Apollo, Apollo – but he is my lord. I will keep silence. He is wise forever, though his oracle spoke brutal words. We are bound to acquiesce. And you must do now as Fate and Zeus ordain.
MEDEA: The children are dead. I say this to make you suffer.
The hounds snap fierce at your heels. Turn toward Athens. I hear them pelting hard on you, I see black flesh and snake-hands coiling round a fruit of agonizing pain.
Gone is the trust to be placed in oaths; I cannot understand if the gods you swore by then no longer rule, or men live by new standards of what is right.
The pain is good, as long as you’re not laughing.
Tis dreadful for words and strife to happen between brothers, when they fall into dispute.
I was foolish and young, before that, viewing the matter closely, I saw what it is to beget children.
One who is about to die is really dead already and being so, exist no longer.
The powerful, in sooth, and the wealthy, are Gods to those of mortals who are unblest.
Would ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war!
Lucky is the man who escapes a storm at sea and finds his way home to safe harbor – the man delivered from hardship. We all compete for wealth and power, and for every thousand hearts a thousand hopes. Some wither, some bear fruit. 910But the one who lives from day to day, finding good where he can: he is happy – he is a lucky man.
What’s more, we are born women. It mat be we’re unqualified for deeds of virtue: yet as the architects of every kind of mischief, we are supremely skilled.
For when a man of high degree meets with adversity, he feels the strangeness of his fallen state more keenly than a sufferer of long standing.
I am a curse upon your house as well.
Ah! there is naught more serviceable to mankind than a prudent distrust.
And I’m a woman made of sorrow.
The classes of citizens are three. The rich are useless, always lusting after more. Those who have not, and live in want, are a menace, ridden with envy and fooled by demagogues; their malice stings the owners. Of the three, the middle part saves cities.
But words can conquer words.
You gave birth to your own death.
Is love so small a pain for a woman?