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Medea and Aeson: Macbeth

The incantations of Medea will remind the reader of those of the witches in "Macbeth." The following lines are those which seem most strikingly to recall the ancient model: "Round about the caldron go; In the poisoned entrails throw. Fillet of a fenny snake In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing:

Maw of ravening salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digged in the dark," etc. --Macbeth, Act IV., Scene 1 And again:

Macbeth.--What is't you do? Witches.--A deed without a name. There is another story of Medea almost too revolting for record even of a sorceress, a class of persons to whom both ancient and modern poets have been accustomed to attribute every degree of atrocity. In her flight from Colchis she had taken her young brother Absyrtus with her. Finding the pursuing vessels of AEetes gaining upon the Argonauts, she caused the lad to be killed and his limbs to be strewn over the sea. AEetes on reaching the place found these sorrowful traces of his murdered son; but while he tarried to collect the scattered fragments and bestow upon them an honorable interment, the Argonauts escaped.

In the poems of Campbell will be found a translation of one of the choruses of the tragedy of "Medea," where the poet Euripides has taken advantage of the occasion to pay a glowing tribute to Athens, his native city. It begins thus: "O haggard queen! to Athens dost thou guide Thy glowing chariot, steeped in kindred gore; Or seek to hide thy damned parricide Where peace and justice dwell for evermore?"