DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
| Medea. | Nurse. |
| Jason. | Chorus of Corinthians. |
| Creon. | Messenger. |
ARGUMENT.
After the slaughter of Pelias, Jason lived as an exile at Corinth with his wife and children. But when Creon, the king, chose him for a son-in-law, Medea is required to be divorced from her husband, and ordered by the king to seek another place of exile. Medea, a delay of one day having been obtained, sends to Creusa a cloak and neckerchief, charged with some magic-produced material, which things having been put on by Creusa, the cloak instantly takes fire, and the new bride is cruelly destroyed by the flames; and the father, who ran to the assistance of his daughter, shares the same fate.—Then Medea, (the children she had by Jason being killed in the presence of their father) flies away through the air.
ACT I.
MEDEA.
Medea, when she finds herself deserted invokes the Gods above and the Gods below to visit their vengeance on Jason.
Oh! ye Gods, who preside over things conjugal, and thou, Lucina, the special guardian of the hymeneal bed; and thou, Minerva, who taughtest Tiphys, the successful pilot, how to steer his vessel and combat the waves, and manage aright that novel Argonautic craft; and thou, Neptune, the stern ruler of the vasty deep; and thou, Phœbus, who dividest thy bright day between the two sides of our orb; and thou, the three-formed Hecate, (Hecate, Diana, Phœbe,) who givest forth thy nocturnal rays in full cognizance of what transpires at the secret mystic ceremonies things done secretly by night (and the deeds of the necromancer): and oh! ye Gods, before whom Jason swore his fidelity to me, and ye others, for whose aid it is the more decided right of Medea to ask (those who had been initiated by her in magical secrets, and the mystic infernal ceremonies);
