To Pelias’ wretched daughters? What a fine welcome

They would prepare for me who murdered their father!

For this is my position—hated by my friends

At home, I have, in kindness to you, made enemies

Of others whom there was no need to have injured.

And how happy among Greek women you have made me

On your side for all this! A distinguished husband

I have—for breaking promises. When in misery

I am cast out of the land and go into exile,

Quite without friends and all alone with my children,

That will be a fine shame for the new-wedded groom,

For his children to wander as beggars and she who saved him.

O God, you have given to mortals a sure method

Of telling the gold that is pure from the counterfeit;

Why is there no mark engraved upon men’s bodies,

By which we could know the true ones from the false ones?

CHORUS

It is a strange form of anger, difficult to cure,

When two friends turn upon each other in hatred.

JASON

AS for me, it seems I must be no bad speaker.

But, like a man who has a good grip of the tiller,

Reef up his sail, and so run away from under

This mouthing tempest, woman, of your bitter tongue.

Since you insist on building up your kindness to me,

My view is that Cypris* was alone responsible

Of men and gods for the preserving of my life.

You are clever enough—but really I need not enter

Into the story of how it was loves inescapable

Power that compelled you to keep my person safe.

On this I will not go into too much detail.

In so far as you helped me, you did well enough.

But on this question of saving me, I can prove

You have certainly got from me more than you gave.

Firstly, instead of living among barbarians,

You inhabit a Greek land and understand our ways,

How to live by law instead of the sweet will of force.

And all the Greeks considered you a clever woman.

You were honored for it; while, if you were living at

The ends of the earth, nobody would have heard of you.

For my part, rather than stores of gold in my house

Or power to sing even sweeter songs than Orpheus,

I’d choose the fate that made me a distinguished man.

There is my reply to your story of my labors.

Remember it was you who started the argument.

Next for your attack on my wedding with the princess:

Here I will prove that, first, it was a clever move,

Secondly, a wise one, and, finally, that I made it

In your best interests and the children’s. Please keep calm.

When I arrived here from the land of Iolcus,

Involved, as I was, in every kind of difficulty,

What luckier chance could I have come across than this,

An exile to marry the daughter of the king?

It was not—the point that seems to upset you—that I