But as for me, on the day when he bides the contest in triumph, may I die either straining my neck in the noose from the roof-tree or tasting drugs destructive of life.

But even so, when I am dead, they will fling out taunts against me; and every city far away will ring with my doom, and the Colchian women, tossing my name on their lips hither and thither, will revile me with unseemly mocking--the maid who cared so much for a stranger that she died, the maid who disgraced her home and her parents, yielding to a mad passion.

And what disgrace will not be mine?
Alas for my infatuation! Far better would it be for me to forsake life this very night in my chamber by some mysterious fate, escaping all slanderous reproach, before I complete such nameless dishonour." (ll.

802-824) She spake, and brought a casket wherein lay many drugs, some for healing, others for killing, and placing it upon her knees she wept.

And she drenched her bosom with ceaseless tears, which flowed in torrents as she sat, bitterly bewailing her own fate.