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diff --git a/35451-h/35451-h.htm b/35451-h/35451-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a96c187 --- /dev/null +++ b/35451-h/35451-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4401 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of "The Medea of Euripides", by Gilbert Murray. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { font-family: Times, serif; text-align: justify; margin-top: 100px; margin-bottom: 100px; + font-size: 110%; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15% } + +p { text-align: justify; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; + font-size: 110%; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15% } + +p.ad { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -1.55em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 20%; } + +p.center { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: center; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: 0em; margin-bottom: .75em } + +p.char { margin-top: 1.75em; font-style: normal; text-align: center; + font-size: 115%; text-indent: 0em; margin-bottom: 1.2em; + margin-left: 28%; margin-right: 28%; } + +p.char1 { margin-top: .25em; font-style: normal; text-align: center; + font-size: 115%; text-indent: 0em; margin-bottom: 1.2em } + +p.direct { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -1.7em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 27%; margin-right: 24%; } + +p.direct1 { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -2.55em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 32%; margin-right: 24%; } + +p.direct2 { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -2.55em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 34%; margin-right: 24%; } + +p.direct3 { margin-top: 0em; font-style: normal; text-align: right; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -.75em; margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: 37%; margin-right: 24%; } + +p.direct4 { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -2em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 40%; margin-right: 24%; } + +p.pers { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -2.2em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 16%; } + +p.pers1 { margin-top: .75em; font-style: normal; text-align: justify; + font-size: 110%; text-indent: -1.8em; margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 24%; margin-right: 16%; } + +p.right { margin-top: .75em; text-align: right; font-size: 100%; + margin-bottom: .75em; margin-right: 17%; } + +h1 { text-align: center; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .5em; clear: both; + font-size: 240%; letter-spacing: .20em } +h2 { text-align: center; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .5em; clear: both; + font-size: 150%; letter-spacing: .20em } +h3 { text-align: center; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; clear: both; + font-size: 140% } +h4 { text-align: center; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .5em; clear: both; + font-size: 100% } +h5 { text-align: center; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: .5em; clear: both; + font-size: 90% } +h6 { text-align: center; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: .25em; clear: both; + font-size: 70% } + +hr { text-align: center; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 33%; } + +hr.tb { text-align: center; width: 20%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; + height: 1px; border-width: 1px 0 0px 0; border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; clear: both; } + +.smcap { font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 100% } + +.smcap2 { font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 80% } + +.smcap3 { font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 67% } + +.pagenum { position: absolute; text-align: right; color: #a9a9a9; font-size: 65%; + left: 92% } + +div.trans { margin-left: 7%; margin-right: 7%; padding: 0em; } + +pre { font-family: Times, serif; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%; font-size: 110% } + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Medea of Euripides, by Euripides + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Medea of Euripides + +Author: Euripides + +Translator: Gilbert Murray + +Release Date: March 2, 2011 [EBook #35451] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDEA OF Euripides *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Watson and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>THE MEDEA</h1> +<h4>OF<br /><br /></h4> +<h2><big>EURIPIDES</big></h2> +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + + +<h5>TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE</h5> +<h5>WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY</h5> + +<h3>GILBERT MURRAY, M.A., LL.D.</h3> + +<h6>SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY</h6> +<h6>OF GLASGOW; FELLOW OF NEW</h6> +<h6>COLLEGE, OXFORD</h6> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h4>OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS<br /> +<small>AMERICAN BRANCH</small><br /> +<small>NEW YORK:</small> 35 <small>WEST</small> 32<small>ND STREET</small><br /> +1912</h4> + +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h5>Copyright, 1906, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">Oxford University Press</span><br /> +<small>AMERICAN BRANCH</small></h5> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> <i>Medea</i>, in spite of its background of wonder and enchantment, is +not a romantic play but a tragedy of character and situation. It deals, +so to speak, not with the romance itself, but with the end of the +romance, a thing which is so terribly often the reverse of romantic. For +all but the very highest of romances are apt to have just one flaw +somewhere, and in the story of Jason and Medea the flaw was of a fatal +kind.</p> + +<p>The wildness and beauty of the Argo legend run through all Greek +literature, from the mass of Corinthian lays older than our present +Iliad, which later writers vaguely associate with the name of Eumêlus, +to the Fourth Pythian Ode of Pindar and the beautiful Argonautica of +Apollonius Rhodius. Our poet knows the wildness and the beauty; but it +is not these qualities that he specially seeks. He takes them almost for +granted, and pierces through them to the sheer tragedy that lies below.</p> + +<p>Jason, son of Aeson, King of Iôlcos, in Thessaly, began his life in +exile. His uncle Pelias had seized his father's kingdom, and Jason was +borne away to the mountains by night and given, wrapped in a purple +robe, to Chiron, the Centaur. When he reached manhood he came down to +Iôlcos to demand, as Pindar tells us, his ancestral honour, and stood in +the market-place, a world-famous figure, one-sandalled, with his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>pard-skin, his two spears and his long hair, gentle and wild and +fearless, as the Wise Beast had reared him. Pelias, cowed but loath to +yield, promised to give up the kingdom if Jason would make his way to +the unknown land of Colchis and perform a double quest. First, if I read +Pindar aright, he must fetch back the soul of his kinsman Phrixus, who +had died there far from home; and, secondly, find the fleece of the +Golden Ram which Phrixus had sacrificed. Jason undertook the quest: +gathered the most daring heroes from all parts of Hellas; built the +first ship, Argo, and set to sea. After all manner of desperate +adventures he reached the land of Aiêtês, king of the Colchians, and +there hope failed him. By policy, by tact, by sheer courage he did all +that man could do. But Aiêtês was both hostile and treacherous. The +Argonauts were surrounded, and their destruction seemed only a question +of days when, suddenly, unasked, and by the mercy of Heaven, Aiêtês' +daughter, Mêdêa, an enchantress as well as a princess, fell in love with +Jason. She helped him through all his trials; slew for him her own +sleepless serpent, who guarded the fleece; deceived her father, and +secured both the fleece and the soul of Phrixus. At the last moment it +appeared that her brother, Absyrtus, was about to lay an ambush for +Jason. She invited Absyrtus to her room, stabbed him dead, and fled with +Jason over the seas. She had given up all, and expected in return a +perfect love.</p> + +<p>And what of Jason? He could not possibly avoid taking Medea with him. He +probably rather loved her. She formed at the least a brilliant addition +to the glory of his enterprise. Not many heroes could <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>produce a +barbarian princess ready to leave all and follow them in blind trust. +For of course, as every one knew without the telling in fifth-century +Athens, no legal marriage was possible between a Greek and a barbarian +from Colchis.</p> + +<p>All through the voyage home, a world-wide baffled voyage by the Ister +and the Eridanus and the African Syrtes, Medea was still in her element, +and proved a constant help and counsellor to the Argonauts. When they +reached Jason's home, where Pelias was still king, things began to be +different. An ordered and law-abiding Greek state was scarcely the place +for the untamed Colchian. We only know the catastrophe. She saw with +smothered rage how Pelias hated Jason and was bent on keeping the +kingdom from him, and she determined to do her lover another act of +splendid service. Making the most of her fame as an enchantress, she +persuaded Pelias that he could, by a certain process, regain his youth. +He eagerly caught at the hope. His daughters tried the process upon him, +and Pelias died in agony. Surely Jason would be grateful now!</p> + +<p>The real result was what it was sure to be in a civilised country. Medea +and her lover had to fly for their lives, and Jason was debarred for +ever from succeeding to the throne of Iôlcos. Probably there was another +result also in Jason's mind: the conclusion that at all costs he must +somehow separate himself from this wild beast of a woman who was ruining +his life. He directed their flight to Corinth, governed at the time by a +ruler of some sort, whether "tyrant" or king, who was growing old and +had an only daughter. Creon would naturally want a son-in-law to support +and suc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>ceed him. And where in all Greece could he find one stronger or +more famous than the chief of the Argonauts? If only Medea were not +there! No doubt Jason owed her a great debt for her various services. +Still, after all, he was not married to her. And a man must not be weak +in such matters as these. Jason accepted the princess's hand, and when +Medea became violent, found it difficult to be really angry with Creon +for instantly condemning her to exile. At this point the tragedy begins.</p> + +<p>The <i>Medea</i> is one of the earliest of Euripides' works now preserved to +us. And those of us who have in our time glowed at all with the religion +of realism, will probably feel in it many of the qualities of youth. +Not, of course, the more normal, sensuous, romantic youth, the youth of +<i>Romeo and Juliet</i>; but another kind—crude, austere, passionate—the +youth of the poet who is also a sceptic and a devotee of truth, who so +hates the conventionally and falsely beautiful that he is apt to be +unduly ascetic towards beauty itself. When a writer really deficient in +poetry walks in this path, the result is purely disagreeable. It +produces its best results when the writer, like Euripides or Tolstoy, is +so possessed by an inward flame of poetry that it breaks out at the +great moments and consumes the cramping theory that would hold it in. +One can feel in the <i>Medea</i> that the natural and inevitable romance of +the story is kept rigidly down. One word about Medea's ancient serpent, +two or three references to the Clashing Rocks, one startling flash of +light upon the real love of Jason's life, love for the ship Argo, these +are almost all the concessions made to us by the merciless <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>delineator +of disaster into whose hands we are fallen. Jason is a middle-aged man, +with much glory, indeed, and some illusions; but a man entirely set upon +building up a great career, to whom love and all its works, though at +times he has found them convenient, are for the most part only +irrational and disturbing elements in a world which he can otherwise +mould to his will. And yet, most cruel touch of all, one feels this man +to be the real Jason. It is not that he has fallen from his heroic past. +It is that he was really like this always. And so with Medea. It is not +only that her beauty has begun to fade; not only that she is set in +surroundings which vaguely belittle and weaken her, making her no more a +bountiful princess, but only an ambiguous and much criticised foreigner. +Her very devotion of love for Jason, now turned to hatred, shows itself +to have been always of that somewhat rank and ugly sort to which such a +change is natural.</p> + +<p>For concentrated dramatic quality and sheer intensity of passion few +plays ever written can vie with the <i>Medea</i>. Yet it obtained only a +third prize at its first production; and, in spite of its immense fame, +there are not many scholars who would put it among their favourite +tragedies. The comparative failure of the first production was perhaps +due chiefly to the extreme originality of the play. The Athenians in 432 +<span class="smcap3">B.C.</span> had not yet learnt to understand or tolerate such work as this, +though it is likely enough that they fortified their unfavourable +opinion by the sort of criticisms which we still find attributed to +Aristotle and Dicæarchus.</p> + +<p>At the present time it is certainly not the newness of the subject: I do +not think it is Aegeus, nor yet <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>the dragon chariot, much less Medea's +involuntary burst of tears in the second scene with Jason, that really +produces the feeling of dissatisfaction with which many people must rise +from this great play. It is rather the general scheme on which the drama +is built. It is a scheme which occurs again and again in Euripides, a +study of oppression and revenge. Such a subject in the hands of a more +ordinary writer would probably take the form of a triumph of oppressed +virtue. But Euripides gives us nothing so sympathetic, nothing so cheap +and unreal. If oppression usually made people virtuous, the problems of +the world would be very different from what they are. Euripides seems at +times to hate the revenge of the oppressed almost as much as the +original cruelty of the oppressor; or, to put the same fact in a +different light, he seems deliberately to dwell upon the twofold evil of +cruelty, that it not only causes pain to the victim, but actually by +means of the pain makes him a worse man, so that when his turn of +triumph comes, it is no longer a triumph of justice or a thing to make +men rejoice. This is a grim lesson; taught often enough by history, +though seldom by the fables of the poets.</p> + +<p>Seventeen years later than the <i>Medea</i> Euripides expressed this +sentiment in a more positive way in the <i>Trojan Women</i>, where a depth of +wrong borne without revenge becomes, or seems for the moment to become, +a thing beautiful and glorious. But more plays are constructed like the +<i>Medea</i>. The <i>Hecuba</i> begins with a noble and injured Queen, and ends +with her hideous vengeance on her enemy and his innocent sons. In the +<i>Orestes</i> all our hearts go out to the suf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>fering and deserted prince, +till we find at last that we have committed ourselves to the +blood-thirst of a madman. In the <i>Electra</i>, the workers of the vengeance +themselves repent.</p> + +<p>The dramatic effect of this kind of tragedy is curious. No one can call +it undramatic or tame. Yet it is painfully unsatisfying. At the close of +the <i>Medea</i> I actually find myself longing for a <i>deus ex machinâ</i>, for +some being like Artemis in the <i>Hippolytus</i> or the good Dioscuri of the +<i>Electra</i>, to speak a word of explanation or forgiveness, or at least +leave some sound of music in our ears to drown that dreadful and +insistent clamour of hate. The truth is that in this play Medea herself +is the <i>dea ex machinâ</i>. The woman whom Jason and Creon intended simply +to crush has been transformed by her injuries from an individual human +being into a sort of living Curse. She is inspired with superhuman +force. Her wrongs and her hate fill all the sky. And the judgment +pronounced on Jason comes not from any disinterested or peace-making +God, but from his own victim transfigured into a devil.</p> + +<p>From any such judgment there is an instant appeal to sane human +sympathy. Jason has suffered more than enough. But that also is the way +of the world. And the last word upon these tragic things is most often +something not to be expressed by the sentences of even the wisest +articulate judge, but only by the unspoken <i>lacrimæ rerum</i>.</p> + +<p class="right">G. M.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h2>MEDEA</h2> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h4><big>CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY</big></h4> +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Medea</span>, <i>daughter of Aiêtês, King of Colchis</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Jason</span>, <i>chief of the Argonauts; nephew of Pelias, King of Iôlcos in Thessaly</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Creon</span>, <i>ruler of Corinth</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Aegeus</span>, <i>King of Athens</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>of Medea</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Two Children</span> <i>of Jason and Medea</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">Attendant</span> <i>on the children</i>.</p> +<p class="pers"> +<span class="smcap">A Messenger.</span></p> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Chorus</span> of Corinthian Women, with their <span class="smcap">Leader</span>.<br /> +Soldiers and Attendants.</p> + +<p class="pers1"><i>The scene is laid in Corinth. The play was first acted when Pythodôrus +was Archon, Olympiad 87, year</i> 1 (<span class="smcap3">B.C.</span> 431). <i>Euphorion was first, +Sophocles second, Euripides third, with Medea, Philoctêtes, Dictys, and +the Harvesters, a Satyr-play.</i></p> + +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<h2>MEDEA</h2> +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="direct"><i>The Scene represents the front of</i> <span class="smcap">Medea's</span> <i>House in Corinth. A road to +the right leads towards the royal castle, one on the left to the +harbour. The</i> <span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>is discovered alone</i>.</p> + + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + Would God no Argo e'er had winged the seas + To Colchis through the blue Symplêgades: + No shaft of riven pine in Pêlion's glen + Shaped that first oar-blade in the hands of men + Valiant, who won, to save King Pelias' vow, + The fleece All-golden! Never then, I trow, + Mine own princess, her spirit wounded sore + With love of Jason, to the encastled shore + Had sailed of old Iôlcos: never wrought + The daughters of King Pelias, knowing not, + To spill their father's life: nor fled in fear, + Hunted for that fierce sin, to Corinth here + With Jason and her babes. This folk at need + Stood friend to her, and she in word and deed + Served alway Jason. Surely this doth bind, + Through all ill days, the hurts of humankind, + When man and woman in one music move. + But now, the world is angry, and true love + Sick as with poison. Jason doth forsake + My mistress and his own two sons, to make +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> His couch in a king's chamber. He must wed: + Wed with this Creon's child, who now is head + And chief of Corinth. Wherefore sore betrayed + Medea calleth up the oath they made, + They two, and wakes the claspèd hands again, + The troth surpassing speech, and cries amain + On God in heaven to mark the end, and how + Jason hath paid his debt. + All fasting now + And cold, her body yielded up to pain, + Her days a waste of weeping, she hath lain, + Since first she knew that he was false. Her eyes + Are lifted not; and all her visage lies + In the dust. If friends will speak, she hears no more + Than some dead rock or wave that beats the shore: + Only the white throat in a sudden shame + May writhe, and all alone she moans the name + Of father, and land, and home, forsook that day + For this man's sake, who casteth her away. + Not to be quite shut out from home . . . alas, + She knoweth now how rare a thing that was! + Methinks she hath a dread, not joy, to see + Her children near. 'Tis this that maketh me + Most tremble, lest she do I know not what. + Her heart is no light thing, and useth not + To brook much wrong. I know that woman, aye, + And dread her! Will she creep alone to die + Bleeding in that old room, where still is laid + Lord Jason's bed? She hath for that a blade + Made keen. Or slay the bridegroom and the king, + And win herself God knows what direr thing? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> 'Tis a fell spirit. Few, I ween, shall stir + Her hate unscathed, or lightly humble her. + Ha! 'Tis the children from their games again, + Rested and gay; and all their mother's pain + Forgotten! Young lives ever turn from gloom! +</pre> + +<p class="direct2">[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>and their</i> <span class="smcap">Attendant</span> <i>come in</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> + Thou ancient treasure of my lady's room, + What mak'st thou here before the gates alone, + And alway turning on thy lips some moan + Of old mischances? Will our mistress be + Content, this long time to be left by thee? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + Grey guard of Jason's children, a good thrall + Hath his own grief, if any hurt befall + His masters. Aye, it holds one's heart! . . . + Meseems + I have strayed out so deep in evil dreams, + I longed to rest me here alone, and cry + Medea's wrongs to this still Earth and Sky. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> + How? Are the tears yet running in her eyes? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + 'Twere good to be like thee! . . . Her sorrow lies + Scarce wakened yet, not half its perils wrought. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>Mad spirit! . . . if a man may speak his thought +Of masters mad.—And nothing in her ears +Hath sounded yet of her last cause for tears! +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>He moves towards the house, but the</i> <span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>checks him</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> +What cause, old man? . . . Nay, grudge me not one word. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis nothing. Best forget what thou hast heard. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> +Nay, housemate, by thy beard! Hold it not hid +From me. . . . I will keep silence if thou bid. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +I heard an old man talking, where he sate +At draughts in the sun, beside the fountain gate, +And never thought of me, there standing still +Beside him. And he said, 'Twas Creon's will, +Being lord of all this land, that she be sent, +And with her her two sons, to banishment. +Maybe 'tis all false. For myself, I know +No further, and I would it were not so. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> +Jason will never bear it--his own sons +Banished,—however hot his anger runs +Against their mother! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> + Old love burneth low +When new love wakes, men say. He is not now +Husband nor father here, nor any kin. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> +But this is ruin! New waves breaking in +To wreck us, ere we are righted from the old! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +Well, hold thy peace. Our mistress will be told +All in good time. Speak thou no word hereof. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> +My babes! What think ye of your father's love? +God curse him not, he is my master still: +But, oh, to them that loved him, 'tis an ill +Friend. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> + And what man on earth is different? How? +Hast thou lived all these years, and learned but now +That every man more loveth his own head +Than other men's? He dreameth of the bed +Of this new bride, and thinks not of his sons. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> +Go: run into the house, my little ones: +All will end happily! . . . Keep them apart: +Let not their mother meet them while her heart +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>Is darkened. Yester night I saw a flame +Stand in her eye, as though she hated them, +And would I know not what. For sure her wrath +Will never turn nor slumber, till she hath . . . +Go: and if some must suffer, may it be +Not we who love her, but some enemy! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Voice</span> (<i>within</i>).</p> + +<pre> + Oh shame and pain: O woe is me! + Would I could die in my misery! +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>and the</i> <span class="smcap">Attendant</span> <i>go in</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + Ah, children, hark! She moves again + Her frozen heart, her sleeping wrath. + In, quick! And never cross her path, + Nor rouse that dark eye in its pain; + + That fell sea-spirit, and the dire + Spring of a will untaught, unbowed. + Quick, now!—Methinks this weeping cloud + Hath in its heart some thunder-fire, + + Slow gathering, that must flash ere long. + I know not how, for ill or well, + It turns, this uncontrollable + Tempestuous spirit, blind with wrong. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Voice</span> (<i>within</i>).</p> + +<pre> + Have I not suffered? Doth it call + No tears? . . . Ha, ye beside the wall + Unfathered children, God hate you + As I am hated, and him, too, + That gat you, and this house and all! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + For pity! What have they to do, + Babes, with their father's sin? Why call + Thy curse on these? . . . Ah, children, all + These days my bosom bleeds for you. + + Rude are the wills of princes: yea, + Prevailing alway, seldom crossed, + On fitful winds their moods are tossed: + 'Tis best men tread the equal way. + + Aye, not with glory but with peace + May the long summers find me crowned: + For gentleness—her very sound + Is magic, and her usages. + + All wholesome: but the fiercely great + Hath little music on his road, + And falleth, when the hand of God + Shall move, most deep and desolate. +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>During the last words the</i> <span class="smcap">Leader</span> <i>of the Chorus has entered. Other women follow her.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> + I heard a voice and a moan, + A voice of the eastern seas: + Hath she found not yet her ease? + Speak, O agèd one. + For I stood afar at the gate, + And there came from within a cry, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> And wailing desolate. + Ah, no more joy have I, + For the griefs this house doth see, + And the love it hath wrought in me. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + There is no house! 'Tis gone. The lord + Seeketh a prouder bed: and she + Wastes in her chamber, not one word + Will hear of care or charity. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Voice</span> (<i>within</i>).</p> + +<pre> + O Zeus, O Earth, O Light, + Will the fire not stab my brain? + What profiteth living? Oh, + Shall I not lift the slow + Yoke, and let Life go, + As a beast out in the night, + To lie, and be rid of pain? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<p class="char1"><i>Some Women</i><br /><br /> +A.</p> + +<pre> + "O Zeus, O Earth, O Light:" + The cry of a bride forlorn + Heard ye, and wailing born + Of lost delight? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>B.</p> + +<pre> + Why weariest thou this day, + Wild heart, for the bed abhorrèd, + The cold bed in the clay? + Death cometh though no man pray, + Ungarlanded, un-adorèd. + Call him not thou. +</pre> + +<p class="char">C.</p> + +<pre> + If another's arms be now + Where thine have been, + On his head be the sin: + Rend not thy brow! +</pre> + +<p class="char">D.</p> + +<pre> + All that thou sufferest, + God seeth: Oh, not so sore + Waste nor weep for the breast + That was thine of yore. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Voice</span> (<i>within</i>).</p> + +<pre> + Virgin of Righteousness, + Virgin of hallowed Troth, + Ye marked me when with an oath + I bound him; mark no less + That oath's end. Give me to see + Him and his bride, who sought + My grief when I wronged her not, + Broken in misery, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> And all her house. . . . O God, + My mother's home, and the dim + Shore that I left for him, + And the voice of my brother's blood. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + Oh, wild words! Did ye hear her cry + To them that guard man's faith forsworn, + Themis and Zeus? . . . This wrath new-born + Shall make mad workings ere it die. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<p class="char1"><i>Other Women.</i></p> + +<p class="char1">A.</p> + +<pre> + Would she but come to seek + Our faces, that love her well, + And take to her heart the spell + Of words that speak? +</pre> + +<p class="char">B.</p> + +<pre> + Alas for the heavy hate + And anger that burneth ever! + Would it but now abate, + Ah God, I love her yet. + And surely my love's endeavour + Shall fail not here. +</pre> + +<p class="char">C.</p> + +<pre> + Go: from that chamber drear + Forth to the day + Lead her, and say, Oh, say + That we love her dear. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>D.</p> + +<pre> + Go, lest her hand be hard + On the innocent: Ah, let be! + For her grief moves hitherward, + Like an angry sea. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Nurse.</span></p> + +<pre> + That will I: though what words of mine + Or love shall move her? Let them lie + With the old lost labours! . . . Yet her eye— + Know ye the eyes of the wild kine, + + The lion flash that guards their brood? + So looks she now if any thrall + Speak comfort, or draw near at all + My mistress in her evil mood. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>goes into the house</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<p class="char"><i>A Woman.</i></p> + +<pre> + Alas, the bold blithe bards of old + That all for joy their music made, + For feasts and dancing manifold, + That Life might listen and be glad. + + But all the darkness and the wrong, + Quick deaths and dim heart-aching things, + Would no man ease them with a song + Or music of a thousand strings? + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Then song had served us in our need. + What profit, o'er the banquet's swell + That lingering cry that none may heed? + The feast hath filled them: all is well! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Others.</i></p> + +<pre> + I heard a song, but it comes no more. + Where the tears ran over: + A keen cry but tired, tired: + A woman's cry for her heart's desired, + For a traitor's kiss and a lost lover. + But a prayer, methinks, yet riseth sore + To God, to Faith, God's ancient daughter— + The Faith that over sundering seas + Drew her to Hellas, and the breeze + Of midnight shivered, and the door + Closed of the salt unsounded water. +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>During the last words</i> <span class="smcap">Medea</span> <i>has come out from the house</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Women of Corinth, I am come to show +My face, lest ye despise me. For I know +Some heads stand high and fail not, even at night +Alone—far less like this, in all men's sight: +And we, who study not our wayfarings +But feel and cry—Oh we are drifting things, +And evil! For what truth is in men's eyes, +Which search no heart, but in a flash despise +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>A strange face, shuddering back from one that ne'er +Hath wronged them? . . . Sure, far-comers anywhere, +I know, must bow them and be gentle. Nay, +A Greek himself men praise not, who alway +Should seek his own will recking not. . . . But I— +This thing undreamed of, sudden from on high, +Hath sapped my soul: I dazzle where I stand, +The cup of all life shattered in my hand, +Longing to die—O friends! He, even he, +Whom to know well was all the world to me, +The man I loved, hath proved most evil.—Oh, +Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow, +A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay +Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day, +To buy us some man's love; and lo, they bring +A master of our flesh! There comes the sting +Of the whole shame. And then the jeopardy, +For good or ill, what shall that master be; +Reject she cannot: and if he but stays +His suit, 'tis shame on all that woman's days. +So thrown amid new laws, new places, why, +'Tis magic she must have, or prophecy— +Home never taught her that—how best to guide +Toward peace this thing that sleepeth at her side. +And she who, labouring long, shall find some way +Whereby her lord may bear with her, nor fray +His yoke too fiercely, blessed is the breath +That woman draws! Else, let her pray for death. +Her lord, if he be wearied of the face +Withindoors, gets him forth; some merrier place +Will ease his heart: but she waits on, her whole +Vision enchainèd on a single soul. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>And then, forsooth, 'tis they that face the call +Of war, while we sit sheltered, hid from all +Peril!—False mocking! Sooner would I stand +Three times to face their battles, shield in hand, +Than bear one child. + But peace! There cannot be +Ever the same tale told of thee and me. +Thou hast this city, and thy father's home, +And joy of friends, and hope in days to come: +But I, being citiless, am cast aside +By him that wedded me, a savage bride +Won in far seas and left—no mother near, +No brother, not one kinsman anywhere +For harbour in this storm. Therefore of thee +I ask one thing. If chance yet ope to me +Some path, if even now my hand can win +Strength to requite this Jason for his sin, +Betray me not! Oh, in all things but this, +I know how full of fears a woman is, +And faint at need, and shrinking from the light +Of battle: but once spoil her of her right +In man's love, and there moves, I warn thee well, +No bloodier spirit between heaven and hell. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +I will betray thee not. It is but just, +Thou smite him.—And that weeping in the dust +And stormy tears, how should I blame them? . . . + Stay: +'Tis Creon, lord of Corinth, makes his way +Hither, and bears, methinks, some word of weight. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span><i>Enter from the right</i> <span class="smcap">Creon</span>, <i>the King, +with armed Attendants</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou woman sullen-eyed and hot with hate +Against thy lord, Medea, I here command +That thou and thy two children from this land +Go forth to banishment. Make no delay: +Seeing ourselves, the King, are come this day +To see our charge fulfilled; nor shall again +Look homeward ere we have led thy children twain +And thee beyond our realm's last boundary. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Lost! Lost! +Mine haters at the helm with sail flung free +Pursuing; and for us no beach nor shore +In the endless waters! . . . Yet, though stricken sore, +I still will ask thee, for what crime, what thing +Unlawful, wilt thou cast me out, O King? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +What crime? I fear thee, woman—little need +To cloak my reasons—lest thou work some deed +Of darkness on my child. And in that fear +Reasons enough have part. Thou comest here +A wise-woman confessed, and full of lore +In unknown ways of evil. Thou art sore +In heart, being parted from thy lover's arms. +And more, thou hast made menace . . . so the alarms +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>But now have reached mine ear . . . on bride and groom, +And him who gave the bride, to work thy doom +Of vengeance. Which, ere yet it be too late, +I sweep aside. I choose to earn thine hate +Of set will now, not palter with the mood +Of mercy, and hereafter weep in blood. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis not the first nor second time, O King, +That fame hath hurt me, and come nigh to bring +My ruin. . . . How can any man, whose eyes +Are wholesome, seek to rear his children wise +Beyond men's wont? Much helplessness in arts +Of common life, and in their townsmen's hearts +Envy deep-set . . . so much their learning brings! +Come unto fools with knowledge of new things, +They deem it vanity, not knowledge. Aye, +And men that erst for wisdom were held high, +Feel thee a thorn to fret them, privily +Held higher than they. So hath it been with me. +A wise-woman I am; and for that sin +To divers ill names men would pen me in; +A seed of strife; an eastern dreamer; one +Of brand not theirs; one hard to play upon . . . +Ah, I am not so wondrous wise!—And now, +To thee, I am terrible! What fearest thou? +What dire deed? Do I tread so proud a path— +Fear me not thou!—that I should brave the wrath +Of princes? Thou: what has thou ever done +To wrong me? Granted thine own child to one +Whom thy soul chose.—Ah, <i>him</i> out of my heart +I hate; but thou, meseems, hast done thy part +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>Not ill. And for thine houses' happiness +I hold no grudge. Go: marry, and God bless +Your issues. Only suffer me to rest +Somewhere within this land. Though sore oppressed, +I will be still, knowing mine own defeat. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thy words be gentle: but I fear me yet +Lest even now there creep some wickedness +Deep hid within thee. And for that the less +I trust thee now than ere these words began. +A woman quick of wrath, aye, or a man, +Is easier watching than the cold and still. + Up, straight, and find thy road! Mock not my will +With words. This doom is passed beyond recall; +Nor all thy crafts shall help thee, being withal +My manifest foe, to linger at my side. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea</span> (<i>suddenly throwing herself down and clinging to</i> <span class="smcap">Creon</span>).</p> + +<pre> +Oh, by thy knees! By that new-wedded bride . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis waste of words. Thou shalt not weaken me. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Wilt hunt me? Spurn me when I kneel to thee? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis mine own house that kneels to me, not thou. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Home, my lost home, how I desire thee now! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +And I mine, and my child, beyond all things. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +O Loves of man, what curse is on your wings! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Blessing or curse, 'tis as their chances flow. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Remember, Zeus, the cause of all this woe! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Oh, rid me of my pains! Up, get thee gone! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +What would I with thy pains? I have mine own. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Up: or, 'fore God, my soldiers here shall fling . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Not that! Not that! . . . I do but pray, O King . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou wilt not? I must face the harsher task? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I accept mine exile. 'Tis not that I ask. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Why then so wild? Why clinging to mine hand? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea</span> (<i>rising</i>).</p> + +<pre> +For one day only leave me in thy land +At peace, to find some counsel, ere the strain +Of exile fall, some comfort for these twain, +Mine innocents; since others take no thought, +It seems, to save the babes that they begot. + Ah! Thou wilt pity them! Thou also art +A father: thou hast somewhere still a heart +That feels. . . . I reck not of myself: 'tis they +That break me, fallen upon so dire a day. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Creon.</span></p> + +<pre> +Mine is no tyrant's mood. Aye, many a time +Ere this my tenderness hath marred the chime +Of wisest counsels. And I know that now +I do mere folly. But so be it! Thou +Shalt have this grace . . . But this I warn thee clear, +If once the morrow's sunlight find thee here +Within my borders, thee or child of thine, +Thou diest! . . . Of this judgment not a line +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>Shall waver nor abate. So linger on, +If thou needs must, till the next risen sun; +No further. . . . In one day there scarce can be +Those perils wrought whose dread yet haunteth me. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>Exit</i> <span class="smcap">Creon</span> <i>with his suite</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> + O woman, woman of sorrow, + Where wilt thou turn and flee? + What town shall be thine to-morrow, + What land of all lands that be, + What door of a strange man's home? + Yea, God hath hunted thee, + Medea, forth to the foam + Of a trackless sea. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Defeat on every side; what else?—But Oh, +Not here the end is: think it not! I know +For bride and groom one battle yet untried, +And goodly pains for him that gave the bride. + Dost dream I would have grovelled to this man, +Save that I won mine end, and shaped my plan +For merry deeds? My lips had never deigned +Speak word with him: my flesh been never stained +With touching. . . . Fool, Oh, triple fool! It lay +So plain for him to kill my whole essay +By exile swift: and, lo, he sets me free +This one long day: wherein mine haters three +Shall lie here dead, the father and the bride +And husband—mine, not hers! Oh, I have tried +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>So many thoughts of murder to my turn, +I know not which best likes me. Shall I burn +Their house with fire? Or stealing past unseen +To Jason's bed—I have a blade made keen +For that—stab, breast to breast, that wedded pair? +Good, but for one thing. When I am taken there, +And killed, they will laugh loud who hate me. . . . + Nay, +I love the old way best, the simple way +Of poison, where we too are strong as men. +Ah me! +And they being dead—what place shall hold me then? +What friend shall rise, with land inviolate +And trusty doors, to shelter from their hate +This flesh? . . . None anywhere! . . . A little more +I needs must wait: and, if there ope some door +Of refuge, some strong tower to shield me, good: +In craft and darkness I will hunt this blood. +Else, if mine hour be come and no hope nigh, +Then sword in hand, full-willed and sure to die, +I yet will live to slay them. I will wend +Man-like, their road of daring to the end. + So help me She who of all Gods hath been +The best to me, of all my chosen queen +And helpmate, Hecatê, who dwells apart, +The flame of flame, in my fire's inmost heart: +For all their strength, they shall not stab my soul +And laugh thereafter! Dark and full of dole +Their bridal feast shall be, most dark the day +They joined their hands, and hunted me away. + Awake thee now, Medea! Whatso plot +Thou hast, or cunning, strive and falter not. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>On to the peril-point! Now comes the strain +Of daring. Shall they trample thee again? +How? And with Hellas laughing o'er thy fall +While this thief's daughter weds, and weds withal +Jason? . . . A true king was thy father, yea, +And born of the ancient Sun! . . . Thou know'st the way; +And God hath made thee woman, things most vain +For help, but wondrous in the paths of pain. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<span class="smcap">Medea</span> <i>goes into the House</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Back streams the wave on the ever running river: + Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod. +Man shall be the slave, the affrighted, the low-liver! + Man hath forgotten God. +And woman, yea, woman, shall be terrible in story: + The tales too, meseemeth, shall be other than of yore. +For a fear there is that cometh out of Woman and a glory, + And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more! + +The old bards shall cease, and their memory that lingers + Of frail brides and faithless, shall be shrivelled as with fire. +For they loved us not, nor knew us: and our lips were dumb, our fingers + Could wake not the secret of the lyre. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>Else, else, O God the Singer, I had sung amid their rages + A long tale of Man and his deeds for good and ill. +But the old World knoweth—'tis the speech of all his ages— + Man's wrong and ours: he knoweth and is still. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Some Women.</i></p> + +<pre> + Forth from thy father's home + Thou camest, O heart of fire, + To the Dark Blue Rocks, to the clashing foam, + To the seas of thy desire: + + Till the Dark Blue Bar was crossed; + And, lo, by an alien river + Standing, thy lover lost, + Void-armed for ever, + + Forth yet again, O lowest + Of landless women, a ranger + Of desolate ways, thou goest, + From the walls of the stranger. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Others.</i></p> + +<pre> + And the great Oath waxeth weak; + And Ruth, as a thing outstriven, + Is fled, fled, from the shores of the Greek, + Away on the winds of heaven. + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Dark is the house afar, + Where an old king called thee daughter; + All that was once thy star + In stormy water, + + Dark: and, lo, in the nearer + House that was sworn to love thee, + Another, queenlier, dearer, + Is thronèd above thee. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Enter from the right</i> <span class="smcap">Jason</span>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Oft have I seen, in other days than these, +How a dark temper maketh maladies +No friend can heal. 'Twas easy to have kept +Both land and home. It needed but to accept +Unstrivingly the pleasure of our lords. +But thou, for mere delight in stormy words, +Wilt lose all! . . . Now thy speech provokes not me. +Rail on. Of all mankind let Jason be +Most evil; none shall check thee. But for these +Dark threats cast out against the majesties +Of Corinth, count as veriest gain thy path +Of exile. I myself, when princely wrath +Was hot against thee, strove with all good will +To appease the wrath, and wished to keep thee still +Beside me. But thy mouth would never stay +From vanity, blaspheming night and day +Our masters. Therefore thou shalt fly the land. + Yet, even so, I will not hold my hand +From succouring mine own people. Here am I +To help thee, woman, pondering heedfully +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>Thy new state. For I would not have thee flung +Provisionless away—aye, and the young +Children as well; nor lacking aught that will +Of mine can bring thee. Many a lesser ill +Hangs on the heels of exile. . . . Aye, and though +Thou hate me, dream not that my heart can know +Or fashion aught of angry will to thee. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Evil, most evil! . . . since thou grantest me +That comfort, the worst weapon left me now +To smite a coward. . . . Thou comest to me, thou, +Mine enemy! (<i>Turning to the</i> <span class="smcap">Chorus</span>.) Oh, say, how call ye this, +To face, and smile, the comrade whom his kiss +Betrayed? Scorn? Insult? Courage? None of these: +'Tis but of all man's inward sicknesses +The vilest, that he knoweth not of shame +Nor pity! Yet I praise him that he came . . . +To me it shall bring comfort, once to clear +My heart on thee, and thou shalt wince to hear. + I will begin with that, 'twixt me and thee, +That first befell. I saved thee. I saved thee— +Let thine own Greeks be witness, every one +That sailed on Argo—saved thee, sent alone +To yoke with yokes the bulls of fiery breath, +And sow that Acre of the Lords of Death; +And mine own ancient Serpent, who did keep +The Golden Fleece, the eyes that knew not sleep, +And shining coils, him also did I smite +Dead for thy sake, and lifted up the light +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>That bade thee live. Myself, uncounsellèd, +Stole forth from father and from home, and fled +Where dark Iôlcos under Pelion lies, +With thee—Oh, single-hearted more than wise! +I murdered Pelias, yea, in agony, +By his own daughters' hands, for sake of thee; +I swept their house like War.—And hast thou then +Accepted all—O evil yet again!— +And cast me off and taken thee for bride +Another? And with children at thy side! +One could forgive a childless man. But no: +I have borne thee children . . . + Is sworn faith so low +And weak a thing? I understand it not. +Are the old gods dead? Are the old laws forgot, +And new laws made? Since not my passioning, +But thine own heart, doth cry thee for a thing +Forsworn. + [<i>She catches sight of her own hand which she has + thrown out to denounce him.</i> + Poor, poor right hand of mine, whom he +Did cling to, and these knees, so cravingly, +We are unclean, thou and I; we have caught the stain +Of bad men's flesh . . . and dreamed our dreams in vain. + Thou comest to befriend me? Give me, then, +Thy counsel. 'Tis not that I dream again +For good from thee: but, questioned, thou wilt show +The viler. Say: now whither shall I go? +Back to my father? Him I did betray, +And all his land, when we two fled away. +To those poor Peliad maids? For them 'twere good +To take me in, who spilled their father's blood. . . . +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>Aye, so my whole life stands! There were at home +Who loved me well: to them I am become +A curse. And the first friends who sheltered me, +Whom most I should have spared, to pleasure thee +I have turned to foes. Oh, therefore hast thou laid +My crown upon me, blest of many a maid +In Hellas, now I have won what all did crave, +Thee, the world-wondered lover and the brave; +Who this day looks and sees me banished, thrown +Away with these two babes, all, all, alone . . . +Oh, merry mocking when the lamps are red: +"Where go the bridegroom's babes to beg their bread +In exile, and the woman who gave all +To save him?" + O great God, shall gold withal +Bear thy clear mark, to sift the base and fine, +And o'er man's living visage runs no sign +To show the lie within, ere all too late? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Dire and beyond all healing is the hate +When hearts that loved are turned to enmity. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +In speech at least, meseemeth, I must be +Not evil; but, as some old pilot goes +Furled to his sail's last edge, when danger blows +Too fiery, run before the wind and swell, +Woman, of thy loud storms.—And thus I tell +My tale. Since thou wilt build so wondrous high +Thy deeds of service in my jeopardy, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>To all my crew and quest I know but one +Saviour, of Gods or mortals one alone, +The Cyprian. Oh, thou hast both brain and wit, +Yet underneath . . . nay, all the tale of it +Were graceless telling; how sheer love, a fire +Of poison-shafts, compelled thee with desire +To save me. But enough. I will not score +That count too close. 'Twas good help: and therefor +I give thee thanks, howe'er the help was wrought. +Howbeit, in my deliverance, thou hast got +Far more than given. A good Greek land hath been +Thy lasting home, not barbary. Thou hast seen +Our ordered life, and justice, and the long +Still grasp of law not changing with the strong +Man's pleasure. Then, all Hellas far and near +Hath learned thy wisdom, and in every ear +Thy fame is. Had thy days run by unseen +On that last edge of the world, where then had been +The story of great Medea? Thou and I . . . +What worth to us were treasures heapèd high +In rich kings' rooms; what worth a voice of gold +More sweet than ever rang from Orpheus old, +Unless our deeds have glory? + Speak I so, +Touching the Quest I wrought, thyself did throw +The challenge down. Next for thy cavilling +Of wrath at mine alliance with a king, +Here thou shalt see I both was wise, and free +From touch of passion, and a friend to thee +Most potent, and my children . . . Nay, be still! + When first I stood in Corinth, clogged with ill +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>From many a desperate mischance, what bliss +Could I that day have dreamed of, like to this, +To wed with a king's daughter, I exiled +And beggared? Not—what makes thy passion wild— +From loathing of thy bed; not over-fraught +With love for this new bride; not that I sought +To upbuild mine house with offspring: 'tis enough, +What thou hast borne: I make no word thereof: +But, first and greatest, that we all might dwell +In a fair house and want not, knowing well +That poor men have no friends, but far and near +Shunning and silence. Next, I sought to rear +Our sons in nurture worthy of my race, +And, raising brethren to them, in one place +Join both my houses, and be all from now +Prince-like and happy. What more need hast thou +Of children? And for me, it serves my star +To link in strength the children that now are +With those that shall be. + Have I counselled ill? +Not thine own self would say it, couldst thou still +One hour thy jealous flesh.—'Tis ever so! +Who looks for more in women? When the flow +Of love runs plain, why, all the world is fair: +But, once there fall some ill chance anywhere +To baulk that thirst, down in swift hate are trod +Men's dearest aims and noblest. Would to God +We mortals by some other seed could raise +Our fruits, and no blind women block our ways! +Then had there been no curse to wreck mankind. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Lord Jason, very subtly hast thou twined +Thy speech: but yet, though all athwart thy will +I speak, this is not well thou dost, but ill, +Betraying her who loved thee and was true. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Surely I have my thoughts, and not a few +Have held me strange. To me it seemeth, when +A crafty tongue is given to evil men +'Tis like to wreck, not help them. Their own brain +Tempts them with lies to dare and dare again, +Till . . . no man hath enough of subtlety. +As thou—be not so seeming-fair to me +Nor deft of speech. One word will make thee fall. +Wert thou not false, 'twas thine to tell me all, +And charge me help thy marriage path, as I +Did love thee; not befool me with a lie. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +An easy task had that been! Aye, and thou +A loving aid, who canst not, even now, +Still that loud heart that surges like the tide! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +That moved thee not. Thine old barbarian bride, +The dog out of the east who loved thee sore, +She grew grey-haired, she served thy pride no more. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Now understand for once! The girl to me +Is nothing, in this web of sovranty +I hold. I do but seek to save, even yet, +Thee: and for brethren to our sons beget +Young kings, to prosper all our lives again. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +God shelter me from prosperous days of pain, +And wealth that maketh wounds about my heart. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Wilt change that prayer, and choose a wiser part? +Pray not to hold true sense for pain, nor rate +Thyself unhappy, being too fortunate. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Aye, mock me; thou hast where to lay thine head, +But I go naked to mine exile. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + Tread +Thine own path! Thou hast made it all to be. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +How? By seducing and forsaking thee? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +By those vile curses on the royal halls +Let loose. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + On thy house also, as chance falls, +I am a living curse. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + Oh, peace! Enough +Of these vain wars: I will no more thereof. +If thou wilt take from all that I possess +Aid for these babes and thine own helplessness +Of exile, speak thy bidding. Here I stand +Full-willed to succour thee with stintless hand, +And send my signet to old friends that dwell +On foreign shores, who will entreat thee well. +Refuse, and thou shalt do a deed most vain. +But cast thy rage away, and thou shalt gain +Much, and lose little for thine anger's sake. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I will not seek thy friends. I will not take +Thy givings. Give them not. Fruits of a stem +Unholy bring no blessing after them. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Now God in heaven be witness, all my heart +Is willing, in all ways, to do its part +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>For thee and for thy babes. But nothing good +Can please thee. In sheer savageness of mood +Thou drivest from thee every friend. Wherefore +I warrant thee, thy pains shall be the more. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>He goes slowly away.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Go: thou art weary for the new delight +Thou wooest, so long tarrying out of sight +Of her sweet chamber. Go, fulfil thy pride, +O bridegroom! For it may be, such a bride +Shall wait thee,—yea, God heareth me in this— +As thine own heart shall sicken ere it kiss. +</pre> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Alas, the Love that falleth like a flood, + Strong-winged and transitory: + Why praise ye him? What beareth he of good + To man, or glory? + Yet Love there is that moves in gentleness, + Heart-filling, sweetest of all powers that bless. + Loose not on me, O Holder of man's heart, + Thy golden quiver, + Nor steep in poison of desire the dart + That heals not ever. + + The pent hate of the word that cavilleth, + The strife that hath no fill, + Where once was fondness; and the mad heart's breath + For strange love panting still: + O Cyprian, cast me not on these; but sift, + Keen-eyed, of love the good and evil gift. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Make Innocence my friend, God's fairest star, + Yea, and abate not + The rare sweet beat of bosoms without war, + That love, and hate not. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Others.</i></p> + +<pre> + Home of my heart, land of my own, + Cast me not, nay, for pity, + Out on my ways, helpless, alone, + Where the feet fail in the mire and stone, + A woman without a city. + Ah, not that! Better the end: + The green grave cover me rather, + If a break must come in the days I know, + And the skies be changed and the earth below; + For the weariest road that man may wend + Is forth from the home of his father. + + Lo, we have seen: 'tis not a song + Sung, nor learned of another. + For whom hast thou in thy direst wrong + For comfort? Never a city strong + To hide thee, never a brother. + Ah, but the man—cursèd be he, + Cursèd beyond recover, + Who openeth, shattering, seal by seal, + A friend's clean heart, then turns his heel, + Deaf unto love: never in me + Friend shall he know nor lover. +</pre> + +<p class="direct2">[<i>While</i> <span class="smcap">Medea</span> <i>is waiting downcast, seated upon her +door-step, there passes from the left a traveller with followers. As he +catches sight of</i> <span class="smcap">Medea</span> <i>he stops</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Have joy, Medea! 'Tis the homeliest +Word that old friends can greet with, and the best. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea</span> (<i>looking up, surprised</i>).</p> + +<pre> +Oh, joy on thee, too, Aegeus, gentle king +Of Athens!—But whence com'st thou journeying? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +From Delphi now and the old encaverned stair. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Where Earth's heart speaks in song? What mad'st thou there? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Prayed heaven for children—the same search alway. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Children? Ah God! Art childless to this day? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +So God hath willed. Childless and desolate. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +What word did Phœbus speak, to change thy fate? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Riddles, too hard for mortal man to read. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Which I may hear? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Assuredly: they need +A rarer wit. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + How said he? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Not to spill +Life's wine, nor seek for more. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Until? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Until +I tread the hearth-stone of my sires of yore. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +And what should bring thee here, by Creon's shore? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +One Pittheus know'st thou, high lord of Trozên? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Aye, Pelops' son, a man most pure of sin. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Him I would ask, touching Apollo's will. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Much use in God's ways hath he, and much skill. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +And, long years back he was my battle-friend, +The truest e'er man had. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Well, may God send +Good hap to thee, and grant all thy desire. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +But thou . . . ? Thy frame is wasted, and the fire +Dead in thine eyes. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Aegeus, my husband is +The falsest man in the world. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + What word is this? +Say clearly what thus makes thy visage dim? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +He is false to me, who never injured him. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +<a name="may" id="may"></a>What hath he done? Show all, that I <a href="#mav">may</a> see. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Ta'en him a wife; a wife, set over me +To rule his house. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + He hath not dared to do, +Jason, a thing so shameful? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Aye, 'tis true: +And those he loved of yore have no place now. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Some passion sweepeth him? Or is it thou +He turns from? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Passion, passion to betray +His dearest! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Shame be his, so fallen away +From honour! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Passion to be near a throne, +A king's heir! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> + How, who gives the bride? Say on. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Creon, who o'er all Corinth standeth chief. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Woman, thou hast indeed much cause for grief. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis ruin.—And they have cast me out as well. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Who? 'Tis a new wrong this, and terrible. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Creon the king, from every land and shore. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +And Jason suffers him? Oh, 'tis too sore! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +He loveth to bear bravely ills like these! + But, Aegeus, by thy beard, oh, by thy knees, +I pray thee, and I give me for thine own, +Thy suppliant, pity me! Oh, pity one +So miserable. Thou never wilt stand there +And see me cast out friendless to despair. +Give me a home in Athens . . . by the fire +Of thine own hearth! Oh, so may thy desire +Of children be fulfilled of God, and thou +Die happy! . . . Thou canst know not; even now +Thy prize is won! I, I will make of thee +A childless man no more. The seed shall be, +I swear it, sown. Such magic herbs I know. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Woman, indeed my heart goes forth to show +This help to thee, first for religion's sake, +Then for thy promised hope, to heal my ache +Of childlessness. 'Tis this hath made mine whole +Life as a shadow, and starved out my soul. +But thus it stands with me. Once make thy way +To Attic earth, I, as in law I may, +Will keep thee and befriend. But in this land, +Where Creon rules, I may not raise my hand +To shelter thee. Move of thine own essay +To seek my house, there thou shalt alway stay, +Inviolate, never to be seized again. +But come thyself from Corinth. I would fain +<a name="eyes" id="eyes"></a>Even in foreign <a href="#eves">eyes</a> be alway just. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis well. Give me an oath wherein to trust +And all that man could ask thou hast granted me. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Dost trust me not? Or what thing troubleth thee? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I trust thee. But so many, far and near, +Do hate me—all King Pelias' house, and here +Creon. Once bound by oaths and sanctities +Thou canst not yield me up for such as these +To drag from Athens. But a spoken word, +No more, to bind thee, which no God hath heard. . . +The embassies, methinks, would come and go: +They all are friends to thee. . . . Ah me, I know +Thou wilt not list to me! So weak am I, +And they full-filled with gold and majesty. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Methinks 'tis a far foresight, this thine oath. +Still, if thou so wilt have it, nothing loath +Am I to serve thee. Mine own hand is so +The stronger, if I have this plea to show +Thy persecutors: and for thee withal +The bond more sure.—On what God shall I call? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Swear by the Earth thou treadest, by the Sun, +Sire of my sires, and all the gods as one. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +To do what thing or not do? Make all plain. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Never thyself to cast me out again. +Nor let another, whatsoe'er his plea, +Take me, while thou yet livest and art free. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Never: so hear me, Earth, and the great star +Of daylight, and all other gods that are! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis well: and if thou falter from thy vow . . . ? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Aegeus.</span></p> + +<pre> +God's judgment on the godless break my brow! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Go! Go thy ways rejoicing.—All is bright +And clear before me. Go: and ere the night +Myself will follow, when the deed is done +I purpose, and the end I thirst for won. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<span class="smcap">Aegeus</span> <i>and his train depart</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Farewell: and Maia's guiding Son + Back lead thee to thy hearth and fire, + Aegeus; and all the long desire + That wasteth thee, at last be won: + Our eyes have seen thee as thou art, + A gentle and a righteous heart. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +God, and God's Justice, and ye blinding Skies! +At last the victory dawneth! Yea, mine eyes +See, and my foot is on the mountain's brow. +Mine enemies! Mine enemies, oh, now +Atonement cometh! Here at my worst hour +A friend is found, a very port of power +To save my shipwreck. Here will I make fast +Mine anchor, and escape them at the last +In Athens' wallèd hill.—But ere the end +'Tis meet I show thee all my counsel, friend: +Take it, no tale to make men laugh withal! + Straightway to Jason I will send some thrall +To entreat him to my presence. Comes he here, +Then with soft reasons will I feed his ear, +How his will now is my will, how all things +Are well, touching this marriage-bed of kings +For which I am betrayed—all wise and rare +And profitable! Yet will I make one prayer, +That my two children be no more exiled +But stay. . . . Oh, not that I would leave a child +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>Here upon angry shores till those have laughed +Who hate me: 'tis that I will slay by craft +The king's daughter. With gifts they shall be sent, +Gifts to the bride to spare their banishment, +Fine robings and a carcanet of gold. +Which raiment let her once but take, and fold +About her, a foul death that girl shall die +And all who touch her in her agony. +Such poison shall they drink, my robe and wreath! + Howbeit, of that no more. I gnash my teeth +Thinking on what a path my feet must tread +Thereafter. I shall lay those children dead— +Mine, whom no hand shall steal from me away! +Then, leaving Jason childless, and the day +As night above him, I will go my road +To exile, flying, flying from the blood +Of these my best-beloved, and having wrought +All horror, so but one thing reach me not, +The laugh of them that hate us. + Let it come! +What profits life to me? I have no home, +No country now, nor shield from any wrong. +That was my evil hour, when down the long +Halls of my father out I stole, my will +Chained by a Greek man's voice, who still, oh, still, +If God yet live, shall all requited be. +For never child of mine shall Jason see +Hereafter living, never child beget +From his new bride, who this day, desolate +Even as she made me desolate, shall die +Shrieking amid my poisons. . . . Names have I +Among your folk? One light? One weak of hand? +An eastern dreamer?—Nay, but with the brand +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Of strange suns burnt, my hate, by God above, +A perilous thing, and passing sweet my love! +For these it is that make life glorious. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Since thou has bared thy fell intent to us +I, loving thee, and helping in their need +Man's laws, adjure thee, dream not of this deed! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +There is no other way.—I pardon thee +Thy littleness, who art not wronged like me. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou canst not kill the fruit thy body bore! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Yes: if the man I hate be pained the more. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +And thou made miserable, most miserable? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Oh, let it come! All words of good or ill +Are wasted now. + [<i>She claps her hands: the</i> <span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>comes out + from the house</i>. + Ho, woman; get thee gone +And lead lord Jason hither. . . . There is none +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Like thee, to work me these high services. +But speak no word of what my purpose is, +As thou art faithful, thou, and bold to try +All succours, and a woman even as I! +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>departs</i>.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> + The sons of Erechtheus, the olden, + Whom high gods planted of yore + In an old land of heaven upholden, + A proud land untrodden of war: + They are hungered, and, lo, their desire + With wisdom is fed as with meat: + In their skies is a shining of fire, + A joy in the fall of their feet: + And thither, with manifold dowers, + From the North, from the hills, from the morn, + The Muses did gather their powers, + That a child of the Nine should be born; + And Harmony, sown as the flowers, + Grew gold in the acres of corn. + + And Cephîsus, the fair-flowing river— + The Cyprian dipping her hand + Hath drawn of his dew, and the shiver + Of her touch is as joy in the land. + For her breathing in fragrance is written, + And in music her path as she goes, + And the cloud of her hair, it is litten + With stars of the wind-woven rose. + So fareth she ever and ever, + And forth of her bosom is blown, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> As dews on the winds of the river, + An hunger of passions unknown. + Strong Loves of all godlike endeavour, + Whom Wisdom shall throne on her throne. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Some Women.</i></p> + +<pre> +But Cephîsus the fair-flowing, + Will he bear thee on his shore? + Shall the land that succours all, succour thee, + Who art foul among thy kind, + With the tears of children blind? +Dost thou see the red gash growing, + Thine own burden dost thou see? + Every side, Every way, + Lo, we kneel to thee and pray: + By thy knees, by thy soul, O woman wild! + One at least thou canst not slay, + Not thy child! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Others.</i></p> + +<pre> +Hast thou ice that thou shalt bind it + To thy breast, and make thee dead + To thy children, to thine own spirit's pain? + When the hand knows what it dares, + When thine eyes look into theirs, +Shalt thou keep by tears unblinded + Thy dividing of the slain? + These be deeds Not for thee: + These be things that cannot be! + Thy babes—though thine hardihood be fell, + When they cling about thy knee, + 'Twill be well! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Jason</span>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +I answer to thy call. Though full of hate +Thou be, I yet will not so far abate +My kindness for thee, nor refuse mine ear. +Say in what new desire thou hast called me here. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Jason, I pray thee, for my words but now +Spoken, forgive me. My bad moods. . . . Oh, thou +At least wilt strive to bear with them! There be +Many old deeds of love 'twixt me and thee. +Lo, I have reasoned with myself apart +And chidden: "Why must I be mad, O heart +Of mine: and raging against one whose word +Is wisdom: making me a thing abhorred +To them that rule the land, and to mine own +Husband, who doth but that which, being done, +Will help us all—to wed a queen, and get +Young kings for brethren to my sons? And yet +I rage alone, and cannot quit my rage— +What aileth me?—when God sends harbourage +So simple? Have I not my children? Know +I not we are but exiles, and must go +Beggared and friendless else?" Thought upon thought +So pressed me, till I knew myself full-fraught +With bitterness of heart and blinded eyes. +So now—I give thee thanks: and hold thee wise +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>To have caught this anchor for our aid. The fool +Was I; who should have been thy friend, thy tool; +Gone wooing with thee, stood at thy bed-side +Serving, and welcomed duteously thy bride. +But, as we are, we are—I will not say +Mere evil—women! Why must thou to-day +Turn strange, and make thee like some evil thing, +Childish, to meet my childish passioning? +See, I surrender: and confess that then +I had bad thoughts, but now have turned again +And found my wiser mind. [<i>She claps her hands.</i> + Ho, children! Run +Quickly! Come hither, out into the sun, + [<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>come from the house, followed + by their</i> <span class="smcap">Attendant</span>. +And greet your father. Welcome him with us, +And throw quite, quite away, as mother does, +Your anger against one so dear. Our peace +Is made, and all the old bad war shall cease +For ever.—Go, and take his hand. . . . + [<i>As the</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>go to</i> <span class="smcap">Jason</span>, <i>she suddenly + bursts into tears. The</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>quickly + return to her: she recovers herself, smiling + amid her tears</i>. + Ah me, +I am full of hidden horrors! . . . Shall it be +A long time more, my children, that ye live +To reach to me those dear, dear arms? . . . Forgive! +I am so ready with my tears to-day, +And full of dread. . . . I sought to smooth away +The long strife with your father, and, lo, now +I have all drowned with tears this little brow! +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>She wipes the child's face.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +O'er mine eyes too there stealeth a pale tear: +Let the evil rest, O God, let it rest here! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Woman, indeed I praise thee now, nor say +Ill of thine other hour. 'Tis nature's way, +A woman needs must stir herself to wrath, +When work of marriage by so strange a path +Crosseth her lord. But thou, thine heart doth wend +The happier road. Thou hast seen, ere quite the end, +What choice must needs be stronger: which to do +Shows a wise-minded woman. . . . And for you, +Children; your father never has forgot +Your needs. If God but help him, he hath wrought +A strong deliverance for your weakness. Yea, +I think you, with your brethren, yet one day +Shall be the mightiest voices in this land. +Do you grow tall and strong. Your father's hand +Guideth all else, and whatso power divine +Hath alway helped him. . . . Ah, may it be mine +To see you yet in manhood, stern of brow, +Strong-armed, set high o'er those that hate me. . . . + How? +Woman, thy face is turned. Thy cheek is swept +With pallor of strange tears. Dost not accept +Gladly and of good will my benisons? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Tis nothing. Thinking of these little ones. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Take heart, then. I will guard them from all ill. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I do take heart. Thy word I never will +Mistrust. Alas, a woman's bosom bears +But woman's courage, a thing born for tears. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +What ails thee?—All too sore thou weepest there. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I was their mother! When I heard thy prayer +Of long life for them, there swept over me +A horror, wondering how these things shall be. + But for the matter of my need that thou +Should speak with me, part I have said, and now +Will finish.—Seeing it is the king's behest +To cast me out from Corinth . . . aye, and best, +Far best, for me—I know it—not to stay +Longer to trouble thee and those who sway +The realm, being held to all their house a foe. . . . +Behold, I spread my sails, and meekly go +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>To exile. But our children. . . . Could this land +Be still their home awhile: could thine own hand +But guide their boyhood. . . . Seek the king, and pray +His pity, that he bid thy children stay! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +He is hard to move. Yet surely 'twere well done. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Bid her—for thy sake, for a daughters boon. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Well thought! Her I can fashion to my mind. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Surely. She is a woman like her kind. . . . +Yet I will aid thee in thy labour; I +Will send her gifts, the fairest gifts that lie +In the hands of men, things of the days of old, +Fine robings and a carcanet of gold, +By the boys' hands.—Go, quick, some handmaiden, +And fetch the raiment. + [<i>A handmaid goes into the house.</i> + Ah, her cup shall then +Be filled indeed! What more should woman crave, +Being wed with thee, the bravest of the brave, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>And girt with raiment which of old the sire +Of all my house, the Sun, gave, steeped in fire, +To his own fiery race? + [<i>The handmaid has returned bearing the Gifts.</i> + Come, children, lift +With heed these caskets. Bear them as your gift +To her, being bride and princess and of right +Blessed!—I think she will not hold them light. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Fond woman, why wilt empty thus thine hand +Of treasure? Doth King Creon's castle stand +In stint of raiment, or in stint of gold? +Keep these, and make no gift. For if she hold +Jason of any worth at all, I swear +Chattels like these will not weigh more with her. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Ah, chide me not! 'Tis written, gifts persuade +The gods in heaven; and gold is stronger made +Than words innumerable to bend men's ways. +Fortune is hers. God maketh great her days: +Young and a crownèd queen! And banishment +For those two babes. . . . I would not gold were spent, +But life's blood, ere that come. + My children, go +Forth into those rich halls, and, bowing low, +Beseech your father's bride, whom I obey, +Ye be not, of her mercy, cast away +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>Exiled: and give the caskets—above all +Mark this!—to none but her, to hold withal +And keep. . . . Go quick! And let your mother know +Soon the good tiding that she longs for. . . . Go! +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>She goes quickly into the house.</i> <span class="smcap">Jason</span> <i>and +the</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>with their</i> <span class="smcap">Attendant</span> +<i>depart</i>.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> +Now I have no hope more of the children's living; + No hope more. They are gone forth unto death. +The bride, she taketh the poison of their giving: + She taketh the bounden gold and openeth; +And the crown, the crown, she lifteth about her brow, +Where the light brown curls are clustering. No hope now! + +O sweet and cloudy gleam of the garments golden! + The robe, it hath clasped her breast and the crown her head. +Then, then, she decketh the bride, as a bride of olden + Story, that goeth pale to the kiss of the dead. +For the ring hath closed, and the portion of death is there; +And she flieth not, but perisheth unaware. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Some Women.</i></p> + +<pre> +O bridegroom, bridegroom of the kiss so cold, +Art thou wed with princes, art thou girt with gold, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> Who know'st not, suing + For thy child's undoing, + And, on her thou lovest, for a doom untold? + How art thou fallen from thy place of old! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Others.</i></p> + +<pre> +O Mother, Mother, what hast thou to reap, +When the harvest cometh, between wake and sleep? + For a heart unslaken, + For a troth forsaken, +Lo, babes that call thee from a bloody deep: +And thy love returns not. Get thee forth and weep! +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Attendant</span> <i>with the two</i> +<span class="smcap">Children: Medea</span> <i>comes out from +the house</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +Mistress, these children from their banishment +Are spared. The royal bride hath mildly bent +Her hand to accept thy gifts, and all is now +Peace for the children.—Ha, why standest thou +Confounded, when good fortune draweth near? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Ah God! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> + This chimes not with the news I bear. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +O God, have mercy! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> + Is some word of wrath +Here hidden that I knew not of? And hath +My hope to give thee joy so cheated me? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou givest what thou givest: I blame not thee. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thy brows are all o'ercast: thine eyes are filled. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +For bitter need, Old Man! The gods have willed, +And my own evil mind, that this should come. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +Take heart! Thy sons one day will bring thee home. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Home? . . . I have others to send home. Woe's me! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Attendant.</span></p> + +<pre> +Be patient. Many a mother before thee +Hath parted from her children. We poor things +Of men must needs endure what fortune brings. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I will endure.—Go thou within, and lay +All ready that my sons may need to-day. + [<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Attendant</span> <i>goes into the house</i>. +O children, children mine: and you have found +A land and home, where, leaving me discrowned +And desolate, forever you will stay, +Motherless children! And I go my way +To other lands, an exile, ere you bring +Your fruits home, ere I see you prospering +Or know your brides, or deck the bridal bed, +All flowers, and lift your torches overhead. + Oh cursèd be mine own hard heart! 'Twas all +In vain, then, that I reared you up, so tall +And fair; in vain I bore you, and was torn +With those long pitiless pains, when you were born. +Ah, wondrous hopes my poor heart had in you, +How you would tend me in mine age, and do +The shroud about me with your own dear hands, +When I lay cold, blessèd in all the lands +That knew us. And that gentle thought is dead! +You go, and I live on, to eat the bread +Of long years, to myself most full of pain. +And never your dear eyes, never again, +Shall see your mother, far away being thrown +To other shapes of life. . . . My babes, my own, +Why gaze ye so?—What is it that ye see?— +And laugh with that last laughter? . . . Woe is me, +What shall I do? + Women, my strength is gone, +Gone like a dream, since once I looked upon +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>Those shining faces. . . . I can do it not. +Good-bye to all the thoughts that burned so hot +Aforetime! I will take and hide them far, +Far, from men's eyes. Why should I seek a war +So blind: by these babes' wounds to sting again +Their father's heart, and win myself a pain +Twice deeper? Never, never! I forget +Henceforward all I laboured for. + And yet, +What is it with me? Would I be a thing +Mocked at, and leave mine enemies to sting +Unsmitten? It must be. O coward heart, +Ever to harbour such soft words!—Depart +Out of my sight, ye twain. [<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>go in</i>. + And they whose eyes +Shall hold it sin to share my sacrifice, +On their heads be it! My hand shall swerve not now. + + Ah, Ah, thou Wrath within me! Do not thou, +Do not. . . . Down, down, thou tortured thing, and spare +My children! They will dwell with us, aye, there +Far off, and give thee peace. + Too late, too late! +By all Hell's living agonies of hate, +They shall not take my little ones alive +To make their mock with! Howsoe'er I strive +The thing is doomed; it shall not escape now +From being. Aye, the crown is on the brow, +And the robe girt, and in the robe that high +Queen dying. + I know all. Yet . . . seeing that I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>Must go so long a journey, and these twain +A longer yet and darker, I would fain +Speak with them, ere I go. + [<i>A handmaid brings the</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>out again</i>. + Come, children; stand +A little from me. There. Reach out your hand, +Your right hand—so—to mother: and good-bye! + [<i>She has kept them hitherto at arm's length: but + at the touch of their hands, her resolution + breaks down, and she gathers them passionately + into her arms.</i> +Oh, darling hand! Oh, darling mouth, and eye, +And royal mien, and bright brave faces clear, +May you be blessèd, but not here! What here +Was yours, your father stole. . . . Ah God, the glow +Of cheek on cheek, the tender touch; and Oh, +Sweet scent of childhood. . . . Go! Go! . . . Am I blind? . . . +Mine eyes can see not, when I look to find +Their places. I am broken by the wings +Of evil. . . . Yea, I know to what bad things +I go, but louder than all thought doth cry +Anger, which maketh man's worst misery. +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>She follows the</i> <span class="smcap">Children</span> <i>into the house</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> + My thoughts have roamed a cloudy land, + And heard a fierier music fall + Than woman's heart should stir withal: + And yet some Muse majestical, + Unknown, hath hold of woman's hand, + Seeking for Wisdom—not in all: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> A feeble seed, a scattered band, + Thou yet shalt find in lonely places, + Not dead amongst us, nor our faces + Turned alway from the Muses' call. + + And thus my thought would speak: that she + Who ne'er hath borne a child nor known + Is nearer to felicity: + Unlit she goeth and alone, + With little understanding what + A child's touch means of joy or woe, + And many toils she beareth not. + + But they within whose garden fair + That gentle plant hath blown, they go + Deep-written all their days with care— + To rear the children, to make fast + Their hold, to win them wealth; and then + Much darkness, if the seed at last + Bear fruit in good or evil men! + And one thing at the end of all + Abideth, that which all men dread: + The wealth is won, the limbs are bred + To manhood, and the heart withal + Honest: and, lo, where Fortune smiled, + Some change, and what hath fallen? Hark! + 'Tis death slow winging to the dark, + And in his arms what was thy child. + + What therefore doth it bring of gain + To man, whose cup stood full before, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> That God should send this one thing more + Of hunger and of dread, a door + Set wide to every wind of pain? +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<span class="smcap">Medea</span> <i>comes out alone from the house</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Friends, this long hour I wait on Fortune's eyes, +And strain my senses in a hot surmise +What passeth on that hill.—Ha! even now +There comes . . . 'tis one of Jason's men, I trow. +His wild-perturbèd breath doth warrant me +The tidings of some strange calamity. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Messenger</span>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Messenger.</span></p> + +<pre> +O dire and ghastly deed! Get thee away, +Medea! Fly! Nor let behind thee stay +One chariot's wing, one keel that sweeps the seas. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +And what hath chanced, to cause such flights as these? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Messenger.</span></p> + +<pre> +The maiden princess lieth—and her sire, +The king—both murdered by thy poison-fire. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Most happy tiding! Which thy name prefers +Henceforth among my friends and well-wishers. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span><span class="smcap">Messenger.</span></p> + +<pre> +What say'st thou? Woman, is thy mind within +Clear, and not raving? Thou art found in sin +Most bloody wrought against the king's high head, +And laughest at the tale, and hast no dread? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I have words also that could answer well +Thy word. But take thine ease, good friend, and tell, +How died they? Hath it been a very foul +Death, prithee? That were comfort to my soul. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Messenger.</span></p> + +<pre> +When thy two children, hand in hand entwined, +Came with their father, and passed on to find +The new-made bridal rooms, Oh, we were glad, +We thralls, who ever loved thee well, and had +Grief in thy grief. And straight there passed a word +From ear to ear, that thou and thy false lord +Had poured peace offering upon wrath foregone. +A right glad welcome gave we them, and one +Kissed the small hand, and one the shining hair: +Myself, for very joy, I followed where +The women's rooms are. There our mistress . . . she +Whom now we name so . . . thinking not to see +Thy little pair, with glad and eager brow +Sate waiting Jason. Then she saw, and slow +Shrouded her eyes, and backward turned again, +Sick that thy children should come near her. Then +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Thy husband quick went forward, to entreat +The young maid's fitful wrath. "Thou will not meet +Love's coming with unkindness? Nay, refrain +Thy suddenness, and turn thy face again, +Holding as friends all that to me are dear, +Thine husband. And accept these robes they bear +As gifts: and beg thy father to unmake +His doom of exile on them—for my sake." +When once she saw the raiment, she could still +Her joy no more, but gave him all his will. +And almost ere the father and the two +Children were gone from out the room, she drew +The flowerèd garments forth, and sate her down +To her arraying: bound the golden crown +Through her long curls, and in a mirror fair +Arranged their separate clusters, smiling there +At the dead self that faced her. Then aside +She pushed her seat, and paced those chambers wide +Alone, her white foot poising delicately— +So passing joyful in those gifts was she!— +And many a time would pause, straight-limbed, and wheel +Her head to watch the long fold to her heel +Sweeping. And then came something strange. Her cheek +Seemed pale, and back with crooked steps and weak +Groping of arms she walked, and scarcely found +Her old seat, that she fell not to the ground. + Among the handmaids was a woman old +And grey, who deemed, I think, that Pan had hold +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>Upon her, or some spirit, and raised a keen +Awakening shout; till through her lips was seen +A white foam crawling, and her eyeballs back +Twisted, and all her face dead pale for lack +Of life: and while that old dame called, the cry +Turned strangely to its opposite, to die +Sobbing. Oh, swiftly then one woman flew +To seek her father's rooms, one for the new +Bridegroom, to tell the tale. And all the place +Was loud with hurrying feet. + So long a space +As a swift walker on a measured way +Would pace a furlong's course in, there she lay +Speechless, with veilèd lids. Then wide her eyes +She oped, and wildly, as she strove to rise, +Shrieked: for two diverse waves upon her rolled +Of stabbing death. The carcanet of gold +That gripped her brow was molten in a dire +And wondrous river of devouring fire. +And those fine robes, the gift thy children gave— +God's mercy!—everywhere did lap and lave +The delicate flesh; till up she sprang, and fled, +A fiery pillar, shaking locks and head +This way and that, seeking to cast the crown +Somewhere away. But like a thing nailed down +The burning gold held fast the anadem, +And through her locks, the more she scattered them, +Came fire the fiercer, till to earth she fell +A thing—save to her sire—scarce nameable, +And strove no more. That cheek of royal mien, +Where was it—or the place where eyes had been? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Only from crown and temples came faint blood +Shot through with fire. The very flesh, it stood +Out from the bones, as from a wounded pine +The gum starts, where those gnawing poisons fine +Bit in the dark—a ghastly sight! And touch +The dead we durst not. We had seen too much. + But that poor father, knowing not, had sped, +Swift to his daughter's room, and there the dead +Lay at his feet. He knelt, and groaning low, +Folded her in his arms, and kissed her: "Oh, +Unhappy child, what thing unnatural hath +So hideously undone thee? Or what wrath +Of gods, to make this old grey sepulchre +Childless of thee? Would God but lay me there +To die with thee, my daughter!" So he cried. +But after, when he stayed from tears, and tried +To uplift his old bent frame, lo, in the folds +Of those fine robes it held, as ivy holds +Strangling among your laurel boughs. Oh, then +A ghastly struggle came! Again, again, +Up on his knee he writhed; but that dead breast +Clung still to his: till, wild, like one possessed, +He dragged himself half free; and, lo, the live +Flesh parted; and he laid him down to strive +No more with death, but perish; for the deep +Had risen above his soul. And there they sleep, +At last, the old proud father and the bride, +Even as his tears had craved it, side by side. + For thee—Oh, no word more! Thyself will know +How best to baffle vengeance. . . . Long ago +I looked upon man's days, and found a grey +Shadow. And this thing more I surely say, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>That those of all men who are counted wise, +Strong wits, devisers of great policies, +Do pay the bitterest toll. Since life began, +Hath there in God's eye stood one happy man? +Fair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less +Of fortune, but to no man happiness. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>Exit</i> <span class="smcap">Messenger</span>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<p class="char1"><i>Some Women.</i></p> + +<pre> +Wrath upon wrath, meseems, this day shall fall +From God on Jason! He hath earned it all. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Other Women.</i></p> + +<pre> +O miserable maiden, all my heart +Is torn for thee, so sudden to depart +From thy king's chambers and the light above +To darkness, all for sake of Jason's love! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Women, my mind is clear. I go to slay +My children with all speed, and then, away +From hence; not wait yet longer till they stand +Beneath another and an angrier hand +To die. Yea, howsoe'er I shield them, die +They must. And, seeing that they must, 'tis I +Shall slay them, I their mother, touched of none +Beside. Oh, up and get thine armour on, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>My heart! Why longer tarry we to win +Our crown of dire inevitable sin? +Take up thy sword, O poor right hand of mine, +Thy sword: then onward to the thin-drawn line +Where life turns agony. Let there be naught +Of softness now: and keep thee from that thought, +'Born of thy flesh,' 'thine own belovèd.' Now, +For one brief day, forget thy children: thou +Shalt weep hereafter. Though thou slay them, yet +Sweet were they. . . . I am sore unfortunate. +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>She goes into the house.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<p class="char1"><i>Some Women.</i></p> + +<pre> + O Earth, our mother; and thou + All-seër, arrowy crown + Of Sunlight, manward now + Look down, Oh, look down! + Look upon one accurst, + Ere yet in blood she twine + Red hands—blood that is thine! + O Sun, save her first! + She is thy daughter still, + Of thine own golden line; + Save her! Or shall man spill + The life divine? + Give peace, O Fire that diest not! Send thy spell + To stay her yet, to lift her afar, afar— + A torture-changèd spirit, a voice of Hell + Wrought of old wrongs and war! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span><i>Others.</i></p> + +<pre> + Alas for the mother's pain + Wasted! Alas the dear + Life that was born in vain! + Woman, what mak'st thou here, + Thou from beyond the Gate + Where dim Symplêgades + Clash in the dark blue seas, + The shores where death doth wait? + Why hast thou taken on thee, + To make us desolate, + This anger of misery + And guilt of hate? +For fierce are the smitings back of blood once shed + Where love hath been: God's wrath upon them that kill, +And an anguished earth, and the wonder of the dead + Haunting as music still. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>A cry is heard within.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>A Woman.</i></p> + +<pre> +Hark! Did ye hear? Heard ye the children's cry? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>Another.</i></p> + +<pre> + O miserable woman! O abhorred! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>A Child within.</i></p> + +<pre> + What shall I do? What is it? Keep me fast + From mother! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>The Other Child.</i></p> + +<pre> + I know nothing. Brother! Oh, + I think she means to kill us. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span><i>A Woman.</i></p> + +<pre> + Let me go! + I will—Help! Help!—and save them at the last. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>A Child.</i></p> + +<pre> +Yes, in God's name! Help quickly ere we die! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>The Other Child.</i></p> + +<pre> + She has almost caught me now. She has a sword. +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>Many of the Women are now beating at the +barred door to get in. Others are standing +apart.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Women at the door.</i></p> + +<pre> +Thou stone, thou thing of iron! Wilt verily + Spill with thine hand that life, the vintage stored + Of thine own agony? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><i>The Other Women.</i></p> + +<pre> +A Mother slew her babes in days of yore, + One, only one, from dawn to eventide, + Ino, god-maddened, whom the Queen of Heaven + Set frenzied, flying to the dark: and she + Cast her for sorrow to the wide salt sea, + Forth from those rooms of murder unforgiven, +Wild-footed from a white crag of the shore, + And clasping still her children twain, she died. + +O Love of Woman, charged with sorrow sore, + What hast thou wrought upon us? What beside + Resteth to tremble for? +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>Enter hurriedly</i> <span class="smcap">Jason</span> <i>and Attendants</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Ye women by this doorway clustering +Speak, is the doer of the ghastly thing +Yet here, or fled? What hopeth she of flight? +Shall the deep yawn to shield her? Shall the height +Send wings, and hide her in the vaulted sky +To work red murder on her lords, and fly +Unrecompensed? But let her go! My care +Is but to save my children, not for her. +Let them she wronged requite her as they may. +I care not. 'Tis my sons I must some way +Save, ere the kinsmen of the dead can win +From them the payment of their mother's sin. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Unhappy man, indeed thou knowest not +What dark place thou art come to! Else, God wot, +Jason, no word like these could fall from thee. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +What is it?—Ha! The woman would kill me? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thy sons are dead, slain by their mother's hand. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +How? Not the children. . . . I scarce understand. . . . +O God, thou hast broken me! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> + Think of those twain +As things once fair, that ne'er shall bloom again. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Where did she murder them? In that old room? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Leader.</span></p> + +<pre> +Open, and thou shalt see thy children's doom. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Ho, thralls! Unloose me yonder bars! Make more +Of speed! Wrench out the jointing of the door. +And show my two-edged curse, the children dead, +The woman. . . . Oh, this sword upon her head. . . . +</pre> + +<p class="direct4">[<i>While the Attendants are still battering at +the door</i> <span class="smcap">Medea</span> <i>appears on the roof, +standing on a chariot of winged Dragons, +in which are the children's bodies</i>.</p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +What make ye at my gates? Why batter ye +With brazen bars, seeking the dead and me +Who slew them? Peace! . . . And thou, if aught of mine +Thou needest, speak, though never touch of thine +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>Shall scathe me more. Out of his firmament +My fathers' father, the high Sun, hath sent +This, that shall save me from mine enemies' rage. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou living hate! Thou wife in every age +Abhorrèd, blood-red mother, who didst kill +My sons, and make me as the dead: and still +Canst take the sunshine to thine eyes, and smell +The green earth, reeking from thy deed of hell; +I curse thee! Now, Oh, now mine eyes can see, +That then were blinded, when from savagery +Of eastern chambers, from a cruel land, +To Greece and home I gathered in mine hand +Thee, thou incarnate curse: one that betrayed +Her home, her father, her . . . Oh, God hath laid +Thy sins on me!—I knew, I knew, there lay +A brother murdered on thy hearth that day +When thy first footstep fell on Argo's hull. . . . +Argo, my own, my swift and beautiful + That was her first beginning. Then a wife +I made her in my house. She bore to life +Children: and now for love, for chambering +And men's arms, she hath murdered them! A thing +Not one of all the maids of Greece, not one, +Had dreamed of; whom I spurned, and for mine own +Chose thee, a bride of hate to me and death, +Tigress, not woman, beast of wilder breath +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Than Skylla shrieking o'er the Tuscan sea. +Enough! No scorn of mine can reach to thee, +Such iron is o'er thine eyes. Out from my road, +Thou crime-begetter, blind with children's blood! +And let me weep alone the bitter tide +That sweepeth Jason's days, no gentle bride +To speak with more, no child to look upon +Whom once I reared . . . all, all for ever gone! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +An easy answer had I to this swell +Of speech, but Zeus our father knoweth well, +All I for thee have wrought, and thou for me. +So let it rest. This thing was not to be, +That thou shouldst live a merry life, my bed +Forgotten and my heart uncomforted, +Thou nor thy princess: nor the king that planned +Thy marriage drive Medea from his land, +And suffer not. Call me what thing thou please, +Tigress or Skylla from the Tuscan seas: +My claws have gripped thine heart, and all things shine. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou too hast grief. Thy pain is fierce as mine. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +I love the pain, so thou shalt laugh no more. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Oh, what a womb of sin my children bore! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Sons, did ye perish for your father's shame? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +How? It was not my hand that murdered them. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +'Twas thy false wooings, 'twas thy trampling pride. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thou hast said it! For thy lust of love they died. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +And love to women a slight thing should be? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +To women pure!—All thy vile life to thee! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Think of thy torment. They are dead, they are dead! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +No: quick, great God; quick curses round thy head! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +The Gods know who began this work of woe. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Thy heart and all its loathliness they know. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Loathe on. . . . But, Oh, thy voice. It hurts me sore. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Aye, and thine me. Wouldst hear me then no more? +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +How? Show me but the way. 'Tis this I crave. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> +Give me the dead to weep, and make their grave. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> +Never! Myself will lay them in a still +Green sepulchre, where Hera by the Hill +Hath precinct holy, that no angry men +May break their graves and cast them forth again +To evil. So I lay on all this shore +Of Corinth a high feast for evermore +And rite, to purge them yearly of the stain +Of this poor blood. And I, to Pallas' plain +I go, to dwell beside Pandion's son, +Aegeus.—For thee, behold, death draweth on, +Evil and lonely, like thine heart: the hands +Of thine old Argo, rotting where she stands, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>Shall smite thine head in twain, and bitter be +To the last end thy memories of me. +</pre> + +<p class="direct2">[<i>She rises on the chariot and is slowly borne away.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + May They that hear the weeping child + Blast thee, and They that walk in blood! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Thy broken vows, thy friends beguiled + Have shut for thee the ears of God. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + Go, thou art wet with children's tears! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Go thou, and lay thy bride to sleep. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + Childless, I go, to weep and weep. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Not yet! Age cometh and long years. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + My sons, mine own! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Not thine, but mine . . . +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + . . . Who slew them! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Yes: to torture thee. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + Once let me kiss their lips, once twine + Mine arms and touch. . . . Ah, woe is me! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Wouldst love them and entreat? But now + They were as nothing. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + At the last, + O God, to touch that tender brow! +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Medea.</span></p> + +<pre> + Thy words upon the wind are cast. +</pre> + +<p class="char"><span class="smcap">Jason.</span></p> + +<pre> + Thou, Zeus, wilt hear me. All is said + For naught. I am but spurned away + And trampled by this tigress, red + With children's blood. Yet, come what may, + So far as thou hast granted, yea, + So far as yet my strength may stand, + I weep upon these dead, and say + Their last farewell, and raise my hand + + To all the daemons of the air + In witness of these things; how she + Who slew them, will not suffer me + To gather up my babes, nor bear + To earth their bodies; whom, O stone + Of women, would I ne'er had known + Nor gotten, to be slain by thee! +</pre> + +<p class="direct3">[<i>He casts himself upon the earth.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span></p> + +<pre> + Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven, + From whence to man strange dooms be given, + Past hope or fear. + And the end men looked for cometh not, + And a path is there where no man thought: + So hath it fallen here. +</pre> + +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h3>NOTES TO MEDEA</h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>P. 3, l. 2, To Colchis through the blue Symplêgades.]—The Symplêgades +("Clashing") or Kuaneai ("Dark blue") were two rocks in the sea which +used to clash together and crush anything that was between them. They +stood above the north end of the Bosphorus and formed the Gate (l. 1264, +p. 70) to the Axeinos Pontos, or "Stranger-less Sea," where all Greeks +were murdered. At the farthest eastern end of that sea was the land of +Colchis.</p> + +<p>P. 3, l. 3, Pêlion.]—The great mountain in Thessaly. Iôlcos, a little +kingdom between Pêlion and the sea, ruled originally by Aeson, Jason's +father, then by the usurping Pĕlias.</p> + +<p>P. 3, l. 9, Daughters of Pĕlias.]—See Introduction, p. +vii.</p> + +<p>P. 4, l. 18, Wed.]—Medea was not legally married to Jason, and could +not be, though in common parlance he is sometimes called her husband. +Intermarriage between the subjects of two separate states was not +possible in antiquity without a special treaty. And naturally there was +no such treaty with Colchis.</p> + +<p>This is, I think, the view of the play, and corresponds to the normal +Athenian conceptions of society. In the original legend it is likely +enough that Medea belongs to "matriarchal" times before the institution +of marriage.</p> + +<p>P. 4, l. 18, Head of Corinth.]—A peculiar word <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>(αἰσυμνᾶν) +afterwards used to translate the Roman <i>dictator</i>. Creon is, +however, apparently descended from the ancient king Sisyphus.</p> + +<p>P. 4, l. 40, She hath a blade made keen, &c.]—These lines (40, 41) are +repeated in a different context later on, p. 23, ll. 379, 380. The sword +which to the Nurse suggested suicide was really meant for murder. There +is a similar and equally dramatic repetition of the lines about the +crown and wreath (786, 949, pp. 46, 54), and of those about the various +characters popularly attributed to Medea (ll. 304, 808, pp. 18, 46).</p> + +<p>P. 5, l. 48, <span class="smcap">Attendant</span>.]—Greek <i>Paidagôgos</i>, or "pedagogue"; a +confidential servant who escorted the boys to and from school, and in +similar ways looked after them. Notice the rather light and cynical +character of this man, compared with the tenderness of the Nurse.</p> + +<p>P. 5, l. 57, To this still earth and sky.]—Not a mere stage +explanation. It was the ancient practice, if you had bad dreams or +terrors of the night, to "show" them to the Sun in the morning, that he +might clear them away.</p> + +<p>P. 8, l. 111, Have I not suffered?]—Medea is apparently answering some +would-be comforter. Cf. p. 4. ("If friends will speak," &c.)</p> + +<p>P. 9, l. 131, <span class="smcap">Chorus</span>.]—As Dr. Verrall has remarked, the presence of the +Chorus is in this play unusually awkward from the dramatic point of +view. Medea's plot demands most absolute secrecy; and it is incredible +that fifteen Corinthian women, simply because they were women, should +allow a half-mad foreigner to murder several people, including their +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>own Corinthian king and princess—who was a woman also—rather than +reveal her plot. We must remember in palliation (1) that these women +belong to the faction in Corinth which was friendly to Medea and hostile +to Creon; (2) that the appeal to them as women had more force in +antiquity than it would now, and the princess had really turned traitor +to her sex. (See note on this subject at the end of the present writer's +translation of the <i>Electra</i>.) (3) The non-interference of the Chorus +seems monstrous: yet in ancient times, when law was weak and punishment +was chiefly the concern of the injured persons, and of no one else, the +reluctance of bystanders to interfere was much greater than it is now in +an ordered society. Some oriental countries, and perhaps even California +or Texas, could afford us some startling instances of impassiveness +among bystanders.</p> + +<p>P. 12, l. 167, Oh, wild words!]—The Nurse breaks in, hoping to drown +her mistress's dangerous self-betrayal. Medea's murder of her brother +(see Introduction, p. vi) was by ordinary standards her worst act, and +seems not to have been known in Corinth. It forms the climax of Jason's +denunciation, l. 1334, p. 74.</p> + +<p>P. 13, l. 190, Alas, the brave blithe bards, &c.]—Who is the speaker? +According to the MSS. the Nurse, and there is some difficulty in taking +the lines from her. Yet (1) she has no reason to sing a song outside +after saying that she is going in; and (2) it is quite necessary that +she should take a little time indoors persuading Medea to come out. The +words seem to suit the lips of an impersonal Chorus.</p> + +<p>The general sense of the poem is interesting. It is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>an apology for +tragedy. It gives the tragic poet's conception of the place of his art +in the service of humanity, as against the usual feeling of the public, +whose serious work is devoted to something else, and who "go to a play +to be amused."</p> + +<p>P. 14, l. 214, Women of Corinth, I am come, &c.]—These opening lines +are a well-known <i>crux interpretum</i>. It is interesting to note, (1) that +the Roman poet Ennius (ca. 200 <span class="smcap3">B.C.</span>) who translated the <i>Medea</i>, did not +understand them in the least; while, on the other hand, the earliest +Greek commentators seem not to have noticed that there was any +difficulty in them worth commenting upon. That implies that while the +acting tradition was alive and unbroken, the lines were easily +understood; but when once the tradition failed, the meaning was lost. +(The first commentator who deals with the passage is Irenaeus, a scholar +of the Augustan time.)</p> + +<p>P. 15, l. 231, A herb most bruised is woman.]—This fine statement of +the wrongs of women in Athens doubtless contains a great deal of the +poet's own mind; but from the dramatic point of view it is justified in +several ways. (1) Medea is seeking for a common ground on which to +appeal to the Corinthian women. (2) She herself is now in the position +of all others in which a woman is most hardly treated as compared with a +man. (3) Besides this, one can see that, being a person of great powers +and vehement will, she feels keenly her lack of outlet. If she had men's +work to do, she could be a hero: debarred from proper action (from τὸ +πράσσειν, <i>Hip.</i> 1019) she is bound to make +mischief. Cf. p. 24, ll. 408, 409. "Things most vain, &c."</p> + +<p>There is a slight anachronism in applying the Attic <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>system of doweries +to primitive times. Medea's contemporaries either lived in a +"matriarchal" system without any marriage, or else were bought by their +husbands for so many cows.</p> + +<p>P. 17, l. 271, <span class="smcap">Creon</span>.]—Observe the somewhat archaic abruptness of this +scene, a sign of the early date of the play.</p> + +<p>P. 18, l. 295, Wise beyond men's wont.]—Medea was a "wise woman" which +in her time meant much the same as a witch or enchantress. She did +really know more than other women; but most of this extra knowledge +consisted—or was supposed to consist—either in lore of poisons and +charms, or in useless learning and speculation.</p> + +<p>P. 18, l. 304, A seed of strife, an Eastern dreamer, &c.]—The meaning +of these various "ill names" is not certain. Cf. l. 808, p. 46. Most +scholars take θατέρου τρόπου ("of the other +sort") to mean "the opposite of a dreamer."</p> + +<p>P. 20, ll. 333-4, What would I with thy pains?]—A conceit almost in the +Elizabethan style, as if by taking "pains" away from Creon, she would +have them herself.</p> + +<p>P. 20, l. 335, Not that! Not that!]—Observe what a dislike Medea has of +being touched: cf. l. 370 ("my flesh been never stained," &c.) and l. +496 ("poor, poor right hand of mine!"), pp. 22, and 28.</p> + +<p>P. 22, l. 364, Defeat on every side.]—Observe (1) that in this speech +Medea's vengeance is to take the form of a clear fight to the death +against the three guilty persons. It is both courageous and, judged by +the appropriate standard, just. (2) She wants to save <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>her own life, not +from cowardice, but simply to make her revenge more complete. To kill +her enemies and escape is victory. To kill them and die with them is +only a drawn battle. Other enemies will live and "laugh." (3) Already in +this first soliloquy there is a suggestion of that strain of madness +which becomes unmistakable later on in the play. ("Oh, I have tried so +many thoughts of murder," &c., and especially the lashing of her own +fury, "Awake thee now, Medea.")</p> + +<p>P. 24, l. 405, Thief's daughter: lit. "a child of Sisyphus."]—Sisyphus, +an ancient king of Corinth, was one of the well-known sinners punished +in Tartarus. Medea's father, Aiêtês, was a brother of Circe, and born of +the Sun.</p> + +<p>P. 24, l. 409, Things most vain for help.]—See on ll. 230 ff.</p> + +<p>P. 24. ll. 410-430, <span class="smcap">Chorus</span>.]—The song celebrates the coming triumph of +Woman in her rebellion against Man; not by any means Woman as typifying +the domestic virtues, but rather as the downtrodden, uncivilised, +unreasoning, and fiercely emotional half of humanity. A woman who in +defence of her honour and her rights will die sword in hand, slaying the +man who wronged her, seems to the Chorus like a deliverer of the whole +sex.</p> + +<p>P. 24. l. 421, Old bards.]—Early literature in most countries contains +a good deal of heavy satire on women: <i>e.g.</i> Hesiod's "Who trusts a +woman trusts a thief;" or Phocylides' "Two days of a woman are very +sweet: when you marry her and when you carry her to her grave."</p> + +<p>It is curious how the four main Choruses of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span><i>Medea</i> are divided +each into two parts, distinct in subject and in metre.</p> + +<p>P. 25, l. 439, Faith is no more sweet.]—Copied from a beautiful passage +in Hesiod, <i>Works and Days</i>, 198 ff.: "There shall be no more sweetness +found in the faithful man nor the righteous. . . . And at last up to +Olympus from the wide-wayed earth, shrouding with white raiment their +beautiful faces, go Ruth and Rebuking." (Aidos and Nemesis: <i>i.e.</i> the +Ruth or Shame that you feel with reference to your own actions, and the +Indignation or Disapproval that others feel.)</p> + +<p>P. 27, ll. 478 ff., Bulls of fiery breath.]—Among the tasks set him by +Aiêtês, Jason had to yoke two fire-breathing bulls, and plough with them +a certain Field of Ares, sow the field with dragon's teeth, and reap a +harvest of earth-born or giant warriors which sprang from the seed. When +all this was done, there remained the ancient serpent coiled round the +tree where the Golden Fleece was hanging.</p> + +<p>P. 29, l. 507, The first friends who sheltered me.]—<i>i.e.</i> the kindred +of Pelias.</p> + +<p>P. 29, l. 509, Blest of many a maid in Hellas.]—Jason was, of course, +the great romantic hero of his time. Cf. his own words, l. 1340, p. 74.</p> + +<p>Pp. 29 ff., ll. 523-575.—Jason's defence is made the weaker by his +reluctance to be definitely insulting to Medea. He dares not say: "You +think that, because you conceived a violent passion for me,—to which, I +admit, I partly responded—I must live with you always; but the truth +is, you are a savage with whom a civilised man cannot go on living." +This point <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>comes out unveiled in his later speech, l. 1329, ff., p. 74.</p> + +<p>P. 30, ll. 536 ff., Our ordered life and justice.]—Jason has brought +the benefits of civilisation to Medea! He is doubtless sincere, but the +peculiar ironic cruelty of the plea is obvious.</p> + +<p>P. 30, ll. 541 ff., The story of Great Medea, &c. . . . Unless our deeds +have glory.]—This, I think, is absolutely sincere. To Jason ambition is +everything. And, as Medea has largely shared his great deeds with him, +he thinks that she cannot but feel the same. It seems to him +contemptible that her mere craving for personal love should outweigh all +the possible glories of life.</p> + +<p>P. 31, l. 565, What more need hast thou of children?]—He only means, +"of more children than you now have." But the words suggest to Medea a +different meaning, and sow in her mind the first seed of the +child-murder. See on the Aegeus scene below.</p> + +<p>P. 34, l. 608, A living curse.]—Though she spoke no word, the existence +of a being so deeply wronged would be a curse on her oppressors. So a +murdered man's blood, or an involuntary cry of pain (Aesch. <i>Ag.</i> 237) +on the part of an injured person is in itself fraught with a curse.</p> + +<p>P. 35. ll. 627-641, <span class="smcap">Chorus</span>. Alas, the Love, &c.]—A highly +characteristic Euripidean poem, keenly observant of fact, yet with a +lyrical note penetrating all its realism. A love which really produces +"good to man and glory," is treated in the next chorus, l. 844 ff., p. +49.</p> + +<p>Pp. 37 ff., ll. 663-759, <span class="smcap">Aegeus</span>.]—This scene is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>generally considered +to be a mere blot on the play, not, I think, justly. It is argued that +the obvious purpose which the scene serves, the provision of an asylum +for Medea, has no keen dramatic interest. The spectator would just as +soon, or sooner, have her die. And, besides, her actual mode of escape +is largely independent of Aegeus. Further, the arrival of Aegeus at this +moment seems to be a mere coincidence (<i>Ar. Poetics</i>, 61 b, 23), and one +cannot help suspecting that the Athenian poet was influenced by mere +local interests in dragging in the Athenian king and the praises of +Athens where they were not specially appropriate.</p> + +<p>To these criticisms one may make some answer. (1) As to the coincidence, +it is important to remember always that Greek tragedies are primarily +historical plays, not works of fiction. They are based on definite +<i>Logoi</i> or traditions (<i>Frogs</i>, l. 1052. p. 254) and therefore can, and +should, represent accidental coincidences when it was a datum of the +tradition that these coincidences actually happened. By Aristotle's time +the practice had changed. The tragedies of his age were essentially +fiction; and he tends to criticise the ancient tragedies by fictional +standards.</p> + +<p>Now it was certainly a datum in the Medea legend that she took refuge +with Aegeus, King of Athens, and was afterwards an enemy to his son +Theseus; but I think we may go further. This play pretty certainly has +for its foundation the rites performed by the Corinthians at the Grave +of the Children of Medea in the precinct of Hera Acraia near Corinth. +See on l. 1379. p. 77. The legend in such cases is usually invented to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>explain the ritual; and I suspect that in the ritual, and, +consequently, in the legend, there were two other data: first, a pursuit +of Medea and her flight on a dragon-chariot, and, secondly, a meeting +between Medea and Aegeus. (Both subjects are frequent on vase paintings, +and may well be derived from historical pictures in some temple at +Corinth.)</p> + +<p>Thus, the meeting with Aegeus is probably not the free invention of +Euripides, but one of the data supplied to him by his subject. But he +has made it serve, as von Arnim was the first to perceive, a remarkable +dramatic purpose. Aegeus was under a curse of childlessness, and his +desolate condition suggests to Medea the ultimate form of her vengeance. +She will make Jason childless. Cf. l. 670, "Children! Ah God, art +childless?" (A childless king in antiquity was a miserable object: +likely to be deposed and dishonoured, and to miss his due worship after +death. See the fragments of Euripides' <i>Oineus</i>.)</p> + +<p>There is also a further purpose in the scene, of a curious and +characteristic kind. In several plays of Euripides, when a heroine +hesitates on the verge of a crime, the thing that drives her over the +brink is some sudden and violent lowering of her self-respect. Thus +Phædra writes her false letter immediately after her public shame. +Creûsa in the <i>Ion</i> turns murderous only after crying in the god's ears +the story of her seduction. Medea, a princess and, as we have seen, a +woman of rather proud chastity, feels, after the offer which she makes +to Aegeus in this scene (l. 716 ff., p. 42). that she need shrink from +nothing.</p> + +<p>P. 38, l. 681, The hearth-stone of my sires of yore.]<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>—This sounds +as if it meant Aegeus' own house: in reality, by an oracular riddle, it +meant the house of Pittheus, by whose daughter, Aethra, Aegeus became +the father of Theseus.</p> + +<p>P. 43, l. 731, An oath wherein to trust.]—Observe that Medea is +deceiving Aegeus. She intends to commit a murder before going to him, +and therefore wishes to bind him down so firmly that, however much he +wish to repudiate her, he shall be unable. Hence this insistence on the +oath and the exact form of the oath. (At this time, apparently, she +scarcely thinks of the children, only of her revenge.)</p> + +<p>P. 46, l. 808, No eastern dreamer, &c.]—See on l. 304.</p> + +<p>P. 47. l. 820, <i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Nurse</span> <i>comes out</i>.]—There is no indication in the +original to show who comes out. But it is certainly a woman; as +certainly it is not one of the Chorus; and Medea's words suit the Nurse +well. It is an almost devilish act to send the Nurse, who would have +died rather than take such a message had she understood it.</p> + +<p>P. 48, ll. 824—846, The sons of Erechtheus, &c.]—This poem is +interesting as showing the ideal conception of Athens entertained by a +fifth century Athenian. One might compare with it Pericles' famous +speech in Thucydides, ii., where the emphasis is laid on Athenian "plain +living and high thinking" and the freedom of daily life. Or, again, the +speeches of Aethra in Euripides' <i>Suppliant Women</i>, where more stress is +laid on mercy and championship of the oppressed.</p> + +<p>The allegory of "Harmony," as a sort of Korê, or Earth-maiden, planted +by all the Muses in the soil of Attica, seems to be an invention of the +poet. Not any <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>given Art or Muse, but a spirit which unites and +harmonises all, is the special spirit of Athens. The Attic connection +with Erôs, on the other hand, is old and traditional. But Euripides has +transformed the primitive nature-god into a mystic and passionate +longing for "all manner of high deed," a Love which, different from that +described in the preceding chorus, really ennobles human life.</p> + +<p>This first part of the Chorus is, of course, suggested by Aegeus; the +second is more closely connected with the action of the play. "How can +Medea dream of asking that stainless land to shelter her crimes? But the +whole plan of her revenge is not only wicked but impossible. She simply +could not do such a thing, if she tried."</p> + +<p>Pp. 50 ff., l. 869, The second scene with Jason.]—Dicæarchus, and +perhaps his master Aristotle also, seems to have complained of Medea's +bursting into tears in this scene, instead of acting her part +consistently—a very prejudiced criticism. What strikes one about +Medea's assumed rôle is that in it she remains so like herself and so +unlike another woman. Had she really determined to yield to Jason, she +would have done so in just this way, keen-sighted and yet passionate. +One is reminded of the deceits of half-insane persons, which are due not +so much to conscious art as to the emergence of another side of the +personality.</p> + +<p>P. 54, l. 949, Fine robings, &c.]—Repeated from l. 786, p. 46, where it +came full in the midst of Medea's avowal of her murderous purpose. It +startles one here, almost as though she had spoken out the word "murder" +in some way which Jason could not understand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>P. 56, l. 976, <span class="smcap">Chorus</span>.]—The inaction of the Chorus women during the +last scene will not bear thinking about, if we regard them as real human +beings, like, for instance, the Bacchæ and the Trojan Women in the plays +that bear their name. Still there is not only beauty, but, I think, +great dramatic value in the conventional and almost mystical quality of +this Chorus, and also in the low and quiet tone of that which follows, +l. 1081 ff.</p> + +<p>P. 59, ll. 1021 ff., Why does Medea kill her children?]—She acts not +for one clearly stated reason, like a heroine in Sardou, but for many +reasons, both conscious and subconscious, as people do in real life. Any +analysis professing to be exact would be misleading, but one may note +some elements in her feeling: (1) She had played dangerously long with +the notion of making Jason childless. (2) When she repented of this (l. +1046, p. 60) the children had already been made the unconscious +murderers of the princess. They were certain to be slain, perhaps with +tortures, by the royal kindred. (3) Medea might take them with her to +Athens and trust to the hope of Aegeus' being able and willing to +protect them. But it was a doubtful chance, and she would certainly be +in a position of weakness and inferiority if she had the children to +protect. (4) In the midst of her passionate half-animal love for the +children, there was also an element of hatred, because they were +Jason's: cf. l. 112, p. 8. (5) She also seems to feel, in a sort of +wild-beast way, that by killing them she makes them more her own: cf. l. +793, p. 46, "Mine, whom no hand shall steal from me away;" l. 1241, p, +68, "touched of none beside." (6) <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>Euripides had apparently observed how +common it is, when a woman's mind is deranged by suffering, that her +madness takes the form of child-murder. The terrible lines in which +Medea speaks to the "Wrath" within her, as if it were a separate being +(l. 1056, p. 60), seem to bear out this view.</p> + +<p>P. 59. l. 1038, Other shapes of life.]—A mystical conception of death. +Cf. <i>Ion</i>, 1067, where almost exactly the same phrase is used.</p> + +<p>P. 61, l. 1078, I know to what bad deeds, &c.]—This expression of +double consciousness was immensely famous in antiquity. It is quoted by +Lucian, Plutarch, Clement, Galen, Synesius, Hierocles, Arrian, +Simpicius, besides being imitated, <i>e.g.</i> by Ovid: "video meliora +proboque, Deteriora sequor."</p> + +<p>P. 63, l. 1123 ff., <span class="smcap">Messenger</span>.]—A pendant to the Attendant's entrance +above, l. 1002. The Attendant, bringing apparently good news, is +received with a moan of despair, the Messenger of calamity with serene +satisfaction. Cf. the Messenger who announces the death of Pentheus in +the <i>Bacchæ</i>.</p> + +<p>P. 65, l. 1162, Dead self.]—The reflection in the glass, often regarded +as ominous or uncanny in some way.</p> + +<p>P. 66, l. 1176, The cry turned strangely to its opposite.]—The +notion was that an evil spirit could be scared away by loud cheerful +shouts—<i>ololugæ</i>. But while this old woman is making an <i>ololugê</i>, she +sees that the trouble is graver than she thought, and the cheerful cry +turns into a wail.</p> + +<p>P. 68, l. 1236, Women, my mind is clear.]—With the silence in which +Medea passes over the success <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>of her vengeance compare Theseus' words, +<i>Hip.</i>, l. 1260, "I laugh not, neither weep, at this fell doom."</p> + +<p>P. 69, l. 1249, Thou shalt weep hereafter.]—Cf. <i>Othello</i>, v. ii., "Be +thus when thou art dead, and I will kiss thee, And love thee after."</p> + +<p>P. 69, ll. 1251 ff.—This curious prayer to the Sun to "save" +Medea—both from the crime of killing her children and the misfortune of +being caught by her enemies—is apparently meant to prepare us for the +scene of the Dragon Chariot. Notice the emphasis laid on the divine +origin of Medea's race and her transformation to "a voice of Hell."</p> + +<p>P. 71, ll. 1278 ff., Death of the children.]—The door is evidently +barred, since Jason has to use crowbars to open it in l. 1317. Cf. the +end of Maeterlinck's <i>Mort de Tintagiles</i>.</p> + +<p>P. 71, l. 1281, A mother slew her babes in days of yore, &c.]—Ino, wife +of Athamas, King of Thebes, nursed the infant Dionysus. For this Hera +punished her with madness. She killed her two children, Learchus and +Melicertes, and leaped into the sea. (There are various versions of the +story.)—Observe the technique: just as the strain is becoming +intolerable, we are turned away from tragedy to pure poetry. See on +<i>Hip.</i> 731.</p> + +<p>P. 74, l. 1320, This, that shall save me from mine enemies' +rage.]—There is nothing in the words of the play to show what "this" +is, but the Scholiast explains it as a chariot drawn by winged serpents, +and the stage tradition seems to be clear on the subject. See note to +the Aegeus scene (p. 88).</p> + +<p>This first appearance of Medea "above, on the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>tower" (Scholiast) seems +to me highly effective. The result is to make Medea into something like +a <i>dea ex machinâ</i>, who prophesies and pronounces judgment. See +Introduction.</p> + +<p>P. 76, l. 1370, They are dead, they are dead!]—This wrangle, though +rather like some scenes in Norse sagas, is strangely discordant for a +Greek play. It seems as if Euripides had deliberately departed from his +usual soft and reflective style of ending in order to express the +peculiar note of discord which is produced by the so-called +"satisfaction" of revenge. Medea's curious cry: "Oh, thy voice! It hurts +me sore!" shows that the effect is intentional.</p> + +<p>P. 77, l. 1379, A still green sepulchre.]—There was a yearly festival +in the precinct of Hera Acraia, near Corinth, celebrating the deaths of +Medea's children. This festival, together with its ritual and "sacred +legend," evidently forms the germ of the whole tragedy. Cf. the +Trozenian rites over the tomb of Hippolytus, <i>Hip.</i> 1424 ff.</p> + +<p>P. 77, l. 1386, The hands of thine old Argo.]—Jason, left friendless +and avoided by his kind, went back to live with his old ship, now +rotting on the shore. While he was sleeping under it, a beam of wood +fell upon him and broke his head. It is a most grave mistake to treat +the line as spurious.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h4><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h4> +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="ad"> +HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE.</p> +<p class="ad"> +ANDROMACHE: <span class="smcap2">A Play</span>.</p> +<p class="ad"> +CARLYON SAHIB: <span class="smcap2">A Play</span>.</p> +<p class="ad"> +THE EXPLOITATION OF INFERIOR RACES +IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES: <span class="smcap2">An +Essay in 'Liberalism and the Empire.'</span></p> +<p class="ad"> +EURIPIDIS FABULAE: <span class="smcap2">Brevi Adnotatione Critica +Instructae, Vols.</span> I. and II.</p> +<p class="ad"> +EURIPIDES: <span class="smcap2">Hippolytus; Bacchae; Aristophanes' +'Frogs.'</span> <small>Translated into English verse.</small></p> +<p class="ad"> +EURIPIDES: <span class="smcap2">The Trojan Women</span>. <small>Translated into +English verse.</small></p> +<p class="ad"> +EURIPIDES: <span class="smcap2">Electra</span>. <small>Translated into English verse.</small></p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /></p> + +<div class="trans"> +<h4>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</h4> + +<p>The following changes were made to the original text:<br /> +<a name="mav" id="mav"></a>Page 40: mav → <a href="#may">may</a> <br /> +<a name="eves" id="eves"></a>Page 42: eves → <a href="#eyes">eyes</a> <br /><br /> + +Other than the addition of missing periods, minor variations in +spelling and punctuation have been preserved.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Medea of Euripides, by Euripides + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDEA OF Euripides *** + +***** This file should be named 35451-h.htm or 35451-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/5/35451/ + +Produced by Barbara Watson and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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