16
Medea (still speaking within).
Oh thou great Themis, and Sovereign Artemis,
Do you see what I bear, I who had bound
By terrible oaths my accursed spouse—
Whom with his bride may I one day behold
Crushed into atoms, they and their halls, 160 (164)
They who have dared the first wrong and on me?
Oh father! oh country! whom I forsook
Traitorous, slaying my brother first.
Nurse.
Do ye hear how she speaks and makes her cry
To Themis invoked in the vow, and to Zeus, 165 (169)
Since he is deemed lord over mortal oaths?
It may not be that my lady shall stay
Her rage with a little thing.
CHORUS.
Antistrophe.
Oh would she coming in our sight attend
That oracle of words we spake, if aught 170 (175)
May move her gloom and wrath. But never friend
