JASON. Even then, What can I do, how clear thee?--It were vain! Come, let us yield to Fate, not stubbornly Defy it! Let us each repentance seek, And suffer our just doom, thou fleeing forth Because thou may'st not stay, I tarrying here When I would flee. MEDEA. Methinks thou dost not choose The harder lot! JASON. Is it so easy, then, To live, a stranger, in a stranger's house, Subsisting on a stranger's pitying gifts? MEDEA. Nay, if it seem so hard, why dost not choose To fly with me? JASON. But whither? Ay, and how? MEDEA. There was a time thou hadst not shown thyself So over-prudent, when thou camest first To Colchis from the city of thy sires, Seeking the glitter of an empty fame In distant lands. JASON. I am not what I was; Broken my strength, the courage in my breast A dead thing. And 'tis thou I have to thank For such misfortune! Bitter memories Of days long past lie like a weight of lead Upon my anxious soul; I cannot raise Mine eyes for heaviness of heart. And, more, The boy of those far days is grown a man, No longer, like a wanton, sportive child, Gambols amid bright flow'rs, but reaches out For ripened fruit, for what is real and sure. Babes I have got, but have no place where they May lay their heads; my task it is to make An heritage for these. Shall Jason's stock Be but a withered weed beside the road, By all men spurned and trampled? If thou e'er Hast truly loved me, if I e'er was dear To thee, oh, give me proof thereof, restore Myself to me again, and yield a grave To me in this, my homeland! MEDEA. And in this Same homeland a new marriage-bed, forsooth I Am I not right? JASON. What idle talk is this? MEDEA. Have I not heard how Creon named thee son, And husband of his daughter? She it is, Creusa, that doth charm thee, hold thee fast In Corinth! 'Tis for her that thou wouldst stay! Confess, I have thee there! JASON. Thou hast me not, And never hadst me. MEDEA. So, thou wilt repent, And I, thy wife Medea, I must go Away?--I stood beside you there and wept As thou didst trace with her your happy days Of youth together, tarrying at each step In sweet remembrance, till thou didst become Naught but an echo of that distant past.-- I will not go, no, will not! JASON. Thou'rt unjust, And hard and wild as ever!