take care himself to keep away.[31] But I will not stain my hand.  Alas! alas! do not thou then, my soul, do not thou at least perpetrate this.  Let them escape, thou wretch, spare thy sons.  There shall they live with us and delight thee.  No, I swear by the infernal deities who dwell with Pluto, never shall this be, that I will give up my children to be insulted by my enemies. [At all events they must die, and since they must, I who brought them into the world will perpetrate the deed.] This is fully determined by fate, and shall not pass away.  And now the chaplet is on her head, and the bride is perishing in the robes; of this I am well assured.  But, since I am now going a most dismal path, and these will I send by one still more dismal, I desire to address my children:  give, my sons, give thy right hand for thy mother to kiss.  O most dear hand, and those lips dearest to me, and that form and noble countenance of my children, be ye blessed, but there;[32] for every thing here your father hath taken away.  O the sweet embrace, and that soft skin, and that most fragrant breath of my children.  Go, go; no longer am I able to look upon you, but am overcome by my ills.  I know indeed the ills that I am about to dare, but my rage is master of my counsels,[33] which is indeed the cause of the greatest calamities to men.

CHOR.  Already have I often gone through more refined reasonings, and have come to greater arguments than suits the female mind to investigate; for we also have a muse, which dwelleth with us, for the sake of teaching wisdom; but not with all, for haply thou wilt find but a small number of the race of women out of many not ungifted with the muse.[34]

And I say that those men who are entirely free from wedlock, and have not begotten children, surpass in happiness those who have families; those indeed who are childless, through inexperience whether children are born a joy or anguish to men, not having them themselves, are exempt from much misery.  But those who have a sweet blooming offspring of children in their house, I behold worn with care the whole time; first of all how they shall bring them up honorably, and how they shall leave means of sustenance for their children.  And still after this, whether they are toiling for bad or good sons, this is still in darkness.  But one ill to mortals, the last of all, I now will mention.  For suppose they have both found sufficient store, and the bodies of their children have arrived at manhood, and that they are good; but if this fortune shall happen to them, death, bearing away their sons, vanishes with them to the shades of darkness.  How then does it profit that the Gods heap on mortals yet this grief in addition to others, the most bitter of all, for the sake of children?

MEDEA, MESSENGER, CHORUS.

MED. For a long time waiting for the event, my friends, I am anxiously expecting what will be the result thence.  And I see indeed one of the domestics of Jason coming hither, and his quickened breath shows that he will be the messenger of some new ill.