Dead is he?
Yes, our stranger guest said dead— said it by noonday, when it seemed a thing most natural and so indifferent as if the tale ran that a while ago there died a man I talked with a chance hour when he by chance was near me.
If I spoke "Good news for us but ill news for the dead when the gods sweep a villain down to them," 'twas the prompt trick of words, like a pat phrase from some one other's song, found on the lips and used because 'tis there: for through all day the news seemed neither good nor ill to me.
And now, when day with all its useless talk and useless smiles and idiots' prying eyes that impotently peer into one's life, when day with all its seemly lying shows has gone its way and left pleased fools to sleep, while weary mummers, taking off the mask, discern that face themselves forgot anon and, sitting in the lap of sheltering night, learn their own secrets from her—even now does it seem either good or ill to me?
No, but mere strange. And this most strange of all that I care nothing. Nay, how wild thought grows.
Me seems one came and told of Jason's death: but 'twas a dream.
Else should I, wondering thus, reck not of him, nor with the virulent hate that should be mine against mine enemy, nor with that weakness which sometimes I feared should this day make me, not remembering Glaucè, envy him to death as though he had died mine?
Can he be dead?
It were so strange a world with him not in it. Dimly I recall some prophecy a god breathed by my mouth.
It could not err.
What was it?
For I think;— it told his death¹. Has a god come to me?
Is it thou, my Hecate?
How know I all?
For I know all as if from long ago: and I know all beholding instantly.
Is not that he, arisen through the mists?— a lean and haggard man, rough round the eyes, dull and with no scorn left upon his lip, decayed out of his goodliness and strength; a wanned and broken image of a god; dim counterfeit of Jason, heavily wearing the name of him and memories.
And lo, he rests with lax and careless limbs on the loose sandbed wind-heaped round his ship that rots in sloth like him, and props his head on a half-buried fallen spar.
The sea, climbing the beach towards him, seethes and frets, and on the verge two sunned and shadowed clouds take shapes of notched rock-islands; and his thoughts drift languid to the steep Symplegades and the sound of waters crashing at their base.
And now he speaks out to his loneliness "I was afraid and careful, but she laughed: 'Love steers' she said: and when the rocks were far, grey twinkling spots in distance, suddenly her face grew white, and, looking back to them, she said, 'Oh love, a god has whispered me 'twere well had we died there, for strange mad woes are waiting for us in your Greece': and then she tossed her head back, while her brown hair streamed gold in the wind and sun, and her face glowed with daring beauty, 'What of woes', she cried, 'if only they leave time for love enough?' But what a fire and flush!
It took one's breath!" And then he lay half musing, half adoze, shadows of me went misty through his sight.
And bye and bye he roused and cried "Oh dolt!
Glaucè was never half so beautiful." Then under part-closed lids remembering her, "Poor Glaucè, a sweet face, and yet methinks she might have wearied me:" and suddenly, smiting the sand awhirl with his angry hand, scorned at himself "What god befooled my wits to dream my fancy for her yellow curls and milk-white softness subtle policy?
Wealth and a royal bride: but what beyond?
Medea, with her skills, her presciences, man's wisdom, woman's craft, her rage of love that gave her to serve me strength next divine,
Medea would have made me what I would;
Glaucè but what she could.
I schemed amiss and earned the curses the gods send on fools.
Ruined, ruined!
A laughing stock to foes!
No man so mean but he may pity me; no man so wretched but will keep aloof lest the curse upon me make him wretcheder.
Ruined!" And lo I see him hide his face like a man who'll weep with passion: but to him the passion comes not, only slow few tears of one too weary.
And from the great field where the boys race he hears their jubilant shout hum through the distance, and he sighs "Ah me! she might have spared the children, left me them:— no sons, no sons to stand about me now and prosper me, and tend me bye and bye in faltering age, and keep my name on earth when I shall be departed out of sight." And the shout hummed louder forth: and whirring past a screaming sea-bird flapped out to the bay, and listlessly he watched it dip and rise till it skimmed out of sight, so small a speck as a mayfly on the brook; and then he said "Fly forth, fly forth, bird, fly to fierce Medea where by great Ægeus she sits queening it, belike a joyful mother of new sons; tell her she never loved me as she talked, else had no wrong at my hand shewn so great: tell her that she breaks oaths more than I broke, even so much as she seemed to love most— she who fits fondling in a husband's arms while I am desolate." And again he said "My house is perished with me—ruined, ruined!" At that he rose and, muttering in his teeth still "ruined, ruined," slowly paced the sands: then stood and, gazing on the ragged hulk, cried "Oh loathed tool of fiends, that, through all storms and sundering waters, borest me to Medea, rot, rot, accursed thing," and petulant pashed at the side— Lo, lo!
I see it part! a tottering spar—it parts, it falls, it strikes!
He is prone on the sand, the blood wells from his brow, he moans, he speaks, "Medea's prophecy." See he has fainted. Hush, hush! he has lain with death and silence long: now he wakes up— "Where is Medea?
Let her bind my head." Hush, hush!
A sigh—a breath—He is dead. Medea!
What, is it thou?
What, thou, this whimpering fool, this kind meek coward!
Sick for pity art thou?
Or did the vision scare thee?
Out on me! do I drivel like a slight disconsolate girl wailing her love? No, not one foolish tear that shamed my cheek welled up for any grief at his so pitiful lone end.
The touch of ancient memories and the woman's trick of easy weeping took me unawares: but grief!
Why should I grieve? And yet for this, that he is dead.
He should still pine and dwine, hungry for his old lost strong food of life vanished with me, hungry for children's love, hungry for me.
Ever to think of me— with love, with hate, what care I? hate is love— Ever to think and long.
Oh it was well!
Yea, my new marriage hope has been achieved: for he did count me happy, picture me happy with Ægeus; he did dream of me as all to Ægeus that I was to him, and to him nothing; and did yearn for me and know me lost—we two so far apart as dead and living,
I an envied wife and he alone and childless.
Jason,
Jason, come back to earth; live, live for my revenge.
But lo the man is dead:
I am forgotten.
Forgotten; something goes from life in that— as if oneself had died, when the half self of one's true living time has slipped away from reach of memories, has ceased to know that such a woman is. A wondrous thing to be so separate having been so near— near by hate last and once by so strong love.
Would love have kept us near if he had died in the good days?
Tush,
I should have died too: we should have gone together, hand in hand, and made dusk Hades glorious each to each.
Ah me, if then when through the fitful seas we saw the great rocks glimmer, and the crew howled "We are lost! lo the Symplegades!" too late to shun them, if but then some wave, our secret friend, had dashed us from our course, sending us to be shivered at the base, well, well indeed!
And yet what say I there?
Ten years together were they not worth cost of all the anguish?
Oh me, how I loved him!
Why did I not die loving him? What thou!
Have the dead no room, or do they drive thee forth loathing thee near them?
Dost thou threaten me?
Why, so I saw thee last, and was not scared: think not to scare me now;
I am no babe to shiver at an unavailing shade.
Go, go, thou canst not curse me, none will hear: the gods remember justice.
Wrongs! thy wrongs! the vengeance, ghost!
What hast thou to avenge as I have?
Lo, thy meek-eyed Glaucè died, and thy king-kinsman Creon died: but I,
I live what thou hast made me. Oh smooth adder, who with fanged kisses changedst my natural blood to venom in me, say, didst thou not find me a grave and simple girl in a still home, learning my spells for pleasant services or to make sick beds easier?
With me went the sweet sound of friends' voices praising me: all faces smiled on me, even lifeless things seemed glad because of me; and I could smile to every face, to everything, to trees, to skies and waters, to the passing herds, to the small thievish sparrows, to the grass with sunshine through it, to the weed's bold flowers: for all things glad and harmless seemed my kin, and all seemed glad and harmless in the world.
Thou cam'st, and from the day thou, finding me in Hecate's dim grove to cull my herbs, didst burn my cheeks with kisses hot and strange, the curse of thee compelled me.
Lo I am The wretch thou say'st; but wherefore? by whose work?
Who, binding me with dreadful marriage oaths in the midnight temple, led my treacherous flight from home and father?
Whose voice when I turned, desperate to save thee, on my own young brother, my so loved brother, whose voice as I smote nerved me, cried "Brave Medea"?
For whose ends did I decoy the credulous girls, poor fools, to slay their father?
When have I been base, when cruel, save for thee, until—Man, man, wilt thou accuse my guilt?
Whose is my guilt? mine or thine,
Jason?
Oh, soul of my crimes, how shall I pardon thee for what I am?
Never.
And if, with the poor womanish heart that for the loving's sake will still love on,
I could let such a past wane as a dream and turn to thee at waking—turn to thee!
I, put aside like some slight purchased slave who pleased thee and then tired, still turn to thee!— yet never, not if thou and I could live thousands of years and all thy years were pain and all my years were to behold thy pain, never could I forgive thee for my boys; never could I look on this hand of mine that slew them and not hate thee.
Childless thou, what is thy childlessness to mine?
Go, go, thou foolish angry ghost, what wrongs hast thou? would I could wrong thee more.
Come thou sometimes and see me happy. Dost thou mock at me with thy cold smiling?
Aye, can I not love?
What then? am I not folded round with love, with a life's whole of love?
There doth no thought come near to Ægeus save what is of me: am I no happy wife?
And I go proud, and treasure him for noblest of the world: am I no happy wife? Dost mock me still?
My children is it?
Are the dead so wise?
Why, who told thee my transport of despair when from the Sun who willed me not to die nor creep away, sudden and too late came the winged swift car that could have saved them, mine, from thee and from their foes?
Tush, 'twas best so;
If they had lived, sometimes thou hadst had hope: for thou wouldst still have said "I have two sons," and dreamed perchance they'd bring thee use at last and build thy greatness higher: but now, now, thou hast died shamed and childless, none to keep thy name and memory fresh upon the earth, none to make boast of thee "My father did it." Yea, 'twas best so: my sons, we are avenged.
Thou, mock me not.
What if I have ill dreams to see them loathe me, fly from me in dread, when I would feed my hungry mouth with kisses? what if I moan in tossing fever thirsts, crying for them whom I shall have no more, here nor among the dead, who never more, here nor among the dead, will smile to me with young lips prattling "Mother, mother dear"? what if I turn sick when the women pass that lead their boys, and hate a child's young face? what if— Go, go, thou mind'st me of my sons, and then I hate thee worse; go to thy grave by which none weeps.
I have forgotten thee.
