Whom we believe to be the Keeper of Oaths?

Of this I am sure, that no small thing

Will appease my mistress’ anger.

CHORUS

Will she come into our presence?

Will she listen when we are speaking

To the words we say?

I wish she might relax her rage

And temper of her heart.

My willingness to help will never

Be wanting to my friends.

But go inside and bring her

Out of the house to us,

And speak kindly to her: hurry,

Before she wrongs her own.

This passion of hers moves to something great.

NURSE

I will, but I doubt if I’ll manage

To win my mistress over.

But still I’ll attempt it to please you.

Such a look she will flash on her servants

If any comes near with a message,

Like a lioness guarding her cubs.

It is right, I think, to consider

Both stupid and lacking in foresight

Those poets of old who wrote songs

For revels and dinners and banquets,

Pleasant sounds for men living at ease;

But none of them all has discovered

How to put to an end with their singing

Or musical instruments grief,

Bitter grief, from which death and disaster

Cheat the hopes of a house. Yet how good

If music could cure men of this! But why raise

To no purpose the voice at a banquet? For there is

Already abundance of pleasure for men

With a joy of it’s own.

(The Nurse goes into the house.)

CHORUS

I heard a shriek that is laden with sorrow.

Shrilling out her hard grief she cries out

Upon him who betrayed both her bed and her marriage.

Wronged, she calls on the gods,

On the justice of Zeus, the oath sworn,

Which brought her away

To the opposite shore of the Greeks

Through the gloomy salt straits to the gateway

Of the salty unlimited sea.

(Medea, attended by servants, comes out of the house.)

MEDEA

Women of Corinth, I have come outside to you

Lest you should be indignant with me; for I know

That many people are overproud, some when alone,

And others when in company. And those who live

Quietly, as I do, get a bad reputation.

For a just judgment is not evident in the eyes

When a man at first sight hates another, before

Learning his character, being in no way injured;

And a foreigner especially must adapt himself.

I’d not approve of even a fellow-countryman

Who by pride and want of manners offends his neighbors.

But on me this thing has fallen so unexpectedly,

It has broken my heart. I am finished. I let go

All my life’s joy. My friends, I only want to die.

It was everything to me to think well of one man,

And he, my own husband, has turned out wholly vile.

Of all things which are living and can form a judgment

We women are the most unfortunate creatures.

Firstly, with an excess of wealth it is required

For us to buy a husband and take for our bodies