P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses
Arthur Golding, Ed.

She would none other house than heaven to hide hir head as tho:
But kept hir still without the doores: and as for man was none
That once might touch hir. Altars twayne of Turfe she builded: one
Upon hir left hand unto Youth, another on the right
To tryple Hecat. Both the which as soone as she had dight
With Vervain and with other shrubbes that on the fieldes doe rise,
Not farre from thence she digde two pits: and making sacrifice
Did cut a couple of blacke Rams throtes and filled with their blood
The open pits, on which she pourde of warme milke pure and good
A boll full, and another boll of honie clarifide.
And babling to hir selfe therewith full bitterly she cride
On Pluto and his ravisht wife the sovereigne states of Hell,
And all the Elves and Gods that on or in the Earth doe dwell,
To spare olde Aesons life a while, and not in hast deprive
His limmes of that same aged soule which kept them yet alive.
Whome when she had sufficiently with mumbling long besought,
She bade that Aesons feebled corse should out of doores be brought
Before the Altars. Then with charmes she cast him in so deepe
A slumber, that upon the herbes he lay for dead asleepe.
Which done she willed Jason thence a great way off to go
And likewise all the Ministers that served hir as tho:
And not presume those secretes with unhallowed eyes to see.
They did as she commaunded them. When all were voyded, shee
With scattred haire about hir eares like one of Bacchus froes
Devoutly by and by about the burning Altars goes:
And dipping in the pits of bloud a sort of clifted brandes
Upon the Altars kindled them that were on both hir handes.
And thrise with brimstone, thrise with fire, and thrise with water pure
She purged Aesons aged corse that slept and slumbred sure.
The medicine seething all the while a wallop in a pan
Of brasse, to spirt and leape aloft and gather froth began.
There boyled she the rootes, seedes, flowres, leaves, stalkes and juice togither
Which from the fieldes of Thessalie she late had gathered thither.
She cast in also precious stones fetcht from the furthest East
And, which the ebbing Ocean washt, fine gravell from the West.
She put thereto the deaw that fell upon a Monday night:
And flesh and feathers of a Witch, a cursed odious wight
Which in the likenesse of an Owle abrode a nightes did flie,
And Infants in their cradels chaunge or sucke them that they die.
The singles also of a Wolfe which when he list could take
The shape of man, and when he list the same againe forsake.
And from the River Cyniphis which is in Lybie lande
She had the fine sheere scaled filmes of water snayles at hand.
And of an endlesselived hart the liver had she got,
To which she added of a Crowe that then had lived not
So little as nine hundred yeares the head and Bill also.
Now when Medea had with these and with a thousand mo
Such other kinde of namelesse things bestead hir purpose through
For lengthning of the old mans life, she tooke a withered bough
Cut lately from an Olyf tree, and jumbling all togither
Did raise the bottome to the brim: and as she stirred hither
And thither with the withered sticke, behold it waxed greene.
Anon the leaves came budding out: and sodenly were seene
As many berries dangling downe as well the bough could beare.
And where the fire had from the pan the scumming cast, or where
The scalding drops did fall, the ground did springlike florish there,
And flowres with fodder fine and soft immediatly arose.
Which when Medea did behold, with naked knife she goes
And cuttes the olde mans throte: and letting all his old bloud go
Supplies it with the boyled juice: the which when Aeson tho
Had at his mouth or at his wounde receyved in, his heare
As well of head as beard from gray to coleblacke turned were.
His leane, pale, hore, and withered corse grew fulsome, faire and fresh:
His furrowed wrincles were fulfilde with yong and lustie flesh.
His limmes waxt frolicke, baine and lithe: at which he wondring much,
Remembred that at fortie yeares he was the same or such.
And as from dull unwieldsome age to youth he backward drew:
Even so a lively youthfull spright did in his heart renew.
The wonder of this monstrous act had Bacchus seene from hie,
And finding that to youthfull yeares his Nurses might thereby
Restored bee, did at hir hand receive it as a gift.