Jason
You will suffer too and share in this tragedy.
Medea
You can be certain of that. But the pain is pleasure if you do not laugh.
Jason
Oh children, what a terrible mother you had.
Medea
Oh children, how you were destroyed by your father's disease.
Jason
My right hand did not strike them.
Medea
But your abuse and your new marriage.
Jason
You thought the marriage bed was worth your children's lives?
Medea
Do you think this a trivial wrong for a woman?
Jason
If she is a good woman. But to you nothing is good.
Medea
The children are dead. This will sting you.
Jason
They are a pollution to you.
Medea
The gods know who began this tragedy.
Jason
Then they know the vileness of your heart.
Medea
Hate me. I, too, hate your irritating voice.
Jason
And I yours. The separation is easy.
Medea
What then? I too am eager to make my departure.
Jason
Allow me to bury my children and mourn over them
Medea
No, never. I shall bury them with my own hand,
taking them to the sanctuary of Hera Akraia
so that none of my enemies will defile them
by tearing up their graves. And in this land of Sisyphus
I shall authorize a sacred festival and ritual
to last forever for this unholy murder.
And I shall go myself to the land of Erechtheus
to live with Aigeus the son of Pandion.
But you, a coward, you will die a coward's death as you deserve,
struck on your head by a remnant of the wreck of the Argo
seeing a bitter end to your marriage to me.
Jason
But may the Avenger of children destroy you
and Justice that haunts murderers.
Medea
What god or divine spirit would listen to you
an oath-breaker and deceiver of guests?
Jason
Feu, feu [Aah, aah] loathsome child murderer.
Medea
Go home and bury your wife.
Jason
I am going, denied rights to my two children.
Medea
Do not mourn yet. Wait for old age.
Jason
Oh dearest children.
Medea To their mother, not to you.
Jason
And yet you killed them.
Medea Yes, to wound you.
Jason
omoi [Ah me.] I long to kiss
the sweet lips of my children.
YOU ARE READING
Medea (Euripedes)
Historical Fiction[Play] "The mind of a queen Is a thing to fear. A queen is used To giving commands, not obeying them; And her rage once roused is hard to appease."
