Racine: Phaedra

MEDEA 97
Of childbirth. But this language suits not you
This is your native city, the abode
Of your loved parents, every comfort life
Can furnish is at hand, and with your friends
You here converse : but I, forlorn, and left
Without a home, am by that husband scorned
Who carried me from a Barbarian realm.
Nor mother, brother, or relation now
Have I, to whom I 'midst these storms of woe,
Like an auspicious haven, can repair.
Thus far I therefore crave ye will espouse
My interests, as if haply any means
Or any stratagem can be devised
For me with justice to avenge these wrongs
On my perfidious husband, on the king
Who to that husband's arms his daughter gave.
And the new-wedded princess ; to observe
Strict silence. For although at other times
A woman, filled with terror, is unfit
For battle, or to face the lifted sword,
She when her soul by marriage wrongs is fired.
Thirsts with a rage unparalleled for blood.
Chorus.—The silence you request I will observe.
For justly on your lord may you inflict
Severest vengeance : still I wonder not
If your disastrous fortunes you bewail:
But Creon I behold who wields the sceptre
Of these domains ; the monarch hither comes
His fresh resolves in person to declare.
Enter Creon.
Creon.—Thee, O Medea, who, beneath those looks
Stern and forbidding, harbor'st 'gainst thy lord
Resentment, I command to leave these realms
An exile ; for companions of thy flight
Take both thy children with thee, nor delay.
Myself pronounce this edict : I my home
Will not revisit, from the utmost bounds
Of this domain, till I have cast thee forth.