1And now the Minyans were cutting through the strait in the Pagasaean ship; Phineus, dragging out a helpless old age under perpetual night, had been seen, and the young men born of the North Wind had chased the maiden birds from the wretched old man's face; and having endured much under glorious Jason, they had at last reached the swift waters of muddy Phasis. 7And while they approach the king and demand the fleece of Phrixus, and the Minyans are given a terrifying condition of mighty labours, meanwhile the daughter of Aeetes conceives a powerful fire, and after struggling long, when she could not conquer her frenzy by reason, she says: 'In vain, Medea, do you resist: some god or other stands in the way; 12'and it would be a wonder if this is not what is called loving, or at least something like it.
14For why do my father's commands seem to me too harsh? 15And indeed they are too harsh. 15Why do I fear that one whom I have only just now seen may perish? 16What is the cause of so great a fear? 17Shake out the flames conceived in your maiden heart, if you can, unhappy girl! 18— If I could, I would be saner. 19But a new force drags me against my will, and desire urges one thing, reason another. 20I see the better course and approve it; I follow the worse. 21Why, royal maiden, do you burn for a stranger and dream of marriage in a foreign world? 23This land too can give you something to love.
23Whether he lives or dies is in the hands of the gods. 24Yet let him live! 24and I may pray for that even without love: for what wrong has Jason done? 26Whom, unless he were cruel, would Jason's youth and birth and courage not touch? 27Whom, though all else were lacking, could he not move with his face? 28He has certainly moved my heart. 29But unless I bring help, he will be breathed upon by the bulls' mouths, and will clash with his own crop, enemies created from the earth, or will be given as wild prey to the greedy dragon. 32If I allow this, then I shall confess that I was born of a tigress, then that I carry iron and rocks in my heart.
34Why do I not also watch him perish, and defile my eyes by seeing it? 35Why do I not urge on the bulls against him, and the savage earthborn men, and the sleepless dragon? 37May the gods will better things. 37And yet these things are not to be prayed for, but done, by me. 38— Am I to betray my father's kingdom, and shall some stranger or other be saved by my help, so that, kept safe through me, he may give his sails to the winds without me and be another woman's husband, while I, Medea, am left for punishment? 42If he can do this, or prefer another woman to me, let the ingrate die.
43But that is not the look on his face, there is not such nobility in his soul, such grace in his form, that I should fear deceit and forgetfulness of what I have done for him. 46And he will give his pledge beforehand, and I shall compel the gods to be witnesses to our compact. 47Why do you fear what is safe? 47gird yourself and drive off all delay: Jason will owe himself to you for ever, he will join you to himself with the solemn torch, and throughout the Pelasgian cities you will be celebrated by crowds of mothers as their saviour. 51Shall I then leave my sister and brother and father and gods and native soil, carried off by the winds?
53Of course my father is savage, of course my land is barbarous, my brother still an infant: my sister's prayers stand with me, the greatest god is within me. 55I shall not be leaving great things, I shall be pursuing great things: the glory of having saved the Achaean youth, and knowledge of a better place, and towns whose fame flourishes even here, and the culture and arts of those places; 59and the son of Aeson, whom I would choose to have in exchange for all the riches the whole world possesses; 60with him as my husband I shall be called happy and dear to the gods, and shall touch the stars with my head.
62What of the fact that some mountains or other are said to clash together in the midst of the waves, and that Charybdis, hostile to ships, now sucks in the sea, now gives it back, and greedy Scylla, girt with savage dogs, barks in the Sicilian deep? 66Of course, holding what I love and clinging in Jason's lap, I shall be borne over long seas: in his embrace I shall fear nothing, or, if I fear anything, I shall fear for my husband alone. 68— Do you call it marriage, Medea, and put fine names on your guilt? 70Rather, look how great a wickedness you are approaching, and, while you may, flee the crime.' 72She spoke, and before her eyes stood right and duty and shame, and Love, defeated, was already turning his back.
74She was going to the ancient altars of Hecate, daughter of Perses, which a shady grove and a secret wood concealed. 76And now she was resolute and her passion, driven back, had subsided, when she sees the son of Aeson, and the extinguished flame blazed up again. 78Her cheeks reddened, and her whole face glowed once more; and as a little spark which has lain hidden beneath a covering of ash is wont to take nourishment from the winds, and to grow, and, stirred up, to rise again to its old strength, so her love, now slack, which you would have thought was languishing, as soon as she saw the young man, blazed up at the sight of him before her.
84And by chance the son of Aeson was more handsome than usual that day: you could have pardoned her for loving. 86She gazes, and keeps her eyes fixed on his face as if she were only then seeing it, and in her madness does not think it is a mortal face she sees, nor does she turn herself away from him. 89But when the stranger began to speak, and took her right hand, and with lowered voice asked for help and promised marriage, she said, with tears pouring out: 'I see what I am doing (it is not ignorance of the truth that will deceive me, but love): you will be saved by my gift; 94once saved, give what you have promised.' 94He swears by the rites of the three-formed goddess, and by whatever divinity there was in that grove, and by the all-seeing father of his future father-in-law, and by his own fortunes and such great perils.
98Believed, he at once received the enchanted herbs and learned their use, and went back joyful to his lodging. 100The next dawn had driven away the twinkling stars: the people gather on the sacred field of Mars and take their stand on the ridges. 102The king himself sat down in the middle of the throng, clad in purple and distinguished by his ivory sceptre. 104Look, the bronze-footed bulls breathe out Vulcan's fire from adamantine nostrils, and the grass, touched by the vapours, burns; 106and as full furnaces roar, or as flints, dissolved in an earthen kiln, catch fire at a sprinkling of liquid water, so their chests, rolling flames shut up within, and their scorched throats roar.
110Yet the son of Aeson goes to meet them. 111As he came, they turned their fierce, terrible faces towards him, and their iron-tipped horns, and pawed the dusty ground with cloven hooves, and filled the place with smoky bellowing. 115The Minyans stiffened with fear: he goes up to them, and does not feel the fire they breathe (so great is the power of drugs), and strokes their hanging dewlaps with a bold right hand, and, setting them under the yoke, compels them to draw the heavy weight of the plough and to cleave the field unused to iron. 120The Colchians marvel; the Minyans increase his courage with their shouts and add to it.
121Then from a bronze helmet he takes the serpent's teeth and scatters them over the ploughed fields. 123The earth softens the seeds, steeped beforehand in potent poison, and the sown teeth grow and become new bodies. 125And as an infant takes on human form in its mother's womb, and is put together within in all its proportions, and does not come out into the common air until it is ripe, so, when the image of a man has been completed in the bowels of the pregnant earth, it rises up in the teeming field, and, what is more wonderful, clashes arms brought forth with it. 131When the Pelasgians saw them preparing to hurl spears with sharpened points at the head of the Haemonian youth, they lowered their faces and their spirits in fear.
134She too was afraid, who had made him safe; 135and when she saw the young man, one alone, attacked by so many enemies, she paled and suddenly sat cold and bloodless; 137and lest the herbs she had given should have too little strength, she chants a helping spell and calls up her secret arts. 139He, hurling a heavy stone into the midst of his enemies, turned the war away from himself against themselves. 141The earthborn brothers die by each other's wounds and fall in civil battle. 142The Achaeans congratulate him, hold the victor fast, and cling to him in eager embraces. 144You too, barbarian girl, would have liked to embrace the victor: but regard for your good name held you back from doing so.
147As far as you may, you rejoice with silent feeling, and give thanks to your spells and to the gods who were their authors. 149It remains to put to sleep with herbs the ever-wakeful dragon, which, marked out by its crest and three tongues and dreadful with its hooked teeth, was the guardian of the golden tree. 152After she had sprinkled it with the herb of Lethaean juice and three times spoken words that bring calm sleep, words that halt the troubled sea and swollen rivers, sleep came to eyes that had never known it, and the Aesonian hero gains the gold, and, proud of the spoil, carrying with him the giver of the gift, a second spoil, the victor reached the harbour of Iolcus with his wife.