A WOMAN. Let me go!

I will—Help! Help!—and save them at the last.

A CHILD. Yes, in God’s name! Help quickly ere we die!

THE OTHER CHILD. She has almost caught me now. She has a sword.

[Many of the Women are now beating at the barred
door to get in. Others are standing apart.]

WOMEN AT THE DOOR. Thou stone, thou thing of iron! Wilt verily

Spill with thine hand that life, the vintage stored

Of thine own agony?

THE OTHER WOMEN. A Mother slew her babes in days of yore,

One, only one, from dawn to eventide,

Ino, god-maddened, whom the Queen of Heaven

Set frenzied, flying to the dark: and she

Cast her for sorrow to the wide salt sea,

Forth from those rooms of murder unforgiven,

Wild-footed from a white crag of the shore,

And clasping still her children twain, she died.

O Love of Woman, charged with sorrow sore,

What hast thou wrought upon us? What beside

Resteth to tremble for?

[Enter hurriedly JASON and Attendants.]

JASON. Ye women by this doorway clustering

Speak, is the doer of the ghastly thing

Yet here, or fled? What hopeth she of flight?

Shall the deep yawn to shield her? Shall the height

Send wings, and hide her in the vaulted sky

To work red murder on her lords, and fly

Unrecompensed? But let her go! My care

Is but to save my children, not for her.

Let them she wronged requite her as they may.

I care not. ’Tis my sons I must some way

Save, ere the kinsmen of the dead can win

From them the payment of their mother’s sin.

LEADER. Unhappy man, indeed thou knowest not

What dark place thou art come to! Else, God wot,

Jason, no word like these could fall from thee.

JASON. What is it?—Ha! The woman would kill me?

LEADER. Thy sons are dead, slain by their mother’s hand.

JASON. How? Not the children… I scarce understand…

O God, thou hast broken me!

LEADER. Think of those twain

As things once fair, that ne’er shall bloom again.

JASON. Where did she murder them? In that old room?

LEADER. Open, and thou shalt see thy children’s doom.

JASON. Ho, thralls! Unloose me yonder bars! Make more

Of speed! Wrench out the jointing of the door.

And show my two-edged curse, the children dead,

The woman… Oh, this sword upon her head…

[While the Attendants are still battering at the door
MEDEA appears on the roof, standing on a chariot of
winged Dragons, in which are the children’s bodies.]

MEDEA. What make ye at my gates? Why batter ye

With brazen bars, seeking the dead and me

Who slew them? Peace!… And thou, if aught of mine

Thou needest, speak, though never touch of thine

Shall scathe me more. Out of his firmament

My fathers’ father, the high Sun, hath sent

This, that shall save me from mine enemies’ rage.