Medea (Play)

Medea is a play by the Greek playwright Euripides. It is regarded by some to be his most moving tragedy.^[1]

Summary[edit]

The following summary was adapted directly from the text, as translated by Edward Coleridge and republished in the Great Books of the Western World.

The play begins with the many laments of Medea, seeming a poor victim, as her husband Jason has married another, the daughter of Creon, as Creon is the ruler of Corinth. Medea speaks to her nurse and her attendants of how she feels so angry, so suicidal. Worsening things comes Creon himself, to inform her that she has been ostracized and is banished from Corinth. She pretends to take this in stride and be unaffected, but Creon, knowing her to be a powerful sorceress, replies:

“

Thy words are soft to hear, but much I dread lest thou art devising some mischief in they heart, and less than ever do I trust thee now; for a cunning woman, and man likewise, is easier to guard against when quick-tempered than when taciturn.

”

He is of course correct, and speaks to herself and to the omnipotent chorus of Corinthian women how she must kill Jason, Creon, and Jason's new wife. She eliminates such obvious ideas as the use of a sword and knows she must use her sorcery to poison them.

Jason arrives home to her, hoping she is happy to leave Corinth, but finds her happy only to curse him and vex him. He attempts to use his skills as an orator to convince her that his bigamy is acceptable, and is meant to better all of them, but she hates his lies and sends him away from the house. She cites that she has no other place to live being banished from Corinth.

She is then met by Ægeus, a man who says he has been to the oracle at Delphi and is on a quest. He asks why she is sad, and she explains what Jason and Creon have done to her. He swears to avenge her and never to expel her from his own land, accepting any punishment as normally done to the impious, and expects no aid of Medea's.

She then chats with the chorus and with Jason, claiming to understand his arguments, and accepting any blame for what she did to the family (not needing any more children, thus forcing Jason to seek another consort). She offers him gifts, and sends her children away to the palace of Creon's daughter to give her a crown and robe. She is now poorer than ever before, and believes for some reason that her children must die.

Medea's Revenge[edit]

As the play continues, things seem less tragic to Medea.

A messenger arrives later, to inform her of what happened to Creon and his daughter. As Creon's daughter applied the robe and strutted about, she was struck ill, and her father perished in reaching to save her. The messenger states:

“

In a moment she turned pale, reeled backwards, trembling in every limb, and sinks upon a seat scarce soon enough to save herself from falling to the ground. An aged dame, one of her company, thinking belike it was a fit from Pan or some other god sent, raised a cry of prayer, till from her mouth she saw the foam-flakes issue, her eyeballs rolling in their sockets, and all the blood her face desert; then she did raise a loud scream far from her husband's cry. ... She with one awful shriek awoke, poor sufferer, from her speechless trance, and opened her closed eyes, for against her a twofold anguish was warring. The chaplet of gold about her head was sending forth a wondrous stream of ravening fame, while the fine raiment, thy children's gift, was preying on the hapless maiden's fair white flesh.

”

Medea then sends away the messenger, and knowing Jason to be alive, steels her heart in order to slay her children. She does this with a cruel vengeance, trapping them inside the house and leaving them butchered.

Jason returns home, and the chorus informs him that his children, like his bride and father-in-law, are dead. He finds Medea on a chariot pulled by dragons, and calls her a lioness crueler than Scylla. She admits to her copious cruelty in trying to vex him. She casts him away to bury Creon and his daughter and plans to take her own children to the sacred fields of Hera, where they will not be disturbed.

See also[edit]

Plays[edit]

• Rhesus by Euripides
• The Bacchae by Euripides
• Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Playwrights[edit]

• Sophocles
• Aeschylus, the father of tragedy

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Complete Text at the MIT Internet archive.