Medes

“ A further argument in favor of the early development of Median power, and the great importance of the nation in Western Asia at a period anterior to the ninth century, is derivable from the ancient legends of the Greeks, which seem to have designated the Medes under the two eponyms of Medea and Andromeda. ”

“ He added that their foes were similar to them neither in strength nor in courage; for the Macedonians, who had long been practised in warlike toils accompanied with danger, were coming into close conflict with Persians and Medes, men who had become enervated by a long course of luxurious ease; and, to crown all, they, being freemen, were about to engage in battle with men who were slaves. ”

“ As he came down from the stage on which he spoke, the rest of the women came and complimented him, taking him by the hand, and crowning him with garlands and ribbons, like a victorious athlete in the games; but Elpinice, coming near to him, said, "These are brave deeds, Pericles, that you have done, and such as deserve our chaplets; who have lost us many a worthy citizen, not in a war with Phoenicians or Medes, like my brother Cimon, but for the overthrow of an allied and kindred city." ”

“ They were blacker than the rest of men, except the Ethiopians [9] ; and in war they were far the bravest of all the races inhabiting Asia at that time. For I cannot with any justice compare the race of the ancient Persians with those of India, though at the head of the former Cyrus, son of Cambyses, set out and deprived the Medes of the empire of Asia, and subdued many other races partly by force and partly by voluntary surrender on their own part. For at that time the Persians were a poor people and inhabitants of a rugged land, having laws and customs very similar to the Laconian discipline. ”

“ The eunuch took an oath and said: "O king, thy wife is just as thou didst leave her; and Alexander is the best and most chaste of men." Upon this Darius stretched his hands towards heaven and prayed as follows:— "King Zeus, [1] to whom power has been assigned to regulate the affairs of kings among men, do thou now protect for me especially the empire of the Persians and Medes, as indeed thou didst give it to me. But if I am no longer king of Asia according to thy behest, at any rate do thou hand over my power to no other man but Alexander." ”

“ O dire and ghastly deed! Get thee away, Medea! Fly! Nor let behind thee stay One chariot's wing, one keel that sweeps the seas. . . . Medea.
And what hath chanced, to cause such flights as these? Messenger.
The maiden princess lieth—and her sire, The king—both murdered by thy poison-fire. Medea. ”

“ While I can open my newspaper to-day and read of mothers desperate with hunger, misery, or rage drowning themselves and their children, I cannot bring myself to look upon Medea as some elemental being from a dark and outrageous past. ”

“ Pale as from poison, with the blood drawn back from her very lips, agonized in face and limbs with the labour and the fierce contention of old love with new, of a daughter's love with a bride's, the fatal figure of Medea pauses a little on the funereal verge of the wood of death, in act to pour a blood-like liquid into the soft opal-coloured hollow of a shell. The future is hard upon her, as a cup of bitter poison set close to her mouth ”

“ How much greater is the Comfort we take, from a Perswasion that the Plague seldom, or never, passes from one Body into another, as was lately proved? As also, that Observations rather inform us of the Seeds of a Pestilence, seldom, or never, being brought over to us in foreign Goods; and besides these two Perswasions, founded on Reason and Experience, we have the Authority of the best Physicians in all Ages, that the Plague, nor any other Disease, is speedily generated. ”

“ Shall die an ill death, doomed by my drugged salves.
Let none believe me weak and lethargic ⁠806 (807)
Nor tame in spirit, but far other souled;
Dour to my foes, but to my friends most helpful:
For the lives of such do wear the nobler grace.
Chorus.
Now, since thou hast possessed us of thy thought,
Much anxious both to serve thee and give help
To human laws, I urge thee, do not thus. ⁠812 (813)
Medea.
It may no otherwise. But 'tis excused
That thou so speak'st, who bear'st not wrongs as I.
Chorus.
But, lady, hast thou heart to kill thy sons? ⁠815 (816)
Medea. ”

“ Medea.
There is no other way.—I pardon thee Thy littleness, who art not wronged like me. Leader.
Thou canst not kill the fruit thy body bore! Medea.
Yes: if the man I hate be pained the more. Leader.
And thou made miserable, most miserable? Medea.
Oh, let it come! All words of good or ill Are wasted now. [She claps her hands: the Nurse comes out from the house. Ho, woman; get thee gone And lead lord Jason hither. . . . There is none [Pg 48] Like thee, to work me these high services. ”

“ I said; “it does not suit me a bit—it is the sort of case which will try my patience beyond description. Then, too, I am in want of a holiday.”
“Look here,” he said—he suddenly bent forward and gave me an emphatic warning look—“if someone does not take that girl up she will either be in a madhouse or her grave in a fortnight.”
“Is it so bad as that?” I asked.
“It is,” he replied; “the nervous system is completely unbalanced. At the same time there is no absolute disease. You are not the woman, Sister Dora, to put your hand to the plough and then turn back.” ”

“ Behold, the sons of Pallas rule in Athens, fiercely and disorderly. Thy father is of no force, and in the house with him is a fair witch woman from a far country. Her name is Medea, the daughter of Æêtes, the brother of Circe the Sorceress. She wedded the famous Jason, and won for him the Fleece of Gold, and slew her own brother Absyrtus. Other evils she wrought, and now she dwells with Ægeus, who fears and loves her greatly. Take thou this herb of grace, and if Medea offers you a cup of wine, drop this herb in the cup, and so you shall escape death. ”

“ But when in succeeding ages, the use of medicines became more common, a great number of remedies for this dreadful disease were invented, some of which indeed were too filthy and shocking: such as drinking the warm blood of a gladiator just slain; eating human or horse’s flesh, the testicles and penis of some animals, and other things of the same kind; [132] as if matters so repugnant to nature, could be contrary to such grievous defects of it. For so it often happens, that when a rational medicine is not to be found, any improper and rash one is attempted. ”

“ Nurse: No star of hope points out the way from these our woes.
Medea: The man who hopes for naught at least has naught to fear.
Nurse: The Colchians are thy foes; thy husband's vows have failed;
Of all thy vast possessions not a jot is left.165
Medea: Yet I am left. There's left both sea and land and fire
And sword and gods and hurtling thunderbolts.
Nurse: The king must be revered.
Medea: My father was a king.
Nurse: Dost thou not fear?
Medea: Not though the earth produced the foe.
Nurse: Thou'lt perish.170
Medea: So I wish it.
Nurse: Flee! 88
Medea: I'm done with flight. ”

“ A woman quick of wrath, aye, or a man, Is easier watching than the cold and still. Up, straight, and find thy road! Mock not my will With words. This doom is passed beyond recall; Nor all thy crafts shall help thee, being withal My manifest foe, to linger at my side. Medea (suddenly throwing herself down and clinging to Creon) .
Oh, by thy knees! By that new-wedded bride . . . Creon.
'Tis waste of words. Thou shalt not weaken me. Medea.
Wilt hunt me? Spurn me when I kneel to thee? Creon.
'Tis mine own house that kneels to me, not thou. [Pg 20] Medea. ”

“ Fevers, from which People recover without any Discharge by Tumors in the Glands, or by Carbuncles, want the characteristic Signs, which have been shewn to attend the slightest Cases of the true Plague; we cannot, upon any just Ground, certainly conclude them to be a less Degree only of that Distemper: but as far as appears, they are of a different Nature, are not ordinarily Contagious like the Plague, nor yet have any such necessary relation to it, but that such Fevers do sometimes appear, without being followed by a real Pestilence. ”

“ But when the disease is accompanied by a fever, nothing is more proper than nitre, given in as large quantities as the stomach will bear. Lastly, the patient is to be kept to a slender diet, and compelled to use exercise. But in all evacuations, a certain degree of moderation ought to be used, lest the madness be changed into a contrary disease, which the ancients termed morbus cardaicus, [126] that is, an excessive weakness of body. In which case, the patient is so far exhausted, that medicines are of no avail; but the miserable dejected man drags the remains of life, alass! ”

“ For him, Medea is not a goddess who has assumed the form of a woman, but a woman who has not yet put off this mortal coil, and who as yet has done little to deserve that she should, after death, attain to divinity! ”

“ And thus it mostly happens, when we indulge Conjectures instead of pursuing the true Course for making Discoveries in Nature.
I KNOW they imagine this their Sentiment to be abundantly confirmed from some Experiments made by [Pg vii] Dr. Deidier [5] upon the Bile taken from Persons dead of the Plague: which having been either poured into a Wound made on purpose in different Dogs, or injected into their Veins, never failed, in many Trials, to produce in them all the Symptoms of the Pestilence, even the external ones of Bubo’s and Carbuncles. ”

“ That this Plague is not propagated from the Body of a Sick Person into the Body of the Sound: That it makes no Nest, is not cherished, nor nursed in soft or porous Bodies, that its Seeds may be propagated and conveyed into far distant Countries. And therefore, as we are to follow Dr. Mead in the remaining Part of his Short Discourse, we must go back to consider some Phenomena, he thought fit to premise to his Inquiries about Contagion, but what, I hope every Reader will think, are most properly considered in this Place, if he will pardon the considering them at all. ”

“ It cannot be pretended, that this is occasioned in the Plague from this only, that the sound Persons are render’d more than ordinarily obnoxious to the unhealthy Air, or whatever be the common Cause of the Disease, by being put into fear and dispirited, upon seeing others in the same House taken sick: For if this were the [Pg 16] Case, Children, who are too young to have any Apprehensions upon this Account, would escape better than others, the contrary of which has been always experienced.
It is true, some have not been attacked by the Disease, though constantly attending about the Sick. ”

“ Mead, to have shewn the Disposition that may be in every Man to receive, and entertain the Plague, and with all the Variety in which it palpably affects them. For a Plague has often laid its devouring Hands on Children and Young Men, when it has spared the Old; and, on the contrary, it has proved fatal to Age, when Youth has been excused: Nor has a Pestilence that afflicted Men hurt Women. At other Times Men and Women of all Ages have felt its Strokes promiscuously, and some have conversed boldly among the Sick of the Plague with Safety, while others are quickly punished for their Rashness. ”

“ All that we know, is this, that the Cause of the Plague, whatever it be, is of such a Nature, that when taken into the Body, it works such Changes in the Blood and Juices, as to produce this Disease, by suddenly giving some Parts of the Humours such corrosive Qualities, that they either excite inward Inflammations and Gangrenes, or push out Carbuncles and Bubo’s ”

“ For in the whole catalogue of diseases, which afflict mankind, there is no other, that seems [75] so much to surpass the force of nature, as this, in wretchedly tormenting the patient by fierce distractions of the mind, and excessively strong, tho’ involuntary, motions of the body. But most certainly we find nothing sacred in all this, nothing but what may arise from a natural indisposition of body. And in order to place this my opinion in the stronger light, it may not be improper to give a short discourse on madness ”

“ And indeed the great Hippocrates has long since taught, that this disease is owing to natural causes, and consequently, by no means divine. [131] For altho’ in his time, neither the inward parts of the animal body, nor the properties of the blood and humors, especially of the nervous fluid, were sufficiently known; yet by his great sagacity and experience, he has left us several useful observations, in relation both to the nature of the disease, and to its cure. For he has shewn, that it arises from too great a quantity of humors in the brain ”

“ For that redness of the cheek is but the sign of the fever which, after the Grecians, we do call the hectical; and that shining of the eyes is but a sickly glazing, and they which do every day get better and likewise thinner and weaker shall find that way leadeth to the church-yard gate. This is the malady which the ancients did call tubes, or the wasting disease, and some do name the consumption. A disease whereof most that fall ailing do perish. ”

“ But by and by, just as some precious thought is being lost unto the world, let there come some Medea, by whose potent sorcery that old and withered idea receives new life-blood through its shrunken veins, and it starts to life again with recreated vigor—another Æson, with the bloom of youth upon him. ”

“ The Great Plague—Homer’s References to Physicians—Asklepiadae—The Oath of Hippocrates—General Practitioners and Specialists—Plutus of Aristophanes—Customs connected with Death, Burial, and Burning—Tombs and their Ornaments.
Greek mythology tells us that in the golden age mankind lived without trouble or sorrows, equally unacquainted with vice and with cruel disease; but when fatal curiosity opened the disastrous box of Pandora, along with a thousand other troubles which pursue mankind, there came forth also the countless diseases which attack men by day and night. ”

“ And Medeia said slowly, "Why should you die? I have an ointment here. I made it from the magic ice-flower. Anoint yourself with that, and you shall have in you the strength of seven, and anoint your shield with it, and neither fire nor sword shall harm you. Anoint your helmet with it, before you sow the serpents' teeth, and when the sons of earth spring up, cast your helmet among them, and every man of them shall perish." ”