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.
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!
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