Medea:
Come flame of the sky
pierce through my head.
What do I gain from living.
How I hate living!
I want to end my life and die.
O, you cursed sons of
a hateful mother
A plague on you!
And on your father!
What has life to offer them
They have no father, no home.
Was it all for nothing,
my children?
What makes me cry with pain
Is the next thing I must do:
I will kill my sons
Chorus (Tenor and Baritone):
Weigh the blood
you take upon you.
Medea, by your knees,
By every pledge or appeal
we beseech you:
Do not slaughter your children.
Where will you find hardness of purpose?
How will you build resolution in hand or heart
To face horror without flinching?
When your sons kneel to you for pity,
Will you stain your fingers with their blood? |
Medea:
You will not look
At your mother any more
With those dear eyes.
Dear sons, you smile at me
Your last smile, why?
I can not do it.
I will think no more of it.
Why should I hurt them to make their father suffer?
(Weigh the Blood)
Oh! my heart. Don't do it.
(Do not slaughter your children.)
Oh miserable heart, don't do it.
Let them be!
(spare your children)
No! are my enemies to
laugh at me?
No! by all the fiends of hate
in hells depth.
I will not have sons of mine
To be victims of my enemies rage!
My pain is more than I can take.
The horror of what I am about to do
|