When in Athens, to which place Medea came after leaving Corinth, she
underwent the penance necessary to purify her from the crimes she had
committed, after which she became the wife of King Aegeus, to whom she bore
a son called Medus.
Before his intimacy with Medea, Aegeus had a son named Theseus, who had
been sent to Athens with his father's sword, by the sight of which he was
to introduce himself to his father's knowledge when he grew up; as Theseus
attempted to make himself known to his father, Medea, who had grown jealous
of the glory he had achieved, tried to poison him at an entertainment to
which he had been invited. She failed in her purpose. The king, recognized
by the sword he bore, his long lost son, and Medea had recourse to her
dragons once more, to make her escape through the air, to Colchis, where,
by some it is stated, she was re-united to Jason; while according to other
authorities, Jason lived a melancholy and unhappy life; and, as he was
reposing one day by the side of the ship which had borne him to Colchis, a
large beam fell upon and crushed him to death. Medea also died at Colchis,
and after her death is said to have been married to Achilles in Elysium.
It is asserted by some writers, that the murder of the two youngest of
Jason's children, was not committed by Medea, but by the Corinthians
themselves, in the Temple of Juno Acrea; and that to avoid the vengeance of
heaven, and to free themselves from a plague which devoured the country
after so frightful a massacre, they engaged the poet Euripides to write a
tragedy which should tend to clear them of the murder, and throw the crime
upon the guilty Medea. Festivals were also appointed, in which the mother
was represented as destroying her own offspring, with all the attributes of
a fury, and was regarded as a day of solemn mourning.
"O haggard queen! to Athens dost thou guide
Thy glowing chariot, steeped in kindred gore;
Or seek to hide thy foul infanticide
Where peace and mercy dwell for evermore?
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The land where Heaven's own hallowed waters play,
Where friendship binds the generous and the good,
Say, shall it hail thee from thy frantic way,
Unholy woman! with thy hands embrued.
In thine own children's gore? Oh! ere they bleed,
Let Nature's voice thy ruthless heart appal!
Pause at the bold, irrevocable deed--
The mother strikes--the guiltless babes shall fall!
* * * * * *
When o'er each babe you look a last adieu,
And gaze on Innocence that smiles asleep,
Shall no fond feeling beat to Nature true,
Charm thee to pensive thought--and bid thee weep?
When the young suppliants clasp their parent dear,
Heave the deep sob, and pour the artless prayer,
Ay! thou shalt melt; and many a heart-shed tear
Gush o'er the hardened features of despair!
Nature shall throb in every tender string,--
Thy trembling heart the ruffian's task deny;
Thy horror smitten hands afar shall fling
The blade, undrenched in blood's eternal dye.