A quotation from Euripides

MEDEA: Women, my task is fixed: as quickly as I may
   To kill my children, and start away from this land,
   And not, by wasting time, to suffer my children
   To be slain by another hand less kindly to them.
   Force every way will have it they must die, and since
   This must be so, then I, their mother, shall kill them.
   Oh, arm yourself in steel, my heart! Do not hang back
   From doing this fearful and necessary wrong.
   Oh, come, my hand, poor wretched hand, and take the sword,
   Take it, step forward to this bitter starting point,
   And do not be a coward, do not think of them,
   How sweet they are, and how you are their mother. Just for
   This one short day be forgetful of your children,
   Afterward weep; for even though you will kill them,
   They were very dear — Oh, I am an unhappy woman!
      (With a cry she rushes into the house.)
   
[ΜΉΔΕΙΑ: φίλαι, δέδοκται τοὔργον ὡς τάχιστά μοι
   παῖδας κτανούσῃ τῆσδ᾽ ἀφορμᾶσθαι χθονός,
   καὶ μὴ σχολὴν ἄγουσαν ἐκδοῦναι τέκνα
   ἄλλῃ φονεῦσαι δυσμενεστέρᾳ χερί.
   πάντως σφ᾽ ἀνάγκη κατθανεῖν: ἐπεὶ δὲ χρή,
   ἀλλ᾽ εἶ᾽ ὁπλίζου, καρδία: τί μέλλομεν
   τὰ δεινὰ κἀναγκαῖα μὴ πράσσειν κακά;
   ἄγ᾽, ὦ τάλαινα χεὶρ ἐμή, λαβὲ ξίφος,
   λάβ᾽, ἕρπε πρὸς βαλβῖδα λυπηρὰν βίου,
   καὶ μὴ κακισθῇς μηδ᾽ ἀναμνησθῇς τέκνων,
   ὡς φίλταθ᾽, ὡς ἔτικτες, ἀλλὰ τήνδε γε
   λαθοῦ βραχεῖαν ἡμέραν παίδων σέθεν
   κἄπειτα θρήνει: καὶ γὰρ εἰ κτενεῖς σφ᾽, ὅμως
   φίλοι γ᾽ ἔφυσαν: δυστυχὴς δ᾽ ἐγὼ γυνή.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Medea [Μήδεια], l. 1236ff (431 BC) [tr. Warner (1944)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/euripides/84979/

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