The Sorrows of Medea

Obsidian eyed, and shaped by fire, Medea enchanted with awesome power To make men tower Like heroes or like fools, fall. As Jason will recall,Who paid a deadly price for his ambition. It was a vice which seemed a virtue To the Argonauts he led upon his expedition To claim the Golden Fleece, And claim Medea’s love and bring her home to Greece.
Her sacrifice for love was great, Her fate to lose her homeland By her treacherous acts forever, Her regrets compounded by the life He gave her as reward For furthering his cause in Colchis, Her free and wanton life on perpetual pause, Chained to the household duties of a Grecian wife, A virtual slave despite her status.
First in Iolchos as their queen, And now in Corinth too, deemed outcast And barbarian from the Black Sea’s eastern coast. And there was worse to follow! A callous act by Jason To cast her off to further his ambition By marrying the daughter of King Creon, Gaining alliance to the royal house of Corinth. And then the hypocrite, with bland sang-froid, Claimed, as his reason, to secure their future, Hers and her sons also, to nurture Them by his increase of position and power. ‘You jest, ‘ she cried in scorn ‘And you shall learn it is not wise To let a woman know she’s second best.’ As soon he would discover, As would her new supplanter, Glauce, Who found Medea’s gift of golden robes
Seasoned with a poisonous surprise, And writhed in the last throes of agony, Her hideous death now shared by Creon
Too as he attempted a despairing rescue. Medea maddened with revenge, Completed it by killing both their sons, Her leaving gift for Jason’s hubris, A final savage nemesis.