O earth, O sun whose beam illumines all, look, look upon this lost woman, ere she stretch forth her murderous hand upon her sons for blood; for lo! these are scions of thy own golden seed, and the blood of gods is in danger of being shed by man.O light, from Zeus proceeding, stay her, hold her hand, forth from the house chase this fell bloody fiend by demons led.Vainly wasted were the throes thy children cost thee; vainly hast thou borne, it seems, sweet babes, Othou who hast left behind thee that passage through the blue Symplegades, that strangers justly hate.Ah! hapless one, why doth fierce anger thy soul assail? Why in its place is fell murder growing up? For grievous unto mortal men are pollutions that come of kindred blood poured on the earth, woes to suit each crime hurled from heaven on the murderer's house.
FIRST SON (within)
Ah, me; what can I do? Whither fly to escape my mother's blows?
SECOND SON (within)
I know not, sweet brother mine; we are lost.
CHORUS (chanting)
Didst hear, didst hear the children's cry? O lady, born to sorrow, victim of an evil fate! Shall I enter the house? For the children's sake I am resolved to ward off the murder.
FIRST SON (within)
Yea, by heaven I adjure you; help, your aid is needed.
SECOND SON (within)
Even now the toils of the sword are closing round us.
CHORUS (chanting)
O hapless mother, surely thou hast a heart of stone or steel to slay the offspring of thy womb by such a murderous doom.Of all the wives of yore I know but one who laid her hand upon her children dear, even Ino, whom the gods did madden in the day that the wife of Zeus drove her wandering from her home.But she, poor sufferer, flung herself into the sea because of the foul murder of her children, leaping o'er the wave-beat cliff, and in her death was she united to her children twain.Can there be any deed of horror left to follow this? Woe for the wooing of women fraught with disaster! What sorrows hast thou caused for men ere now!
(JASON and his attendants enter.)
JASON
Ladies, stationed near this house, pray tell me is the author of these hideous deeds, Medea, still within, or hath she fled from hence?
For she must hide beneath the earth or soar on wings towards heaven's vault, if she would avoid the vengeance of the royal house.
Is she so sure she will escape herself unpunished from this house, when she hath slain the rulers of the land? But enough of this! I am forgetting her children.As for her, those whom she hath wronged will do the like by her; but I am come to save the children's life, lest the victim's kin visit their wrath on me, in vengeance for the murder foul, wrought by my children's mother.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Unhappy man, thou knowest not the full extent of thy misery, else had thou never said those words.
JASON
How now? Can she want to kill me too?
LEADER
Thy sons are dead; slain by their own mother's hand.
JASON
O God! what sayest thou? Woman, thou hast sealed my doom.
LEADER
Thy children are no more; be sure of this.
JASON
Where slew she them; within the palace or outside?
LEADER
Throw wide the doors and see thy children's murdered corpses.
JASON
Haste, ye slaves, loose the bolts, undo the fastenings, that I may see the sight of twofold woe, my murdered sons and her, whose blood in vengeance I will shed.
(MEDEA appears above the house, on a chariot drawn by dragons; the children's corpses are beside her.)MEDEA
Why shake those doors and attempt to loose their bolts, in quest of the dead and me their murderess? From such toil desist.If thou wouldst aught with me, say on, if so thou wilt; but never shalt thou lay hand on me, so swift the steeds the sun, my father's sire, to me doth give to save me from the hand of my foes.
JASON