Penny Dreadfuls, 1912 · page 83 of 118
The Medea — page 83: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running verse poetry from page 67 of a work titled "Medea." The text describes a grotesque scene: a father discovers his daughter's poisoned corpse and, attempting to lift her, finds himself stuck to her dead body by the poison. In a horrifying struggle, he tears himself free but dies alongside her. The passage emphasizes graphic bodily horror—melting flesh, gnawing poisons, and the father's anguished death—typical of Victorian sensation literature's lurid melodrama. The verse appears to be a dramatic monologue recounting these tragic events.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
MEDEA 67 Only from crown and temples came faint blood Shot through with fire. ‘The very flesh, it stood Out from the bones, as from a wounded pine The gum starts, where those gnawing poisons fine Bit in the dark—a ghastly sight! And touch The dead we durst not. We had seen too much. But that poor father, knowing not, had sped, Swift to his daughter’s room, and there the dead Lay at his feet. He knelt, and groaning low, Folded her in his arms, and kissed her: “Oh, Unhappy child, what thing unnatural hath So hideously undone thee? Or what wrath Of gods, to make this old grey sepulchre Childless of thee? Would God but lay me there To die with thee, my daughter!” So he cried. But after, when he stayed from tears, and tried To uplift his old bent frame, lo, in the folds Of those fine robes it held, as ivy holds Strangling among your laurel boughs. Oh, then A ghastly struggle came! Again, again, Up on his knee he writhed; but that dead breast Clung still to his: till, wild, like one possessed, He dragged himself half free; and, lo, the live Flesh parted; and he laid him down to strive No more with death, but perish; for the deep Had risen above his soul. And there they sleep, At last, the old proud father and the bride, Even as his tears had craved it, side by side. - For thee—Oh, no word more! Thyself will know How best to baffle vengeance. . . . Long ago I looked upon man’s days, and founa a grey Shadow. And this thing more I surely say, EComichbooks.com