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.
- O Aegeus, my husband has proved a monster of iniquity.
- What meanest thou? explain to me clearly the cause of thy despondency.
- Jason is wronging me though I have given him no cause.
- What hath he done? tell me more clearly.
- He is taking another wife to succeed me as mistress of his house.
- Can he have brought himself to such a dastard deed?
- Be assured thereof; I, whom he loved of yore, am in dishonour now.
- Hath he found a new love? or does he loathe thy bed?
- Much in love is he! A traitor to his friend is he become.
- Enough! if he is a villain as thou sayest.
- The alliance he is so much enamoured of is with a princess.
- Who gives his daughter to him? go on, I pray.
- Creon, who is lord of this land of Corinth.
- Lady, I can well pardon thy grief.
- I am undone, and more than that, am banished from the land.
- By whom? fresh woe this word of thine unfolds.
- Creon drives me forth in exile from Corinth.
- Doth Jason allow it? This too I blame him for.
- Not in words, but he will not stand out against it. Ο, I implore thee by this beard
- and by thy knees, in suppliant posture, pity, O pity my sorrows; do not see me cast forth forlorn, but receive me in thy country, to a seat within thy halls. So may thy wish by heaven’s grace be crowned with a full harvest
- of offspring, and may thy life close in happiness! Thou knowest not the rare good luck thou findest here, for I will make thy childlessness to cease and cause thee to beget fair issue; so potent are the spells I know.
- Lady, on many grounds I am most fain to grant thee this thy boon,