JASON.  Even then,
             What can I do, how clear thee?—­It were vain! 
             Come, let us yield to Fate, not stubbornly
             Defy it!  Let us each repentance seek,
             And suffer our just doom, thou fleeing forth
             Because thou may’st not stay, I tarrying here
             When I would flee.

MEDEA.  Methinks thou dost not choose
             The harder lot!

JASON.  Is it so easy, then,
             To live, a stranger, in a stranger’s house,
             Subsisting on a stranger’s pitying gifts?

MEDEA.  Nay, if it seem so hard, why dost not choose
             To fly with me?

JASON.  But whither?  Ay, and how?

MEDEA.  There was a time thou hadst not shown thyself
             So over-prudent, when thou camest first
             To Colchis from the city of thy sires,
             Seeking the glitter of an empty fame
             In distant lands.

JASON.  I am not what I was;
             Broken my strength, the courage in my breast
             A dead thing.  And ’tis thou I have to thank
             For such misfortune!  Bitter memories
             Of days long past lie like a weight of lead
             Upon my anxious soul; I cannot raise
             Mine eyes for heaviness of heart.  And, more,
             The boy of those far days is grown a man,
             No longer, like a wanton, sportive child,
             Gambols amid bright flow’rs, but reaches out
             For ripened fruit, for what is real and sure. 
             Babes I have got, but have no place where they
             May lay their heads; my task it is to make
             An heritage for these.  Shall Jason’s stock
             Be but a withered weed beside the road,
             By all men spurned and trampled?  If thou e’er
             Hast truly loved me, if I e’er was dear
             To thee, oh, give me proof thereof, restore
             Myself to me again, and yield a grave
             To me in this, my homeland!

MEDEA.  And in this
             Same homeland a new marriage-bed, forsooth I
             Am I not right?

JASON.  What idle talk is this?

MEDEA.  Have I not heard how Creon named thee son,
             And husband of his daughter?  She it is,
             Creusa, that doth charm thee, hold thee fast
             In Corinth!  ’Tis for her that thou wouldst stay! 
             Confess, I have thee there!

JASON.  Thou hast me not,
             And never hadst me.

MEDEA.  So, thou wilt repent,
             And I, thy wife Medea, I must go
             Away?—­I stood beside you there and wept
             As thou didst trace with her your happy days
             Of youth together, tarrying at each step
             In sweet remembrance, till thou didst become
             Naught but an echo of that distant past.—­
             I will not go, no, will not!