Medea by Euripides - review

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MEDEA

BY EURIPIDES

M

EDEA WAS THE DAUGHTER OF KING AEETES OF COLCHIS, THE HOME OF the Golden Fleece. Medea was a witch and her grandfather was the Sun God, Helios and her aunt was the witch, Circe of ‘Odyssey’ fame. Jason sailed to Colchis on the Argo with his Argonauts in hope of stealing the Golden Fleece from Aeetes. The pair fell in love and Medea betrayed her father and helped Jason retrieve the fleece then escaped, with her brother, Absyrtus, back to Greece. However, Aeetes chased them and to delay him catching up with the Argo, she chopped her brother in little pieces and threw them over board. In order to give Absyrtus a proper burial, it was imperative that the body was complete, so Aeetes had to pick up all the pieces of his son.

Back in Ioclus, where Jason’s father was king, Jason’s uncle, Pelias, had killed Jason’s father and had usurped the throne. Medea had Pelias murdered by his daughters. She did this by showing them how to rejuvenate an old goat by chopping it up and boiling it in a cauldron and using magic, the goat, now in the form of a lamb, hopped out. She told them to do it to their father but Medea purposefully didn’t use any magic and therefore, Pelias’ daughters had murdered him out of love.

Medea and Jason were banished from Ioclus and they went to Corinth where Euripides’ play is set.

Instead of a deity giving the prologue to the story, Euripides uses the Nurse to do this. Medea and Jason had been living in Corinth for several years at this point and their marriage is not recognized under Greek law. This means that the pair were foreigners. However, at this point, Jason has married Glauce, daughter of the king of Corinth, Creon. This would make him royal and a citizen. However, Medea remains a foreigner and a woman, which doubly disadvantages her in ancient Greek society.

The Nurse’s prologue defines Medea by her ruling passion: her love for Jason, which had now turned to hatred. Although Greek divorce was very simple, it was not possible for Jason to divorce Medea as Greek law saw her as merely a concubine and Jason could not return her to her father as she had betrayed him and she had been given no dowry. The Nurse sympathises with Medea over this, as she was a deprived, female, slave. However, an ancient Greek audience which would have been mainly male would have seen Medea as Jason’s concubine and that, despite what she had done for him, Jason was perfectly entitled to divorce her.

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‘Her eye like a wild bull’s’ this line shows that the Nurse is a shrewd judge of Medea’s character, a better understanding than Jason will ever show in the play. The Nurse recognises the fact that Medea is a threat to her two children and that as a royal (her father was the king of Colchis) she has the mind of a queen and is used to giving demands and should not be crossed.

The main themes of the play are set out in the very beginning: 1) Medea’s passionate nature and her history and capacity for violence. ...

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