The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 21

_Slaves and slave-women, attendants of the King, etc._

MEDEA (1822)

TRANSLATED BY THEODORE A. MILLER, PH.D.

ACT I

_Before the walls of Corinth. At the left, halfway up stage, a tent is pitched; in the background lies the sea, with a point of land jutting out into it, on which is built a part of the city. The time is early morning, before daybreak; it is still dark.

At the right in the foreground a slave is seen standing in a pit digging and throwing up shovelfuls of earth; on the opposite side of the pit stands MEDEA, before a black chest which is strangely decorated with gold; in this chest she keeps laying various utensils during the following dialogue.

MEDEA. Is it, then, done?

SLAVE. A moment yet, my mistress.

[GORA _comes out of the tent and stands at a distance_.]

MEDEA. Come! First the veil, and then the G.o.ddess' staff.

I shall not need them more; here let them rest.

Dark night, the time for magic, is gone by, And what is yet to come, or good or ill, Must happen in the beamy light of day.-- This casket next; dire, secret flames it hides That will consume the wretch who, knowing not, Shall dare unlock it. And this other here, Full-filled with sudden death, with many an herb, And many a stone of magic power obscure, Unto that earth they sprang from I commit.

[_She rises_.]

So! Rest ye here in peace for evermore.

Now for the last and mightiest thing of all!

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEDEA _From the Painting by Anselm Feuerbach_]

[_The slave, who has meanwhile climbed out of the pit and taken his stand behind the princess awaiting the conclusion of her enterprise, now turns to help her, and grasps at an object covered with a veil and hanging from a lance that has been resting against a tree behind MEDEA; the veil falls, revealing the banner, with the Golden Fleece glowing radiantly through the darkness._]

SLAVE (_grasping the Fleece_). 'Tis this?

MEDEA. Nay, hold thy hand! Unveil it not.

(_Addressing the Fleece_.)

Once more let me behold thee, fatal gift Of trusting guest-friend! s.h.i.+ne for one last time, Thou witness of the downfall of my house, Bespattered with my father's, brother's blood, Sign of Medea's shame and hateful crime!

[_She stamps upon the lance-haft and breaks it in two_.]

So do I rend thee now, so sink thee deep In earth's dark bosom, whence, a bane to men, Thou sprang'st.

[_She lays the broken standard in the chest with the other objects and shuts down the cover_.]

GORA (_comes down_).

What does my mistress here?

MEDEA. Thou seest.

GORA. Wilt thou, then, bury in the earth that Fleece, The symbol of thy service to the G.o.ds, That saved thee, and shall save thee yet again?

MEDEA (_scornfully_).

That saved me? 'Tis because it saved me not, That here I lay it. I am safe enough.

GORA (_ironically_).

Thanks to thy husband's love?

MEDEA (_to the slave, ignoring Gora's taunt_).

Is all prepared?

SLAVE. Yea, mistress.

MEDEA. Come!

[_She grasps one handle of the chest, the slave the other, and together they carry it to the pit._]

GORA (_observing them from a distance_).

Oh, what a task is this For a proud princess, daughter of a king!

MEDEA. Nay, if it seem so hard, why dost not help?

GORA. Lord Jason's handmaid am I--and not thine!

Nor is it meet one slave another serve.

MEDEA (_to the slave_).

Now lay it in, and heap the earth upon it.

[_The slave lets the chest down into the pit and shovels in the earth upon it. MEDEA kneels at one side of the pit as he works._]

GORA (_standing in the foreground_).

Oh, let me die, ye G.o.ds of Colchis, now, That I may look no more on such a sight!

Yet, first hurl down your lightning-stroke of wrath Upon this traitor who hath wrought us woe.

Let me but see him die; then slay me too!