MED. The deed is determined on by me, my friends, to slay my children as soon as possible, and to hasten from this land; and not by delaying to give my sons for another hand more hostile to murder.  But come, be armed, my heart; why do we delay to do dreadful but necessary deeds?  Come, O wretched hand of mine, grasp the sword, grasp it, advance to the bitter goal of life, and be not cowardly, nor remember thy children how dear they are, how thou broughtest them into the world; but for this short day at least forget thy children; hereafter lament.  For although thou slayest them, nevertheless they at least 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.