EURIPIDES
Medea
You have told what you have told. I do not blame you.
Tutor
Why then this downcast eye, and this weeping of tears?
Medea
Oh, I am forced to weep, old man. The gods and I,
I in a kind of madness, have contrived all this.
Tutor
Courage! You, too, will be brought home by your
children. 1015
Medea
Ah, before that happens I shall bring others home.
Tutor
Others before you have been parted from their children.
Mortals must bear in resignation their ill luck.
Medea
That is what I shall do. But go inside the house,
And do for the children your usual daily work. 1020
(The Tutor goes into the house. Medea turns
to her children.)
0 children, 0 my children, you have a city,
You have a home, and you can leave me behind you,
And without your mother you may live there forever.
But I am going in exile to another land
Before I have seen you happy and taken pleasure in you, 1025
Before I have dressed your brides and made your marriage
beds
And held up the torch at the ceremony of wedding.
Oh, what a wretch I am in this my self-willed thought!
v What was the purpose, children, for which I reared you?
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