Venice masks

Tuesday 6 February 2024

from: Medea, Act 1 - Franz Grillparzer

Come! First the veil, and then the goddess' staff.
I shall not need them more; here let them rest.
Dark night, the time for magic, is gone by,
And what is yet to come, or good or ill,
Must happen in the beamy light of day.
This casket next; dire, secret flames it hides
That will consume the wretch who, knowing not,
Shall dare unlock it. And this other here,
Full-filled with sudden death, with many an herb,
And many a stone of magic power obscure,
Unto that earth they sprang from I commit.

So! Rest ye here in peace for evermore.
Now for the last and mightiest thing of all!

Franz Grillparzer (1791 - 1872) Austria
Translated by Theodore A. Miller
Source: The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 6, Editor: Kuno Francke, 1914 [Project Gutenberg]

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