Jason
May the Fury that punishes your children's death, and
[1390]
Justice the murderous,1 destroy you utterly!
Medea
What god or power above will listen to you, who broke your oath and deceived a stranger?
Jason
Pah! Unclean wretch! Child-murderer!
Medea
Go home! Bury your wife!
Jason
[1395]
Yes—bereft of my two sons—I go.
Medea
Your mourning has yet to begin. Wait until old age.
Jason
O children most dear.
Medea
Yes, to their mother, not to you.
Jason
And so you killed them?
Medea
Yes, to cause you grief.
Jason
Alas, how I long for the dear faces of my children,
[1400]
to enfold them in my arms.
Medea
Now you speak to them, now you greet them, when before you thrust them from you.
Jason
By the gods, I beg you, let me touch the tender flesh of my children!
Medea
It cannot be. Your words are uttered in vain.
Jason
[1405]
Zeus, do you hear this, how I am driven away and what treatment I endure from this unclean, child-murdering monster? But with all the strength I have, I make my lament and adjure the gods,
[1410]
calling the heavenly powers to witness that you killed my sons and now forbid me to touch them or to bury their bodies. Oh that I had never begotten them, never seen them dead at your hands!Medea with the corpses of her children is borne aloft away from Corinth. Exit Jason by Eisodos B.
Chorus-Leader
[1415]
Zeus on Olympus has many things in his treasure-house, and many are the things the gods accomplish against our expectation. What men expect is not brought to pass, but a god finds a way to achieve the unexpected. Such is the outcome of this story.Exit Chorus by Eisodos B.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
1 Both the Erinys （Fury） and Diké （Justice） are agents of Zeus.
Euripides. Euripides, with an English translation by David Kovacs. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. forthcoming.
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