The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 35

[_She goes out._]

KING. Our punishment, at least, will follow thee!

(_To_ CREUSA.)

Nay, tremble not. We'll keep thee safe from her!

CREUSA. I wonder only, whether what we do Be right? If so, no power can work us harm!

(_The curtain falls._)

ACT III

_The outer court of CREON'S palace. In the background the entrance to the royal apartments; on the right at the side a colonnade leading to_ MEDEA's _apartments._

MEDEA _is standing in the foreground, behind her at a distance _GORA _is seen speaking to a servant of the king._

GORA. Say to the king: Medea takes no message from a slave.

Hath he aught to say to her, He must e'en come himself.

Perchance she'll deign to hear him.

[_The slave departs._]

(GORA _comes forward and addresses _MEDEA.)

They think that thou wilt go, Taming thy hate, forgetting thy revenge.

The fools!

Or wilt thou go? Wilt thou?

I could almost believe thou wilt.

For thou no longer art the proud Medea, The royal seed of Colchis' mighty king, The wise and skilful daughter of a wise And skilful mother.

Else hadst thou not been patient, borne their gibes So long, even until now!

MEDEA. Ye G.o.ds! O hear her! Borne! Been patient!

So long, even until now!

GORA. I counseled thee to yield, to soften, When thou didst seek to tarry yet awhile; But thou wert blind, ensnared; The heavy stroke had not yet fallen, Which I foresaw, whereof I warned thee first.

But, now that it is fall'n, I bid thee stay!

They shall not laugh to scorn this Colchian wife, Heap insult on the blood of our proud kings!

Let them give back thy babes, The offshoots of that royal oak, now felled, Or perish, fall themselves, In darkness and in night!

Is all prepared for flight?

Or hast thou other plans?

MEDEA. First I will have my children. For the rest, My way will be made plain.

GORA. Then thou wilt flee?

MEDEA. I know not, yet.

GORA. Then they will laugh at thee!

MEDEA. Laugh at me? No!

GORA. What is thy purpose, then?

MEDEA. I have no heart to plan or think at all.

Over the silent abyss Let dark night brood!

GORA. If thou wouldst flee, then whither?

MEDEA (_sorrowfully_).

Whither? Ah, whither?

GORA. Here in this stranger-land There is no place for us. They hate thee sore, These Greeks, and they will slay thee!

MEDEA. Slay me? Me?

Nay, it is I will slay them!

GORA. And at home, There in far Colchis, danger waits us, too!

MEDEA. O Colchis, Colchis! O my fatherland!

GORA. Thou hast heard the tale, how thy father died When thou wentest forth, and didst leave thy home, And thy brother fell? He died, says the tale, But methinks 'twas not so? Nay, he gripped his grief, Sharper far than a sword, and, raging 'gainst Fate, 'Gainst himself, fell on death!

MEDEA. Dost thou, too, join my foes?

Wilt thou slay me?

GORA. Nay, hark! I warned thee. I said: "Flee these strangers, new-come; most of all flee this man, Their leader smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor!"

MEDEA. "Smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor"

--were these thy words?

GORA. Even these.

MEDEA. And I would not believe?

GORA. Thou wouldst not; but into the deadly net Didst haste, that now closes over thine head.

MEDEA. "A smooth-tongued traitor!" Yea, that is the word!

Hadst thou said but that, I had known in time; But thou namedst him foe to us, hateful, and dread, While friendly he seemed and fair, and I hated him not.

GORA. Thou lovest him, then?

MEDEA. I? Love?

I hate and shudder at him As at falsehood, treachery, Black horrors--as at myself!