in truce, incited by Medea, assail the Argonauts, who are driven back, fighting, towards their ship. In the tent is now consulted what further shall be done. To her father's angry reproaches of her faithless preservation of his enemy, Medea replies by entreaty, earnest and inspiriting, that he will muster his strength, and before the coming dawn, have cast out the stran gers from his land. To her further urgently expressed desire, he grants that she shall proceed, under her bro ther's escort, to some concealed place of safety in the heart of the country: "Thither," says he, "where is the Fleece kept;" to which she vehemently but fruitlessly objects. There are two roads. One, passing near the encampment of the Greeks; the other, rough, difficult, and less trodden, by

a bridge over the river. The last is made choice of. As she is departing, her father again slighting her repug nance and horror for every thing which threatens to connect her with the blood-stained sorrow-teeming Fleece, forces into her hand the key of the hidden entrance, or falling-door as the Germans have the advantage of calling it, to its subterranean strong-hold: and she takes her leave.

We extract, chiefly for the view which they present of her feelings and character, one or two speeches of hers out of this scene, although perhaps chargeable with the same fault, in a still higher degree, on which we have already remarked. The passage will explain for itself the connexion in which it occurs.

Aietes. Good, then! I arm my friends.
Med. I?

Thou goest with us.

Aietes. Strange one, thou. Not only from the bow
To wing, I know, the shaft, but thou art train'd
To whirl the ponderous spear, and swing on high
The sword in dreaded hand. Come on with us:
And drive the foe.

Med. Never.

Aietes. No?

Med. Send me back

To the land's heart, my father, deep, where only
Woods, and dark-rifted vales are, where no eye,
Ear, voice, finds way-where solitude shall dwell
Alone with me. There will I sue the Gods
For thee, for aid, strength, victory to thee;-
Pray, father, but not fight!-And when thy foes
In flight are driven, and not one stranger's foot
Wounds more our gentle soil, then will I, father,
Come back to thee, and stay by thee, and tend
Truly thine age,-till Death, the peaceful God,
With hushing finger laid to breathless lip,
Steals nigh, and on his pillow of dust and moss
Bids the thoughts sleep, and the quick wishes rest.

Aietes. Thou wilt not with us! and shall I believe thee?

Tremble, thou unadvised!-Jason!-Ha?

Med. Why ask me, if thou know'st it? Must thou hear

From my own lips what I unto this hour

Hid from myself?—I hid ?—the Gods hid from me.

Let not my troubled transport, the warm flush

That clothes, I feel, my cheeks, mislead thee. Thou
Willest to hear, and I will bear to tell.

Not amid darkness can I guess and fear:
Light must be round Medea. It is said,
And truly-I have found it-in our being
Is something that, unmaster'd of our will,
Blindly draws and repels. Like that which calls
Lightning to metal, iron to the wondrous stone,
Felt and unknown, a strong coercion flows
From human breast to breast. It is not Form,
Not the soul's winning Grace, not Virtue, Right,

That knits, or can unknit, those magic bands.
Invisibly is spann'd the enchanted bridge
Of inclination. Many as have trod,

Seen it hath none: what pleases thee, must please:
This nature works. But if not thine to bid
The affection, 'tis of thee to follow; there
WILL'S Sunny realm begins :-and I will not-
Will not.

When I beheld him,-first beheld him,-
The blood stood in my veins, while from his eye,
Hand, lips, fire stream'd, and sparkled over me,
Whereto within me flamed. Yet from myself
I had conceal'd it. Then first, when he spake it,
Spake, in the fury of his mad endeavour,
Of love-Oh, too fair name for cursed thing!
I saw it-and thereafter will I do.

But wish not that I meet him! let me fly him!
Weak are we, even the strongest weak. When I
Look on him, round my senses turn, a dull
Oppression over head and bosom creeps.-
I am not she I am.-Drive out, hunt, kill him.
Yea, if he yield not to thee, kill him, father.
The dead will I look on, were it through tears,
Not on the living.

As may easily be supposed, the river during the night, in flood, has "disdained its bridge," and the first intelligence which meets Absyrtus on setting out, is that the only road open to him is that which endangers his sister's falling into the hands from which she flies. Accordingly, the escort has not proceeded far when it finds itself engaged with the lately retreating Argonauts, who have taken up, on the way to their camp, a position favourable, as they think, for cutting off the King's communication with his interior. The eight or ten Greeks-if, as we incline to think, the reinforcement sent for cannot yet have come up,-drive out the forty or fifty Colchians, leaving Jason to urge his suit alone with Medea. He woos her characteristically, with passion that will not be withstood, and successfully, if it could appear to him success to shake her spirit from height to depth, with uncontrollable, unconcealable emotion. But he finds her inexcusably self-willed and perverse; and he conceives that he does nothing unless he wring from her what is not easy, and it seems, in truth, too early to exact, an avowal, in words, of her love. At the moment when he is compelled to confess himself in this point frustrated-(we regret not to insert the scene, or monologue, as it might almost be called-it is long, eloquent, and original,)-Aictes, who has in the meantime succoured his son, follows the now in turn again retiring

Argonauts; and Jason, utterly impatient of his discomfiture, without difficulty or hesitation, on the first word said, makes over to him his daughter Medea.

It might seem that the advantage of the accident which had effected their meeting to the movement of the drama was, with the assistance of Medea to the Argonautic enterprise, for the present, at least, here lost. On the contrary, she no sooner feels herself again under the protection of her father, than her inflexibility, unmoved whilst she seemed to be in her lover's power, falters; and when he, eager to prosecute his perilous achievement unaided, bids her a passionate and final farewell, she is conquered, and breathes his name. Quite satisfied, he herewith claims her as his wife; with one hand taking her by the arm, whilst with the other he throws off her father's hold, and leads her back amongst his own party. More fighting does not, for the present, ensue. Aietes challenges his daughter to elect between passion and duty; and, when she has answered him by her silence, pouring out on her his parental maledictions, he gives her over to the selfchosen miseries which he foresees awaiting her, turns from her, and departs.

Jason now desires her to lead him to the Fleece, which she refuses. He will go alone. With importunate and pathetic entreaty, as prescient of the

sorrow he will disinter, she essays to avert his resolution. He persists. It is not possible for her to see him taking his way to destruction, which she has power to control, and she consents to go with him.

It is necessary that the reader should bear this dependence of the calamities that are to come on the Fleece itself, and Medea's foreknowledge of this,

strongly in mind, that he may understand one part of the passion of the next scene, which is that in which the action of the present section of the poem is consummated; and one, too, in which some of the peculiar powers of our author's dramatic genius are exerted, as it strikes us, with great strength and effect. We give it entire.

FOURTH ACT.

The inside of a cavern.-The stage shortened.-In the foreground, on the right, the end of a staircase, leading from above to the bottom.-In the wall of rock of the back-ground, a large door, shut.

Med. (With a goblet in one hand, and a torch in the other, comes down
the stairs.) Come down. We are at the goal.

Jason. (Above and still behind the scenes.) The light! The light!
Med. (Holding the light up the stair.) What is 't?

Jas. (Entering with his sword drawn, and coming hastily down the
steps.) It brush'd close by me. Hold there! See!
Med. What?

Jas.

It stands at the door, and guards the entrance. Med. (Holding the light to the door.) See, it is nothing, and none bars the entrance,

If thou thyself do not.

[She sets the goblet down on one side, and fixes the torch in a ring at the foot of the stairs.

Jas.
Med. And thou art not!

Jas.

When I but will'd it, thou

Thou art so calm.

Whilst it was yet to do, didst quake,—and now

Med. I shudder that thou will'st, not that thou dost it.

With thee 'tis otherwise.

Jas.

Mine eye

doth faint.

My heart is strong. Quick, quick, to work!-Medea!
Med. What dost thou glare on?
Jas.
Pallid shadow, flee!
Yield clear the door: thou dost not stay me. What!

[Going towards the door.

I go despite thee, through thee, to mine aim.
So. He is vanish'd. How does the door open?
Med. Strike on the middle with thy sword.
Jas.

Good! Thou

Go not, O Jason!

Jus. O temper hard to bend! Shall nothing win thee

To my resolve to yield thy fantasy?

Med. The fantasy of those we love is dear.

Jas. Now then, enough. I will.

Med.

Jas.

Thou wilt?

I will.

Med. And nought avail to turn thee all my prayers?
Jas. And nought avail to turn me all thy prayers.

Med. What! nor my death?

[She wrests, by a sudden movement, the sword out of his hand.

Lo, thine own sword. "Tis bent

Against my bosom. One step more, and see,
Stretch'd at thy feet, Medea, cold and dead.

Jas. My sword!

Med.

Back! back!-Thou draw'st it from my heart.

Wilt thou turn back ?

Jas. No.

Med.

And if I should strike?

Jas. Weep over thee I can, turn back I cannot.

All for my word, and were that all thy life. [Going towards her. Room, woman! and my sword!

Med. (Giving him the sword.) Well, take it then! And from my hand, thou lovely bridegroom!-Kill Thyself and me !-I hinder thee no more.

Jas. (Going towards the door.) Now, then.

Med. Hold. One word yet. Wilt thou straight die? The Fleece upon the unviolated tree

A dragon watcheth, grim, invulnerable

His scaly skin, iron his all-piercing teeth.

Thou mightst not slay him."

Jas.

I him, or he me.

Wherefore more words?

Med. Inhuman!-Merciless!-Or he thee!-And thouWilt thou still go?

Jas.
Med.

Yet stay.

This cup, see, take it. 'Tis a drink of strength.
Of the mountain-honey mix'd, of the dews of night,
And the she-wolf's blood, it foams. Set it on the earth,
When thou art enter'd, and at distance stand.

For the uncoil'd serpent now shall come,

Seeking his food, to lap it. But go thou

To the tree, and take the Fleece.-No. Take it not.
Take it not, and stay here.

Jas.

The drink.

1

Madwoman! Give

[He takes the goblet out of her hand.

Med. (Falling about his neck.) Jason! I kiss thee, thus, thus, thus. Into thy grave go, and leave room for me.

O! stay!

Jas. Let go! I hear a higher call. And if thou grisly hell and horror hold, I do invade thee.

[Going towards the door.

[He hews with his sword against the door. Open, portals!—————Ah !

[The doors spring open, and discover an inner small cavern strangely lighted. In the back-ground a tree-on it hangs the Golden Fleece. About the tree and Fleece a serpent is coiled, that, on the sudden opening of the doors, stretches forwards its head, before concealed in the leaves, and darting with its tongue, looks steadily before it. JASON cries out, and starting back, comes again to the front of the stage.

Med. (Laughing wildly.) Dost tremble? Dost thou shudder in marrow and bone?

Thou'st will'd. Then go. Why goest thou not?-Ho! ho!

Strong one, and bold, and mightiest against me,

A woman!-Dost thou fear the snake?-Ah! snake!
That didst round me writhe most entangling folds,
Destroyed'st, and gavest to death.-Look at it: look!
The horrid reptile,—and go on, and die.

Jas. Hold out! my tortured senses, hold it out!
Thou heart, why tremble?-What is it but dying?

Med. Dying? Dying! It is a matter of death. Go, thou sweet bridegroom, to thy wishing bride! See how she trolls with the tongue!

Jas.

Let be! let be!
Keep from me, in thy woman's raving. Thou
Dost whelm my spirit in the wild storm of thine.
Look at me then! here hast thou found thy foe.
And wert thou tenfold hideous, I am here.
Med. Jason!

Towards the door.

[Going forwards.

Jas.

On!

[He goes in. The doors shut after him.

Med. (Shrieking, and throwing herself on the closed doors.) He goes!

He dies!

Jas. (Within.) Who shut the door?

Med.

Jas.

Med.

In name of all the Gods, set down the cup!
Delay not! If thou linger, thou art lost.

Ho! Jason! dost thou hear?-Set down the cup.
Alas! he hears me not. He is about it.

About it!-O help! Ye that dwell on high!

Look down, good Gods, upon us. No! no! no!
Look not upon the sinful daughter down:
Not on the husband of the guilty !—I
Remit your aid,-will ye so your revenge?
No holy eye behold-let dark night cover

Our deed and us.-Jason! dost live?-Give answer!
Give answer!-All is mute-dead. Ha! he is dead.
He speaks not he is dead-dead.

[She sinks upon the ground by the door. Hath thine hour ta'en thee?

My bridegroom!-Room-leave room! Room for thy bride!

Jas. Ha!

Med. (Springing up.) 'Twas his voice. He lives! and round himn death!

To him! Give way, ye gates !-Will ye withstand ?

I mock ye.-Now!

Med.
Jas.

With a violent effort she tears open both the doors. JASON rushes out with unsteadfast steps, carrying the Fleece as a banner upon a spear.

Thou livest!

Live? live?-Yes!

Shut to there!-Close! close! [In great anxiety shutting the doors. And thou hast the Fleece!

Med.

Jas. (Holding it from her.) 'Tis fire. Look at my hand where I have touch'd it—

Hast hurt thee?

Jas.

Touch it not.

Blood?

And on thy head blood.

Ay, I know.-Come now! Now come! Med. Didst thou fulfil all that I said?

I set the cup down, and myself to the side,

And waited, panting. I heard thee call, but durst not
Make answer, for the beast-that now began,

With winking eyes, to move; and I believed,