Euripides
From: Medea (lines 230-251)
Of everything living and able to reason,
We women are the most unfortunate creatures.
First, we require excessive wealth
To purchase husbands, and — insult to injury —
Husbands who'll take control of our bodies,
The question which causes the greatest anxiety
Being 'Will the husband be good? Or naughty?'
Divorce is bad for the reputation
Of women, and we can't deny husbands.
Dumped into their strange regulations and practices —
Unless you've been educated in childhood —
You'd need prophetic powers to know
How best to manage the man in bed with you.
Well, if we can work all this out —
Keep hubbie happy while we pull the strings —
It's a life to be envied. If not, better dead.
When the man becomes bored with things at home,
It's away, and relieve his emotional cravings,
While we women must only look at one man.
Then they tell us our lives are free of danger.
We stay at home. They go to war.
Rubbish. I'd rather face three assaults
In line of battle, than bear one child.
Translated by Leo Aylen
Page(s) 243
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