She hates her children and takes no joy in seeing them. I am afraid she is planning something unheard of. Her mind is heavy, and she will not endure being badly treated. I know her, and I fear she may drive a whetted sword through her liver, slipping silently into the house where the bed is spread, or even kill the king and the bridegroom, and then meet some greater disaster. For she is terrible: no one who takes her on as an enemy will easily carry off the song of victory.

Now the nurse says what she fears. Medea hates the children and takes no joy in seeing them; she may be planning something νέον, "new," unheard of. The nurse imagines a sword driven through the liver, a stroke in the bedroom, the death of the king and the bridegroom. She is half right. Medea will kill the king and his daughter, with poisoned gifts rather than a sword, and the stroke that falls on the children is the one the nurse does not name. "She is δεινή," the nurse says, a word that covers terrible, formidable and clever at once, and all three are true of Medea.