Well so, then, they are dead. What city will receive me then, what guest-friend offer me asylum in his land, safe haven with his family, and so protect and shield me? No-one. Then I shall wait a little time and, if some man should come to me, some tower of safety, then I shall carry through my murder silently, seductively, but, if things should conspire to exile me before I can work out some subtle way, I shall myself take up a knife and, even if it means that I must die, I’ll steel myself to walk upon the path to brutish violence, and kill them.
For by my mistress, black force of darkness, goddess Hecate, whom I revere above all others, my accomplice and my ally both, who has her dwelling in the shifting shadows of my hearth, there is no man alive or woman either, who will wound my heart and live to take their pleasure of it. But I shall make their wedding-song a bitter song of lamentation, and their marriage desolate as my own exile.
So now, Medea, put nothing by of all your knowledge, all your spells, all your contriving. Go on to the abyss and to the horror. Now is the very test and touchstone of your courage. Do you see how they have treated you? You have no need of this, to be the butt of jokes for Jason’s treacherous marriage, sordid, Sisyphean, you who are the daughter of a brave and noble king, grand-daughter to the sun-god, Helios. You have your knowledge, yes – and more: I am a woman, and although we women are so useless when it comes to good, yet as the architects of every ill, there is none more accomplished.
Stasimon 1
Chorus The well-springs of the sacred streams suck back their waters, and all the universe, all Justice is turned upside-down. The male brain breeds deceit, and all the solemn promises of gods are crumbling. So now’s the time that reputation too will turn and bring to womanhood, to me, respect and recognition. And so there’ll come some compensation for the female race.
The muses of dead dusty poets will cease their songs of woman’s infidelity. For the god of inspiration, Lord Apollo, never did bestow the power to write the lyre-song in a woman’s mind, else I would make reverberate a paean hymn against the whole male sex. The yawning years have much to say not just of men, but women too.
But you, Medea, sailed out from your father’s home, your heart mad, mind irrational, and burst the barrier of double rocks, the very ocean’s boundary. And so you live here in a strange land all unhonoured, husbandless, the ties of sex that bound him to your bed all gone, and they are driving you, a fugitive, to exile.
The sanctity of oaths exists no longer, and from vastness of all Greece, respect is gone, soaring through the limpid air, abandoning mankind. And in your father’s house, poor woman, you can find no anchorage to ride the sea-swell of your sorrows, now that another princess has your home and with a smile of triumph tenses her taut body in your bed.
Episode 2
Jason This is not the first time – no, I’ve seen it often – your temper leading to such unbelievable disasters! You could have stayed here in this land, this house, if you had just borne lightly the resolutions of those who have more power than you. But as it is, because of empty words, you’re to be exiled. Now, as for me, this is no matter. You can keep on saying for ever how Jason is ‘the worst of men’. But consider yourself lucky, in the light of all you’ve said against the royal family, to have escaped with exile.
I wanted you to stay – I tried to turn aside their anger as they raged against you. But you could not stop behaving stupidly or speaking disrespectfully or cruelly of the king. And so you’re to be exiled.
But even so, despite all this, I’ve not abandoned you. I’ve come to you now as a friend – I’ve given it much thought. I don’t want you and my children to have need of money or of anything, my lady, in your exile. Exile itself brings with it ills enough. There, you see – even if you hate me, I should never manage to think ill of you.
Medea You – ‘worst of men’! That is the only name that I can call you now! You coward, you have come to me? You’ve come, my mortal enemy? Oh, this is more than mere bravado on your part or manly posturing! This is the greatest sickness that a man can have – a total lack of shame. And yet you have achieved some good by coming here. For I have things to say to you, harsh things, harsh words, the saying of which will cleanse my mind and bring you pain and sorrow as you hear them.
I’ll take as my beginning our beginning, too. I saved you, well your ship-mates on the Argo know, who sailed with you from Greece – I saved you then, when you were sent to yoke the bulls, whose breath was fire, and sow the field of death. And I killed the dragon, which was coiled around the Golden Fleece, tight in a stranglehold, its guardian, unsleeping, and so I lifted high for you the beacon of salvation. And I betrayed my father and my very home and came with you back to Iolcus and Pelias’ land, so eager, so naive, uncalculating, killed Pelias – such a painful death at his own daughters’ hands – and devastated utterly his house.
You let me do all this for you and then, you worst of men, betrayed me for another woman’s bed, though we had children. Oh yes, if you’d been childless still, I might have pardoned you for lusting after this new bedding, but as it is you have betrayed your oaths, and so I wonder: do you think the gods have no more power, no more authority, or do you think a new morality’s laid down for modern man, since you know all too well your perjury, now you have broken all the oaths you ever made me!
This is my hand you held so often! These are my knees you clung to in an empty sordid lie, and so built up such hopes that turned to ashes!
But come – I shall ask your advice, as if you were my friend still, enter on some make-believe, perhaps, that you still wish me well. Why not? My questions will but show your shame the more. Where can I turn to now? My father’s house, which I betrayed for you – can I go home to my own country? Or to the poor grief-stricken daughters of Pelias? Yes, they would welcome me into their house with open arms – their father’s murderess.
You see, that’s how things are. My family, my friends – you – hate me, and those I never should have harmed think me their mortal enemy for all I did to please you. Oh yes, yes, because of all I did, you’ve made me envied by so many women throughout Greece! O, what a wondrous, faithful husband in my misery I have in you, if I am to be driven out in exile, cut off from all friends, from all family, and all alone with my poor lonely sons. This is a pretty taunt to tell a bride-groom on his wedding night, how his own sons and I, who saved him, wander through the streets as beggars.
Zeus, why have you given men clear evidence to tell true gold from false, when there’s no mark, no, nothing physical to show a worthless man?
Chorus Such anger’s terrifying and hard to remedy, when bitter hatred crashes cruel on those, who most should love.
Jason It seems I must produce a reasoned speech and, like a helmsman of a ship, in whom men trust, run up the ragged tatters of my slapping sails and make my dash for shelter from the ceaseless storm-burst of your tiresome tongue – my lady!
But me – since you build up the reasons I should feel some gratitude to you too much – I think that it was Aphrodite, Lust, alone of gods or mortal men who saved me, when I sailed out on my quest to find the Golden Fleece. You have a subtle mind, it’s true – but there’s nothing positive to gain from cataloguing how raw Lust, how Eros bent you to his will with arrows you could not resist, so you would save my skin. I’ll not set out too vividly each little detail. For, whatever service you provided me, the end result is fair. For, you achieved more than you gave, in terms of benefit, from saving me, as I shall show.
To begin with, you are living here in Greece instead of in your own land with uncivilized barbarians, and so you know the benefits of Justice and a life that’s led within the framework of the law, not at the mercy of some cruel capricious overlord. Now all Greeks think of you as wise and hold you in some honour. But if you’d lived out at the very limits of the earth, no-one would have heard of you at all. Now, as for me, I’d take no pleasure from a house that groaned with gold, or if I had the power to sing more sweetly than an Orpheus, if
my achievements and my fame went all unrecognized. That’s all I have to say to you about my quest, my struggles. It was you, after all, who raised the issue.
But all these accusations, that you’ve made against me and my marriage with the princess – I shall show you first how rational, how thoughtful I have been, how great a friend and ally both to you and to my sons – no! no! stay where you are! When I came from Iolcus here, so weighted down by all the troubles, inescapable, that clung to me, well, what solution could I find more fortunate that that, an exile and a fugitive, I should become the husband of the daughter of a king? I know it’s this that wounds you, but it was not because I loathe your bed, or that I had been struck with longing for a new young bride, or that I had some sudden urge to breed as many children as I could – those that I have are quite enough for me; I cannot fault them – but so that we (and this is my prime motivation), so that we could live well, not always have to worry about poverty (and I know well how poverty drives all your friends away), and so that I could bring my own sons up in my own house as they deserve, and in begetting brothers for them set them on an equal footing with the sons I’ve had by you, so that in making this alliance between both our families, we should be happy.
And in the end, what need have you of children?
But me – it is to my advantage that I give some benefit to my existing children through those other children I intend to have. So was that such a crass solution? You would yourself agree if only your bruised sexuality would let you. No, but you women all have come to such a pass, that you think satisfaction in your bed is everything, but if you have some terrible disaster with your sexuality, you think that everything that’s good and honest is against you. Mankind should beget children from some other source and then there’d be no need at all for women. And so, I think the cause of every ill there is for men would be removed.
Chorus Jason, you have set your case out well, but, even if my words now will offend you, I think you have betrayed your wife and acted quite unjustly.
Medea I must be very different from my fellow men. You see, to me a man who can speak cleverly but is in fact corrupt deserves the greatest punishment there is. For, in his arrogance of eloquence, he cloaks his crimes in robes of seeming virtue and, in his overbearing confidence, he’ll stop at nothing. Yet there are limits on his cleverness – yes, even yours. You see, one word can fell you. If you were a kind and noble man, you should have talked to me, persuaded me to let you make this marriage, and not, no!, not concealed it from your family.
Jason Oh yes, I think that you’d have made a pretty speech to help me woo her if I’d told you of my marriage plans, as even now you cannot bring yourself to put aside your fury.
Medea That was not why! No! Your barbarian bed-mate growing old did not provide you with sufficient glamour and prestige.
Jason Get this clear now: it is not because of the girl that I am making this royal marriage – as I am – but, as I said just now, because I wish to save you, because I wish to father royal sons who’ll share my children’s blood-line and so will be the bulwark, the insurance for our family.
Medea I don’t want a life of luxury if it involves such pain, I don’t want wealth if it involves such torture to my mind.
Jason Do you not realize how much more clever, more sophisticated you would seem if you’d but change your attitude? I wish that you’d not always think that what is for the best is for the worst, or that your situation is unbearable when you are in fact fortunate.
Medea You are so arrogant! You have a way out and a future. Me – I’m about to be dispatched alone to exile.
Jason The choice was yours. You are alone responsible.
Medea What did I do then, marry you and betray you?
Jason You unleashed cruel and godless curses at the royal family.
Medea And for your household too I am become, I think, a cruel and vengeful fury.
Jason I can’t discuss these matters with you any longer. But if you need some help from me with money for the boys or for your exile, tell me. I’m ready to be generous. I’ll send a letter introducing you to some acquaintances, who’d be of use to you. You are a fool, my lady, to refuse. If you but laid aside your anger, you would get more profit from it.
Medea We have no need of your acquaintances, and we would not take anything from you, so give us nothing. There’s no pleasure to be had in gifts from the mean-minded.
Jason Well then, I call the gods to witness how I tried to help you and my sons in every way I could. You take no joy in what is good for you, but turn your back on friends and family from self-willed stubbornness. And so you make things worse.
Medea He’s gone. He’s seized with longing for his newly-bedded girl; he doesn’t want to waste time here with us. Go! Bed her! And maybe, if my words find favour with the gods, in marrying her you’ll lose all chance you ever had of marriage.
Stasimon 2
Chorus When Lust comes, swooping down too heavily on men, it saps good reputation, saps morality. Yet if Desire, if Aphrodite, comes with due propriety, there is no other god more gratifying. And so I pray you, mistress, Lady, never turn your golden bow on me and launch at me your arrows, inescapable, smeared with the poisoned balm of longing, no, but rather let chaste modesty enfold me, which is, of all the gifts the gods bestow, most beautiful.
I would that Aphrodite, that Desire, in all her awesome terrifying power, does not unleash on me contentious argument or strife, whose appetite knows no abatement. May she not craze my very soul with longing for another’s bed, but rather, with unerring mind, may she preside in equitable judgement over all the marriages of womankind, honouring those women’s beds where harmony prevails.
O my fatherland, my home! I would that I might never lose my city and so know that yawning life of helplessness, that cannot be endured – of all the sorrows in the world, most pitiable. No! I would sooner die and put an end to all the long days of my life, for there is no grief greater than to lose your native land.
Yes. We can see it. I have no need to show the proof of it at second hand. For you are suffering the most appalling of all fates, and there was no friend, no, no city, to show you any sympathy in all your suffering. May he die in abject misery, who shows no honour to his friends, his family, opening his heart to them in grace and kindness. May such a man as he is never be a friend to me nor one of my own family.
Episode 3
Aegeus Medea! Grace and kindness to you! There is no fairer greeting that I know with which first to address one’s family and friends!
Medea Grace and kindness to you, too, Aegeus, son of clever Pandion! Why have you come to see me here? Where have you come from?
Aegeus I’m on my way from Delphi and the ancient oracle of Phoebus.
Medea The very centre of the earth, where god’s true voice is heard! Why were you there?
Aegeus I went to ask how I might manage to beget children.
Medea By all the gods! You have no children, then?
Aegeus Some spirit has seen to it that I should be childless.
Medea You have a wife, though? You’re not celibate?!
Aegeus I have a wife, yes – I am married.
Medea And what did Phoebus tell you about children?
Aegeus His words were too sophisticated for a mortal man to understand.
Medea Is it allowed for me to know the god’s reply?
Aegeus Most certainly. A clever mind like yours is what I need.
Medea What did he say? Tell me, if it’s right for me to hear.
Aegeus He said that I should not unstop the wine-skin’s neck …
Medea Until you do what? Till you come where?
Aegeus … until I come back home to my ancestral hearth.
Medea So why have you sailed to Corinth? What do you want?
Aegeus There is a man – the King of Trozden, Pittheus …
Medea The son of Pelops – yes, they say he is a holy man …
Aegeus I wish to meet with him an
d to consult with him about the oracle.
Medea Yes, rightly. He’s a wise man and experienced in matters of this sort.
Aegeus And more – of all my guest-friends and war-allies he’s the closest.
Medea Then may good fortune smile on you and may you get what you desire …
Aegeus But you – you’re crying!
Medea Aegeus, I have the worst of husbands.
Aegeus What are you saying? Tell me more plainly what is troubling you.
Medea Jason has betrayed me, though I’ve done him no harm.
Aegeus What has he done? Tell me more clearly!
Medea He’s taken a new woman in my place to be the mistress of his house.
Aegeus How has he had the face to act so shamefully?
Medea I’ll tell you plainly: our former family and friends dishonour us.
Aegeus Is it his desire for this other woman makes him so, or has your marriage soured?
Medea His great desire. He shows no loyalty to friends or family.
Aegeus Then let him go, if he’s as heartless as you say.
Medea His heart’s set on a marriage with the royal family.
Aegeus Who is the girl’s father, then? Tell me everything.
Medea Creon, King of Corinth.
Aegeus Yes, you have every reason – more than any woman should – to grieve, my lady.
Medea Yes. I am completely lost. You see, besides all this I am being exiled.
Aegeus Who’s doing this? It’s unthinkable!
Medea Creon’s bundling me off his land to exile.
Aegeus And Jason lets him? Surely he’s not happy about this?
Medea He has said nothing. He wishes to be strong.
I beg you by your beard, your knees – I supplicate you – take pity on me; pity me in all my helplessness, my sorrow! Look at me now, abandoned, exiled! Let me come and live with you in Athens, in your house, and so may the gods grant that your longing to have children reach fulfillment and that you yourself may end your days in richness and in blessing! You don’t know what you have found now you’ve found me. No! I shall put an end to your being childless. Yes – thanks to me you will beget a household full of children! I am familiar with certain drugs and medicines …
Looking at Medea Page 24
