WARNING FROM THE EVIL FORTUNE OF MEDEA (from "Medea")

by: Euripides

      HEN fierce conflicting passions urge
      The breast where love is wont to glow,
      What mind can stem the stormy surge
      Which rolls the tide of human woe?
      The hope of praise, the dread of shame,
      Can rouse the tortured breast no more;
      The wild desire, the guilty flame,
      Absorbs each wish it felt before.
       
      But if affection gently thrills
      The soul by purer dreams possessed,
      The pleasing balm of mortal ills
      In love can soothe the aching breast:
      If thus thou comest in disguise,
      Fair Venus! from thy native heaven,
      What heart unfeeling would despise
      The sweetest boon the gods have given?
       
      But never from thy golden bow
      May I beneath the shaft expire!
      Whose creeping venom, sure and slow,
      Awakes an all-consuming fire:
      Ye racking doubts! ye jealous fears!
      With others wage internal war;
      Repentance, source of future tears,
      From me be ever distant far!
       
      May no distracting thoughts destroy
      The holy calm of sacred love!
      May all the hours be winged with joy,
      Which hover faithful hearts above!
      Fair Venus! on thy myrtle shrine
      May I with some fond lover sigh,
      Whose heart may mingle pure with mine--
      With me to live, with me to die!
       
      My native soil! beloved before,
      Now dearer as my peaceful home,
      Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore,
      A hapless banished wretch to roam!
      This very day, this very hour,
      May I resign this fleeting breath!
      Nor quit my silent humble bower;
      A doom to me far worse than death.
       
      Have I not heard the exile's sigh,
      And seen the exile's silent tear,
      Through distant climes condemned to fly,
      A pensive weary wanderer here?
      Ah! hapless dame! no sire bewails,
      No friend thy wretched fate deplores,
      No kindred voice with rapture hails
      Thy steps within a stranger's doors.
       
      Perish the fiend whose iron heart,
      To fair affection's truth unknown,
      Bids her he fondly loved depart,
      Unpitied, helpless, and alone:
      Who ne'er unlocks with silver key
      The milder treasures of his soul, --
      May such a friend be far from me,
      And ocean's storms between us roll!

This English translation, by Lord Byron, of 'Warning from the Evil Fortune of Medea' is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.

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