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Jason
Yes, and you also have grief and are a sharer in my misfortune.

Medea
Of course, but the pain is worthwhile if you cannot mock me.

Jason
Children, what an evil mother you got.

Medea
Children, how you have perished by your father's fault.

Jason
[1365] It was not my hand, you know, that killed them.

Medea
No: it was the outrage of your new marriage.

Jason
Did you really think it right to kill them because of a marriage?

Medea
Do you imagine that loss of love is a trivial grief for a woman?

Jason
For a woman of sense, yes. But you find everything a disaster.

Medea
[1370] But the children are dead: this will wound you to the quick.

Jason
They live, alas, as spirits to take vengeance on your crimes.

Medea
The gods know who struck the first blow.

Jason
Yes, they know indeed your loathesome heart.

Medea
Hate on! I detest the hateful sound of your voice.

Jason
[1375] And I of yours. To part will be easy.

Medea
How? What shall I do? For that is very much my wish as well.

Jason
Allow me to bury these dead children and to mourn them.

Medea
Certainly not. I shall bury them with my own hand, taking them to the sanctuary of Hera Akraia, 1 [1380] so that none of my enemies may outrage them by tearing up their graves. And I shall enjoin on this land of Sisyphus a solemn festival and holy rites for all time to come in payment for this unholy murder.2 As for myself, I shall go to the land of Erechtheus [1385] to live with Aegeus, son of Pandion. But you, as is fitting, shall die the miserable death of a coward, struck on the head by a piece of the Argo, having seen the bitter result of your marriage to me.

1 Hera as worshiped on the Acrocorinth.

2 In historical times, there appears to have been such a festival, in which young boys and girls of noble family spent a year in the temple precinct.

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