The Argonautica

When she saw both Medea's eyes all drenched in their tears, she asked her:

Ah, Medea, what makes you pour out these tears? Woe upon me!

What has befallen? What terrible grief has invaded your spirit?

Has some heaven-sent sickness seized and circled all your limbs,

or have you learned some ruinous threat spoken out by our father

against me and my sons? Would heaven I never were looking

upon my parents' house or city, but made my dwelling far

at earth's far limits, where the Colchian name lies unheard.

So she spoke; Medea's cheeks grew red, and maidenly shame long

held her, though eager to answer her own sister's words.

At times the word rose upward as far as the tip of her tongue,

then fluttered down in the depths of her breast at another moment.

Often it stormed through her lovely mouth, eager for utterance;

yet never advanced to a sound beyond; at last she answered

with this deception, for bold Loves kept hounding her onward:

Chalciope, my heart is storming with fear for your children,

lest my father destroy them at once together with foreign men.

While dozing just now, in a brief sleep lasting a moment,

I saw cruel dreams; may some god leave them all unfulfilled

and may no grievous concern for your sons ever seize you.

Thus she spoke, testing her sister, to learn whether she first

would ask Medea to rescue the children who sprang from herself.

At once unbearable grief surged over Chalciope's spirit

with fear from the things she had heard; then she answered in words: