Medea
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.
- Thy children, lady, are from exile freed, and gladly did the royal bride accept thy gifts in her own hands, and so thy children made their peace with her.
- Ah!
- Why art so disquieted in thy prosperous hour? Why turnest thou thy cheek away, and hast no welcome for my glad news?
- Ah me!
- These groans but ill accord with the news I bring.
- Ah me! once more I say.
- Have I unwittingly announced some evil tidings?
- Have I erred in thinking my news was good?
- Thy news is as it is; I blame thee not.
- Then why this downcast eye, these floods of tears?
- Old friend, needs must I weep; for the gods and I with fell intent devised these schemes.
- Be of good cheer; thou too of a surety shalt by thy sons yet be brought home again.
- Ere that shall I bring others to their home, ah! woe is me!
- Thou art not the only mother from thy children reft. Bear patiently thy troubles as a mortal must.
- I will obey; go thou within the house
- and make the day’s provision for the children. O my babes, my babes, ye have still a city and a home, where far from me and my sad lot you will live your lives, reft of your mother for ever; while I must to another land in banishment,
- or ever I have had my joy of you, or lived to see you happy, or ever I have graced your marriage couch, your bride, your bridal bower, or lifted high the wedding torch. Ah me! a victim of my own self-will. So it was all in vain I reared you, O my sons;
- in vain did suffer, racked with anguish, enduring the cruel pangs of childbirth. ’Fore Heaven I once had hope, poor me! high hope of ye that you would nurse me in my age and deck my corpse with loving hands,
- a boon we mortals covet; but now is my sweet fancy dead and gone; for I must lose you both and in bitterness and sorrow drag through life. And ye shall never with fond eyes see your mother more, for o’er your life there comes a change.
- Ah me! ah me! why do ye look at me so, my children? why smile that last sweet smile? Ah me! what am I to do? My heart gives way when I behold my children’s laughing eyes. Ο, I cannot; farewell to all my former schemes;
- I will take the children from the land, the babes I bore. Why should I wound their sire by wounding them, and get me a twofold measure of sorrow? No, no, I will not do it. Farewell my scheming!
- And yet what am I coming to? Can I consent