Fabula 26. Medea Exul — “Medea in exile”: Medea in Athens, her second exile, and her return to Colchis. Latin from the standard text, with a new English translation below each paragraph. View:
1
Medea Corintho exul Athenas ad Aegeum Pandionis filium deuenit in hospitium eique nupsit; ex eo natus est Medus.
Medea, an exile from Corinth, came to Athens, to Aegeus, son of Pandion, as a guest, and married him; and to him Medus was born.
2
postea sacerdos Dianae Medeam exagitare coepit, regique negabat sacra caste facere posse eo quod in ea ciuitate esset mulier uenefica et scelerata. tunc iterum exulatur.
Afterwards a priestess of Diana began to hound Medea, and kept telling the king that he could not perform the rites in ritual purity on the ground that there was in that city a sorceress and a wicked woman. Then she went into exile again.
3
Medea autem iunctis draconibus ab Athenis Colchos redit; quae in itinere Absoridem uenit, ubi frater Abysrtus sepultus erat. ibi Absoritani serpentium multitudini resistere non poterant; Medea autem ab eis rogata lectas eas in tumulum fratris coniecit, quae adhuc ibi permanentes, si qua [autem] extra tumulum exit, debitum naturae persoluit.
Medea, however, with her dragons yoked, returned from Athens to Colchis; on the journey she came to Absoris, where her brother Absyrtus was buried. There the people of Absoris could not resist the multitude of snakes; but Medea, asked by them, gathered the snakes and threw them into her brother’s tomb, where they remain still, and if any one comes out of the tomb, it pays the debt of nature.
Notes
- Convention: the Latin gives the editor’s supplied letters in full, without brackets; the notes record them as < > for a supplement, [ ] for a deletion, and † for a corrupt word.
- Para 2: sacerdos is the same word in Fabula 24, para 2, here, and Fabula 27, para 3; it is rendered “priestess” throughout, though the Latin does not specify the sex. Exulatur is impersonal and does not say who sent her — “she went into exile again”.
- Para 3: [autem] is bracketed (deleted) in the text. “Abysrtus” is the spelling as supplied; elsewhere the name is Absyrtus. Absoris is the town of Absorus founded in Fabula 23, para 5. “Pays the debt of nature” is debitum naturae persoluit — dies.
- Para 3: the Latin is anacoluthic (a relative clause with a participle and no finite verb); the English smooths it into “where they remain still”.
Next fabula: Medus (Fabula 27). Corrections are welcome via the contact form; please say which paragraph you mean.