MEDEA – The Aftermath

Spoken by a Chorus of Corinthian Women

                                                                             First Woman:-

Your hair flying like

black lightning!

And you a mother!

Your eyes bloodshot, wild!

Oh! what madness preys on

the fruit of your own body!

Your upraised hands!

A jagged knife!

On the flesh of your flesh!

Your face, blazing! Did you not hear

how they screamed, the poor babes?

Did it not slice through your skin and

flesh, exposing the white bone beneath?

Oh! blood of your blood!

Are you a mother?

Wronged as you were, we loved you

As much as we hated Creon,

and more!

Sisters! We could have

stopped this!

Heavens, I have babes too!

                                                                     Second Woman:-

Poison flames poured down

Her head and limbs!

O! Cursed robe and crown!

Charred flesh melted away,

Gripped in a pillar of fire.

A more fiendish, unholy day

Never came upon our land!

Our King and Princess in one

Fell swoop struck down by the hand

Of a rabid devil from the East!

Belching venomous hatred,

Her rank, foetid mouth does feast,

(In woman's shape a dangerous beast!)

On our hopeless misery and pain

That lessens not in the least

But grows with every moment.

May the high gods hear us pray,

And lend just ear to our lament!

                                                                                 Leader:-

Can he bear the humongous pressure?

(Ah! Wretched, false, faithless man!)

You know how he gets a seizure,

(And she who sailed with him, fond woman!)

Every time he even sees her,

(Across the tumultuous ocean!)

Since Pelias's daughters lost their treasure?

(Through the dark blue Symplêgades)

So, swifter than the arrow, fly and seize her!

(Ripped up her roots, betrayed her blood!)

Bury her in ice and freeze her,

(Daughter of Aiêtês, born of the Sun!)

Outrun the wind if you will chase her,

(O barbaric beauty of the East!)

Help me catch her, if you please, Sir!

(Who dares pursue the winged Dragon?)

                                                                             Third Woman:-

Soaring high in Helios's golden chariot,

Vanishing speck in the eastern horizon,

Who reads your thunderous visage?

What are you, or who? We know not,

Nor dare to imagine. You ravage

The sacred fonts of life, rip out the heart

and bloodied entrails,

Gouge out the eyes, and still pitiless,

dismember the corpse of filial love,

All with vicious aplomb and impunity!

Listen!

Your brother's blood

Calls you out from the dim shores of your

Wasted land! The tender babes

wailing beneath your blade

Were born of your womb!

Oh! Was there ever a sword keener than

A mother's love!

Yet inscrutable are the ways of the gods!

Killers strutting in pleasing masks,

They bless you!

                                                                                  Leader:-

Silence deafens.

Lost in the gathering gloom, the tempest's howling

rage settles down in uneasy rest.

No slumber to bless mine eyes, though.

We do not know

What… new doom…Hmmmm… rearing… 

ugly head....

… Blood…congeals...Ahhhhhhh…my throbbing...eyes!

Oh! Bitter morsel... thickening light…

Hold!

Cease your clamour.

Do you hear? The weeping? The babes…Weeping?

Drops of tears. Drip! Drip? Drip! Drip?

And the swelling

Tide of tears – 

hell is rising, rising. Rising.

Filling the skies… O! they call out to me!

O! rip off these robes. 

Claw out my heart!    

The babes…

Are ….

Weeping….