There are many things which are repugnant, deadly to the spirit, and self-destructive, but which law should not forbid. “Then what would you have us do? Would you change our laws?” They cannot guide our culture, our values, our tastes.

But the Sophotechs, they cannot choose our desires for us. Those are questions of strategy, of efficient allocation of resources and time. Specially designed human-thinking versions, like Rhadamanthus, can tell us how to fulfill our desires and balance our account books. Laws are a matter of logic and common sense. “Son, the Sophotechs may be sufficient to advise the Parliament on laws and rules. Call me a she-lion, then, if you like and Scylla, dweller on the Tuscan cliff.įor I have touched your heart in the vital spot.“Phaethon asked: “Do you think there is something wrong with the Sophotechs? We are Manorials, father! We let Rhadamanthus control our finances and property, umpire our disputes, teach our children, design our thoughtscapes, and even play matchmaker to find us wives and husbands!” You were not going to cast aside my bedĪnd then spend a pleasant life laughing at me, no, nor the princess either, nor was Creon, who offered you his daughter, going to exile me with impunity. Long would have been the speech I had made in reply to these words of yours if Father Zeus did not know clearly what kind of treatment you have had from me and how you have repaid it. The children I begot and raised, but have lost them.

To sting you-such is your native impudence-be gone, doer of disgraceful deeds and murderer of your children! Mine is a fate to bewail: I shall never have the benefit of my new bride, nor will I be able to speak to my children alive, But since ten thousand insults of mine would fail You are a she-lion, not a woman, with a nature more savage than Scylla the Tuscan monster. Would have dared to do this, yet I married you in preference to them, and a hateful and destructive match it has proved. But now when you were married to me and had borne me children, you killed them because of sex and the marriage-bed. It was with acts like these that you began. For you killed your own brother at the hearthĪnd then stepped aboard the fair-prowed Argo. But the avenging spirit meant for you the gods have visited on me. A great curse you were even then, betrayer of father and of the land that nourished you. When I brought you from your home among the barbarians to a Greek house.

You brought yourself to take the sword to your own children and destroyed my life with childlessness! And having done this can you look on the sun and the earth, when you are guilty of a most abominable deed? Death and ruin seize you! Now I am in my right mind, though I was insane before O detestable creature, utterly hateful to the gods, to me, and to the whole human race,

Euripides medea text