I’ll comfort thee. 
             Only presume not rashly to deny
             The gods are just, because thou dost deny
             This punishment they send, and all this woe.—­
             To cure an evil, we must see it clear. 
             Thy husband—­tell me—­is he still the same?

MEDEA.  What should he be?

GORA.  O, toy not so with words! 
             Is he the same impetuous lover still
             Who wooed thee once; who braved a hundred swords
             To win thee; who, upon that weary voyage,
             Laughed at thy fears and kissed away thy grief,
             Poor maid, when thou wouldst neither eat nor drink,
             But only pray to die?  Ay, all too soon
             He won thee with his passionate, stormy love. 
             Is he thy lover still?—­I see thee tremble. 
             Ay, thou hast need; thou knowest he loves thee not,
             But shudders at thee, dreads thee, flees thee, hates thee! 
             And as thou didst betray thy fatherland,
             So shalt thou be betrayed—­and by thy lover. 
             Deep in the earth the symbols of thy crime
             Lie buried;—­but the crime thou canst not hide.