were dear, but I a wretched woman.

CHOR. O thou earth, and thou all-illuming beam of the sun, look down upon,
behold this abandoned woman, before she move her blood-stained hand itself
about to inflict the blow against her children; for from thy golden race
they sprung; but fearful is it for the blood of Gods to fall by the hand of
man. But do thou, O heaven-born light, restrain her, stop her, remove from
this house this blood-stained and miserable Erinnys agitated by the Furies.
The care of thy children perishes in vain, and in vain hast thou produced a
dear race, O thou who didst leave the most inhospitable entrance of the
Cyanean rocks, the Symplegades. Hapless woman, why does such grievous rage
settle on thy mind; and hostile slaughter ensue? For kindred pollutions are
difficult of purification to mortals; correspondent calamities falling from
the Gods to the earth upon the houses of the murderers.[41]

FIRST SON. (_within_) Alas! what shall I do? whither shall I fly from my
mother's hand?

SECOND SON. I know not, dearest brother, for we perish.

CHOR. Hearest thou the cry? hearest thou the children? O wretch, O
ill-fated woman! Shall I enter the house? It seems right to me to ward off
the murderous blow from the children.

SONS. Nay, by the Gods assist us, for it is in needful time; since now at
least are we near the destruction of the sword.

CHOR. Miserable woman, art thou then a rock, or iron, who cuttest down with
death by thine own hand the fair crop of children which thou producedst
thyself? one indeed I hear of, one woman of those of old, who laid violent
hands on her children, Ino, maddened by the Gods when the wife of Jove sent
her in banishment from her home; and she miserable woman falls into the sea
through the impious murder of her children, directing her foot over the
sea-shore, and dying with her two sons, there she perished! what then I
pray can be more dreadful than this? O thou bed of woman, fruitful in ills,
how many evils hast thou already brought to men!

JASON, CHORUS.

JAS. Ye females, who stand near this mansion, is she who hath done these
deeds of horror, Medea, in this house; or hath she withdrawn herself in
flight? For now it is necessary for her either to be hidden beneath the
earth, or to raise her winged body into the vast expanse of air, if she
would not suffer vengeance from the king's house. Does she trust that after
having slain the princes of this land, she shall herself