DISCUSSION: Medea and Lysistrata

In these 2 weeks we are looking at 4 Greek plays: Medea, Lysistrata, Antigone and Phedre (though Racine's work is a 17th century play, not a Greek text).  During this week's class we discussed some of the characteristics of the audiences for whom the plays would have been written.

Medea was written for an Athenian audience.  They would have seen Medea as an outsider, a foreigner and therefore not necessarily as deserving of rights and duties as a Greek would be.  In general the breaking of a vow or oath would be a serious transgression.  Jason's breaking of his wedding vows to Medea was serious but there was some debate as to whether the Athenian audience would have felt the same about a vow made to Medea, the barbarian.

I think they would have, based on the fact that the Greek king, Aegeus, feels that Medea has been wronged and offers her sanctuary if she can get herself safely to his kingdom (though part of his willingness to help, he acknowledges, is that Medea has promised to grant his desire for children).  Euripides did not make Jason an admirable character and at the end, Medea is safe, rescued by the god Helios and taken away from Corinth to safety.  It's difficult to know how the Athenian audiences would have reacted to this ending.  Her filicide would have shocked the audience though they may have been sympathetic to her passion and to how she was wronged by Jason.

One rewarding side aspect of reading these plays is being sent some images of ancient Greek art that portray scenes from these stories.  I remember visiting numerous museum collections during travels in Europe (British Museum, Louvre, museums in Olympia, Athens and Crete etc) and looking at Greek pottery, friezes etc.  The names and scenes meant little to me at the time.

Calyx from the Cleveland Museum  FLICKR photo of Lucanian Vase

It was very important to the Greeks of the time to be a citizen of a Greek city - and Jason's efforts to secure himself a place as a citizen of Corinth would have likely been seen as very justified.  The concept of 'exile' came up.  Jason was exiled from his land of birth several times and likely was motivated to act as he did in Corinth in order to end his exile and find a safe place of refuge as a citizen.
Medea became an exile through her love and devotion to Jason and then was faced with being exiled from Jason when he betrayed her.  Though she was able to negotiate a refuge for herself with Aegeus, (and was rational enough to arrange this before enacting her vengeance) her main passion was for revenge on Jason at whatever cost.

"Exile" is still a powerful situation today. One of the group mentioned a case where a man was exiled from Nelson for harassing a woman and the judge's decision was overturned because this was considered too harsh of a punishment.  The aboriginal justice system contemplates exile from the community as a potential punishment.  Exile or banishment is still used in Mormon communities such as Bountiful, to devastating effect on those banished.  Society functionally exiles those labelled as social pariahs such as sex offenders, particularly pedophiles.  The Dalai Lama was exiled from Tibet by China but in this case, one could argue that he may have become a more galvanizing world figure because of this.

The definition of the word "reason" also came up.

Reason (n.), to reason (v.)
Reasoned decision
Rationale
Rationalizing a decision

The Oxford dictionary sets down several definitions for 'reason'
Oxford Dictionary: reason

1.  a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event:

2.   [mass noun] the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements logically:

The verb 'to reason' is very different from 'to rationalize, which is what Jason seems to be doing (sophistry).

Rationalize  Oxford Dictionary: rationalize

1.  attempt to explain or justify (behaviour or an attitude) with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate:

Sophistry  Oxford Dictionary: sophistry

1.   the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving

Medea reasoned out a plan to punish Jason (and Creon and his daughter) as well as how she (alone of her family) could escape to a place of refuge, but her decisions were not balanced, reasoned decisions.  Her actions were governed only by her own pain and rage, not by the needs or rights of anyone else.  And she would not allow anyone to try and sway her from her decision.  We spoke about how reason that isn't tempered by ethics (instrumental reasoning) can degenerate into evil.

Medea is not unperceptive.  She says:

Yet there are other people who,

just because they lead a quiet life,

are thought to be aloof.

There is no justice in human eyesight:

people take one look and hate a man,

before they know his heart,

though no injustice has been done to them.

The viewpoint of the stranger.

We discussed how both Jason and Medea contributed to their eventual problems.  Jason won the Golden Fleece by accepting Medea's ruthless help, help which was motivated by her passion for Jason. How could Jason have expected Medea to calmly and complaisantly take a back seat while he breaks his vows to her and marries another woman, endangering Medea and their children - though Jason tries to convince her that 'I did it all for us honey'.

I found it hard at the end of Medea to take away any compelling message.  There were no characters that I unequivocally liked, no one who seemed to have the moral high ground, certainly no winners.  This may just reflect a view the Greeks had that the ways of the gods and of the powerful were mysterious and unpredictable.  It may have been their way to explain the unpredictable, how devastating and tragic events can occur, seemingly for no reason and unfairly.  As the Nurse warns in the play:

I would never want to be grand and majestic - just let me grown old in simple security.

Even the word "moderation" sounds good when you say it.

For mortals the middle is the safest, in word and deed.

Too much is too much, and there is always a danger

a god may get angry and ruin your household.

One intriguing thought from the chorus is about the power of music.

...no one took the time to discover the music that might do some good, the chords or the harmony

people could use to relieve all the hateful pain and distress

that leads to the downfall of houses, the deaths and the dreadful misfortunes.

Let me tell you, there would be some gain in that - music with the power to heal.

Euripides did seem somewhat sympathetic towards women.  He describes with sympathy the lot of women, having to obtain security through marriage and to adapt themselves to whomever their husband is.   He has Medea say

I'd rather take my stand behind a shield three times

than go through childbirth once.

Medea is certainly a strong woman but for me, her flaws are too horrifying.

By contrast Lysistrata is eminently admirable.  Also a strong woman but passion tempered with reason. And because of that, her situation ends well.  Peace and happiness vs death and loss.

I really did not like some aspects of the translation we used.  In both the Hackett translation and the Signet one I used, the translator gave the Spartan women an "appalachian" type accent.  I found it very jarring and it kept bringing me out of 5th century Greece and into some Hatfield & McCoy or Deliverance type locale.  Lauren had a Penguin Classics text and that translator gave the Spartans a Yorkshire dialect.  I found this more palatable though maybe to a British reader it would be equally grating.

The humour was quite broad and sexual in Lysistrata - it would be interesting to see it performed and see how it holds up today.  We spoke in class about whether and how the play would have been different if it had been written by a woman, such as Sappho.  I think it would have been more lyrical and more passionate.  Lysistrata would possibly have had more emotion, more connection to the people and the world around her.

The main passion in this play is lust, a fairly shallow passion.  There is sexual lust (which is surprisingly egalitarian in Lysistrata - men and women both suffering when sex is withdrawn); and there is blood lust - the men wanting to continue the war.

I much preferred Lysistrata as a woman and as a character.  The balance of reason and passion with reason having the upper hand was preferable to Medea's uncontrolled and destructive passion.