NURSE. My soul quivers with fear; great disaster looms. 671How her pain augments beyond measure, 672Fires itself and rebuilds its former force. 673I've often seen her raging, assault the gods, 674And claw down heaven. Medea plans greater, 675 Greater monstrosity than that. When she left 676In frenzy and reached her sanctum of death, 677She unleashed all her treasure and takes out 678What even she's long feared and marshals 679A whole host of ills, occult, secret, hidden. 680 Invoking the grim shrine with her left hand 681She summons death-plagues created by sands 682Of burning Libya or locked by Taurus 683In perpetual snow, stiff with Arctic chill— 684And all that is monstrous. Her magic spells 685 Draw scaled creatures from their deserted lairs. 686Here a savage serpent hauls its huge body, 687Flicks its three-forked tongue and seeks a fatal 688Target. It hears her chanting and freezes, 689Twines its swelling body in fold on fold 690 And coils it.
'The evil's paltry,' she cries, 691
'The weapons weak, created in earth's pit. 692I'll seek venom from heaven. Now, now's the time 693For actions loftier than common crime.
694Let the Snake descend which lies like a vast Torrent and whose measureless coils touch 696The two Beasts, the Greater and the Lesser, 697Lodestars to Pelasgians and Sidon. 698Let Ophiuchus relax his grip at last 699And the serpent-venom flow. Let my songs 700 Bring Python, who dared harass the twin gods; 701Let Hydra return and all the death-renewing 702Severed snakes sliced off by Hercules' hand. 703You, too, our vigilant serpent, first lulled
704To sleep by my chants, leave Colchis and come.' 705 After invoking the whole serpent brood, 706She makes an evil pile of poisonous plants: 707All that grows on the crags of pathless Eryx, 708That Prometheus' blood-spattered Caucasus 709 Bears on ridges shrouded in endless winter, That rich Arab and the fighting, quivered Mede 710 And swift Parthians smear on their arrows,
712 Or juices picked beneath a freezing sky 713By Suebian ladies in Hercynian groves. 714Whatever earth creates in nesting spring 715 Or when stiff winter has scattered the forests' 716Beauty and bound the world with icy snow, 717Whatever herb blooms with fatal flowers
718Or dreadful sap in twisted roots begets
719The means to harm—she takes them in her hands. 720 Some death-plants came from Haemonian Athos, 721Some from great Pindus. One lost its soft hair 722To a bloody sickle on Pangaeum's ridge. 723Some grew in low waters of the Tigris, 724Some by the Danube or jewelled Hydaspes, 725 Whose tepid waters course through arid fields, 726Or by the Baetis, which named its own land 727And languidly lashes Hesperia's sea. 728Some felt an iron blade as Phoebus prepared 729The day, or their stalks were cut in deep night; 730 Some stems were clipped by enchanted nails.
731 She selects the death-herbs and squeezes out 732The snake venom, and adds ill-omened birds 733And sad owl's heart and live screech owl's severed 734Innards. There are things this artist of crime 735 Keeps separate: some have fire's rapacious force, 736Others the chilling ice of numbing cold. 737And she adds to the poisons words equal 738 To their terror.