In celebration of last night's fantastic production of Medea (entitled Beloved), here's an excerpt from one of my favourite monoglogues in Medea.
"Of all Earth's creatures that live and breathe,
Are we women not the wretchedest?
We scratch and save a dowry to buy a man --
And then he lords it over us: we're his,
Our lives depend on how his lordship feels
For better for worse: we can't divorce him.
However he turns out, he's ours and ours he stays.
Women's cunning? We need all of it.
Set down with strangers, with ways and laws
She never knew at home, a wife must learn
Every trick she can to please the man
Whose bed she shares. If he's satisfied,
If he lives content, rides not against the yoke --
Congratulations! If not we're better dead.
A husband, tired of domesticity,
Goes out, see friends, enjoys himself --
but we must always look to him alone.
Our reward? A quiet life they promise us.
They'll grab the spears. They'll take the strain.
I'd three times sooner go to war
Than suffer childbirth once."
Medea, the B.C. bitch, feminist before her time. Love her! And I love the irony -- that she was written by a man!
x
Just a girl
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