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In considering women’s history in Greek Drama, one name always comes to mind. Medea remains an influential character in the story of a time where mythological tales intertwine with true history. Euripides’ Medea is a play that was written to save the reputation of the Greek city of Corinth. It is a controversial play charting the pain of a woman in love who knows not how to deal with the tempestuous loss of her husband, Jason, a man whom she gave the world to. The original story was close to that of Euripides, however, in it, Creon the King kills Medea’s children. This led to the avoidance and fear of tourists of the city of Corinth. It seemed that the only solution was to blame someone else. So, Medea was turned into a murderous mother. In this, I compare the true story to Euripides’ creation.
Medea’s true story begins before she was born in Thessaly. In the th century B.C., a king and queen named Athamas and Nephele had two children named Helle and Phryxus. Athamus went through a mid-life crisis during which he lost interest in Nephele, and took a younger wife. Nephele feared the younger wife would mistreat the children, so she appealed to the god Mercury. Mercury gave her a ram with golden fleece. Nephele put her children on the ram’s back and the ram flew east toward Colchis, in northeast Turkey, where Aeetes, Medea’s future father lived. En route, Helle fell off the ram’s back into the sea. The ram landed safely with Phryxus on his back. Phryxus sacrificed the ram to the god Jupiter and gave the golden fleece to Aeetes, who placed it in a sacred grove in Colchis, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, under the care of a sleepless dragon. Medea was born into this magic-filled kingdom. Her mother died giving birth to her, and her older sister nursed her. Her aunt Circe (famous for turning men into pigs in The Odyssey) taught her how to call upon the gods to aid her sorcery.
Meanwhile, in another kingdom in Thessaly, another king, Aeson, also had a mid-life crisis. Aeson decided to give up ruling his kingdom and turned the country over to his brother Pelias on the condition that Pelias would give the kingdom to Aeson’s son, Jason, as soon as he was old enough to rule. But when Jason came of age, Pelias pretended to be willing to turn over the throne, but suggested that Jason might want to have a glorious adventure first -- a quest for the golden fleece. Pelias pretended that this fleece was the rightful property of his family because he was a relative of Athamas.
Jason liked the idea and built the biggest boat ever seen in Greece for the adventure. He hired Argus, a famous boat builder, to make him a boat that would hold 50 people. Normal Greek boats were simply hollowed out trees and small canoes. Jason was so pleased with this boat that he named it “Argo” after the builder. While Argus was building the boat, Jason recruited a band of heroes to accompany him Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus, and Nestor were among these Argonauts.
When Jason arrived in Colchis, Medea was old enough to marry. Jason told Aeetes of his quest for the golden fleece. Aeetes consented to give Jason the fleece if Jason would lead two fire-breathing bulls to a plow and plant a field with the teeth of a dragon, from which it was well-known that a crop of armed men would spring up and turn their weapons against their producer. Jason promised Medea to marry her if she would give him success. They stood before the altar of Hecate and called the goddess to witness his oath. Then Jason accepted Aeetes’ offer. Medea gave Jason a magic charm by which he could safely encounter the breath of fire-breathing bulls and the weapons of the armed men. Her spells caused the dragon that guarded the fleece to sleep.
Though the fire that discharged from the bull’s nostrils roared like a furnace and burned up the plants as they passed, Jason walked straight up to the bulls, placed his hands on their necks and spoke calmly to them as he slipped the yoke over them. At the ceremony afterwards, during which Aeetes gave Jason the fleece and Medea married him, Jason felt something was missing. His father, Aeson, now old and sick was unable to come to the wedding. Jason asked Medea to use her arts to restore youth to his father -- he offered “take years from my life and add them to my father’s.”
Medea said she could give youth to his father without taking any years from her husband. Then she invoked Hecate of the underworld, Tellus who blesses the crops, and other natural gods. While she spoke the stars shone brightly and a chariot drawn by flying serpents bore her aloft to distant regions where for nine days and nine nights she gathered the mystical herbs and stones she needed for her sorcery.
She erected altars to Hebe, the goddess of youth. She appealed to Pluto and his stolen bride Persephone not to claim the old man’s life. Then she called white-haired Aeson forth and laid him on a bed of herbs like one dead. Beside him she made her brew. When the brew was done, she dipped in a dead olive branch, and when she pulled it out covered with leaves young olives. Where the brew dripped on the ground, grass sprang forth like spring. Seeing that all was ready, she put Aeson into a charmed sleep and slit his throat to let out all his blood. Then she poured her brew into his mouth and wound. Soon his hair and beard darkened and his limbs became muscular and strong. Aeson awoke and claimed to feel 40 years younger.
Medea’s father, Aeetes, did not want her to leave Colchis. Medea escaped in the night to go with her husband, Jason on the Argo. Her brother, Absyrtus, came after them. According to the religion of Medea’s father, it was essential to bury the bodies of the dead whole. To delay her father from following them and bringing her back, Medea killed her brother and chopped his body into pieces that she threw overboard, so her father would have to retrieve them.
One night, the Argo and a boat from Athens carrying Aegeus were stopped in the same harbor. Medea fell in love with Aegeus. But Aegeus was courting Aethra, daughter of another king also named Aeetes. Medea became jealous and cursed Aegeus to be childless. Then Aethra came to Medea as a sorceress and asked her to give her a child. Medea used her magic and Aethra became pregnant with a son she named Theseus. Aegeus lost interest in Aethra before the child was born. He left his sword and sandals under a stone in Aeetes’ courtyard and told Aethra that if the child were a son, when he grew strong enough, he should roll aside the stone, put on the sandals and carry the sword to Athens to meet his father. Medea used her arts to watch over the child as he grew.
Meanwhile, Pelias still refused to give Jason the throne, when he returned to Thessaly. But he too wanted to be young like Aeson. Again, Medea prepared her brew. She asked Pelias’ daughters to let his blood out. When they had done so, she and Jason were long gone -- off on another adventure. On this adventure, Jason behaved like Athamas before him. He lost interest in Medea and married Creusa, the daughter of the King of Corinth. Medea sent a poisoned robe as a gift to Creusa, killing her. Creon, the King of Corinth, retaliated by killing 1 of Medea’s 14 children and laid their bodies in the marketplace for all to see. Here is where the histories become confused. Even 400 years after these events, tourists were still avoiding Corinth. Nobody wanted to visit a country where the king killed children.
As she left Corinth, Hecate told Medea that the gods had only given her powers so she could help Jason -- because he, not she, was their favorite. And if she was to leave Jason, they would no longer help her sorcery. In fact, if she tried, they would curse her.
Medea fled Corinth with her one remaining child to Athens (one of the few cities in which she did not commit crimes for Jason) and sought out Aegeus. His son, Theseus had not come to Athens yet, so Aegeus thought himself childless. Medea married Aegeus and he, unable to believe she had cursed him, asked her to have his child. Medea asked her aunt Circe to give them a child and, expecting to be refused, Medea went to Turkey and became pregnant with Medeus.
Meanwhile, Theseus finally rolled away the stone and put on Aegeus’ sandals and sword and headed toward Athens. Along the roads, he killed many bandits and tyrants. As this play opens, Theseus is headed toward Athens.
With tourism dropping, in the 5th century B.C., the playwright Euripides was hired to write a play blaming Medea for the deaths of her children. He reduced the number of children from 14 to and then in his play, had Medea stabbing her own children. This play convinced many people and this version of events appears in most mythology books available today.
Euripides’ version opens with Jason having left Medea for Glauce, the Daughter of Creon. She is a young and beautiful princess that is mostly ignorant of what their relationship is doing to Jason’s family. Although she never utters a word, Glauces presence is constantly felt as an object of Medeas jealousy. When Medea hears of his betrayal, she speaks to Jason with anger and hatred almost as if man-to-man. Here, Euripides portrays her as a strong woman who feels much is owed to her. Jason accuses Medea of overreacting. By voicing her grievances so publicly, she has endangered her life and that of their children. He claims that his decision to remarry was in everyones best interest. Medea finds him spineless, and she refuses to accept his token offers of help. Insulted, she reminds him of what she has done for him and that even with money, she would not be accepted anywhere.
King Creon banishes her and her children from Corinth because he knows of her sorcery and he fears for his life and that of his daughter. At first, Medea pleads as the betrayed wife and begs Creon for his mercy but he refuses. Eventually, he gives in and grants her one full day to set her matters in order. She immediately informs her chorus that one day is all she will need to exact her revenge. She plans to complete her quest for justice--at this stage in her thinking, the murder of Creon, Glauce, and Jason. The chorus, representative of the Corinthian women, reluctantly sides with her but admits that she is a woman mad with heartbreak and cannot think clearly.
Appearing by chance in Corinth, Aegeus, King of Athens, offers Medea sanctuary in his home city in exchange for her knowledge of certain drugs that can cure his sterility. Now guaranteed an eventual haven in Athens, Medea has cleared all obstacles to completing her revenge, a plan which grows to include the murder of her own children; the pain their loss will cause her does not outweigh the satisfaction she will feel in making Jason suffer.
For the balance of the play, Medea engages in a ruse; she pretends to sympathize with Jason and offers his wife gifts, a coronet and dress. Ostensibly, the gifts are meant to convince Glauce to ask her father to allow the children to stay in Corinth. The coronet and dress are actually poisoned, however, and their delivery causes Glauces death. Seeing his daughter ravaged by the poison, Creon chooses to die by her side by dramatically embracing her and absorbing the poison himself.
A messenger recounts the gruesome details of these deaths, which Medea absorbs with cool attentiveness. Her earlier state of anxiety, which intensified as she struggled with the decision to murder her children, has now given way to a determination to fulfill her plans. Against the protests of the chorus, Medea murders her children and flees the scene in a dragon-pulled chariot provided by her grandfather, the Sun God. Jason is left cursing his lot; his hope of advancing his station by abandoning Medea and marrying Glauce, the conflict that opened the play, has been annihilated, and everything he values has been lost through the deaths that conclude the tragedy.
The innocent deaths of Medea’s children provide the greatest element of pathos--the tragic emotion of pity--in the play and gained a favorable reputation. And although a minor character, Creons suicidal embrace of his dying daughter provides one of the plays most dramatic moments, and his sentence against Medea lends urgency to her plans for revenge. This brought the city of Corinth great love and respect for its old King. Creon reveals that his persona of being a cruel, powerful king covers the truth of his sympathetic, sensitive feelings towards his acquaintances. Euripides successfully weaves this theme into the epic play. Aegeus functions in several ways as a complement to Jason. His marriage is childless, but he has remained loyal to his wife and seeks help from the oracle. Jason has broken his alliance with Medea in spite of the tie of children. Also, Aegeus acknowledges that Jason has treated Medea unjustly and he goes beyond mere sympathy in actually promising her refuge in return for her promise of ending his childlessness.
The one aspect about Jason that was fairly obvious and flattering to his character was that he was not so much torn by the deaths oh his new bride and father-in-law but by the loss of his children. He mourned them more than the loss of his plan to succeed in life. He also attempted to befriend Medea after what he had done. This, however, seemed to be only to save face with those around them. Other versions of this myth have made him sound less considerate. He was quiet distrusting of Medea’s intentions of giving yet Euripides never made him realize what it was that she was offering him. She was passing along gifts she had received from her family. She was somewhat offering Glauce a dowry for the husband she was giving up. Jason’s character was not only shaped as a careless husband but also insensitive to all of his surroundings.
Euripides’ took the characters of this tale an embellished their best qualities. This was not the case for the protagonist. Medea is a character who is skillful at speaking many languages. The chorus members fully sympathize with Medeas predicament, excepting her eventual decision to murder her own children. When she addresses herself, in the great monologue, two distinct voices appear that of the pitiful mother who loves her children and, the voice of the heroic warrior who demands revenge. The play revolves around Medeas emotional transformation, a succession from suicidal hopelessness to vicious fury. She eventually avenges Jasons betrayal with a series of murders. This, of course, is not typical of a mother and is what makes her such a notorious character.
Medea is a Xenos. She is not Greek. She is a “barbarian” from the land of Colchis. Euripides, however, is Greek and his portrayal of a woman from an alien land should not be viewed as a favor to the sex but rather an insult to all women not Greek. This was typical of Greek drama. People from other lands were constantly demeaned in order to bring some comic relief to the theatre. It also helped Greeks better understand stories and made protagonists more heroic by making those around them aliens.
Euripides is not viewed as one of the most upbeat or well-liked Greek poets, including Aeschylus and Sophocles, and had the least amount of success in his own lifetime. However, more of his plays have survived than those written by Aeschylus and Sophocles combined. Some critics say he is fascinated by the oppressed, especially women. Euripides’ Medea presents the reader with a sly version of a “subordinate” woman. It is Medea’s cunning ability to manipulate that sets her apart from the subordinate women of Athens. Euripides portrays her as having qualities seemingly unfit for a woman, qualities that, if given to a man, would receive praise. With an almost inhuman characteristic, Medea plays perfectly on the weaknesses and needs of both her enemies and her supporters.
Euripides brought Athens and Corinth a story about a woman whose mind was tortured, heart was tormented and soul was cursed by the stars. With the pain that this woman went through, it is unfair to call her a criminal, especially for the sake of a city’s fear of economic loss. As a result, she is called a murderer, a heartless woman who took the lives of her children to punish a man who didn’t love her. Many writers have been baffled by her audacity and yet, for years, her myth was a mystery. There are quiet a few versions of Medea’s true life story. Does it do this character any good to argue on her behalf? The world’s view of her is already fairly tainted. Fortunately, to many, she is still considered a hero. She spoke up about her true feelings and paved the way for women of her time. Although, Euripides didn’t do her much justice by writing in the murder of her own children, he did bring her fame and credit for just living.
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