Medea and Other Plays by Euripides

Author:Euripides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1963-05-12T16:00:00+00:00

The gold is useless to you; you have lost your sons;

And you are blind.

– Agamemnon, if you help this man,

You help an impious, perjured, and polluted traitor,

And by upholding evil soil your own fair name.

Yet – you’re my master; and I’ll moderate my words.

CHORUS: A good cause provides matter for an honest speech.

AGAMEMNON: I find it irksome to judge other men’s misdeeds;

But yet I must. I undertook to hear this cause,

And therefore cannot honourably abandon it.

I judge, then, Polymestor, thus: that it was not

For my sake or the Achaeans’ that you killed your guest;

But so that you might keep this gold in your own house.

Your present plight prompted your plausible defence.

Perhaps in Thrace to kill a guest is a light matter;

In Hellas we regard it as a wicked crime.

If I pronounced you innocent, I should be myself

Guilty. Your crime was foul; you must endure your fate.

POLYMESTOR: My fate, indeed! Trampled on, outraged by a woman!

A king – submitting to the vengeance of a slave!

HECABE: You suffer justly what your wickedness deserved.

POLYMESTOR: Oh, my poor murdered children! Oh, my ruined eyes!

HECABE: You suffer – what then? Do I not suffer for my son?

POLYMESTOR: Blood-guilty wretch! You take a joy in mocking me.

HECABE: I have punished you; therefore my joy is justified.

POLYMESTOR: It will not last much longer; the sea waits for you.

HECABE: To carry me to Hellas?

POLYMESTOR: No; to cover you,

When you fall headlong from the mast.

[1262–1281]

HECABE: And who will force

Me to perform so wild a leap?

POLYMESTOR: Why, you yourself

Will climb up to the masthead.

HECABE: How? Shall I have wings?

POLYMESTOR: You will become a dog with glaring tawny eyes.

HECABE: How do you know that I shall change my shape?

POLYMESTOR: In Thrace

We have a prophet, Dionysus. He told me.

HECABE: Did he not warn you of what would happen to you today?

POLYMESTOR: No, or your trickery would not have trapped me so.

HECABE: And shall I die, or live my life out?

POLYMESTOR: You shall die.

Your tomb shall bear your name.

HECABE: A name to signify

My transformation?

POLYMESTOR: Cynossema, the Dog’s Grave;

A sign for sailors.

HECABE: I care nothing. I am avenged.

POLYMESTOR: There’s more to tell. Cassandra shall be murdered too.

HECABE: No! Never! May the gods fulfil such words for you!

POLYMESTOR: Agamemnon’s wife, who waits implacably at home,

Shall kill her.

HECABE: Gods prevent such madness!

POLYMESTOR: She shall raise

Her axe on high, and murder Agamemnon too.

AGAMEMNON: Here – are you mad? or asking for more punishment?

POLYMESTOR: Kill me. A bloody cleansing waits for you in Argos.

[1282–1295]

AGAMEMNON: Men, hold this fellow, take him away.

POLYMESTOR: You don’t enjoy

Learning the future?

AGAMEMNON: Gag him!

POLYMESTOR: Gag me. I have spoken.

AGAMEMNON: Take him at once and throw him on some desert island.

Intolerable insolence!

[Exeunt Guards with POLYMESTOR].

Poor Hecabe!

Go now and bury your two children. You other women,

Go each of you to your new master’s tent. I see

That a fair wind is springing up to take us home.

Heaven grant us now deliverance from all our troubles,

A prosperous voyage, and peace and happiness at home!

CHORUS:

Friends, we must go to the harbour and the Achaean tents;

Now we are to know the rigours of slavery.

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