This play, about the terrible revenge a spurned wife takes on her husband by killing his new wife as well as the two children she has by him, in the 20th c. became the most popular Greek tragedy. Euripides' play was interpreted in a variety of ways, from political to
psychoanalytical and above all through feminist readings, which consider the play as an exploration of the disadvantages of being a woman in a patriarchal society.
The play is centered on Medea's calculated desire for revenge against her unfaithful husband Jason. After the adventures of stealing the miraculous Golden Fleece from the
property of the king of Colchis (Medea's father), the Greek hero Jason
has fled with his wife Medea to Corinth, where king Creon has granted them
asylum. However, in Corinth Jason's love for Medea soon cools and he
seeks to advance his political ambitions by marrying princess Glauce, the
daughter of King Creon.
[Alfons Mucha - Medea]
When reading the play, it is important to realize the following aspects about Medea. She is not from Greece, but from the Caucasus - in other words, she is a "barbarian" to the Greeks, who were very xenophobic in that period, and her life in Corinth as "immigrant" is not easy. She is also a "sorceress" - she has a deep knowledge of herbs and poisons. And finally, she can be very violent, as when she helped Jason obtain the Golden Fleece by killing her brother.
The play begins with Medea in a blind rage towards Jason for arranging to marry Glauce. Her elderly nurse and the chorus of Corinthian women (generally
sympathetic to her plight) fear what she might do to herself or her
children. King Creon, also fearing violence, announces that he will send her into exile with her two boys. Medea pleads for one day's delay and eventually Creon acquiesces - unwittingly giving her enough time for her revenge.
In the next scene Jason arrives to explain the rationale behind his apparent betrayal. He explains that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to marry a royal princess - after all, Medea is from Colchis in the Caucasus and is only a "barbarian" woman to the Greeks. He hopes to someday join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. It will be beneficial for all of them. Although Jason reasons rationally and pragmatically, Medea, and the chorus of Corinthian women, do not believe him. She reminds him that she left her own people for him - and that she has even murdered her own brother for his sake. This means she can never return to her homeland, Colchis. She has also saved Jason's life by slaying the dragon which guarded the Golden Fleece. Jason promises to support her after his new marriage, but Medea spurns his words as a mere pretext, and hints darkly that he may live to regret his decision.
In the following scene Medea encounters Aegeus, king of Athens. He reveals to her that despite his marriage he is still without children, and asks the renowned sorceress to help his wife conceive a child. Medea agrees to give him herbs which can end infertility and in return asks for his protection. Aegeus is not aware of Medea‘s plans for revenge, but he promises to give her refuge whenever she comes to Athens.
[Jason and Medea by John William Waterhouse (1907)]
Medea then starts plotting the murders of Glauce and Creon. She decides to drench in poison a golden robe (a family heirloom and gift from the sun god Helios) and a coronet, in the hope that the bride will not be able to resist wearing them, and consequently be poisoned. Medea also resolves to kill the two sons she has by Jason, not because the children have done anything wrong, but because it is the best way her tortured mind can think of deeply hurting Jason. Thereupon Medea deceives Jason by pretending to apologize to him and telling him that she wants to send reconciling
gifts to the king's daughter so that at least their children will be
spared from exile. She then sends the poisoned robe and crown as a gift to Glauce, with her children as
the gift-bearers.
In the next scene a messenger arrives to recount Glauce and Creon's deaths (deaths were never shown on stage in ancient Greece). When the children arrived with the robes and coronet, Glauce immediately put them on and went to find her father. The poison overtook her and she fell to the floor, dying a painful death. Creon clutched her tightly as he tried to save her and, by coming in contact with the robe and coronet, was poisoned as well.
Medea wrestles with herself over whether she can bring herself to kill her own children, speaking lovingly to them all the while in a rather chilling scene. After a moment of hesitation, she eventually justifies it as a way of saving them from the retribution of Jason and Creon‘s family, and rushes offstage with a knife to kill her children. As the chorus of women laments her decision, the children are heard screaming backstage. The chorus considers interfering, but in the end does nothing. Medea then appears above the stage flying through the sky with the bodies of her children in
the chariot of the sun god Helios, her grandfather, mocking and gloating over Jason‘s pain. She prophesies a bad end for Jason before escaping towards Athens
with her children’s bodies. The play ends with the chorus lamenting that
such tragic and unexpected evils should result from the will of the
gods.
[Medea by Frederick Sandys, 1866-68]
Euripides is considered the master of psychology among the ancient playwrights. The fate of his characters is less influenced by divine coincidences than by their own passions, contradictions, interpersonal misunderstandings and complex relationship problems.
However, the image of a woman driven by thirst for revenge and hatred disturbed his contemporaries, so initially the Medea was not very popular. In addition, Euripides completely de-heroized the Argonaut myth, which had been known since Homer's time, and traced the conflict between Medea and Jason back to purely human motives. That Medea kills her children to get revenge on Jason also is an invention of Euripides. In older versions, the boys were slain by the Corinthians out of revenge for the murder of Creon. The flight in Helios' sun chariot is another element added by Euripides. Euripides has created the tragic story of the destruction of a family and the transition from unconditional love to maddened destructiveness. At the same time, Euripides anchors Medea's acts in comprehensible, realistic motifs: in a world determined by men, she, a foreign woman, is in every respect “the stranger.”
Today the play is part of the standard theater repertoire and one of the most frequently performed pieces of antiquity.
There have been countless adaptations: for the theater, such as by Seneca (first century CE), Grillparzer (1821), Jean Anouilh (1946), a Broadway play in 1947, a Japanese "Kabuki Medea," and on film, for example in 1969 by Pasolini with Maria Callas as Medea, as well as by Lars von Tier in 1988. Several operas were also based on the play, the best one is Médée (1797) by Luigi Cherubini.
To conclude, a few words about Euripides (480-406 BCE). More than 90 plays have been attributed to him, of which 18 have come down to us intact (a 19th one, Rhesus, us of suspect authenticity) - which is more than from any other classical Greek playwright. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. In his tragedies, imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates, but he also introduced the new genre of tragicomedy and wrote more romantic plays, as Helen.
I have read Medea in the translation by James Morwood in Oxford World's Classics.
Online translation by Gilbert Murray (1914).
Illustrations from Wikipedia, from which I have also borrowed some parts of the synopsis.
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