At the present time it is certainly not the newness of the subject: I do not think it is Aegeus, nor yet [Pg x] the dragon chariot, much less Medea's involuntary burst of tears in the second scene with Jason, that really produces the feeling of dissatisfaction with which many people must rise from this great play. It is rather the general scheme on which the drama is built. It is a scheme which occurs again and again in Euripides, a study of oppression and revenge.
Such a subject in the hands of a more ordinary writer would probably take the form of a triumph of oppressed virtue. But Euripides gives us nothing so sympathetic, nothing so cheap and unreal.
If oppression usually made people virtuous, the problems of the world would be very different from what they are. Euripides seems at times to hate the revenge of the oppressed almost as much as the original cruelty of the oppressor; or, to put the same fact in a different light, he seems deliberately to dwell upon the twofold evil of cruelty, that it not only causes pain to the victim, but actually by means of the pain makes him a worse man, so that when his turn of triumph comes, it is no longer a triumph of justice or a thing to make men rejoice.
This is a grim lesson; taught often enough by history, though seldom by the fables of the poets. Seventeen years later than the Medea Euripides expressed this sentiment in a more positive way in the Trojan Women , where a depth of wrong borne without revenge becomes, or seems for the moment to become, a thing beautiful and glorious. But more plays are constructed like the Medea. The Hecuba begins with a noble and injured Queen, and ends with her hideous vengeance on her enemy and his innocent sons.
In the Orestes all our hearts go out to the suf [Pg xi] fering and deserted prince, till we find at last that we have committed ourselves to the blood-thirst of a madman. In the Electra , the workers of the vengeance themselves repent. The dramatic effect of this kind of tragedy is curious. No one can call it undramatic or tame. Yet it is painfully unsatisfying. The woman whom Jason and Creon intended simply to crush has been transformed by her injuries from an individual human being into a sort of living Curse.
She is inspired with superhuman force. Her wrongs and her hate fill all the sky. And the judgment pronounced on Jason comes not from any disinterested or peace-making God, but from his own victim transfigured into a devil. From any such judgment there is an instant appeal to sane human sympathy.
Jason has suffered more than enough. But that also is the way of the world. Chorus of Corinthian Women, with their Leader. Soldiers and Attendants. The scene is laid in Corinth. The Scene represents the front of Medea's House in Corinth. A road to the right leads towards the royal castle, one on the left to the harbour. The Nurse is discovered alone. Other women follow her.
Medea suddenly throwing herself down and clinging to Creon. As he catches sight of Medea he stops. Jason and the Children with their Attendant depart. Others are standing apart. They stood above the north end of the Bosphorus and formed the Gate l. At the farthest eastern end of that sea was the land of Colchis.
Intermarriage between the subjects of two separate states was not possible in antiquity without a special treaty. And naturally there was no such treaty with Colchis. This is, I think, the view of the play, and corresponds to the normal Athenian conceptions of society.
In the original legend it is likely enough that Medea belongs to "matriarchal" times before the institution of marriage. Creon is, however, apparently descended from the ancient king Sisyphus. The sword which to the Nurse suggested suicide was really meant for murder. There is a similar and equally dramatic repetition of the lines about the crown and wreath , , pp. Notice the rather light and cynical character of this man, compared with the tenderness of the Nurse.
It was the ancient practice, if you had bad dreams or terrors of the night, to "show" them to the Sun in the morning, that he might clear them away.
Verrall has remarked, the presence of the Chorus is in this play unusually awkward from the dramatic point of view. Medea's plot demands most absolute secrecy; and it is incredible that fifteen Corinthian women, simply because they were women, should allow a half-mad foreigner to murder several people, including their [Pg 83] own Corinthian king and princess—who was a woman also—rather than reveal her plot.
We must remember in palliation 1 that these women belong to the faction in Corinth which was friendly to Medea and hostile to Creon; 2 that the appeal to them as women had more force in antiquity than it would now, and the princess had really turned traitor to her sex. See note on this subject at the end of the present writer's translation of the Electra. Some oriental countries, and perhaps even California or Texas, could afford us some startling instances of impassiveness among bystanders.
Further, she lives in her city and started preparations for the war. Then Creon the father of the other wife of Jason comes to Medea to send her into exile. Because she is just a barbarian girl. Moreover, he says that one day maybe two families come together he would compensate with Medea as his mistress. But, she refuses and the Creon kills her child and she escapes to Athens, she pledges for shelter to the king of Athens. But he refused to give her shelter.
Then she says that if she provides him drugs to end his infertility then would he shelter her. On this deal, he agrees with her. Here she plans to kill Glace and Creon. All these she abandoned when she came here with a man who has now cast her aside. The poor woman has learned at misfortune's hand [35] what a good thing it is not to be cut off from one's native land. She loathes the children and takes no joy in looking at them.
And I am afraid that she will hatch some sinister plan. For she is dangerous. I tell you, no man who clashes with her [45] will find it easy to crow in victory. But see, her boys are coming home after their games. They have no thought of their mother's troubles: it is not usual for young minds to dwell on grief. Euripides, with an English translation by David Kovacs. This text is part of: Greek and Roman Materials. Table of Contents: lines Current location in this text.
Enter a Perseus citation to go to another section or work. Full search options are on the right side and top of the page. But your story and mine are not the same: you have a city and a father's house, the enjoyment of life and the company of friends, [] while I, without relatives or city, am suffering outrage from my husband. I was carried off as booty from a foreign land and have no mother, no brother, no kinsman to shelter me from this calamity.
And so I shall ask from you this much as a favor: [] if I find any means or contrivance to punish my husband for these wrongs [and the bride's father and the bride], keep my secret.
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