Medea (Euripedes)

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PROLOGUE[1] (1-130)

Medea's old Nanny from her childhood in Colchis comes out of the house alone

Nurse

How I wish the Argo's sails had never swept through

the dark blue Clashing Rocks into the land of the Colchians;

I wish the pine trees had never fallen

in the groves of Pelion, cut down to put oars in the hands

of the heroes who went after the golden fleece

for Pelias. Then my mistress Medea would not

have sailed to the fortress of Iolcus' land,

her heart battered by love for Jason.

And she would not have convinced the daughters of Pelias to kill their father and would not have come to live here on Corinthian soil with her husband and children, winning over the citizens of the country she had come to as a refugee, and obliging Jason in every way. This is what brings the greatest stability at home: when a woman does not challenge her husband.It has all gone sour now, affection turned to hatred.Jason has cast aside his children and my mistress, and now goes to bed in a royal marriage

with the daughter of Creon who governs this land.

And Medea, in despair, rejected by her husband,

howls out "the oaths he swore" and calls upon the right hand,

a potent symbol of fidelity, and invokes the gods

to witness Jason's treatment of her.

She won't eat; she just gives in to her grief,

washing away all her hours in tears,

ever since she realized her husband had abandoned her.

She never looks up or raises her face

from the ground. She is like a rock or wave of the sea

when those who love her try to give advice;

except that sometimes she lifts up her pallid face
and mourns for her dear father,

her country, and the home she betrayed

to come here with this man who now holds her in contempt.

The poor woman knows from bitter loss

what it means to have once had a homeland.

And she hates her children, takes no pleasure in seeing them.

I'm afraid of her, in case she has some new plan in mind.

She is a deep thinker, you know, and she will not put up with

this kind of abuse. I know her and I am terrified

that in silence entering the house where the bed is laid

she might thrust a sharp sword through the heart
or kill the princess and the one who married her

and then suffer some greater tragedy.

She is frightening. It won't be easy for an enemy

to come out victorious in a battle with her.

But here come the children from their play.

They know nothing of their mother's troubles