The Argonautica

Then she sat upright, still wavering, and spoke these words:

Poor me, shall I now be on this side or that among evils?

Every way my mind is helpless; nowhere is any defense

against this ruin; fixed and ceaseless fire still consumes me.

If Artemis had struck me down before with swift shafts,

before I had seen this man, before Chalciope's children

ever reached Achaean soil. Some god or avenging Fury

has brought them from there to us, for our grief and much weeping.

Let the stranger die in trial, if fate decrees his death

there in the ploughland. How could I hide my deed from my parents

once I had fashioned the charms? What answer could I offer?

What trick, what crafty, deceptive device could bring him assistance?

Shall I greet him once I see him alone, apart from comrades?

Poor wretch! I do not expect, even after he lies dead,

I shall find respite from sorrow; but then my evil would deepen,

when he is robbed of life. Let shame be gone, let honor be gone;

may he be rescued and kept safe through my own willing purpose,

unharmed, and return wherever his heart finds pleasure.

But I myself, that very day, once he completes the contest,

would die, hanging myself by the neck from the high roof-beam,

or swallow the drugs that bring ruin and death to the spirit.

Yet even dead, their backward winks will mock and follow me

reproaches; the whole city will cry out everywhere about my

death; and bearing my name upon all of their lips, the Colchian