And I myself go to the land of Erechtheus

To dwell in Aegeus’ house, the son of Pandion.

While you, as is right, will die without distinction,

Struck on the head by a piece of the Argo’s timber,

And you will have seen the bitter end of my love.

JASON

May a Fury for the children’s sake destroy you,

And justice, Requitor of blood.

MEDEA

What heavenly power lends an ear

To a breaker of oaths, a deceiver?

JASON

Oh, I hate you, murderess of children.

MEDEA

Go to your palace. Bury your bride.

JASON

I go, with two children to mourn for.

MEDEA

Not yet do you feel it. Wait for the future.

JASON

Oh, children I loved!

MEDEA

I loved them, you did not.

JASON

You loved them, and killed them.

MEDEA

To make you feel pain.

JASON

Oh, wretch that I am, how I long

To kiss the dear lips of my children!

MEDEA

Now you would speak to them, now you would kiss them.

Then you rejected them.

JASON

Let me, I beg you,

Touch my boys’ delicate flesh.

MEDEA

I will not. Your words are all wasted.

JASON

O God, do you hear it, this persecution,

These my sufferings from this hateful

Woman, this monster, murderess of children?

Still what I can do that I will do:

I will lament and cry upon heaven,

Calling the gods to bear me witness

How you have killed my boys and prevent me from

Touching their bodies or giving them burial.

I wish I had never begot them to see them

Afterward slaughtered by you.

CHORUS

Zeus in Olympus is the overseer

Of many doings. Many things the gods

Achieve beyond our judgment. What we thought

Is not confirmed and what we thought not god Contrives.

And so it happens in this story.

(Curtain.)

* Jason’s ship on the expedition of the Argonauts, sent by Pelias, king of Iolcus in Thessaly (Jason’s uncle, who had usurped the throne), to Colchis on the Black Sea. The Symplegades were clashing rocks, one of the obstacles along the way. Pelion is a mountain in Thessaly. Medea was a princess of Colchis who fell in love with Jason and followed him back to Greece.

* Goddesses: Themis was the goddess of justice, the virgin Artemis would be sensitive to the plight of women.

** During the escape from Colchis, to delay her father’s pursuit.

* A goddess of the night.

* Sun god.

** Apollo.

* Aphrodite, goddess of love.

* Athens, the town of Athena.

* The Athenians.

** At Athens.

* A monster in the Odyssey.

Bacchae

EURIPIDES

Characters

Dionysus

Chorus of Bacchae

Tiresias

Cadmus

Pentheus

Attendant

Messenger

Second Messenger

Agave

DIONYSUS

Unto this land of Thebes I come, Jove’s son,

Dionysus; he whom Semele of yore,

’Mid the dread midwifery of lightning fire,

Bore, Cadmus’ daughter. In a mortal form,

The God put off, by Dirce’s stream I stand,