No wonder that the Chorus sing, as she rushes into the house, of a strange reversal of all the order of nature; of woman made terrible because man has forgotten God. They take up the story of Medea’s broken life: of the wonder and the pity of it: of her distant home: of her surpassing love for Jason, and of her betrayal. In the beauty and grace of the songs the emotional strain is lightened: but they have a further purpose. For while they tell the old story over in tender phrases, Jason himself enters and Medea again comes out of the house. The two stand face to face at last and the crux of the drama is reached. Jason is the first to speak; and one feels all the spirit of the man in his opening words—cold, ambitious, prudent, with ideals faded and every generous emotion dead. He protests that he has acted from motives of policy and considerations of their best interest: for the welfare of Medea and their children as well as for himself. The new marriage was the only way, in a land to which they were strangers, to secure a home for them all, and princely connexions for his sons. But Medea has spoiled everything by her ungovernable anger: and he has come, since nothing else is possible now, to make provision for the children in their exile. The speech is clear, terse, moderate in tone, and pitilessly logical from Jason’s point of view. From that point, too, it is not unkind: he wishes to do what may be done to soften their lot. But to the woman who loves him his words are a mere blur of sound, the logic meaningless, the untroubled manner a thing of contempt. In tone and look and gesture one fact is certain—that her husband has ceased to love her, and is content to cast her off. It has clamoured in her ears while he spoke, drowning every other sound; and when she replies it is that which prompts her. It inspires her great indictment—the case for the woman against injustice throughout all time—and it evokes a shuddering recoil from baseness which she feels to be literally a pollution. “_Evil—most Evil ... I will begin with that, ‘twixt me and thee, That first befell. I saved thee. I saved thee— ... And hast thou then Accepted all—O evil yet again!— And cast me off and taken for thy bride Another? And with children at thy side! ... Is sworn faith so low And weak a thing? I understand it not. Are the old gods dead? Are the old laws forgot, And new laws made? ... ... O great God, shall gold withal Bear thy clear mark, to sift the base and fine, And o’er man’s living visage runs no sign To show the lie within, ere all too late?_“[31]