Medea
Choose a text
id="mobileReaderAuthor" class="mobile-reader-author" href="/authors/euripides" aria-label="More works by Euripides">
—
⋯
Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
422
Ah! hapless one, why doth fierce anger thy soul assail? WhyThis use of ἀμείβεται is so unusual that the passage is open to grave suspicion. The three following lines are extremely confused and probably corrupt. Weil proposes ἐπέγειρεν for ἐπὶ γαῖαν; var. lect. for ξυνῳδὰ is ξύνοιδα. in its place is fell murder growing up? For grievous unto mortal men are pollutions that come of kindred blood poured on the earth,
423
woes to suit each crime hurled from heaven on the murderer’s house.
435
435
Jason
435
Ladies, stationed near this house, pray tell me is the author of these hideous deeds,
436
Medea, still within, or hath she fled from hence? For she must hide beneath the earth or soar on wings towards heaven’s vault, if she would avoid the vengeance of the royal house. Is she so sure she will escape herself unpunished from this house,
437
when she hath slain the rulers of the land? But enough of this! I am forgetting her children. As for her, those whom she hath wronged will do the like by her; but I am come to save the children’s life, lest the victim’s kin visit their wrath on me, in vengeance for the murder foul,
438
wrought by my children’s mother.
439
439
Chorus
439
Unhappy man, thou knowest not the full extent of thy misery, else had thou never said those words.
440
440
Jason
440
How now? Can she want to kill me too?
441
441
Chorus
441
Thy sons are dead; slain by their own mother’s hand.
442
442
Jason
442
O God! what sayest thou? Woman, thou hast sealed my doom.
443
443
Chorus
443
Thy children are no more; be sure of this.
444
444
Jason
444
Where slew she them; within the palace or outside?
445
445
Chorus
445
Throw wide the doors and see thy children’s murdered corpses.
446
446
Jason
446
Haste, ye slaves, loose the bolts,
447
undo the fastenings, that I may see the sight of twofold woe, my murdered sons and her, whose blood in vengeance I will shed. [Medea in mid air, on a chariot drawn by dragons; the children’s corpses by her.
448
448
Medea
448
Why shake those doors and attempt to loose their bolts, in quest of the dead and me their murderess? From such toil desist. If thou wouldst aught with me,
449
say on, if so thou wilt; but never shalt thou lay hand on me, so swift the steeds the sun, my father’s sire, to me doth give to save me from the hand of my foes.
450
450
Jason
450
Accursed woman! by gods, by me and all mankind abhorred as never woman was,
451
who hadst the heart to stab thy babes, thou their mother, leaving me undone and childless; this hast thou done and still dost gaze upon the sun and earth after this deed most impious. Curses on thee! I now perceive what then I missed
452
in the day I brought thee, fraught with doom, from thy home in a barbarian land to dwell in Hellas, traitress to thy sire and to the land that nurtured thee. On me the gods have hurled the curse that dogged thy steps, for thou didst slay thy brother at his hearth
453
ere thou cam’st aboard our fair ship Argo. Such was the outset of thy life of crime; then didst thou wed with me, and having born me sons to glut thy passion’s lust, thou now hast slain them. Not one amongst the wives of Hellas e’er had dared
454
this deed; yet before them all I chose thee for my wife, wedding a foe to be my doom, no woman, but a lioness fiercer than Tyrrhene Scylla in nature. But with reproaches heaped a thousandfold
455
I cannot wound thee, so brazen is thy nature. Perish, vile sorceress, murderess of thy babes! Whilst I must mourn my luckless fate, for I shall ne’er enjoy my new-found bride, nor shall I have the children,
456
whom I bred and reared, alive to say the last farewell to me; nay, I have lost them.
457
457
Medea
457
To this thy speech I could have made a long retort, but Father Zeus knows well all I have done for thee, and the treatment thou hast given me. Yet thou wert not ordained to scorn my love
458
and lead a life of joy in mockery of me, nor was thy royal bride nor Creon, who gave thee a second wife, to thrust me from this land and rue it not. Wherefore, if thou wilt, call me e’en a lioness, and Scylla, whose home is in the Tyrrhene land;
459
for I in turn have wrung thy heart, as well I might.
460
460
Jason
460
Thou, too, art grieved thyself, and sharest in my sorrow.
461
461
Medea
461
Be well assured I am; but it relieves my pain to know thou canst not mock at me.
462
462
Jason
462
O my children, how vile a mother ye have found!
463
463
Medea
463
My sons, your father’s feeble lust has been your ruin!
464
464
Jason
464
’Twas not my hand, at any rate, that slew them.
465
465
Medea
465
No, but thy foul treatment of me, and thy new marriage.
466
466
Jason
466
Didst think that marriage cause enough to murder them?
467
467
Medea
467
Dost think a woman counts this a trifling injury?
468
468
Jason
468
So she be self-restrained; but in thy eyes all is evil.
469
469
Medea
469
Thy sons are dead and gone. That will stab thy heart.
470
470
Jason
470
They live, methinks,Reading οἵμαι with Tyrrwhitt. to bring a curse upon thy head.
471
471
Medea
471
The gods know, whoso of them began this troublous coil.
472
472
Jason
472
Indeed, they know that hateful heart of thine.
473
473
Medea
473
Thou art as hateful. I am aweary of thy bitter tongue.
474
474
Jason
474
And I likewise of thine. But parting is easy.
475
475
Medea
475
Say how; what am I to do? for I am fain as thou to go.
476
476
Jason
476
Give up to me those dead, to bury and lament
477
477
Medea
477
No, never! I will bury them myself, bearing them to Hera’s sacred field, who watches o’er the Cape,
478
that none of their foes may insult them by pulling down their tombs; and in this land of Sisyphus I will ordain hereafter a solemn feast and mystic rites to atone for this impious murder. Myself will now to the land of Erechtheus,
479
to dwell with Aegeus, Pandion’s son. But thou, as well thou mayest, shalt die a caitiff’s death, thy headLegend told how Jason was slain by a beam falling on him as he lay asleep under the shadow of his ship Argo. crushed ’neath a shattered relic of Argo, when thou hast seen the bitter ending of my marriage.
480
480
Jason
480
The curse of our sons’ avenging spirit and of Justice,
481
that calls for blood, be on thee!
482
482
Medea
482
What god or power divine hears thee, breaker of oaths and every law of hospitality?
483
483
Jason
483
Fie upon thee! cursed witch! child-murderess!
484
484
Medea
484
To thy house! go, bury thy wife.
485
485
Jason
485
I go, bereft of both my sons.
486
486
Medea
486
Thy grief is yet to come; wait till old age is with thee too.
487
487
Jason
487
O my dear, dear children!
488
488
Jason
488
And yet thou didst slay them?
489
489
Jason
489
One last fond kiss, ah me!
490
I fain would on their lips imprint.
491
491
Medea
491
Embraces now, and fond farewells for them; but then a cold repulse!
492
492
Medea
492
No, no! in vain this word has sped its flight.
493
493
Jason
493
O Zeus, dost hear how I am driven hence; dost mark the treatment I receive from this she-lion, fell murderess of her young? Yet so far as I may and can, I raise for them a dirge,
494
and do adjureκἀπιθεάζω, Blomfield’s emendation for MSS. κἀπιθοάζω. the gods to witness how thou hast slain my sons, and wilt not suffer me to embrace or bury their dead bodies. Would I had never begotten them to see thee slay them after all!
495
495
Chorus
495
Many a fate doth Zeus dispense, high on his Olympian throne; oft do the gods bring things to pass beyond man’s expectation; that, which we thought would be, is not fulfilled, while for the unlooked-for god finds out a way; and such hath been the issue of this matter.
137
137
Chorus
137
With mind distraught didst thou thy father’s house desert on thy voyage betwixt ocean’s twin rocks, and on a foreign
138
strand thou dwellest, thy bed left husbandless, poor lady and thou an exile from the land, dishonoured, persecuted.
139
139
Chorus
139
Gone is the grace that oaths once had. Through all the breadth
140
of Hellas honour is found no more; to heaven hath it sped away. For thee no father’s house is open, woe is thee! to be a haven from the troublous storm, while o’er thy home is set another queen, the bride that is
141
preferred to thee.
199
199
Chorus
199
O my country, O my own dear home! God grant I may never be an outcast from my city,
200
leading that cruel helpless life, whose every day is misery. Ere that may I this life complete and yield to death, ay, death;
201
for there is no misery that doth surpass the loss of fatherland.
202
202
Chorus
202
I have seen with mine eyes, nor from the lips of others have I the lesson learnt;
203
no city, not one friend doth pity thee in this thine awful woe. May he perish and find no favour,
204
whoso hath not in him honour for his friends, freely unlocking his heart to them. Never shall he be friend of mine.
297
297
Chorus
297
How then shall the city of sacred streams, the land that welcomes those it loves, receive thee, the murderess of thy children,
298
thee whose presence with others is a pollution? Think on the murder of thy children, consider the bloody deed thou takest on thee. Nay, by thy knees we, one and all, implore thee,
299
slay not thy babes.
300
300
Chorus
300
WhereOf the numerous emendations of this corrupt passage, Nauck’s τέκνυν for τέκνοις is the simplest, if it goes far enough. Verrall suggests that a word has fallen out after the second ἢ and conjectures μένος of τέχναν. This is not less satisfactory than most of the emendations. shall hand or heart find hardihood enough in wreaking such a fearsome deed upon thy sons?
301
How wilt thou look upon thy babes, and still without a tear retain thy bloody purpose? Thou canst not, when they fall at thy feet for mercy, steel thy heart and dip
302
in their blood thy hand.
343
343
Chorus
343
And thou, poor wretch, who to thy sorrow art wedding a king’s daughter, little thinkest of the doom thou art bringing on thy children’s life, or of the cruel death that waits thy bride.
344
Woe is thee! how art thou fallen from thy high estate!
345
345
Chorus
345
Next do I bewail thy sorrows, O mother hapless in thy children, thou who wilt slay thy babes because thou hast a rival, the babes
346
thy husband hath deserted impiously to join him to another bride.
424
424
Chorus
424
Didst hear, didst hear the children’s cry? O lady, born to sorrow, victim of an evil fate!
425
425
1st Son
425
(within). Ah, me; what can I do? Whither fly to escape my mother’s blows?
426
426
2nd Son
426
(within). I know not, sweet brother mine; we are undone.
427
427
Chorus
427
Shall I enter the house? For the children’s sake I am resolved to ward off the murder.
428
428
1st Son
428
(within). Yea, by heaven I adjure you; help, your aid is needed.
429
429
2nd Son
429
(within). Even now the toils of the sword are closing round us.
430
430
Chorus
430
O hapless mother, surely thou hast a heart of stone or steel
431
to slay the offspring of thy womb by such a murderous doom.
432
432
Chorus
432
Of all the wives of yore I know but one who laid her hand upon her children dear, even Ino,This is Euripides’ version of the legend, not the usual one; which makes Athamas the father go mad and kill one son, while Ino leaps into the sea with the other. whom the gods did madden in the day
433
that the wife of Zeus drove her wandering from her home. But she, poor sufferer, flung herself into the sea because of the foul murder of her children, leaping o’er the wave-beat cliff, and in her death was she united to her children twain.
434
Can there be any deed of horror left to follow this? Woe for the wooing of women fraught with disaster! What sorrows hast thou caused for men ere now!
1005a
1005a
Attendant
1005a
Why art so disquieted in thy prosperous hour? Why turnest thou thy cheek away, and hast no welcome for my glad news?
1008a
1008a
Attendant
1008a
These groans but ill accord with the news I bring.
1009b
1009b
Attendant
1009b
Have I unwittingly announced some evil tidings?
1270a
1270a
Sons
1270a
Ah!This is bracketed in the Greek and not found in the Coleridge edition. It has been added here for clarity.
1397b
1397b
Medea
1397b
Dear to their mother, not to thee.