O Zeus, and justice of high Jove, and light Of Sun, all seeing! Now victorious Over my foes shall I pace forth, sweet friends, To triumph! I shudder at the deed that will be done Hereafter: for my children I shall slay-- Mine; there is none shall snatch them from me now. Let no one deem me timid, weak of hand, Placidly tame; but of the other temper, Harsh to my foes and kindly to my friends.
Then when Glauke, arrayed in the robe Medea sent her, is smouldering to ashes with her father in slow phosphorescent flame, Medea sends for her children and makes that last speech which is the very triumph of Euripidean rhetoric:
O children, children! you have still a city, A home, where, lost to me and all my woe, You will live out your lives without a mother! But I--lo! I am for another land, Leaving the joy of you:--to see you happy, To deck your marriage-bed, to greet your bride, To light your wedding-torch shall not be mine! O me, thrice wretched in my own self-will! In vain, then, dear my children! did I rear you; In vain I travailed, and with wearing sorrow Bore bitter anguish in the hour of childbirth! Yea, of a sooth, I had great hope of you, That you should cherish my old age, and deck My corpse with loving hands, and make me blessed 'Mid women in my death. But now, ah me! Hath perished that sweet dream. For long without you I shall drag out a dreary doleful age. And you shall never see your mother more With your dear eyes: for all your life is changed. Woe, woe! Why gaze you at me with your eyes, my children? Why smile your last sweet smile? Ah! me; ah! me! What shall I do? My heart dissolves within me, Friends, when I see the glad eyes of my sons! I cannot. No: my will that was so steady, Farewell to it. They too shall go with me: Why should I wound their sire with what wounds them, Heaping tenfold his woes on my own head? No, no, I shall not. Perish my proud will. Yet whence this weakness? Do I wish to reap The scorn that springs from enemies unpunished? Dare it I must. What craven fool am I, To let soft thoughts flow trickling from my soul! Go, boys, into the house: and he who may not Be present at my solemn sacrifice-- Let him see to it. My hand shall not falter. Ah! ah! Nay, do not, O my heart! do not this thing! Suffer them, O poor fool; yea, spare thy children! There in thy exile they will gladden thee. Not so: by all the plagues of nethermost hell It shall not be that I, that I should suffer My foes to triumph and insult my sons! Die must they: this must be, and since it must, I, I myself will slay them, I who bore them. So it is fixed, and there is no escape. Even as I speak, the crown is on her head, The bride is dying in her robes, I know it. But since this path most piteous I tread, Sending them forth on paths more piteous far, I will embrace my children. Oh, my sons, Give, give your mother your dear hands to kiss! Oh, dearest hands, and mouths most dear to me, And forms and noble faces of my sons! Be happy even there: what here was yours, Your father robs you of. Oh, loved embrace! Oh, tender touch and sweet breath of my boys! Go, go, go, leave me! Lo, I cannot bear To look on you: my woes have overwhelmed me! Now know I all the ill I have to do: But rage is stronger than my better mind, Rage, cause of greatest crimes and griefs to mortals.[9]