But for you, I remember, I, the queen of the Colchians, found leisure, when you begged that my art should bring you aid.
Then, the sisters who dispense mortal threads ought to have spun out my spindles to the end.
§12.5Tum potui Medea mori bene! quidquid ab illo
Then I, Medea, could have died well!
§12.6Produxi vitam tempore, poena fuit.
Whatever life I have dragged out since that time, has been a punishment.
Ah me! Why did the Pelian timber, driven by youthful arms, ever seek the Phrixean sheep?
Why did we Colchians ever see the Magnetian Argo, and why did you, Greek crowd, drink the Phasian water?
Why did your golden hair and your comeliness and the feigned grace of your tongue please me more than was right?
§12.13Aut, semel in nostras quoniam nova puppis harenas §12.14Venerat audacis attuleratque viros, §12.15Isset anhelatos non praemedicatus in ignes §12.16Inmemor Aesonides oraque adusta boum; §12.17Semina iecisset totidem quot semina et hostes, §12.18Ut caderet cultu cultor ab ipse suo!
Or, since once the strange ship had come to our sands and had brought audacious men, should the un-medicined son of Aeson, unmindful, have gone into the exhaled fires and the scorched mouths of the oxen; he should have sown the seeds, and as many enemies as seeds, so that the tiller himself might fall by his own tilling!
§12.19Quantum perfidiae tecum, scelerate, perisset,
How much perfidy would have perished with you, wicked man!
§12.20Dempta forent capiti quam mala multa meo!
How many evils would have been removed from my head!
§12.21Est aliqua ingrato meritum exprobrare voluptas.
There is some pleasure in reproaching an ungrateful man with a benefit.
§12.22Hac fruar; haec de te gaudia sola feram.
This I will enjoy; this is the only joy I shall win from you.
Ordered to steer your untried ship to Colchis, you entered the blessed realms of my native land.
There I, Medea, was what your new bride is here; my father was as rich as hers is.
This one holds Ephyre between two seas; that one holds all the way to snowy Scythia, where the left tract of Pontus lies.
You receive, Aeetes, the Pelasgian youths with hospitality, and you press the embroidered couches, Greek bodies.
Then I saw you; then I began to know what you were; that was the first ruin of my mind.
And I saw, and I perished; and I burned with no common fires, even as a pine torch burns before the great gods.
And you were beautiful, and my fates were drawing me on; your eyes had stolen away my sight.
§12.37Perfide, sensisti — quis enim bene celat amorem?
Treacherous man, you perceived it—for who conceals love well?
§12.38Eminet indicio prodita flamma suo.
The flame stands out, betrayed by its own evidence.
Meanwhile, a hard law is declared to you, that you should press with unaccustomed plough the necks of wild oxen.
§12.41Martis erant tauri plus quam per cornua saevi, §12.42Quorum terribilis spiritus ignis erat; §12.43Aere pedes solidi praetentaque naribus aera, §12.44Nigra per adflatus haec quoque facta suos.
The bulls belonged to Mars, savage more than by their horns, whose terrible breath was fire; their feet were solid with bronze, and bronze was stretched before their nostrils, these too made black by their own breath.
§12.45Semina praeterea populos genitura iuberis §12.46Spargere devota lata per arva manu, §12.47Qui peterent natis secum tua corpora telis; §12.48Illa est agricolae messis iniqua suo.
In addition, you are ordered to sow with doomed hand through the wide fields seeds destined to generate peoples, who would attack your body with weapons born with them; that is an unjust harvest for its own husbandman.
To deceive by some art the eyes of the guardian, which know not how to yield to sleep, is the final labor.
Aeetes had spoken; sad, you all rise up, and the high table leaves the purple couches.
How far away from you then was Creusa's dotal kingdom, and your father-in-law, and the daughter of great Creon!
§12.55Tristis abis; oculis abeuntem prosequor udis, §12.56Et dixit tenui murmure lingua: 'vale!' §12.57Ut positum tetigi thalamo male saucia lectum, §12.58Acta est per lacrimas nox mihi, quanta fuit; §12.59Ante oculos taurique meos segetesque nefandae, §12.60Ante meos oculos pervigil anguis erat.
Sad you depart; with wet eyes I follow you as you go, and my tongue said with a soft murmur: 'Farewell!' When, badly wounded, I touched the bed placed in my chamber, the night was spent by me in tears, as long as it was; before my eyes were both the bulls and the impious crops, before my eyes was the ever-watchful serpent.
§12.61Hinc amor, hinc timor est; ipsum timor auget amorem.
On one side is love, on the other fear; fear increases love itself.
§12.62Mane erat, et thalamo cara recepta soror §12.63Disiectamque comas adversaque in ora iacentem §12.64Invenit, et lacrimis omnia plena meis.
It was morning, and my dear sister, admitted to my chamber, found me with my hair dishevelled and lying face down, and everything full of my tears.
§12.65Orat opem Minyis.
She begs aid for the Minyans.
alter petit, impetrat alter: §12.66Aesonio iuveni quod rogat illa, damus.
One asks, the other obtains: what she requests, we grant to the Aesonide youth.
There is a grove, dark with both pitch-pines and the foliage of the holm-oak; scarcely is it permitted for the rays of the sun to enter there.