dreamed. 
             Alas, it came not!  What have I done, ye gods! 
             To be denied what ye are wont to give
             Even to the poorest?  Why have I alone
             No refuge from the buffets of the world
             At mine own hearth, no dear companion there,
             My own, in truth, my own in plighted troth?

CREUSA.  Thou didst not woo thy wife as others, then? 
             Her father did not raise his hand to bless?

JASON.  He raised it, ay, but armed with a sword;
             And ’twas no blessing, but a curse he spake. 
             But I—­I had a swift and sweet revenge! 
             His only son is dead, and he himself
             Lies dumb in the grave.  His curse alone lives still—­
             Or so it seems.

CREUSA.  Alas, how strange to think
             Of all the change a few brief years have wrought! 
             Thou wert so soft and gentle, and art now
             So stern.  But I am still the selfsame maid
             As then, have still the selfsame hopes and fears,
             And what I then thought right, I think right still,
             What then I blamed, cannot think blameless now.—­
             But thou art changed.

JASON.  Ay, thou hast hit the truth! 
             The real misfortune in a hapless lot
             Is this:  that man is to himself untrue. 
             Here one must show him master, there must cringe
             And bow the knee; here Justice moves a hair,
             And there a grain; and, at his journey’s end,
             He stands another man than he who late
             Set out upon that journey.  And his loss
             Is twofold—­for the world has passed him by
             In scorn, and his own self-respect is dead. 
             Naught have I done that in itself was bad,
             Yet have had evil hopes, bad wishes, ay,
             Unholy aspirations; and have stood
             And looked in silence, while another sinned;
             Or here have willed no evil, yet joined hands
             With sin, forgetful how one wicked deed
             Begets another.—­Now at last I stand,
             A sea of evils breaking all about,
             And cannot say, “My hand hath done no wrong!”—­
             O happy Youth, couldst thou forever stay! 
             O joyous Fancy, blest Forgetfulness,
             Time when each moment cradles some great deed
             And buries it!  How, in a swelling tide
             Of high adventure, I disported me,
             Cleaving the mighty waves with stalwart breast! 
             But manhood comes, with slow and sober steps;
             And Fancy flees away, while naked Truth
             Creeps soft to fill its place and brood upon
             Full