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Jason
Ladies, stationed near this house, pray tell me is the author of these hideous deeds,
Medea, still within, or hath she fled from hence? For she must hide beneath the earth or soar on wings towards heaven’s vault, if she would avoid the vengeance of the royal house. Is she so sure she will escape herself unpunished from this house,
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when she hath slain the rulers of the land? But enough of this! I am forgetting her children. As for her, those whom she hath wronged will do the like by her; but I am come to save the children’s life, lest the victim’s kin visit their wrath on me, in vengeance for the murder foul,
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wrought by my children’s mother.
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Ladies, stationed near this house, pray tell me is the author of these hideous deeds,
Medea, still within, or hath she fled from hence? For she must hide beneath the earth or soar on wings towards heaven’s vault, if she would avoid the vengeance of the royal house. Is she so sure she will escape herself unpunished from this house,
1295
when she hath slain the rulers of the land? But enough of this! I am forgetting her children. As for her, those whom she hath wronged will do the like by her; but I am come to save the children’s life, lest the victim’s kin visit their wrath on me, in vengeance for the murder foul,
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wrought by my children’s mother.
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Chorus
Unhappy man, thou knowest not the full extent of thy misery, else had thou never said those words.
Unhappy man, thou knowest not the full extent of thy misery, else had thou never said those words.
Jason
How now? Can she want to kill me too?
How now? Can she want to kill me too?
Chorus
Thy sons are dead; slain by their own mother’s hand.
Thy sons are dead; slain by their own mother’s hand.
Jason
O God! what sayest thou? Woman, thou hast sealed my doom.
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O God! what sayest thou? Woman, thou hast sealed my doom.
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Chorus
Thy children are no more; be sure of this.
Thy children are no more; be sure of this.
Jason
Where slew she them; within the palace or outside?
Where slew she them; within the palace or outside?
Chorus
Throw wide the doors and see thy children’s murdered corpses.
Throw wide the doors and see thy children’s murdered corpses.
Jason
Haste, ye slaves, loose the bolts,
undo the fastenings, that I may see the sight of twofold woe, my murdered sons and her, whose blood in vengeance I will shed.
[Medea in mid air, on a chariot drawn by dragons; the children’s corpses by her.
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Haste, ye slaves, loose the bolts,
undo the fastenings, that I may see the sight of twofold woe, my murdered sons and her, whose blood in vengeance I will shed.
[Medea in mid air, on a chariot drawn by dragons; the children’s corpses by her.
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Medea
Why shake those doors and attempt to loose their bolts, in quest of the dead and me their murderess? From such toil desist. If thou wouldst aught with me,
say on, if so thou wilt; but never shalt thou lay hand on me, so swift the steeds the sun, my father’s sire, to me doth give to save me from the hand of my foes.
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Why shake those doors and attempt to loose their bolts, in quest of the dead and me their murderess? From such toil desist. If thou wouldst aught with me,
say on, if so thou wilt; but never shalt thou lay hand on me, so swift the steeds the sun, my father’s sire, to me doth give to save me from the hand of my foes.
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Medea. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1906.
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