MEDEA.  Be silent!

GORA.  Never!

MEDEA (grasping her fiercely by the arm ).

Silence, dame, I say! 
What is this madness?  Cease these frantic cries! 
’Tis our part to await whate’er may come,
Not bid it hasten.—­Thou didst say but now
There is no past, no future; when a deed
Is done, ’tis done for all time; we can know
Only this one brief present instant, Now. 
Say, if this Now may cradle a dim future,
Why may it not entomb the misty past? 
My past!  Would God that I could change it—­now! 
And bitter tears I weep for it, bitterer far
Than thou dost dream of.—­Yet, that is no cause
To seek destruction.  Rather is there need
Clearly to know myself, face honestly
The thing I am.  Here to these foreign shores
And stranger folk a god hath driven us;
And what seemed right in Colchis, here is named
Evil and wickedness; our wonted ways
Win hatred here in Corinth, and distrust. 
So, it is meet we change our ways and speech;
If we may be no longer what we would,
Let us at least, then, be e’en what we can.—­
The ties that bound me to my fatherland
Here in earth’s bosom I have buried deep;
The magic rites my mother taught me, all
Back to the Night that bare them I have given. 
Now, but a woman, weak, alone, defenseless,
I throw me in my husband’s open arms! 
He shuddered at the Colchian witch!  But now
I am his true, dear wife; and surely he
Will take me to his loving, shelt’ring arms.—­
Lo, the day breaks, fair sign of our new life
Together!  The dark past has ceased to be,
The happy future beckons!—­Thou, O Earth,
The kind and gentle mother of us all,
Guard well my trust, that in thy bosom lies.

[As she and GORA approach the tent, it opens, and JASON appears, talking with a Corinthian rustic, and followed by a slave.]

JASON.  Thou saw’st the king himself?

RUSTIC.  I did, my lord.

JASON.  How went thy tale?

RUSTIC.  I Said, “One waits without,
             A guest-friend of thy house, well-known to thee,
             Yet so hedged round is he with traitorous foes,
             He dares not enter, ere thou promise him
             Peace and protection.”

JASON.  And his answer?—­Speak!

RUSTIC.  He comes, my lord, to meet thee.  All this folk
             Make pious offering to Poseidon here
             Upon the seashore.  Soon in festal train
             They come with garlands and fair gifts, the king
             Leading his daughter by the hand.  ’Tis then,
             As they pass by, that he will speak with thee.

JASON.  Thou hast done well.  I thank thee.

MEDEA (coming up to him).

Jason, hail!

JASON.  Hail to thee, too!