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Ye females, who stand near this mansion, is she who hath done these deeds of horror, Medea, in this house; or hath she withdrawn herself in flight?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 escape from this house with impunity?—­But I have not such care for her as for my children; for they whom she has injured will punish her.  But I came to preserve my children’s life, lest [Creon’s] relations by birth do any injury,[42] avenging the impious murder perpetrated by their mother.

CHOR.  Unhappy man! thou knowest not at what misery thou hast arrived, Jason, or else thou wouldest not have uttered these words.

JAS. What is this, did she wish to slay me also?

CHOR.  Thy children are dead by their mother’s hand.

JAS. Alas me!  What wilt thou say? how hast thou killed me, woman!

CHOR.  Think now of thy sons as no longer living.

JAS. Where did she slay them, within or without the house?

CHOR.  Open those doors, and thou wilt see the slaughter of thy sons.

JAS. Undo the bars, as quick as possible, attendants; unloose the hinges, that I may see this double evil, my sons slain, and may punish her.

MED. Why dost thou shake and unbolt these gates, seeking the dead and me who did the deed.  Cease from this labor; but if thou wantest aught with me, speak if thou wishest any thing; but never shall thou touch me with thy hands; such a chariot the sun my father’s father gives me, a defense from the hostile hand.[43]

JAS. O thou abomination! thou most detested woman, both by the Gods and by me, and by all the race of man; who hast dared to plunge the sword in thine own children, thou who bore them, and hast destroyed me childless.  And having done this thou beholdest both the sun and the earth, having dared a most impious deed.  Mayest thou perish! but I am now wise, not being so then when I brought thee from thy house and from a foreign land to a Grecian habitation, a great pest, traitress to thy father and the land that nurtured thee.  But the Gods have sent thy evil genius on me.  For having slain thy brother at the altar, thou embarkedst on board the gallant vessel Argo.  Thou begannest indeed with such deeds as these; and being wedded to me, and bearing me children, thou hast destroyed them on account of another bed and marriage.  There is not one Grecian woman who would have dared a deed like this, in preference to whom at least, I thought worthy to wed thee, an alliance hateful and destructive to me, a lioness, no woman, having a nature more savage than the Tuscan Scylla.  But I can not gall thy heart with ten thousand reproaches, such shameless confidence is implanted in thee.  Go, thou worker of ill, and stained with the blood of thy children.  But for me it remains to bewail my fate, who shall neither enjoy my new nuptials, nor shall I have it in my power to address while alive my sons whom I begot and educated, but I have lost them.