Ovids epistles: translated by eminent persons / published by Sir Samuel Garth. In Two Volumes.

  • Ovid
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ovids epistles: translated by eminent persons / published by Sir Samuel Garth. In Two Volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    [ 3° ] MEDEA to JASON. ■BY MU TATE. ?U-0ument. JASON arrives with his companions at Colchos, where the golden fleece was kept, which, before he can obtain, he is to undertake stveraJ adven- tures ; first to yoke the wild bulls; then to sow the perpeot’s teeth* from whence should instantly rise an army, with which he must en- counter; 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 decrepid jT.son 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 o!her crimes, Jason casts her oft* and marries - Creusa daughter to Creon king of Corinth ; on which the enraged Me- dea, 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 seize the Phrygian fleece! That t!i’ Argo should in view of Colchos ride ! 7; A Grecian army stem the Phasian tide !