as they sought to flee from their mother and could not. And while they
doubted whether they should not hasten within and, it might be, deliver
them from their mother, came Jason to the gate and said to them, "Tell
me, ladies, is Medea in this place, or hath she fled? Verily she must
hide herself in the earth, or mount into the air, if she would not
suffer due punishment for that which she hath done to the King and to
his daughter. But of her I think not so much as of her children. For I
would save them, lest the kinsmen of the dead do them some harm, seeking
vengeance for the bloody deed of their mother."

Then the women answered, "O Jason, thou knowest not the truth, or thou
wouldst not speak such words."

"How so? Would she kill me also?"

"Thy children are dead, slain by the hand of their mother."

"Dead are they? When did she slay them?"

"If thou wilt open the gates thou wilt see the dead corpses of thy
children."

But when he battered at the gates, and cried out that they should open
to him, he heard a voice from above, and saw Medea borne in a chariot,
with winged dragons for horses, who cried to him, "Why seekest thou the
dead and me that slew them? Trouble not thyself. If thou wantest aught
of me, say on, but thou shalt never touch me with thy hand. For this
chariot, which my father the Sun hath given me, shalt deliver me out of
thy hands."