MED. Now them addressest, now salutest them, formerly rejecting them with scorn.

JAS. Grant me, by the Gods, to touch the soft skin of my sons.

MED. It is not possible.  Thy words are thrown away in vain.

JAS. Dost thou hear this, O Jove, how I am rejected, and what I suffer from this accursed and child-destroying lioness?  But as much indeed as is in my power and I am able, I lament and mourn over these; calling the Gods to witness, that having slain my children, thou preventest me from touching them with my hands, and from burying the bodies, whom, oh that I had never begotten, and seen them thus destroyed by thee.

CHOR.  Jove is the dispenser of various fates in heaven, and the Gods perform many things contrary to our expectations, and those things which we looked for are not accomplished; but the God hath brought to pass things unthought of.  In such manner hath this affair ended.

* * * * *

NOTES ON MEDEA

* * * *

[1] The Cyaneae Petrae, or Symplegades, were two rocks in the mouth of the Euxine Sea, said to meet together with prodigious violence, and crush the passing ships.  See Pindar.  Pyth. iv. 386.

[2] [Greek:  eretmosai] signifies to make to row; [Greek:  eretmesai], to row.  In the same sense the two verbs derived from [Greek:  polemos] are used, [Greek:  polemoo] signifying ad bellum excito; [Greek:  polemeo], bellum gero.

[3] Elmsley reads [Greek:  phyge] in the nominative case, “a flight indeed pleasing,” etc.

[4] Literally, Before we have drained this to the very dregs.  So Virgil, AEn. iv. 14. Quae bella exhausta canebat!

[5] Ter.  And.  Act. ii.  Sc. 5. Omnes sibi malle melius esse quam alteri.  Ac. iv.  Sc. 1. Proximus sum egomet mihi.

[6] Elmsley reads [Greek:  kai] for [Greek:  ei], “And their father,” etc.

[7] In Elms.  Dind. [Greek:  to gar eithisthai], “for the being accustomed,” etc.

[8] [Greek:  dynatai] here signifies [Greek:  ischyei, sthenei]; and in this sense it is repeatedly used:  [Greek:  oudena kairon], in this place, is not to be interpreted “intempestive”, but “immoderate, supra modum.”  For this signification consult Stephen’s Thesaurus, word [Greek:  kairos].  EMSLEY.

[9] [Greek:  hode] is used in this sense v. 49, 687, 901, of this Play.

[10] [Greek:  mogera] is best taken with Reiske as the accusative plural, though the Scholiast considers it the nominative singular.  ELMSLEY.

[11] [Greek:  gegotas] need not be translated as [Greek:  nomizomenous], the sense is [Greek; ontas]:  so [Greek:  authades gegos], line 225.

[12] That is, the character of man can not be discovered by the countenance:  so Juvenal,

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