Penny Dreadfuls, 1912 · page 62 of 118
The Medea — page 62: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 46: Running Prose from Euripides This is a page of running prose—specifically, a dramatic monologue translated from Euripides. The speaker (apparently a woman wronged by a Greek man named Jason) outlines her plan for revenge: she will poison the king's daughter with gifts, kill her own children to prevent Jason from having heirs, and then flee into exile. She expresses her desperation and rage, declaring she has no home or country, and demanding to know if anyone among the listeners possesses courage or cunning to aid her cause. The text appears to be a classical dramatic translation, not a penny dreadful original composition.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
46 EURIPIDES Here upon angry shores till those have laughed Who hate me: ’tis that I will slay by craft The king’s daughter. With gifts they shall be sent, Gifts to the bride to spare their banishment, Fine robings and a carcanet of gold. Which raiment let her once but take, and fold About her, a foul death that girl shall die And all who touch her in her agony. Such poison shall they drink, my robe and wreath! Howbeit, ot that no more. I gnash my teeth Thinking on what a path my feet must tread Thereafter. I shall lay those children dead— Mine, whom: no hand shall steal from me away! Then, leaving Jason childless, and the day As night above him, I will go my road To exile, flying, flying from the blood Of these my best-beloved, and having wrought All horror, so but one thing reach me not, The laugh of them that hate us. Let it come! What profits life to me? I have no home, No country now, nor shield from any wrong. That was my evil hour, when down the long Halls of my father out I stole, my will Chained by a Greek man’s voice, who still, oh, still, If God yet live, shall all requited be. For never child of mine shall Jason see Hereafter living, never child beget From his new bride, who this day, desolate Even as she made me desolate, shall die Shrieking amid my poisons. . .. Names have I Among your folk? One light? One weak of hand? An eastern dreamer ?—Nay, but with the brand EGomicboo (E(0) cS ————— Le le SC