EURIPIDES: THE MEDEA
Setting: Corinth
Jason recovered the Golden Fleece at COLCHIS, having sailed there with his
crew, the ARGONAUTS, on board the ARGO. He succeeded in his task with
the help of the King of Colchis' daughter, MEDEA (who was also a witch).
Medea fell in love with Jason and helped him to deceive her father and then,
when fleeing with the fleece, she murdered her brother ABSYRTUS to hinder
her father's pursuit. They were married and came to live in Corinth.
THE BASIC PLOT OF THE PLAY
The problem set at the beginning of the play is that Jason has decided to
marry another wife, GLAUCE, the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth. Medea
is angered and will not let Jason off without punishment. She plans to kill both
GLAUCE and Creon and also her children by Jason. The horror of this causes
a dilemma in her mind. Can she be so savage to go through with it?
VELLACOTT sees the conflict in the play as between CIVILISATION and UNCIVILISED PASSION (i.e.
Jason and Medea). "To appreciate the balance of this play, we must take care not to prejudge Jason.
He was a man of entirely respectable ambitions; and to these ambitions Medea presented two fatal
obstacles: she had involved him in murder before ever he came to Corinth; and as a non-Greek she
could never be recognised by Greeks as his wife". Therefore it is a struggle between REASON and
VIOLENCE.
"In the character of Jason a concern for civilised values is joined with a calculating coldness and an
unscrupulous want of feeling. In that of Medea warmth of feeling grows on the same stem as emotional
excess and the propensity to violence. The lesson is that civilised men ignore at their peril the world of
instinct, emotion and irrational experience; that carefully worked-out notions of right and wrong are
dangerous unless they are flexible and allow for constant adjustment."
Aegeus' promise of refuge for the murderess Medea vindicates her case - the universe is not always on
the side of civilisation.
KITTO sees Medea deliberately portrayed as not a 'normal woman' but
excessive in her passions. "Medea is not all villainy; she loves her children,
loved Jason, and was popular in Corinth; but it is the essential part of his
tragedy that she was never really different from what we see her to be..
Euripides could easily have represented her as a good but passionate woman
who plunges into horrors only when stung by deadly insult and injury. There
was no need for him to rake up her past as he does -except that this is his
whole point. "She is tragic in that her passions are stronger than her reason
She is bound to be a torment to herself and to others; that is why Euripides
shows her blazing her way through life leaving wreckage behind her; that she
suffers herself is a great and no doubt a necessary part of the drama, but it is
not the point of the tragedy. Passion is stronger than reason, and so can be a
most destructive agent. Destructive to whom? Here, to the children, Glauce,
Creon, Jason, and to Medea's peace - but not to her life; in short, destructive
to society at large".
"Balance of character is necessarily denied her, and this means that we
cannot lose ourselves in sympathy with her as we do with Oedipus. Euripides
is not asking us to sympathise with her in this way, but to understand her (and
to understand that people like her exist - victims of a primitive force).
Euripides, like most Greeks, is a rationalist in that he believes reason, not
belief or formula or magic, to be the guide to life; but he sees too, that we
have in us, besides reason, non-rational emotions which are necessary but
may run wild, thwarting our reason and bringing calamity. In the last analysis
Euripides' tragic hero is mankind. Some natural passion breaks its bounds,
and the penalty has to be paid, either by the sinner or by those around him or
by both his tragic conception that the passions and unreason to which
humanity is subject are its greatest scourge We see Medea not merely as the
betrayed and vindictive wife but as the impersonation of one of the blind and
irrational forces in human nature. (There is more in the Medea than the lesson
that 'barbarian magicians who are passionate and are villainously treated do
villainous things'.)
MEDEA'S CASE
NURSE "coming as an exile, she has earned the citizens' welcome; while to Jason she is all
obedience - and in marriage that's the saving thing, when a wife obediently accepts her husband's will.
Jason has betrayed his own sons, and my mistress, for a royal bed".
TUTOR "Old love is ousted by new love. Jason's no friend to this house". "It's taken you a long
time to learn that everybody loves himself more than his neighbour. These boys are nothing to their
father: he's in love". Euripides seems not to be the misogynist that he is accused
of
being.
MEDEA "For women, divorce is not respectful; to repel the man, not possible. Still more, a foreign
woman, coming among new laws, new customs, needs the skill of magic. If a man grows tired of the
company at home, he can go out, and find a cure for tediousness. We wives are forced to look to one
man only. And, they tell us, we at home live free from danger, they go'out to battle: fools! I'd rather stand
three times in the front line than bear one child."
Creon banishes Medea out of fear for his and his daughter's life.
CREON "I love my country too -next only to my daughter ."
MEDEA
"Oh, what an evil power love has in people's lives! (Creon's love for his daughter
causes hurt to Medea)
MEDEA (to Jason) -
"You filthy coward! it's not courage, this looking friends in the face after
betraying them. It is not even audacity; it's a disease pure shamelessness" "You must know you are
guilty of perjury to me"
JASON'S CASE
JASON
"I have often noticed what fatal results follow from ungoverned rage".
"You would not give up your ridiculous tirades against the royal family. So,
you're banished. However, I will not desert a friend. I have carefully
considered your problem, and come now, in spite of everything, to see that
you and the children are not sent away with an empty purse, or unprovided".
(Is this really sympathy? Acceptable from one's husband)?
"But in return for saving me you got far more than you gave. You left a
barbarous land to become a resident of Hellas; here you have known justice;
you have lived in a society where force yields place to law. Here your gifts are
widely recognised, you are famous". (But has Medea known justice from
Jason? Is she the type to be persuaded by an argument that 'force yields to
law'?)
Jason's reason for marrying the King's daughter- !I wanted to ensure that we
should live well and not be poor". (is this acceptable?). "Was such a plan,
then, wicked? Even you women have reached a state where, if all's well with
your sex-Iife, you've everything you wish for; but when that goes wrong, at
once all that is best and noblest turns to gall. If only children could be got
some other way, without the female sex! (Surely this is more likely to
antagonise?)
MEDEA'S REPLY
"If you were honest, you ought to have won me over, not got married behind
my back. But you're an ageing man and an Asiatic wife was no longer
respectable".
AGAINST MEDEA
So Jason's case appears very weak indeed, but Medea has always been
suspected of being capable of going too far in her revenge.
NURSE
"I am afraid some dreadful purpose is forming in her mind. She is a frightening
woman; no one who makes an enemy of her will carry off an easy victory".
MEDEA "Children, your mother is hated, and you are cursed: Death take you, with your father, and
perish his whole house!"
"Oh, may I see Jason and his bride ground to pieces in their shattered palace
for the wrong that have dared to do to me, unprovoked! O my father, my city,
you and I deserted; my brother I shamefully murdered!"
Creon allows Medea to remain for another day
"Now stay here, if you must, this one day. You can hardly in one day
accomplish what I am afraid of'.
"By banishing me at once he could have wanted me utterly; instead, he allows
me to remain one day. Today three of my enemies I shall strike dead: Father
and daughter; and my husband".
"I willingly deceived my father; left my house; There I put King Pelias to the
most horrible of deaths by his own daughter's hands, and ruined his whole
house".
CHORUS (about Medea)
"The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, is that which rages in the place
of dearest love". Her rage goes too far -"I will kill my sons. I will leave Corinth
a murderess, flying from my darling children' s blood. Yes, I can endure guilt,
however horrible; the laughter of my enemies I will not endure".
The Chorus as Medea's conscience
"By every pledge or appeal we beseech you, do not slaughter your children!
When your sons kneel to you for pity, will you stain your fingers with their
blood? Your heart will melt; you will know you cannot. (When an apparent
patch- up of the quarrel is made the Chorus hope for the best) May the course
of evil be checked now, go no further!".
MEDEA'S DILEMMA
JASON
"I want to see you, when you're strong, full-grown young men tread down my
enemies. (Medea breaks down and weeps) What's this? Why these floods of
tears ?"
MEDEA
"It is nothing. I was thinking about these children"
Medea sends the poisonous gifts
"The gods, and my own evil-hearted plots, have led to this".
"Dear sons, why are you staring at me so? You smile at me -your last smile:
Why? : Oh, what am I to do? My courage is all gone I can't do it. I must steel
myself to it".
Jason arrives
"I've come to save my sons, before Creon's family murder them in revenge".
(He is too late).
I was mad before, when I brought you from your palace in a land of savages
into a Greek home".
EURIPIDES’ MEDEA: Some questions
(i) Why does Medea kill her children?
Obviously, to spite Jason; to ‘take away (his) smile’ (1362). But this is an act that any human mother would
find virtually impossible. We do read of such murders in the news from time to time, and conclude that such
families must be suffering misery quite beyond comprehension. But to do such a thing purely out of malice and
the desire to make her husband suffer is so extreme as to be unreal.
How does she come to the decision to do so?
Only after gaining the reassurance of Aegeus’ promise of sanctuary in Athens; and only after twice nearly
succumbing to her own maternal feelings of tenderness and pity. We see thus that her decision is reached by
an intellectual process, her mind steeling her heart to withstand the pain. This makes her believable as a
human character—but absolutely terrifying.
Do you think she is justified?
No-one would say so in moral terms. But she is dramatically justified, i.e. the play itself gives a sort of
rightness to her action. This is where it becomes necessary to compare Euripides’ treatment with the preexisting myth that would have been known to the audience. One possible expectation is that Medea will flee
without her sons and that the Corinthians will kill them in revenge for the death of Creon and Glauce, but the
likelihood of this outcome has already been undermined by the king’s insistence that Medea should take her
sons with her into exile. Another variation of the myth has Medea killing her own sons accidentally while
performing a magical ritual intended to give them immortality. Euripides goes a stage further and has her kill
them deliberately. This is obviously intended to be shocking, so why does he do it?
(ii) How does Euripides treat Jason?
The audience’s expectation of Jason is that he should fulfil the role of the traditional hero in the story. In
certain ways he lives up to this: he refuses to be riled by Medea’s verbal assaults, and justifies his actions by
reference to the norms of Greek law and custom. On the other hand, some of his words seem calculated to
make the audience uneasy. His manner is that of a courtroom speaker rather than a man talking to his wife;
the lack of passion in his voice is unsettling. He produces reasons for his remarriage which turn out to be
utterly disingenuous, saying one minute that his children by Medea are enough, then a few lines later
suggesting that he might after all have more sons by Glauce—and that this would be a good thing for them;
and when Medea gives the lie to his whole plan by pointing out that if it had been intended, as he insists, to be
for Medea’s and the children’s own good, then he should have gained her consent for it in the first place, not
carried on in secret, he can only reply with feeble sarcasm, ‘Fine support, I think, would you have given to my
proposal’ (588). In his second scene, Jason is duped by Medea’s cunning, and at the end he plays the role of
victim, all his heroism paid out for nothing, when Medea prophesies that an ignominious death lies in store.
To what extent is the audience expected to sympathise with him?
This is the point: how are the audience’s sympathies manipulated as the play unfolds? One may say that
Medea starts out as the presumed villain, but her early scenes clearly establish her as the innocent victim, so
that when Jason first appears, we are ready to see him not as the conventional hero, but as the offending
party in the marital dispute. One may further note how Medea’s humanity, so carefully laid out at the
beginning, is progressively eroded as her plans come to fruition, so that at the end she appears not only to be
beyond human suffering, but is literally translated to the realm of the supernatural (in the dragon chariot); or
how Jason’s complacency is first exposed as his weakness, then exploited, and lastly turned upside-down in
the finale. The point is surely that by the end of the play the audience should feel thoroughly alienated from
both characters; only then does the ironic pattern make sense.
The meaning of the play depends on this. The matter of the play is set—typically for Euripides—in the sphere
of the private, not the public. (In Sophocles, for example, Oedipus’ domestic complications are serious
because of their tragic consequences for Thebes; in this play, the fates of Corinth or Athens are not issues at
all.) Jason and Medea are not presented as public figures but as parties to a marital breakdown, a conflict in
which the playwright holds a mirror up to the behaviour of men and women in his own society. In this maleoriented society, and in a theatre largely (one imagines) full of male citizens, Euripides is not going to offer a
critique of female behaviour. Medea provides the archetype of the wronged wife, but it is Jason’s attitude that
is laid out for examination.
The ironic pattern consists of the traditional hero being presented as bloodless hypocrite, and traditional
villainess presented as a suffering, wronged woman lashing out in retaliation rather than pursuing evil
spontaneously for its own sake. When this deeply unsatisfactory Jason spouts lines such as 570–575, the
men in the audience should be obliged to consider whether they can afford to endorse such sentiments. When
they see their hero brought low by a woman transformed into a fiend of vengeance, they should see that it is
those same self-satisfied male attitudes that have propelled Medea into such an extremity. Medea is ultimately
not a human character but an instrument of Jason’s downfall, and so stands as an object lesson for the men in
the audience to consider in relation to their attitudes to their own womenfolk. It is perhaps only by making her
such as extreme character, and her crime so shocking, that Euripides can achieve this effect.
Medea
Production
The setting of the Medea, as in the case of most Greek tragedies, does not
require a change of scene. Throughout the play the skene with at least one
door represents the facade of Jason's and Medea's house in Corinth. Even
when the poet directs the audience's attention to events elsewhere, as in the
case of the deaths of Creon and his daughter in the royal palace, there is no
shift of scene. These events are described in a speech delivered by a
messenger (1136-1230)1 rather than enacted before the audience. The
messenger speech eliminates the need for scene changes, which, due to the
limited resources of the ancient theater, would have been difficult and
awkward.2 Euripides, like Aeschylus and Sophocles, made a virtue of the
necessity of this convention of the ancient theater by writing elaborate
messenger speeches which provide a vivid word picture of the offstage action.
1The
numbers refer to lines in the Medea.
also explains why Creon rather surprisingly comes to Medea's house to deliver his
decree of banishment (271 ff.) instead of summoning her to the royal palace.
2This
In the exodos of the play Medea appears with the bodies of her children in a
chariot drawn by dragons either on the roof of the skene or suspended from
the mechane in the manner of a deus ex machina3 She indeed acts with the
power, authority and prophetic knowledge of a "god from the machine" when
she establishes a festival and ritual in honor of her dead children, reveals her
plans for the future and prophesies the death of Jason (1378-1388).
3Since
there are virtually no stage directions in the texts of tragedies, we cannot be sure
which manner of presentation Euripides intended.
To learn more about ancient Greek Theater, see the Greek
Theater Knowledge Builder.
EXERCISE FOR READING, COMPREHENSION AND
INTERPRETATION
Prologue (1-130) - Nurse, Tutor, Medea
What is the dramatic purpose of the Nurse's speech (1-48)? The Nurse begins
by referring to Jason's ship Argo which brought Medea to Greece from her
home in Colchis (Black Sea area). According to the Nurse, why did Medea
sail with Jason (8)? What did Medea do upon arriving in Greece at Iolcus (910)? What is the present situation in Corinth (17-25)? What is Medea's
attitude toward her children and what does the Nurse fear she might do (3643)? What rumor has the Tutor heard (70-71)? What is the Nurse's view of
Jason's behavior (82-84)? the Tutor's (85-88)? What feelings does Medea
herself express (111-114)? What moral does the Nurse draw from the
situation (119-130)?
Parados (131-212) - Chorus, Medea and Nurse
The parados is chanted by the Chorus along with the Nurse and Medea. How
does the Chorus of Corinthian women feel toward Medea (176-183)?
First Episode (214-409) - Medea, Chorus, Creon
How does Medea view her situation in Corinth (214-224)? her situation as a
married woman and mother (228-251)? as a foreigner (252-258)? What
request does Medea make of the Chorus (259-266)?
What order does Creon give to Medea (272-276)? Why does he do this (282291)? How does Medea reply to Creon's concerns (306-315)? How does
Creon react to Medea's reply (316-323)? What request does Medea make of
Creon (340-343)? What appeal does she make in support of her request (344347)? What is Creon's reaction to her request (348-356)?
After Creon's departure, how does Medea explain her behavior (368-372)?
What does Medea intend to do (373-385)? What problem is a concern to
Medea (386-390)? How determined is Medea to put her plan into action (390394)? What is Medea's motivation (395-398; 404-405)? Medea's reference to
her planning and contriving (401) would remind the audience of the meaning
of the name Medea 'the cunning contriver'. Her mention of her grandfather
Helius, the sun god, calls attention to her divine ancestry (406). What is
Medea's view of the female sex (408-409)?
First Stasimon (410-445)
What is the Chorus's reaction to the last two lines (408-409) of Medea's
speech (410-420)? What answer does the Chorus give to the ancient poets'
depiction of female faithlessness (421-430)? What is their view of Medea's
situation (431-445)? To what is the Chorus referring when they mention the
lack of respect for oaths and of shame in Greece (439-440)?
Second Episode (446-626) - Jason, Chorus and Medea
What criticism does Jason make of Medea (446-458)? What does he intend to
do for her and his children (459-464)? What answer does Medea give to
Jason's offer (465-472)? What had Medea done for Jason (476-487)?4 What
accusation does Medea make against Jason (492-495; 510-511)? What is
Medea's predicament (502-515)?
4Pelias,
fearing because of a prophecy that Jason would bring about his death, was hostile to
the hero and had tried to bring about Jason's death by sending him on the quest for the
Golden Fleece.
What is Jason's view of why Medea had helped him (527-533)? According to
Jason what advantages did Medea derive from coming to Greece with him
(535-544)? What are the reasons that Jason gives for marrying the Corinthian
princess (548-567)? What criticism does Jason make of women in general
(569-575)? What criticism does Medea make of Jason's arguments (580587)? What help does Jason offer Medea (610-614)? What is Medea's
reaction to this offer (616-618)?
Second Stasimon (627-662)
What view of love ("Cypris" = Aphrodite) does the Chorus present in the first
stanza (627-634)? What prayer does the Chorus make in reference to Cypris
in the second stanza (635-641)? To whom is the Chorus referring in the third
and fourth stanzas (643-662)?
Third Episode (663-823) - Aegeus, Medea and Chorus
What question did Aegeus ask of the Delphic Oracle (669)? What was the
oracle's answer (679-681)? What request does Medea make of Aegeus (710713)? What does Medea offer to do in return for Aegeus (715-718)? What is
Aegeus's reply (723-724)? What is the only condition under which Aegeus will
receive Medea into his land (Athens) (727-730)? What does Medea require
Aegeus to do(731-732)? Why (734-740)? What is Aegeus's reaction to this
requirement (741-745)? By whom does Medea make Aegeus swear (746)?
After Aegeus's departure why does Medea rejoice (764-771)? What will
Medea do now with regard to Jason's intended bride (783-790)? What does
she plan to do next (792-793)? What will she achieve through this action (794806; 817)? What is her motivation in this action (797; 807-810)? Why at this
point in the play has Medea decided on this form of revenge?
Third Stasimon (824-865)
What has occasioned this choral ode in praise of Athens ("descendants of
Erechtheus" = Athenians)? What does the Chorus specifically praise in
reference to Athens (824-845)? What does the Chorus ask Medea in the
second half of the ode (846-865)?
Fourth Episode (866-975) - Jason, Medea, and Chorus
What general attitude does Medea now present to Jason (869-905)? What is
Jason's reaction to Medea's apparent change of mind (908-913)? How are
lines 916-921 ironic? What does Medea want Jason to do (939-940)? How
does Medea suggest Jason should go about this (942-943)? What will Medea
do to help Jason in this endeavor (947-955)? What does Jason think of this
help (959-963)?
Fourth Stasimon (976-1001)
What does the Chorus predict for Jason's intended bride, Jason, and Medea?
Fifth Episode (1002-1250)
What news does the Tutor report to Medea (1002-1004)? What is Medea's
reaction to this news (1005-1016)? Why does she react in this way? What
reasons does Medea give why she should kill her children? Explain how
Medea is ambivalent with regard to what she is considering (1021-1080)?
What is the Chorus's view of the parent-child relationship (1081-1115)? What
specific relevance do these general comments have for the immediate
situation of the play?
The Messenger reports the deaths of the princess and Creon himself to
Medea. How were their deaths accomplished (1168-1221)? What general
comments does the Messenger make on what has just happened (12241230)? What does Medea intend to do now (1236-1250)?
Fifth Stasimon (1251-1292)
What prayer does the Chorus make to the Earth and the Sun (1251-1260)?
What warning does the Chorus give to Medea (1261-1270)?
Exodos (1293-end) - Jason, Chorus and Medea
What concern does Jason express upon hearing of his children's deaths5
(1326)? What assumption does Jason make about the attitude of the Sun
(Helius) toward Medea's action (1327)? Is he correct in this assumption?
Explain your answer. According to Jason, why did Medea kill her children
(1338)? What plans does Medea have for her children (1378-1383)? for
herself (1384-1385)? What does she predict for Jason (1386-1388)? What
reason does Medea give for having killed her children (1398)? What comment
does the Chorus make on the events of the play (1415-1419)?
5The
murder of the children by Medea seems to have been an invention of Euripides. In other
versions of the legend Medea does not murder her children. One version has Medea kill her
children accidentally, while another has them killed by the Corinthians; yet another has
Creon's kinsmen kill them in revenge for Creon's death and circulate a rumor that Medea had
murdered them.
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