Epistulae

into air, than any besides Medea be received a partner of my bed. May Juno, who presides over the marriage-bed, bear witness to this oath, and the goddess in whose marble temple we are." These declarations (and how small a part is this of what you promised?) made too great an impression upon the mind of an innocent credulous maid; and your right-hand was joined to mine. I saw, moreover, your tears: are these too capable of deceit? Thus was I easily betrayed by your enchanting words. You yoked the brazen-footed bulls, unhurt by their flaming breath, and cleft the hard earth with the commanded plough. You sowed the land with the teeth of poisonous serpents instead of seed, and a harvest of soldiers sprang up armed with swords and bucklers. Even I, who secured you by my art, sat pale and trembling, when I saw this sudden crop of men grasp their arms. But at length the earth-born brothers (mournful catastrophe!) turned against one another their ready-armed right-hands. And now,

lo the watchful serpent, terrible by his sounding scales, hisses, and sweeps the ground with his winding breast. Where was then your rich dowry? where then your royal spouse, and the Isthmus which divides the circling sea? Even I, Medea, whom you now despise as a barbarian, whom you deem indigent and criminal, forsaken Medea, locked up his fiery orbs in enchanted sleep, and left you the golden fleece a secure and easy prize.

I betrayed my father, abandoned my kingdom and country, and fancied that, with you, even exile was some gratification. My virginity became the prey of a foreign ravisher: I left the best of sisters, and a darling mother. Alas! why did I not leave my brother also? Here conscious guilt arrests my hand, and commands me to draw a veil over my crime. My hand refuses to write what it dared to commit. In this manner ought I to have been torn to pieces; but with you, who also deserved the same fate. Nor did I fear, (for