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.

  1. Thou art not the only mother from thy children reft. Bear patiently thy troubles as a mortal must.
Medea
  1. I will obey; go thou within the house
  2. 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,
  3. 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;
  4. 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,
  5. 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.
  6. 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;
  7. 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!
  8. And yet what am I coming to? Can I consent
  9. to let those foes of mine escape from punishment, and incur their mockery? I must face this deed. Out upon my craven heart! to think that I should even have let the soft[*](Reading πρόεσθαι for which Badham proposes πρόσεσθαι, indulge my mind in gentle thoughts.) words escape my soul. Into the house, children! and whoso feels he must not be present at my sacrifice,
  10. must see to it himself; I will not spoil my
    handiwork. Ah! ah! do not, my heart, O do not do this deed! Let the children go, unhappy one, spare the babes! For if they live, they will cheer thee in our exile there.[*](At Athens.) Nay, by the fiends of hell’s abyss,
  11. never, never will I hand my children over to their foes to mock and flout. Die they must in any case, and since ’tis so, why I, the mother who bore them, will give the fatal blow. In any case their doom is fixed and there is no escape.
  12. Already the crown is on her head, the robe is round her, and she is dying, the royal bride; that do I know full well. But now since I have a piteous path to tread, and yet more piteous still the path I send my children on, fain would I say farewell to them. O my babes,
  13. my babes, let your mother kiss your hands. Ah! hands I love so well, O lips most dear to me! O noble form and features of my children, I wish ye joy, but in that other land, for here your father robs you of your home. O the sweet embrace,
  14. the soft young cheek, the fragrant breath! my children! Go, leave me; I cannot bear to longer look upon ye; my sorrow wins the day. At last I understand the awful deed I am to do; but passion, that cause of direst woes to mortal man,
  15. hath triumphed o’er my sober thoughts.
Chorus
  1. Oft ere now have I pursued subtler themes and have faced graver issues than woman’s sex should seek to probe;
  2. but then e’en we aspire to culture, which dwells with us to teach us wisdom; I say not all; for small is the class amongst women—(one maybe shalt thou find ’mid many)— that is not incapable of culture.
  3. And amongst mortals I do assert that they who are wholly without experience and have never had children far surpass in happiness those who are parents. The childless, because they have never proved
  4. whether children grow up to be a blessing or curse to men are removed from all share in many troubles; whilst those who have a sweet race of children growing up in their houses do wear away, as I perceive,