The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 42

O, woe and heavy sorrow!

MEDEA. O G.o.ds, is this your vengeance, then, Your retribution? All for love I followed him, as wife should e'er Follow her lord. My father died, But was it I that slew him? No!

My brother fell. Was't, then, my hand That dealt the stroke? I've wept for them With heavy mourning, poured hot tears To serve as sad libation for Their resting-place so far away!

Ye G.o.ds! These woes so measureless That I have suffered at your hands-- Call ye these justice,--retribution?

GORA. Thou didst leave thine own-- Thine own desert thee now!

MEDEA. Then will I visit punishment On them, as Heaven on me!

There shall no deed of wickedness In all the wide world scathless go!

Leave vengeance to my hand, O G.o.ds above!

GORA. Nay, think how thou mayst save thyself; All else forget!

MEDEA. What fear is this That makes thy heart so craven-soft?

First thou wert grim and savage, spak'st Fierce threats of vengeance, now art full Of fears and trembling!

GORA. Let me be!

That moment when I saw thy babes Flee their own mother's yearning arms, Flee from the arms of her that bare And reared them, then I knew at last 'Twas the G.o.ds' hand had struck thee down!

Then brake my heart, my courage sank!

These babes, whom it was all my joy To tend and rear, had been the last Of all the royal Colchian line, On whom I still could lavish all My love for my far fatherland.

Long since, my love for thee was dead; But in these babes I seemed to see Again my homeland, thy dear sire, Thy murdered brother, all the line Of princely Colchians,--ay, thyself, As once thou wert,--and art no more!

So, all my thought was how to shield And rear these babes; I guarded them E'en as the apple of mine eye, And now--

MEDEA. They have repaid thy love As thanklessness doth e'er repay!

GORA. Chide not the babes! They're innocent!

MEDEA. How, innocent? And flee their mother Innocent? They are Jason's babes, Like him in form, in heart, and in My bitter hate! If I could hold them here, Their life or death depending on my hand, E'en on this hand I reach out, so, and one Swift stroke sufficed to slay them, bring to naught All that they were, or are, or e'er can be,-- Look! they should be no more!

GORA. O, woe to thee, Cruel mother, who canst hate those little babes Thyself didst bear!

MEDEA. What hopes have they, what hopes?

If here they tarry with their sire, That sire so base and infamous, What shall their lot be then?

The children of this latest bed Will scorn them, do despite to them And to their mother, that wild thing From distant Colchis' strand!

Their lot will be to serve as slaves; Or else their anger, gnawing deep And ever deeper at their hearts, Will make them bitter, hard, Until they grow to hate themselves.

For, if misfortune often is begot By crime, more often far are wicked deeds The offspring of misfortune!--What have they To live for, then? I would my sire Had slain me long, long years agone When I was small, and had not yet Drunk deep of woe, as now I do-- Thought heavy thoughts, as now!

GORA. Thou tremblest! What dost think to do?

MEDEA. That I must forth, is sure; what else May chance ere that, I cannot see.

My heart leaps up, when I recall The foul injustice I have borne, And glows with fierce revenge! No deed So dread or awful but I would Put hand to it!-- He loves these babes, Forsooth, because he sees in them His own self mirrored back again, Himself--his idol!--Nay, he ne'er Shall have them, shall not!--Nor will I!

I hate them!

GORA. Come within! Nay, why Wouldst tarry here?

MEDEA. All empty is that house, And all deserted! Desolation broods Upon those silent walls, and all is dead Within, save bitter memories and grief!

GORA. Look! They are coming who would drive us hence.

Come thou within!

MEDEA. Thou saidst the Argonauts Found each and every one a grave unblest, The wages of their treachery and sin?

GORA. Ay, sooth, and such a grave shall Jason find!

MEDEA. He shall, I promise thee, he shall, indeed!

Hylas was swallowed in a watery grave; The gloomy King of Shades holds Theseus bound; And how was that Greek woman called--the one That on her own blood b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance took?

How was she called, then? Speak!

GORA. I do not know What thou dost mean.

MEDEA. Althea was her name!

GORA. She who did slay her son

MEDEA. The very same!

How came it, then? Tell me the tale once more.

GORA. Unwitting, in the chase, he had struck down Her brother.

MEDEA. Him alone? He did not slay Her father, too? Nor fled his mother's arms, Nor thrust her from him, spurned her scornfully?

And yet she struck him dead--that mighty man, Grim Meleager, her own son! And she-- She was a Greek! Althea was her name.

Well, when her son lay dead--?

GORA. Nay, there the tale Doth end.

MEDEA. Doth end! Thou'rt right, for death ends all!

GORA. Why stand we here and talk?

MEDEA. Dost think that I Lack courage for the venture? Hark! I swear By the high G.o.ds, if he had giv'n me both My babes--But no! If I could take them hence To journey with me, at his own behest,

If I could love them still, as deep as now I hate them, if in all this lone, wide world One single thing were left me that was not Poisoned, or brought in ruin on my head-- Perchance I might go forth e'en now in peace And leave my vengeance in the hands of Heaven.

But no! It may not be!

They name me cruel And wanton, but I was not ever so; Though I can feel how one may learn to be.

For dread and awful thoughts do shape themselves Within my soul; I shudder--yet rejoice Thereat! When all is finished--Gora, hither!

GORA. What wouldst thou?

MEDEA. Come to me!

GORA. And why?

MEDEA. Come hither!

See! There they lay, the babes--ay, and the bride, Bleeding, and dead! And he, the bridegroom, stood And looked and tore his hair! A fearful sight And ghastly!

GORA. Heaven forfend! What mean these words?

MEDEA. Ha, ha! Thou'rt struck with terror then, at last?

Nay, 'tis but empty words that I did speak.