62
For, if my wife set any store on me,
I well know she will prize me over bribes.
Medea.
Thwart me not. Gifts, they say, win even gods,
And gold makes more with men than countless reasons.
Fate sides with her; the god exalts her now;
She queens it young. But I, not with mere gold,
With my own life, would buy my sons from exile.
Come, children, go now to her lordly home, 970 (969)
Go to your father's new wife and my mistress,
Pray her, beseech, that ye leave not this realm,
Offering the gauds: for chiefly it behoves
That she receive our gifts in her own hands.
Go with all haste. And may you to your mother
Become glad messengers of that she hopes. 976 (975)
CHORUS.
Strophe I.
No hope left us now for the children's life;
No hope; they are passing on to death;
And the gift that comes to the new-made wife
Is the gift of a curse in her golden wreath. 980 (979)
