SCENE I

_Nurse._ I shrink with horror! Ruin threatens us! How terribly her wrath inflames itself! Her former force awakes, thus I have seen 660 Medea raging and attacking god, Compelling heaven. Greater crime than then She now prepares, for as with frantic step She sought the sanctuary of her crimes, She poured forth all her threats; and what before 665 She feared she now brings forth; lets loose a host Of poisonous evils, arts mysterious; With sad left hand outstretched invokes all ills That Libyan sands with their fierce heat create, Or frost-bound Taurus with perpetual snow 670 Encompasses. Drawn by her magic spell The serpent drags his heavy length along, Darts his forked tongue, and seeks his destined prey. Hearing her incantation, he draws back And knots his swelling body coiling it.-- 675 'They are but feeble poisons earth brings forth, And harmless darts,' she says, 'heaven's ills I seek. Now is the time for deeper sorcery. The dragon like a torrent shall descend, Whose mighty folds the Great and Lesser Bear 680 Know well; Ophiuchus shall loose his grasp And poison flow. Be present at my call, Python, who dared to fight twin deities. The Hydra slain by Hercules shall come Healed of his wound. Thou watchful Colchian one, 685 Be present with the rest--thou, who first slept Lulled by my incantations.' When the brood Of serpents has been called she blends the juice Of poisonous herbs; all Eryx' pathless heights Bear, or the open top of Caucasus 690 Wet with Prometheus' blood, where winter reigns; All that the rich Arabians use to tip Their poisoned shafts, or the light Parthians, Or warlike Medes; all the brave Suabians cull In the Hyrcanian forests in the north; 695 All poisons that the earth brings forth in spring When birds are nesting; or when winter cold Has torn away the beauty of the groves And bound the world in icy manacles. Whatever herb gives flower the cause of death, 700 Or juice of twisted root, her hands have culled. These on Thessalian Athos grew, and those On mighty Pindus; on Pangæus' height She cut the tender herbs with bloody scythe. These Tigris nurtured with its current deep, 705 The Danube those; Hydaspes rich in gems Flowing with current warm through levels dry, Bætis that gives its name to neighboring lands And meets the western ocean languidly, Have nurtured these. Those have been cut at dawn; 710 These other herbs at dead of night were reaped; And these were gathered with the enchanted hook. Death-dealing plants she chooses, wrings the blood Of serpents, and she takes ill-omened birds, The sad owl's heart, the quivering entrails cut 715 From the horned owl living;--sorts all these. In some the eager force of flame is found, In some the bitter cold of sluggish ice; To these she adds the venom of her words As greatly to be feared. She stamps her feet; 720 She sings, and the world trembles at her song.