P. 69, ll. 1251 ff.--This curious prayer to the Sun to "save" Medea--both from the crime of killing her children and the misfortune of being caught by her enemies--is apparently meant to prepare us for the scene of the Dragon Chariot. Notice the emphasis laid on the divine origin of Medea's race and her transformation to "a voice of Hell." P. 71, ll. 1278 ff., Death of the children.]--The door is evidently barred, since Jason has to use crowbars to open it in l. 1317. Cf. the end of Maeterlinck's _Mort de Tintagiles_. P. 71, l. 1281, A mother slew her babes in days of yore, &c.]--Ino, wife of Athamas, King of Thebes, nursed the infant Dionysus. For this Hera punished her with madness. She killed her two children, Learchus and Melicertes, and leaped into the sea. (There are various versions of the story.)--Observe the technique: just as the strain is becoming intolerable, we are turned away from tragedy to pure poetry. See on _Hip._ 731. P. 74, l. 1320, This, that shall save me from mine enemies' rage.]--There is nothing in the words of the play to show what "this" is, but the Scholiast explains it as a chariot drawn by winged serpents, and the stage tradition seems to be clear on the subject. See note to the Aegeus scene (p. 88). This first appearance of Medea "above, on the tower" (Scholiast) seems to me highly effective. The result is to make Medea into something like a _dea ex machinâ_, who prophesies and pronounces judgment. See Introduction. P. 76, l. 1370, They are dead, they are dead!]--This wrangle, though rather like some scenes in Norse sagas, is strangely discordant for a Greek play. It seems as if Euripides had deliberately departed from his usual soft and reflective style of ending in order to express the peculiar note of discord which is produced by the so-called "satisfaction" of revenge. Medea's curious cry: "Oh, thy voice! It hurts me sore!" shows that the effect is intentional. P. 77, l. 1379, A still green sepulchre.]--There was a yearly festival in the precinct of Hera Acraia, near Corinth, celebrating the deaths of Medea's children. This festival, together with its ritual and "sacred legend," evidently forms the germ of the whole tragedy. Cf. the Trozenian rites over the tomb of Hippolytus, _Hip._ 1424 ff. P. 77, l. 1386, The hands of thine old Argo.]--Jason, left friendless and avoided by his kind, went back to live with his old ship, now rotting on the shore. While he was sleeping under it, a beam of wood fell upon him and broke his head. It is a most grave mistake to treat the line as spurious. _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE. ANDROMACHE: A Play. CARLYON SAHIB: A Play. THE EXPLOITATION OF INFERIOR RACES, IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES: An Essay in "Liberalism and the Empire." EURIPIDIS FABULAE: Brevi Adnotatione Critica Instructae, Vols. I. and II. EURIPIDES: Hippolytus; Bacchae; Aristophanes' 'Frogs.' Translated into English verse.