Fourth choral interlude.—The chorus, with full knowledge of the fatal robe, pictures the delight of the bride at its reception, and laments her fearful doom.
Fifth episode.—This episode is in four parts.
The attendant returns with the children and announces to Medea that her gifts have prevailed for their reprieve. (The attendant retires.)
Medea contrasts the assured career of her children with her own hapless condition; then remembers her resolve and with softening heart laments their dreadful fate. She hastily sends them within the palace. Left alone, she again struggles between her mother-love and her resolve not to leave her children subject to the scorn of her foes. (She here leaves the stage to wait for tidings from the royal house.)
Then follows a monologue by the chorus leader discussing the advantages of childlessness. No reference is made to the passing events.
Medea returns just in time to meet a messenger who breathlessly announces the death of Creon and his daughter. At the request of Medea he gives a detailed account of the reception of the magic robe and crown, the bride's delight, and her sudden and awful death, in which her father also was involved. He urges Medea to fly at once. She announces her intention to do so as soon as she has slain her children; and then rushes into the house.
Fifth choral interlude.—This consists of a single strophe and antistrophe in which the chorus calls upon the gods to restrain Medea's mad act. Then are heard within the house the shrieks first of the two children, then of one, then silence, the chorus meanwhile wildly shouting to Medea to desist from her deadly work.
The exode.—Jason appears in search of Medea that he may avenge on her the death of the royal pair; but most he fears for his children. The chorus informs him that they are already slain within the palace by their mother's hand. He prepares to force an entrance into the house.
But now Medea appears in a chariot drawn by dragons. She defies Jason's power to harm her. Jason replies by reproaching her with all the murderous deeds of her life, which have culminated in this crowning deed of blood. She in turn reproaches him and his ingratitude as the cause of all. A storm of mutual imprecations follows, and Medea disappears with the bodies of her two sons, denying to Jason even the comfort of weeping over their remains.
The exode.—A messenger comes running in from the direction of the palace, and announces that the king and his daughter are dead. The eager questions of the chorus bring out the strange circumstances attending this catastrophe. Medea enters in time to hear that her magic has been successful, and ignoring the nurse's entreaties to flee at once, she becomes absorbed in her own reflections. And now in her words may be seen the inward struggle between maternal love and jealous hate as she nerves herself for the final act of vengeance. The purpose to kill her children grows upon her, resist it as she may, until in an ecstasy of madness, urged on by a vision of her murdered brother, she slays her first son; and then, bearing the corpse of one and leading the other by the hand, she mounts to the turret of her house. Here with a refinement of cruelty she slays the second son in Jason's sight, disregarding his abject prayers for the boy's life. Now a chariot drawn by dragons appears in the air. This Medea mounts and is borne away, while Jason shouts his impotent curses after her.