Euripides 3. Medea: Laughter

Note. Considerable Greek is quoted here, but all of it is translated.

No sooner is Medea assured of sanctuary in Athens than she exclaims to the women of the chorus,

      νῦν καλλίνικοι τῶν ἐμῶν ἐχθρῶν, φίλαι,
      γενησόμεσθα… (764)[1]

      now victorious over my enemies, friends,
      will I be….

Here the form of the word translated “friends” shows them to be female and the persons addressed.[2] I have kept the interesting Greek placement of “enemies” and “friends” at the cost of some awkwardness and unclarity, which may not have been worth paying, because in the Greek the syntactical roles of the adjacent nouns are sharply distinguished by their different cases. Another translation:

      now glorious victory over my enemies, dear ladies,
      will I have…

A little later, having laid out her plans, Medea justifies them in an echoing line (it ends with the same two words):

      οὐ γὰρ γελᾶσθαι τλητὸν ἐξ ἐχθρῶν, φίλαι. (797)

      For it is not endurable to be laughed at by one’s enemies, friends.

Victory for herself will deny laughter to her enemies, and in the Greek the first part of this line (the five syllables before the caesura), meaning literally “for not to be laughed at,” takes the place of the corresponding part of the previous line (the five syllables before the caesura, with the same scansion), meaning “now victorious.”