_Medea._ This is the cause, then, of your banishment? And now you go unto Amazone To gather all your maidens in array, To set upon the mighty Amurack? O foolish queen, what meant you by this talk? Those prattling speeches have undone you all. Do you disdain to have that mighty prince, I mean Alphonsus, counted for your son? I tell you, Fausta, he is born to be The ruler of a mighty monarchy. I must confess the powers of Amurack Be great; his confines stretch both far and near; Yet are they not the third part of the lands Which shall be rulèd by Alphonsus' hands: And yet you dain to call him son-in-law. But when you see his sharp and cutting sword Piercing the heart of this your gallant girl, You'll curse the hour wherein you did denay To join Alphonsus with Iphigena.
_Fausta._ The gods forbid that e'er it happen so!
_Medea._ Nay, never pray, for it must happen so.
_Fausta._ And is there, then, no remedy for it?
_Medea,_ No, none but one, and that you have forsworn.
_Fausta._ As though an oath can bridle so my mind As that I dare not break a thousand oaths For to eschew the danger imminent! Speak, good Medea, tell that way to me, And I will do it, whatsoe'er it be.
_Medea._ Then, as already you have well decreed, Pack to your country, and in readiness Select the army of Amazones: When you have done, march with your female troop To Naples' town, to succour Amurack: And so, by marriage of Iphigena, You soon shall drive the danger clean away.
_Iphi._ So shall we soon eschew Charybdis' lake, And headlong fall to Scylla's greedy gulf. I vow'd before, and now do vow again, Before I wed Alphonsus, I'll be slain.
_Medea._ In vain it is to strive against the stream; Fates must be follow'd, and the gods' decree Must needs take place in every kind of cause. Therefore, fair maid, bridle these brutish thoughts, And learn to follow what the fates assign. When Saturn heard that Jupiter his son Should drive him headlong from his heavenly seat Down to the bottom of the dark Avern, He did command his mother presently To do to death the young and guiltless child: But what of that? the mother loath'd in heart For to commit so vile a massacre; Yea, Jove did live, and, as the fates did say, From heavenly seat drave Saturn clean away. What did avail the castle all of steel, The which Acrisius causèd to be made To keep his daughter Danaë clogg'd in? She was with child for all her castle's force; And by that child Acrisius, her sire, Was after slain, so did the fates require. A thousand examples I could bring hereof; But marble stones need no colouring, And that which every one doth know for truth Needs no examples to confirm the same. That which the fates appoint must happen so, Though heavenly Jove and all the gods say no.