Just before Medea kills Jason’s wife and father-in-law

Just before Medea kills Jason’s wife and father-in-law, she demonstrates to the audience that she is the epitome of deception and lunacy within the influential, Fifth Episode. Medea truly displays a schizophrenic dialogue that entails a roller coaster of emotions that engage an array from a benevolent mother, to a malevolent, mad man.
In lines 1021-1027, Medea tells the tutor to bring her sons to her. She embraces them and compassionately conveys to them that their lives will go on without her. “I shall be left lonely, and you will live without you r mother always.” This seems to be the only lines in this scene that seem to exhibit her sanity. Medea is connecting with the idea of not being able to watch her sons’ grow, get married and develop offspring.
Medea’s sanity and emotions begin to turn in lines 1030-1038 when she starts to realize the hollowness of raising her sons. She almost begins to commiserate with herself for wasting her time and effort of motherhood: “How useless all the cares endured: the wearying solicitudes, the shooting agony of giving you your lives.” When Medea tells her sons that their birth was a “shooting agony”, she’s disclosing that only negativity has occurred through the miracle of childbirth.
Medea has another emotional turn-around when she stares into her children’s eyes and realizes she can’t complete the task of parting and eventually murdering them. In lines 1040-1050 she has an emotional spasm: “O-h! What shall I do? My heart dissolves when I gaze into their bright irises…No, I cannot do it. Goodbye to my determination.” She feels that she will only wound her children by hurting Jason. Covetously she feels she will hurt herself additionally, by letting her children go.
In lines 1050-1055, Medea’s other-half takes over. The evil side tells her to get a grip and complete the task of murder, to relieve her of her sorrow and ache. “Steel you