P. Ovidius Naso, The Epistles of Ovid

If you will be governed by the advice of a mother, she disapproves your choice; nor does your father relish a bride from the frozen zone. Let her seek a husband from the borders of the Tanais, the marshy fens of Scythia, or her native banks of Phasis. Inconstant Jason, More unstable than the vernal breeze; why are your words without their promised weight? You departed my husband, and return wedded to another. But, as I was your wife when we parted, let me be still the

same since your return. If nobility and great names move you, I boast a descent from Thoas, the grandson of Minos. I have Bacchus for my grandfather; whose spouse, adorned with a radiant crown, eclipses the inferior lights by her more refulgent rays. Lemnos is my dowry, a fertile land, that crowns the labor of the cultivator. And I myself am not to be overlooked amidst so many noble gifts. I am also a mother, and bore the load with pleasure for the father's sake: let us both rejoice in this auspicious pledge. I am happy too in the number, and have brought forth twins, a double pledge of Lucina's favor. If you enquire concerning their likeness, you may be known by them: they are indeed strangers to treachery, but, in every thing else, the express image of their father. These had been sent envoys for their mother; but a cruel stepdame prevented the intended journey. I dreaded Medea; Medea is more cruel than even cruelty itself. Medea has hands ready for every kind of wickedness. Would she, who could scatter the dismembered joints of her own brother, scruple to imbue her hands in the blood of these innocent pledges of my love?

And yet, O deluded man, intoxicated with the philtres of Colchis! this is the woman for whom you are said to have deserted Hypsipyle. She basely associated with the husband of another; we were chastely united by the hymeneal torch. She betrayed her father; I saved mine from destruction. She deserted her native land; I still remain at Lemnos. But what avails it, if her wickedness triumphs over my piety, and she gains the heart of her husband by her very crimes? Far from admiring the cruelty of the Lemnian ladies, I blame it, Jason; although indignation and resentment stirred them up to arms. Tell me, if, driven by inhospitable winds, you and your companion had entered my ports, and I, accompanied by my twin-offspring, had gone out to welcome you, would you not have wished the earth to open and swallow you up? With what face could you have beheld the harmless babes, and me your faithful wife? What punishment could have been inflicted upon you, equal to your perfidy

and ingratitude? You would indeed have been safe and unhurt; not because you deserved it, but in consequence of my softness and good-nature. But I would have satiated my eyes with the blood of that harlot; and you, the slave of her sorceries, should have beheld the tragedy. I would have been Medea to Medea. If you, O just Jupiter, hear from heaven the prayers of injured love, may this base intruder into my chaste bed groan under the same pangs which I now feel, and herself experience that treachery of which she has set the first example; and, as I, a wife and the mother of twins, am left destitute and forlorn, may she also be ravished from her husband and children: may she soon lose and shamefully abandon these ill-gotten trophies; exiled, and wandering a fugitive over all the earth! What sister she was to her brother, what daughter to her parent, such a mother and wife may she prove to her children and husband! When she has traversed the earth and sea, let her attempt the air, till, destitute and hopeless, she end a miserable life by her own hand. These are the prayers of the disappointed and injured daughter of Thoas. May you live an execrable pair, the partners of a devoted bed!