Medea: But I am going in exile to another land
Before I have seen you happy and taken pleasure in you,
Before I have dressed your brides and made your marriage beds
And held up the torch at the ceremony of wedding.
Oh, what a wretch I am in this my self-willed thought!
What was the purpose, children, for which I reared you?
For all my travail and wearing myself away?
They were sterile, those pains I have in the bearing of you.
Oh surely once the hopes in you I had, poor me,
Were high ones: you would look after me in old age,
And when I died would deck me well with your own hands;
A thing which all would have done. Oh but now it is gone,
That lovely thought.
For, once I am left without you,
Sad will be the life I’ll lead and sorrowful for me.
And you will never see your mother again with
Your dear eyes, gone to another mode of living.
Why, children, do you look upon me with your eyes?
Why do you smile so sweetly that last smile of all?
Oh, Oh, what can I do?
My spirit has gone from me,
Friends, when I saw that bright look in the children’s eyes.
I cannot bear to do it.
I renounce my plans
I had before.
I’ll take my children away from
This land. Why
should I hurt their father with the pain
They feel, and suffer twice as much of pain myself?
No, no, I will not do it, I renounce my plans.
Ah, what is wrong with me? Do I want to let go
My enemies unhurt and be laughed at for it?
I must face this thing.
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