married the daughter of Creon, who is prince of this land. But Medea
the unhappy, dishonored, calls on his oaths, and recalls the hands they
plighted, the greatest pledge of fidelity, and invokes the gods to witness
what return she meets with from Jason. And she lies without tasting food,
having sunk her body in grief, dissolving all her tedious time in tears,
after she had once known that she had been injured by her husband, neither
raising her eye, nor lifting her countenance from the ground; but as the
rock, or the wave of the sea, does she listen to her friends when advised.
Save that sometimes having turned her snow-white neck she to herself
bewails her dear father, and her country, and her house, having betrayed
which she hath come hither with a man who has now dishonored her. And she
wretched hath discovered from affliction what it is not to forsake one's
paternal country. But she hates her children, nor is she delighted at
beholding them: but I fear her, lest she form some new design: for violent
is her mind, nor will it endure to suffer ills. I know her, and I fear her,
lest she should force the sharpened sword through her heart, or even should
murder the princess and him who married her, and after that receive some
greater ill. For she is violent; he who engages with her in enmity will not
with ease at least sing the song of victory. But these her children are
coming hither having ceased from their exercises, nothing mindful of their
mother's ills, for the mind of youth is not wont to grieve.

TUTOR, WITH THE SONS OF MEDEA, NURSE.

TUT. O thou ancient possession of my mistress's house, why dost thou stand
at the gates preserving thus thy solitude, bewailing to thyself our
misfortunes? How doth Medea wish to be left alone without thee?

NUR. O aged man, attendant on the children of Jason, to faithful servants
the affairs of their masters turning out ill are a calamity, and lay hold
upon their feelings. For I have arrived at such a height of grief that
desire hath stolen on me to come forth hence and tell the misfortunes of
Medea to the earth and heaven.

TUT. Does not she wretched yet receive any respite from her grief?

NUR. I envy thy ignorance; her woe is at its rise, and not even yet at its
height.

TUT. O unwise woman, if it is allowable to say this of one's lords, since
she knows nothing of later ills.

NUR. But what is this, O aged man? grudge not to tell me.

TUT. Nothing: I have repented even of