Medea of Euripides. Euripides

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СКАЧАТЬ Ye marked me when with an oath

       I bound him; mark no less

       That oath's end. Give me to see

       Him and his bride, who sought

       My grief when I wronged her not,

       Broken in misery,

       And all her house. … O God,

       My mother's home, and the dim

       Shore that I left for him,

       And the voice of my brother's blood. …

      Nurse.

      Oh, wild words! Did ye hear her cry

       To them that guard man's faith forsworn,

       Themis and Zeus? … This wrath new-born

       Shall make mad workings ere it die.

      Chorus.

      Other Women.

      A.

      Would she but come to seek

       Our faces, that love her well,

       And take to her heart the spell

       Of words that speak?

      B.

      Alas for the heavy hate

       And anger that burneth ever!

       Would it but now abate,

       Ah God, I love her yet.

       And surely my love's endeavour

       Shall fail not here.

      C.

      Go: from that chamber drear

       Forth to the day

       Lead her, and say, Oh, say

       That we love her dear.

      D.

      Go, lest her hand be hard

       On the innocent: Ah, let be!

       For her grief moves hitherward,

       Like an angry sea.

      Nurse.

      That will I: though what words of mine

       Or love shall move her? Let them lie

       With the old lost labours! … Yet her eye—

       Know ye the eyes of the wild kine,

       The lion flash that guards their brood?

       So looks she now if any thrall

       Speak comfort, or draw near at all

       My mistress in her evil mood.

      [The Nurse goes into the house.

      Chorus.

      A Woman.

      Alas, the bold blithe bards of old

       That all for joy their music made,

       For feasts and dancing manifold,

       That Life might listen and be glad.

       But all the darkness and the wrong,

       Quick deaths and dim heart-aching things,

       Would no man ease them with a song

       Or music of a thousand strings?

       Then song had served us in our need.

       What profit, o'er the banquet's swell

       That lingering cry that none may heed?

       The feast hath filled them: all is well!

      Others.

      I heard a song, but it comes no more.

       Where the tears ran over:

       A keen cry but tired, tired:

       A woman's cry for her heart's desired,

       For a traitor's kiss and a lost lover.

       But a prayer, methinks, yet riseth sore

       To God, to Faith, God's ancient daughter—

       The Faith that over sundering seas

       Drew her to Hellas, and the breeze

       Of midnight shivered, and the door

       Closed of the salt unsounded water.

      [During the last words Medea has come out from the house.

      Medea.

      Women of Corinth, I am come to show

      My face, lest ye despise me. For I know

      Some heads stand high and fail not, even at night

      Alone—far less like this, in all men's sight:

      And we, who study not our wayfarings

      But feel and cry—Oh we are drifting things,

      And evil! For what truth is in men's eyes,

      Which search no heart, but in a flash despise

      A strange face, shuddering back from one that ne'er

      Hath wronged them? … Sure, far-comers anywhere,

      I know, must bow them and be gentle. Nay,

      A Greek himself men praise not, who alway

      Should seek his own will recking not. … But I—

      This thing undreamed of, sudden from on high,

      Hath sapped my soul: I dazzle where I stand,

      The cup of all life shattered in my hand,

      Longing to die—O friends! He, even he,

      Whom to know well was all the world to me,

      The man I loved, hath proved most evil.—Oh,

      Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow,

      A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay

      Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day,

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