Eksodos
Jason
I cannot wound thee, so brazen is thy nature. Perish, vile sorceress, murderess of thy babes! Whilst I must mourn my luckless fate, for I shall ne’er enjoy my new-found bride, nor shall I have the children,
1345
whom I bred and reared, alive to say the last farewell to me; nay, I have lost them.
1350
Medea
To this thy speech I could have made a long retort, but Father Zeus knows well all I have done for thee, and the treatment thou hast given me. Yet thou wert not ordained to scorn my love
and lead a life of joy in mockery of me, nor was thy royal bride nor Creon, who gave thee a second wife, to thrust me from this land and rue it not. Wherefore, if thou wilt, call me e’en a lioness, and Scylla, whose home is in the Tyrrhene land;
1355
for I in turn have wrung thy heart, as well I might.
1360
Jason
Thou, too, art grieved thyself, and sharest in my sorrow.
Medea
Be well assured I am; but it relieves my pain to know thou canst not mock at me.
Jason
O my children, how vile a mother ye have found!
Medea
My sons, your father’s feeble lust has been your ruin!
Jason
’Twas not my hand, at any rate, that slew them.
1365
Medea
No, but thy foul treatment of me, and thy new marriage.
Jason
Didst think that marriage cause enough to murder them?
Medea
Dost think a woman counts this a trifling injury?
Jason
So she be self-restrained; but in thy eyes all is evil.
Medea
Thy sons are dead and gone. That will stab thy heart.
1370
Jason
They live, methinks,Reading οἵμαι with Tyrrwhitt. to bring a curse upon thy head.
Medea
The gods know, whoso of them began this troublous coil.
Jason
Indeed, they know that hateful heart of thine.
Medea
Thou art as hateful. I am aweary of thy bitter tongue.
Jason
And I likewise of thine. But parting is easy.
1375
