So be it then.

And now suppose them dead. What town will receive me?

What friend will offer me a refuge in his land,

Or the guaranty of his house and save my own life?

There is none. So I must wait a little time yet,

And if some sure defense should then appear for me,

In craft and silence I will set about this murder.

But if my fate should drive me on without help,

Even though death is certain, I will take the sword

Myself and kill, and steadfastly advance to crime.

It shall not be—I swear it by her, my mistress,

Whom most I honor and have chosen as partner,

Hecate, * who dwells in the recesses of my hearth—

That any man shall be glad to have injured me.

Bitter I will make their marriage for them and mournful,

Bitter the alliance and the driving me out of the land.

Ah, come, Medea, in your plotting and scheming

Leave nothing untried of all those things which you know.

Go forward to the dreadful act. The test has come

For resolution. You see how you are treated. Never

Shall you be mocked by Jasons Corinthian wedding,

Whose father was noble, whose grandfather Helius. *

You have the skill. What is more, you were born a woman,

And women, though most helpless in doing good deeds,

Are of every evil the cleverest of contrivers.

CHORUS

Flow backward to your sources, sacred rivers,

And let the worlds great order be reversed.

It is the thoughts of men that are deceitful,

Their pledges that are loose.

Story shall now turn my condition to a fair one,

Women are paid their due.

No more shall evil-sounding fame be theirs.

Cease now, you muses of the ancient singers,

To tell the tale of my unfaithfulness;

For not on us did Phoebus, lord of music, **

Bestow the lyres divine

Power, for otherwise I should have sung an answer

To the other sex. Long time

Has much to tell of us, and much of them.

You sailed away from your father’s home,

With a heart on fire you passed

The double rocks of the sea.

And now in a foreign country

You have lost your rest in a widowed bed,

And are driven forth, a refugee

In dishonor from the land.

Good faith has gone, and no more remains

In great Greece a sense of shame.

It has flown away to the sky.

No father’s house for a haven

Is at hand for you now, and another queen

Of your bed has dispossessed you and

Is mistress of your home.

(Enter Jason, with attendants.)

JASON

This is not the first occasion that I have noticed

How hopeless it is to deal with a stubborn temper.

For, with reasonable submission to our ruler’s will,

You might have lived in this land and kept your home.

As it is you are going to be exiled for your loose speaking.

Not that I mind myself. You are free to continue