Racine: Phaedra

133
EURIPIDES
To save my children's lives, lest on their heads
The noble Creon's kindred should retaliate
That impious murder by their mother wrought.
Chorus.—Thou know'st not yet, O thou unhappy man,
What ills thou art involved in, or these words
Had not escaped thee.
Jason.— Ha, what ills are these
Thou speak'st of? Would she also murder me?
Chorus.—By their own mother's hand thy sons are slain.
Jason.—What can you mean ? How utterly, O woman,
Have you undone me
Chorus.— Be assured thy children
Are now no more.
Jason.— Where was it, or within
Those mansions or without, that she destroyed
Our progeny ?
Chorus.— As soon as thou these doors
Hast oped, their weltering corses wilt thou view.
Jason.—Loose the firm bars and bolts of yonder gates
With speed, ye servants, that I may behold
This scene of twofold misery, the remains
Of the deceased, and punish her who slew them.
Enter Medea, in a chariot drawn by dragons.
Medea.—With levers wherefore dost thou shake those doors
In quest of them who are no more, and me
Who dared to perpetrate the bloody deed ?
Desist from such unprofitable toil
But if there yet be aught that thou with me
Canst want, speak freely whatsoe'er thou wilt
For with that hand me never shalt thou reach,
Such steeds the sun my grandsire gives to whirl
This chariot and protect me from my foes.
Jason.—O most abandoned woman, by the gods.
By me and all the human race abhorred,
Who with the sword could pierce the sons you bore,
And ruin me, a childless wretched man.
Yet after you this impious deed have dared
To perpetrate, still view the radiant sun
And fostering earth ; may vengeance overtake you