The furrowing keel the sea's green surface plough'd;
You to the shore, to th' seas I gazing bow'd.
In haste I ran to an adjacent tow'r:

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My tears o'er all my face and bosom show'r.
There my wet eyes my wafted soul pursue,
And ev❜n beyond their natural optics flew.
A thousand vows for your return I made;
You are return'd, and they should now be paid.
My vows for curs'd Medea's triumphs pay!
My heart to grief, my love to rage gives way.
Shall I deck temples, and make altars shine,
For that false man that lives, but lives not mine?
I never was secure. 'Twas my long dread,
You by your father's choice a Greek might wed. 8
To no Greek bride, t'an unexpected foe,

My wounds I t' a barbarian harlot owe:

One who by spells and herbs does hearts surprise:
Nor are her slaves the trophies of her eyes.
She from her course the struggling moon would hold,
The sun himself in magick shades infold!

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She curbs the waves, and stops the rapid floods,
And from their seats removes whole rocks and woods.
With her dishevell'd hair, the wand'ring hag
Does half-burnt bones from their warm ashes drag.
In molten wax, tho' absent, kills by art,
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Arm'd with her needle, goars a tortur'd heart.
Nay, what desert and form should only move,
By philters she secures her Jason's love.

How can you dote on such infernal charms,
And sleep securely in a Siren's arms?
You, as the bulls, she does t' her yoke subdue,
And as she tam'd the dragon, conquers you.
Tho' your great deeds, and no less race you boast,
Link'd to that fiend your sullied fame is lost.
Nay by the censuring world 'tis justly thought,
Your conquests by her sorceries were wrought;
And the Phryxean ram's triumphant ore,
They say, not Jason, but Medea bore.

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This northern bride your parents disapprove; 105 Consult your duty in your nobler love.

Let some wild Scythian her loath'd bed possess,

A mistress only fit for savages.

Jason, more false, more changeable than wind, 109
Have vows no weight, and oaths no pow'r to bind ?
Mine you departed: ah, return mine too,
Let my kind arms their long-lost scenes renew.
If high birth, and great names your heart can turn,
Know, I'm the royal Thoas' daughter born.
Bacchus my grandsire is, whose bride divine
All-lesser constellations does out-shine.
My dower these and fertile Lemnos make,
All these and me, thy equal title, take.
Nay, I'm a mother: A kind father be,
And soften all the pains I've borne for thee.
Yes, heav'n with twins has blest our genial bed;

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And would you in their look their father read?

His treach'rous smiles they are too young to wear,

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all things else you'll find your picture there: I'd sent those envoys in these letters stead, Both for their own and mother's wrongs to plead, Had not their stepdame's murders bid 'em stay; Too dear a treasure for that monster's prey. Would her deaf rage, that rent her brother's bones, Spare my young blood, or hear their tender groans? Yet in your arms this dearer traitress lies; Above my truth you this false pois'ner prize. This mean adult'rate wretch was basely kind; Love's sacred lamp our chaste embraces join'd; Her father she betray'd, mine lives by me, 1 135 I Lemnos' pride, she Colcho's infamy. And thus her guilt my piety outvies,

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Whilst with her crimes her dow'r, your heart she buys.
False man, I blame, nor wonder at the rage

O'th' Lemnian dames: wrongs do all arms engage.
Suppose, in vengeance to your guilt, just heav'n 141
Had on my shore the perjur'd Jason driv'n;
Whilst I with my young twins to meet you came,
And made you call on rocks to hide your shame.
How could you look upon my sons and me?
Traitor, what pains, what death too bad for thee?
Perhaps indeed I Jason had not hurt,

But 'tis my mercy more than his desert:

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The harlot's blood had sprinkled all the place, 149 Dash'd in your faithless, and once charming face.

SOCIETY my benjoy'd BRARY

Like me, a mother and a wife forlorn,

Be from her ravish'd lord and children torn.
May her ill-gotten trophies never last,
But round the world be th'hunted monster chas'd.
Those dooms, her sire and murder'd brother met,
May she t'her husband and her sons repeat.
Driv'n from the world, let her attempt the skies,
'Till in despair by her own hand she dies.

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Thus wrong'd Thoantias prays, your lives curst remnant lead,

An execrable pair, in a detested bed.

MEDEA TO JASON.

BY MR TATE.

Argument.

JASON arrives with his companions at Colchos, where the golden fleece was kept, which, before he can obtain, he is to undertake several adventures; first to yoke the wild bulls; then to sow the serpent's teeth, from whence should instantly rise an army, with which he must encounter; and lastly, to make his passage by the dragon that never slept. In order to this, he solicits Medea, daughter to the king, and skilful in charms, by whose assistance (on promise of love) he gains the prize. Then flies with her; the king pursues them. Medea kills her little brother, scatters his limbs, and whilst the king stays to gather them up, escapes with her lover into Thessaly; where she restores decrepit Ason to his youth. On the same promise she persuades Pelias's daugh ters to let out their father's blood, but deceitfully leaves them guilty of parricide. For this and other crimes, Jason casts her off and marries Creusa daughter to Creon king of Corinth; on which the enraged Medea, according to the various transports of her passion writes this com plaining, soothing, and menacing epistle.

YET I found leisure, tho' a queen, to free
By magic arts thy Grecian friends and thee;.
The fates should then have finish'd with my reign,
The life that since was one continu'd pain. [Greece
Who should have dreamt the youth of distant
Should e'er have sail'd to scize the Phrygian fleece!
That th' Argo should in view of Colchos ride!
A Grecian army stem the Phasian tide!

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