Category: Plays/Films/Dramas
_Medea_ [_alone_]. Ye gods of marriage; Lucina, guardian of the genial bed; Pallas, who taught the tamer of the seas To steer the Argo; stormy ocean's lord; Titan, dividing bright day to the world; 5 And thou three-formed Hecate, who dost shed Thy conscious splendor on the hid...
_Ulysses._ Coming a messenger of cruel fate, I pray you deem not mine the bitter words 535 I speak, for this is but the general voice Of all the Greeks, too long from home detai...
19. SCENE II_Pyrrhus._ When, homeward turning, you would fain have spread Your happy sails, Achilles was forgot. 190 By him alone struck down, Troy fell; her fall, Ev'n at his death, was bu...
26. SCENE I_Helen_ [_soliloquizing_]. Whatever sad and joyless marriage bond 880 Holds slaughter, lamentations, bloody war, Is worthy Helen. Even to fallen Troy I bring misfortune, bidden...
7. SCENE II_Jason._ The lot is ever hard; bitter is fate, Equally bitter if it slay or spare; God gives us remedies worse than our ills. 425 Would I keep faith with her I deem my wife I mu...
4. SCENE II_Creon._ What, is Medea of the hated race Of Colchian Æëtes, not yet gone? Still she is plotting evil; well I know Her guile, and well I know her cruel hand. Whom does she spare...
28. SCENE I_Messenger._ O bitter, cruel, lamentable fate! In these ten years of crime what deed so hard, So sad, has Mars encountered? What decree Of fate shall I lament? Thy bitter lot, 1...
22. SCENE I_Andromache._ Why tear your hair, my Phrygian followers, Why beat your breasts and mar your cheeks with tears? The grief is light that has the power to weep. 420 Troy fell for y...
24. SCENE III_Andromache._ Ulysses, this is he who terrifies The thousand keels, behold him. Fall, my son, A suppliant at the feet of this thy lord, And do him reverence; nor think it base,...
11. SCENE II_Medea._ Here I invoke you, silent company, Infernal gods, blind Chaos, sunless home Of shadowy Dis, and squalid caves of Death Bound by the banks of Tartarus. Lost souls, 725 F...
14. SCENE II_Medea._ Shall I fly? I? Were I already gone I would return for this, that I might see These new betrothals. Dost thou pause, my soul? 855 This joy's but the beginning of reveng...
17. SCENE II_Chorus._ You bid those weep who are not new to grief; Our lamentations have not ceased to rise From that day when the Phrygian stranger sought Grecian Amyclæ; and the sacred pi...
9. SCENE IV_Chorus._ Fear not the power of flame, nor swelling gale, Nor hurtling dart, nor cloudy wain that brings The winter storms; fear not when Danube sweeps 585 Unchecked between its...
16. SCENE I_Hecuba._ Let him who puts his trust in kingly crown, Who rules in prince's court with power supreme, Who, credulous of heart, dreads not the gods, But in his happy lot confides...
3. SCENE I_Medea._ Alas, the wedding chorus strikes my ears; Now let me die! I could not hitherto Believe--can hardly yet believe such wrong. 115 And this is Jason's deed? Of father, home...
10. SCENE I_Nurse._ I shrink with horror! Ruin threatens us! How terribly her wrath inflames itself! Her former force awakes, thus I have seen 660 Medea raging and attacking god, Compellin...
15. SCENE III_Jason._ Ye faithful ones, who share In the misfortunes of your harassed king, Hasten to take the author of these deeds. 935 Come hither, hither, cohorts of brave men; Bring up...
1. SCENE I_Medea_ [_alone_]. Ye gods of marriage; Lucina, guardian of the genial bed; Pallas, who taught the tamer of the seas To steer the Argo; stormy ocean's lord; Titan, dividing brig...
6. SCENE I_Nurse._ Stay, foster-child, why fly so swiftly hence? Restrain thy wrath! curb thy impetuous haste! 365 As a Bacchante, frantic with the god And filled with rage divine, uncert...
5. SCENE III_Chorus._ He rashly ventured who was first to make In his frail boat a pathway through the deep; 310 Who saw his native land behind him fade In distance blue; who to the raging...
2. SCENE II_Chorus._ Be present at the royal marriage feast, Ye gods who sway the scepter of the deep, And ye who hold dominion in the heavens; With the glad people come, ye smiling gods!...
18. SCENE I_Talthybius._ I tremble, and my spirit shrinks with fear; Such prodigies will hardly find belief. I saw them, I myself; Titan had touched The mountain summits, dayspring conquer...
27. SCENE II_Chorus._ Sweet is a nation's grief to one who grieves-- Sweet are the lamentations of a land! 1044 The sting of tears and grief is less when shared By many; sorrow, cruel in it...
25. SCENE IVWhat country calls the captives? Tempe dark? Or the Thessalian hills? or Phthia's land Famous for warriors? Trachin's stony plains, Breeders of cattle? or the great sea's queen,...
21. SCENE IVIs it true, or does an idle story Make the timid dream that after death, 380 When the loved one shuts the wearied eyelids, When the last day's sun has come and gone, And the fun...
20. SCENE III_Agamemnon._ [_To Calchas._] Thou, who hast freed the anchors of the fleet; Ended the war's delay; and by thy arts Hast opened heaven; to whom the secret things Revealed in sacr...
8. SCENE III_Medea._ He's gone! And can it be he leaves me so, Forgetting me and all my guilt? Forgot? Nay, never shall Medea be forgot! Up! Act! Call all thy power to aid thee now; This fr...
12. SCENE III_Chorus._ Where hastes the blood-stained Mænad, headlong driven By angry love? What mischief plots her rage? With wrath her face grows rigid; her proud head She fiercely shakes;...
13. SCENE I