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By SHIRLEY A. BARLOW
They (i.e. men) say of us that we live a danger-free life at home while they do the
fighting in battle. They are idiots. I would rather stand in the front line of battle
three times than bear one child. (248-9)
fXEAla, 7t p aivopiaL
KaL USvuIEVavW 7 TOL JOUVAEOULV EU; (873-4)
Fool that I am. I must be made to set myself against those who are planning for my
good.
OVK draaAax0rotaLoat
Well, we women are what we are, - I won't say inferior. But you should not be like
us in this nor trade foolishness for foolishness. I give in and admit that I was wrong
then but I have come to a better understanding now.
Tutor. You are not the first person to have been separated from your children.
People should take their misfortunes with equanimity.
Medea. I shall do this. But go inside and prepare what the children need for the day.
O my children, children, you have a city and a home in which you will live but
only when you have left me behind, poor wretch, and you will always be deprived of
your mother. And I shall go as an exile to another country before I could assist you
and see you happy, before I could perform purifying rites, honour your wives, adorn
your bridal beds, and hold up the torches. Oh, how unhappy I am in my own
persistent daring! For nothing then I brought you up, my children, for nothing I
toiled away and became worn out with worrying about you; futile were the pains I
put up with in bearing you! Once I, poor fool, had high hopes of you, that I should
grow old and you would lay me out properly in death, an enviable thing for people to
have done for them. But now that sweet thought has withered away. For without you
I shall lead a painful and grief-filled life. You will no longer look upon your mother
with loving glances, but you will be cut off from life and will experience another
mode of existence altogether. Alas, alas why do you look at me like that, my children?
Ah ... What am I to do? You see, my heart is going from me, women, as soon as I
look at my children's bright eyes. No, I cannot bring myself to do it! I take leave of
the resolutions I made before. I shall take the children out of the country with me.
Why should I hurt their father at the cost of their pain and feel twice as much
suffering myself? No, I will not do it. Goodbye to my resolutions.
But ... What is the matter with me? Do I really want to incur mockery and let my
enemies go unpunished? I must have the courage to go through with this. It is
cowardice for me even to allow such soft words to enter my mind!
Go indoors, my children. Let the person who baulks at my sacrifices take the
necessary steps to avoid them. My own hand will not weaken.
So now, the crown is upon the head, the new princess is dying in her robes - that I
am well aware of - and I myself shall take a most dread road and send these children
upon one more dreadful still.
But I long to speak to them! O my children, give your mother your right hand for
I would rather stand three times in the forefront of battle than bear one child.
(250-1)
NOTES
11. 247.
20. KaAAGvLKo0, a word often used in association with the great Heracles; Archilochus 207
(120D), 3W KaAAGVLKE XaLp' dva( 'HpdKAEES,i/TEAAa KaAAGVLKE and Pindar, 01.9. 2 (Wilamowitz on'
Herakles 80), cf. Eur Herakles 582, 961, 681, 1046; cf. 49, 570, 789.
21. CQ 36 (1986), 343-52. See also H. Lloyd Jones, Wiirzburger Jahrbucher NF 6a (1980),
51-59.
22. Particularly strong seem to me to be (i) the inconsistency between 1058 and 106
where Medea imagines the children in Athens, then implies they will be in Corinth; (ii) th
that 1062-3 have long been regarded as a borrowing from 1240-41; (iii) the fact that i
passage stands, Ovt6ds would be used in two very different ways in two contexts wher
stress is upon the word (see M. D. Reeve, CQ 22 (1972), 55).
23. The theme of children is also important before this speech and in the play as a w
See E. Schlesinger in Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1983), pp. 302ff.
24. On the force of /ovAE'iMara and Ovtds see Lloyd Jones, loc. cit., 58 and Kovacs, loc
351.
25. See Schlesinger, loc. cit., p. 310.
26. p. 224.
27. 'The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a
woman, or unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate' (Butcher's translation).
28. Webster, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 52; Page, Introduction to the Medea, p. x.
29. See also Schlesinger, loc. cit., p. 299.