Scene One:

Nurse enters from skenē.

Nurse

1. If only the hull of the Argo had not flown through

2. the dark Clashing Rocks to the land of Kolchis.

3. If the pine in Mt. Pelion’s forests

4. had never been cut and supplied oars

5. for the Argonauts in quest of the Golden Fleece

6. for Pelias. Then my mistress Medea

7. would not have sailed to the towers of Iolkos,

8. her heart dazed with love for Jason,

9. nor persuaded the daughters of Pelias to kill

10. their father. Then she would not be living

11. here in Korinth with her husband and children.

12. Pleasing the people in her land of exile,

13. she helped Jason himself in every way.

14. When a woman does not oppose her man,

15. the greatest security is hers.

1. Now hate infects all the closest bonds of love.

2. Betraying his own sons and my mistress,

3. Jason beds down in a royal marriage,

4. having wed the daughter of Kreon, the king.

5. Wretched Medea, finding herself dishonored,

6. cries out his oaths to her, their joined right hands,

7. the greatest pledge of all. She invokes the gods

8. to witness exactly how Jason repays her.

9. She lies there without eating, surrendering to pain,

10. dissolving in tears time and time again,

11. knowing her husband has wronged her.