GORA.  Thou hast heard the tale, how thy father died
             When thou wentest forth, and didst leave thy home,
             And thy brother fell?  He died, says the tale,
             But methinks ’twas not so?  Nay, he gripped his grief,
             Sharper far than a sword, and, raging ’gainst Fate,
             ’Gainst himself, fell on death!

MEDEA.  Dost thou, too, join my foes? 
             Wilt thou slay me?

GORA.  Nay, hark!  I warned thee.  I said: 
             “Flee these strangers, new-come; most of all flee this man,
             Their leader smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor!”

MEDEA.  “Smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor”
             —­were these thy words?

GORA.  Even these.

MEDEA.  And I would not believe?

GORA.  Thou wouldst not; but into the deadly net
             Didst haste, that now closes over thine head.

MEDEA.  “A smooth-tongued traitor!” Yea, that is the word! 
             Hadst thou said but that, I had known in time;
             But thou namedst him foe to us, hateful, and dread,
             While friendly he seemed and fair, and I hated him not.

GORA.  Thou lovest him, then?

MEDEA.  I?  Love? 
             I hate and shudder at him
             As at falsehood, treachery,
             Black horrors—­as at myself!

GORA.  Then punish him, strike him low! 
             Avenge thy brother, thy sire,
             Our fatherland and our gods,
             Our shame-yea, mine, and thine!

MEDEA.  First I will have my babes;
             All else is hidden in night. 
             What think’st thou of this?—­When he comes
             Treading proud to his bridal with her,
             That maid whom I hate,
             If, from the roof of the palace above him,
             Medea crash down at his feet and lie there,
             A ghastly corpse?

GORA.  ’Twere a sweet revenge!

MEDEA.  Or if, at the bridal-chamber’s door,
             I lay her dead in her blood,
             Beside her the children—­Jason’s children—­dead?

GORA.  But thyself such revenge would hurt, and not him.

MEDEA.  Ah, I would that he loved me still,
             That I might slay myself, and make him groan! 
             But what of that maid, so false, so pure?

GORA.  Ha!  There thou strikest nearer to the mark!

MEDEA.  Peace, peace!  Back, whence ye came, ye evil thoughts! 
             Back into silence, into darkest night!

[She covers her face with her veil.]