MEDEA by Euripides



MEDEA (Euripides, Transl. Diane Arnson Svarlien, Hackett 2008)

We have 2 plays to read this week, both Greek playwrights from the 5th century B.C.E.
Medea is a play about the end of Jason and Medea's marriage.  In the fine tradition of Greek tragedy, the marriage ends in slaughter and the utter decimation of many lives.  I didn't remember the details of the story but, briefly, Jason was challenged by his uncle to bring back the Golden Fleece from Colchis in order to reclaim his patrimony.  Medea, beautiful daughter of Aeetes (King of Colchis), falls in love with Jason and betrays her father in order to help Jason succeed.  She flees with Jason and his Argonauts, and in order to delay pursuit she kills her younger brother, chopping him into pieces so that she can throw them overboard and thus delay the pursuing fleet.  Jason's uncle then betrays him again, denying him the throne.  Jason and Medea eventually end up in Corinth and have 2 sons.  The play opens as Medea finds out she and her 2 children are being banished from Corinth by Creon, King of Corinth.  Jason has married the daughter of Creon, betraying his vows to Medea.

Medea is an incredibly strong character.  I had a hard time sympathizing with her due to her background (her pre-Corinth actions).  She asks Jason
"Where do I turn now? To my father's household and fatherland, which I betrayed for you? Or Pelias' poor daughters?  Naturally they'll welcome me - the one who killed their father!"  

Hard to sympathize with a woman who was so much the cause of her situation.  She is ruthless, betraying everyone around her because of her passion for Jason, yet furious with him when he in turn betrays her.  And she is so single-minded and bent on revenge that she won't be swayed from her plan to slaughter her children as revenge upon their father.

The Chorus asks Medea:
"Since you have brought this plan to us, and since
I want to help you, and since I support
the laws of mankind, I ask you not to do this."

But Medea won't listen.
"There is no other way.  It's understandable
that you would say this - you're not the one who's suffered."

Chorus:
"Will you have the nerve to kill your children?"

Medea:
"Yes: to wound my husband the most deeply."

In modern terms, one could almost call her a psychopath - amoral and only aware of her own needs.  As an aside, it's interesting how many psychological terms come from Greek myth: narcissistic personality, oedipal complex, psychopath (from Psyche, beloved of Eros), phobic (from Phobos, son of Aphrodite) etc.
Medea is furious with Jason for betraying and abandoning her, and though she justifies why he deserves retribution, instead of killing him, she kills their children as well as his new wife (who didn't betray any vows).  She also kills the king, Creon, whose decision to banish her seems reasonable given Medea's very vocal reaction to the marriage of his daughter and Jason, and Medea's threats against Creon's kingdom and family.

Medea seems governed solely by passion.  She is clever and plots her revenge but she doesn't make a reasonable decision.  She justifies a course of action that answers her immediate desires - and hers alone.  She also arranges a sanctuary (again only for her, not for her children) with Aegeus, a visiting king, so she makes sure she will be OK, even while she is laying waste to everyone around her.

Jason seems reasonable, though ineffectual, as he tries to convince Medea that his actions in marrying the princess were done solely to secure a place in Corinth for them all: Jason, Medea and their two children.  He comes across as weak and stupid, trying to placate Medea and convince her to be complaisant, to be a "good girl" and just go along with his plans.

The strong words and passion of Medea contrast with the reasoned and descriptive speeches of the chorus, who tries to dissuade Medea.  Euripides (through the chorus' words, seems to join passion (Desire) and reason (Wisdom) as both ruling together:

The children of Erechtheus have always prospered,

descended from blessed gods.

They graze, in their sacred stronghold, on glorious wisdom,

with a delicate step through the clear brilliant air.

They say that there

the nine Pierian Muses once gave birth

to Harmony with golden hair.

They sing that Cypris dipped her pitcher in the waters

of beautiful Cephisus;

she sighed, and her breaths were fragrant and temperate breezes.

With a garland of sweet-smelling roses in her hair

she sends Desires

to take their places alongside Wisdom's throne

and nurture excellence with her.

This seems to contradict Nietzche's argument (as set down in Robin Mitchell-Boyask's introduction to Medea) that Euripides destroyed Greek tragedy by favouring reason over passion.  Nietzche [apparently] thought that Greek tragedy balanced "the two primary forces in the human spirit, the Apollonian (the rational) and the Dionysian (the irrational)".  In Medea, Euripides seems to say that passion and reason are both needed for excellence though in Medea, passion seems to have prevailed.  Medea is governed almost exclusively by her passions.  Jason appears to have tried to use reason to guide his decisions: accepting Medea's help to obtain the Golden Fleece and, when that didn't give him the throne and security he wanted, marrying the Corinthian princess in order to secure himself a place in Corinth.  It all seems very reasoned though also very self-serving - and somewhat clueless if he thought Medea would calmly go along with his actions.

In the end Passion seems to win out.  The Corinthian royals are murdered, Jason's life is laid waste as he loses all: new wife, father-in-law, security in Corinth, his children and his 1st wife, Medea.  Medea and Jason's children are slaughtered by their mother and the only person to survive is Medea, who escapes the carnage she brought about, in a flying chariot, protected by her grandfather, the sun god Helios.