And as the man goes in, leaving her alone with her boys, a poignant scene follows in which every instinct of her nature struggles against her wrath. Their sweet young faces stir the tenderness that has hitherto been bound within her; and as it floods her heart it seems for a few moments to sweep away her evil purpose. But it only returns in added strength, and as her soul writhes in the conflict, reason totters, and she implores the vengeance within, as a living and implacable foe, to spare her babes. Backward and forward she sways, driven by hatred and love, until the scale is turned at last by the thought of her own irrevocable act. Glaucé, even at this moment, is dying from the poison that she has sent. “_Too late, too late! By all Hell’s living agonies of hate, They shall not take my little ones alive To make their mock with! Howso’er I strive The thing is doomed.... Oh, darling hand! Oh, darling mouth, and eye, And royal mien, and bright brave faces clear, May you be blessèd, but not here! What here Was yours, your father stole.... ... I am broken by the wings Of evil.... Yea, I know to what bad things I go, but louder than all thought doth cry Anger, which maketh man’s worst misery._“[31] But even yet she cannot strike: one thing more is needed to nerve her hand, and it comes only too soon. A messenger is seen flying toward them from the palace in frantic haste. As he comes within hail, he shouts to Medea to flee—both Creon and the princess lie dead from the effects of her poisoned gift, and she has not a moment to lose. Her own life will surely be demanded for the crime. Medea remains immovable, smiling in awful joy at the news. She makes the man relate every detail of the ghastly scene in the palace; and for just so long as the story takes to tell, she clasps revenge complete and satisfying. But a moment later the thing has shrivelled in her hand; for there is now no hope to save her children. “_Oh, up, and get thine armour on, My heart!... Take up thy sword, O poor right hand of mine, Thy sword: then onward to the thin-drawn line Where life turns agony._”[31]