Euripides' MEDEA Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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57 pages - You are on Page 40

Medea: Say not so; 'tis said that gifts tempt even gods; and o'er
men's minds gold holds more potent sway than countless words. Fortune
smiles upon thy bride, and heaven now doth swell her triumph; youth
is hers and princely power; yet to save my children from exile I would
barter life, not dross alone. Children, when we are come to the rich
palace, pray your father's new bride, my mistress, with suppliant
voice to save you from exile, offering her these ornaments the while;
for it is most needful that she receive the gifts in her own hand.
Now go and linger not; may ye succeed and to your mother bring back
the glad tidings she fain would hear (Jason, the Attendant, and the
children go out together.)

Chorus: (singing, strophe 1)

Gone, gone is every hope I had that the children yet might live;
forth to their doom they now proceed. The hapless bride will take,
ay, take the golden crown that is to be her ruin; with her own hand
will she lift and place upon her golden locks the garniture of death.

(antistrophe 1)

Its grace and sheen divine will tempt her to put on the robe and
crown of gold, and in that act will she deck herself to be a bride
amid the dead. Such is the snare whereinto she will fall, such is
the deadly doom that waits the hapless maid, nor shall she from the
curse escape.

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