kind abhorred as never woman was, who hadst the heart to stab thy babes, thou their mother, leaving me undone and childless; this hast thou done and still dost gaze upon the sun and earth after this deed most impious? Curses on thee! I now perceive what then I missed in the day I brought thee, fraught with doom, from thy home in a barbarian land to dwell in Hellas, traitress to thy sire and to the land that nurtured thee. On me the gods have hurled the curse that dogged thy steps, for thou didst slay thy brother at his hearth ere thou cam'st aboard our fair ship Argo. Such was the outset of thy life of crime; then didst thou wed with me, and having borne me sons to glut thy passion's lust, thou now hast slain them. Not one amongst the wives of Hellas e'er had dared this deed; yet before them all I chose thee for my wife, wedding a foe to be my doom, no woman, but a lioness fiercer than Tyrrhene Scylla in nature. But with reproaches heaped a thousandfold I cannot wound thee, so brazen is thy nature. Perish, vile sorceress, murderess of thy babes! Whilst I must mourn my luckless fate, for I shall ne'er enjoy my new-found bride, nor shall I have the children, whom I bred and reared, alive to say the last farewell to me; nay, I have lost them.

Medea To this thy speech I could have made a long retort, but Father Zeus knows well all I have done for thee, and the treatment thou hast given me. Yet thou wert not ordained to scorn my love and lead a life of joy in mockery of me, nor was thy royal bride nor Creon, who gave thee a second wife, to thrust me from this land and rue it not. Wherefore, if thou wilt, call me e'en a lioness, and Scylla, whose home is in the Tyrrhene land; for I in turn have wrung thy heart, as well I might.

Jason-Thou, too, art grieved thyself, and sharest in my

sorrow.

Medea- Be well assured I am; but it relieves my pain to know thou canst not mock at me.

Jason - O my children, how vile a mother ye have found! Medea My sons, your father's feeble lust has been your

ruin!

Jason'Twas not my hand, at any rate, that slew them. Medea-No, but thy foul treatment of me, and thy new marriage.

Jason-Didst think that marriage cause enough to murder

them?

evil.

Medea-Dost think a woman counts this a trifling injury? Jason-So she be self-restrained; but in thy eyes all is

Medea-Thy sons are dead and gone. That will stab thy

heart.

Jason-They live, methinks, to bring a curse upon thy

head.

Medea The gods know, whoso of them began this troublous coil.

Jason - Indeed, they know that hateful heart of thine. Medea Thou art as hateful. I am aweary of thy bitter tongue.

Jason And I likewise of thine. But parting is easy.

Medea

to go.

Say how; what am I to do? for I am fain as thou

Jason Give up to me those dead, to bury and lament. Medea-No, never! I will bury them myself, bearing them to Hera's sacred field, who watches o'er the Cape, that none of their foes may insult them by pulling down their tombs; and in this land of Sisyphus I will ordain hereafter a solemn feast and mystic rites to atone for this impious murder. Myself will now to the land of Erechtheus, to dwell with Ægeus, Pandion's son. But thou, as well thou mayest, shalt die a caitiff's death, thy head crushed 'neath a shattered relic of Argo, when thou hast seen the bitter ending of my marriage.

Jason-The curse of our sons' avenging spirit and of Justice, that calls for blood, be on thee!

Medea - What god or power divine hears thee, breaker of oaths and every law of hospitality?

Jason-Fie upon thee! cursed witch! child murderess! Medea - To thy house! go, bury thy wife.

Jason I go, bereft of both my sons.

Medea-Thy grief is yet to come; wait till old age is with thee too.

Jason O my dear, dear children!

-

Medea - Dear to their mother, not to thee.

Jason And yet thou didst slay them?

Medea Yea, to vex thy heart.

Jason-One last fond kiss, ah me! I fain would on their lips imprint.

Medea - Embraces now, and fond farewells for them; but then a cold repulse!

Jason-By heaven I do adjure thee, let me touch their tender skin.

Medea-No, no! in vain this word has sped its flight.

Jason-O Zeus, dost hear how I am driven hence; dost mark the treatment I receive from this she-lion, fell murderess of her young? Yet so far as I may and can, I raise for them a dirge, and do adjure the gods to witness how thou hast slain my sons, and wilt not suffer me to embrace or bury their dead bodies. Would I had never begotten them to see thee slay them after all!

THE BACCHANALS.

BY JOHN KEATS.

(From "Endymion.")

O SORROW,

Why dost borrow

The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?—

To give maiden blushes

To the white rose bushes?

Or is 't thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

O Sorrow,

Why dost borrow

The lustrous passion from a falcon eye?—
To give the glowworm light?

Or on a moonless night,

To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea spray?

O Sorrow,

Why dost borrow

The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?-
To give at evening pale

Unto the nightingale,

That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?

O Sorrow,

Why dost borrow

Heart's lightness from the merriment of May ?-
A lover would not tread

A cowslip on the head,

Though he should dance from eve till peep of day

Nor any drooping flower
Held sacred for thy bower,

Wherever he may sport himself and play.

To Sorrow

I bade good morrow,

And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,

She loves me dearly;

She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her

And so leave her,

But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept, -
And so I kept

Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.

Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: what enamored bride,
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,
But hides and shrouds

Beneath dark palm trees by a river side?

And as I sat, over the light blue hills
There came a noise of revelers: the rills
Into the wide stream came of purple hue-
'Twas Bacchus and his crew!

The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills
From kissing cymbals made a merry din-
"Twas Bacchus and his kin!

Like to a moving vintage down they came,
Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flame;
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
To scare thee, Melancholy!

O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly
By shepherds is forgotten, when, in June,
Tall chestnuts keep away the sun and moon:
I rushed into the folly!

Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
Trifling his ivy dart, in dancing mood,
With sidelong laughing;

And little rills of crimson wine imbrued

His plump white arms, and shoulders, enough white
For Venus' pearly bite:

And near him rode Silenus on his ass,
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass
Tipsily quaffing.

Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye! So many, and so many, and such glee?

Why have ye left your bowers desolate,
Your lutes, and gentler fate?
"We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing,
A conquering!

Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
We dance before him through kingdoms wide:-
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be

To our wild minstrelsy!"

Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye!
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?

"For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
And cold mushrooms;

For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth? -Come hither, lady fair, and joined be

To our mad minstrelsy!"

Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent,
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,
With Asian elephants:

Onward these myriads with song and dance,
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance,
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles,

Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files,
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil
Of seamen, and stout galley rowers' toil:
With toying oars and silken sails they glide,
Nor care for wind and tide.

Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes,
From rear to van they scour about the plains;