She will robe herself in the robe: and anon
She will deck her a bride among the dead."
The gifts are envenomed. Glaucè and Creon, wrapt in a sheet of phosphoric flame, expire in torments. Jason is a widowed bridegroom; all Corinth is aroused to take vengeance on the barbaric sorceress. Surely this must be the end of the tragedy. No; "bad begins, but worse remains behind." One more blow remains to be dealt. Jason is wifeless, he shall be childless too, before Medea speeds in her dragon-borne car—the chariot of the Sun, her grandsire—to hospitable Athens.
Never, perhaps, has a more terrible scene been exhibited on any stage than this final one of Medea. To it may be applied the words spoken of another spectacle of "woe and wonder:"—
"This quarry cries on havock! O, proud death!
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes, at a shot,
So bloodily hast struck."
—"Hamlet."
Jason, who has been witnessing the charred remains of Glaucè and Creon, rushes on the stage to arrest their murderess. He cries frantically:—
"Hath she gone away in flight?
For now must she or hide beneath the earth,
Or lift herself with wings into wide air,
Not to pay forfeit to the royal house."
But "one woe doth tread upon another's heels." "Seeks she to kill me too?" he demands of the Chorus. "Nay," they reply, "you know not the worst:"—
