Medea - Euripides > Reviews (5)

The Medea is the most well-known of Euripides’ tragedies, and by far the most powerful. Like all Greek tragedies, it is based on Greek mythology, and as he usually does, Euripides takes a fairly unusual slant on the story.

The concept is simple. Medea, a barbarian princess from Colchis, helped Jason find the Golden Fleece and return with it to Greece. In doing so, she killed her own brother and cut him into pieces to delay her father’s pursuit of them while he gathered up the pieces, which she had tossed into the sea. Medea returned with Jason to his home of Iolcus, and attempted to regain Jason’s throne for him by tricking the daughters of Jason’s uncle, Pelias, who had usurped Jason’s throne, into killing their father. Jason and Medea were banished because of this, and moved to settle in Corinth. Here Jason decides to take a new wife, much to the annoyance of Medea, to whom he had sworn his love. This is where the play opens.

Medea is angry at Jason. He has betrayed her by taking a new wife, and as a powerful, proud woman she is determined to have revenge. In her power and anger she gives some of the greatest speeches ever written by a man for a woman to say, speaking out furiously against the pain and injustice of being a woman, and claiming that she would rather stand three times in the line of battle than bear one child. In her fury at her betrayal, and with the freedom of speech she is accustomed to having been brought up not as a sheltered Greek woman but as a princess-sorceress of Colchis, Euripides makes her the spokeswoman of all ancient woman, bringing painfully to light how dangerous even something as commonplace as childbirth was for women in those days.

But Medea is rational enough to be cunning despite her anger. She plots revenge. She plans aloud awhile before revealing to the horrified Chorus of Corinthian Women what she has decided her only course of action is. She will use her children, Jason’s children, to kill Jason’s new bride through trickery. This would seem horrifying enough in itself, but then she drops the bombshell.

She will then kill her sons.

And you might think this would alienate you completely against her, but somehow it doesn’t. Because she knows that unless she kills them, someone else will destroy them for the part they unwittingly play in the horrific murder of Jason’s new bride. And Medea is not hardened to the crime. The true tragedy is that she loves her sons, and the emotions that can be read in her words are as powerful and as conflicted as those of a woman in her position would have to be.

Other characters from Greek mythology appear in the play, but one cannot really pretend they are there to do anything other than act as catalysts for the development of Medea’s plans and the contorting of her emotions. The play is about what is going on in Medea’s head, and Euripides makes no bones about it.

And arguably, the truest horror of the play is saved to the very end…

This play truly clears the head of emotions in the way ancient Athenians thought tragedy was supposed to.

It is best to see it performed for the full effect, but reading it can be a moving experience as long as one is prepared to invest some effort and emotion in the play. It was first performed at a dramatic festival in 431BC, and came last, perhaps because the idea of such a powerful female character scared conservative Athenians so much. Medea is an absolutely terrifying character, but it is impossible to hate her.

My copy of Medea is part of a compilation of 4 Euripides plays, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, with the Medea translated by Rex Warner. The translation is fairly easy to read whilst remaining incredibly poweful, and much easier than trying to translate Euripides for oneself (his language is not exactly the easiest to handle). The volume is called Euripides I, and also contains Alcestis, Heracleidae and Hippolytus. And it really helpfully doesn’t have a price on it, but though I personally don’t like Hippolytus that much, and am not a great fan of Euripides in general, I’d have to say that as long as it’s not too expensive, it’s probably worth getting. Having read only one or two Greek Tragedies can really enhance one’s opinion of modern drama, and many people find Euripides easier to handle than the older and more highbrow Aeschylus and Sophocles.