CHOR. Unhappy woman! alas wretched on account of thy griefs! whither wilt
thou turn? what hospitality, or house, or country wilt thou find a refuge
for these ills? how the Deity hath led thee, Medea, into a pathless tide of
woes!
MED. Ill hath it been done on every side. Who will gainsay it? but these
things are not in this way, do not yet think it. Still is there a contest
for those lately married, and to those allied to them no small affliction.
For dost thou think I ever would have fawned upon this man, if I were not
to gain something, or form some plan? I would not even have addressed him.
I would not even have touched him with my hands. But he hath arrived at
such a height of folly, as that, when it was in his power to have crushed
my plans, by banishing me from this land, he hath granted me to stay this
day in which three of mine enemies will I put to death, the father, the
bride, and my husband. But having in my power many resources of destruction
against them, I know not, my friends, which I shall first attempt. Whether
shall I consume the bridal house with fire, or force the sharpened sword
through her heart having entered the chamber by stealth where the couch is
spread? But one thing is against me; if I should be caught entering the
house and prosecuting my plans, by my death I shall afford laughter for my
foes. Best then is it to pursue the straight path, in which I am most
skilled, to take them off by poison. Let it be so. And suppose them dead:
what city will receive me? What hospitable stranger affording a land of
safety and a faithful home will protect my person? There is none. Waiting
then yet a little time, if any tower of safety shall appear to us, I will
proceed to this murder in treachery and silence. But if ill fortune that
leaves me without resource force me, I myself having grasped the sword,
although I should die, will kill them, and will rush to the extreme height
of daring. For never, I swear by my mistress whom I revere most of all, and
have chosen for my assistant, Hecate, who dwells in the inmost recesses of
my house, shall any one of them wring my heart with grief with impunity.
Bitter and mournful to them will I make these nuptials, and bitter this
alliance, and my flight from this land. But come, spare none of these
sciences in which thou art skilled, Medea, deliberating and plotting.
Proceed to the deed of terror: now is the time of resolution: seest thou
what thou art suffering? Ill doth it become thee to incur ridicule from the
race of Sisyphus, and from the nuptials of Jason, who art sprung from a
noble father, and from the sun. And thou art skilled. Besides also we women
are, by nature, to good actions of the least capacity, but the most cunning
inventors of every ill.
CHOR. The waters of the hallowed streams flow upward to their sources, and
justice and every thing is reversed. The counsels of men are treacherous,
and no longer is the faith of heaven firm. But fame changes, so that my sex
may have the glory.[17] Honor cometh to the female race; no longer shall
opprobrious fame oppress the women. But the Muses shall cease from their
ancient strains, from celebrating our perfidy. For Phœbus, leader of the
choir, gave not to our minds the heavenly music of the lyre, since they
would in turn have raised a strain against the race of men. But time of old
hath much to say both of our life and the life of men. But thou hast sailed
from thy father's house with maddened heart, having passed through the
double rocks of the ocean, and thou dwellest in a foreign land, having lost
the shelter of thy widowed bed, wretched woman, and art driven dishonored
an exile from this land. The reverence of oaths is gone, nor does shame any
longer dwell in mighty Greece, but hath fled away through the air. But thou
helpless woman hast neither father's house to afford you haven from your
woes, and another more powerful queen of the nuptial bed rules over the
house.