The Chorus arrives

The Chorus of women — the leader speaking first, then the rest joining — comes to the door. They have heard the cry from inside and have come to see what is wrong. The Leader asks the Nurse what is happening. The Nurse tells them: the house is gone, the husband has taken a prouder bed, the mistress will hear no comfort. While the Nurse is speaking, Medea's voice rises again from within. She calls on Zeus and the Earth and the Light. She asks why the fire of the sky does not stab her brain.

The Chorus answers her, in song, through the closed door. They are gentle. They tell her not to call on death; death comes whether or not a person prays for it. They tell her if another woman has taken her place, the sin is on the man's head. They tell her not to tear her face. Medea, still inside, calls on the goddesses who guard sworn faith — she invokes the oaths Jason made, asks them to watch how this ends. She names the country she left and the brother whose blood is on her hands. The Chorus, hearing her, are not put off. They want her brought outside.

They turn to the Nurse and ask her to fetch Medea out into the daylight, where the spell of speech might soften her. The Nurse goes in, doubtful. She compares her mistress's eye to a lion guarding its young — she knows what this looks like. The Chorus close the scene with a strange small song. The poets of old, they say, made all their music for joy, for feasts and weddings; no one wrote songs for women's grief, though women's grief is most of what there is. They have just decided whose side they are on. They have not yet seen Medea's face.