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... opinions for her family's flight into yet another exile. As Medea prepares to wander into uncharted lands beyond the walls of Corinth, the chorus continues to lament her fate. Medea, however, is focused on the task she must accomplish over the course of the next day -- that is, killing her three antagonists, 'father and daughter; and my husband' (line 376). Considering the various possible means of murdering them, she settles on poison as the most effective. Medea calls on the goddess, Hecate, mistress of the underworld and the patroness of black magic, to serve as her accomplice in this mission.
She also vows to restore honor to her lineage (Hyperion, the Sun-god, was her grandfather) and shame Jason's own tribe, which descends from Sisyphus. Finally, she concludes her prayer and tirade by claiming the natural affinity of women for acts of evil. The chorus responds to Medea in an imaginative ode, describing a world in which the presumed order of the sexes is reversed: men will be known for deception, women will be honored, male poets will lose their favor, and Apollo, the god of music, will inspire new epics that display a female perspective. The chorus continues by rehashing the tale of Medea's misfortune, 'an exile with no redress' (439). Commentary Medea's first public pronouncement, a sort of 'protest speech, ' provides one of the highlights of the play and demonstrates some of its complex, at times even contradictory, representations of gender. Simply at the level of character development, Medea's calm and reflective tone, especially after her preceding eruptions of despair and hatred, provides the first display of her unsettling ability to gather herself together in the midst of crisis and pursue her agenda with a staunch, almost inhuman determination.
This split in her personality is to a certain degree gendered; the lack of emotional restraint is 'typical' of women, and the uncompromising attention to principled action is the hallmark of heroic Ancient Greek males. Medea actually synthesizes these traits so that her uncontrollable emotions fuel her staunch principles, producing a character that fails to assume a clearly intelligible mold. The speech itself highlights women's in arguably subordinate status in ancient Greek society, especially within the domain of public life. Euripides' introduction of such social criticism into his play remains remarkable because of how unprecedented it would have been to his audience. 'Feminist' arguments, most of them not nearly so developed, were the province of a few renegade philosophers in ancient Greece. Works of art hardly ever explored political questions with any degree of self-consciousness.
When Medea points out that women, especially 'foreign' women, require some knowledge of magic and other covert arts to exert influence over their husbands in the bedroom, she argues for a kind of alternative power that women can enjoy, one that remains invisible to men and unacknowledged by society, yet sways each with unquestionable force. Medea also supplies a method for interpreting her own character towards the end of her speech (lines 251 - 257): we should read her history of exile as a metaphoric exaggeration of all women's alienation; in fact, her whole plight, past and yet to come, can be read as an allegory of women's suffering and the heights of tragedy it may unleash if left unattended. Under this model of interpretation, Medea portrays the rebellion of women against their 'wretchedness. 's uch a transparent social allegory may seem forced or clich " ed in our own contemporary setting, but in Euripides' time it would have been revolutionary, as tragedy generally spoke to the sufferings of a generic (perhaps idealized) individual, rather than a group. It would be a mistake, however, to claim that Medea's speech elaborates a clearly progressive political message, as her concluding remarks appeal to women's natural talent for devious manipulation (line 414).
While Euripides' play manifests many revolutionary political sentiments, its social criticisms remain sporadic, forming just a part of some of the many trains of thought he follows. Aside from providing a time frame that initiates a sense of urgency to the play (Medea only has a day to complete her plans), the exchange between Creon and Medea introduces the theme of her cleverness. At times, Medea appears more dangerous because of her cleverness than her rage -- the latter would render her impotent if the former did not allow her to devise schemes for revenge. More than just a cold cunning, Medea's cleverness manifests a sensitivity to other people's psychological weak points: when Creon makes a casual reference to the absolute devotion he feels for his daughter, Medea appeals to him on behalf of her own children and secures the one-day grace period before his decree of banishment takes effect. Unlike other ancient tragedians who used dialogue more abstractly, Euripides places a lot of emphasis on revealing a character's personality through his or her way of maneuvering a conversation. Concluding this section, the choral song depicts the theoretical reversal of natural order (streams flow up mountains) that would accompany an exchange in social prominence between women and men.
This song is a strange hybrid of an archaic artistic form and a radical political sentiment. Choral odes of this type were adopted by older tragedians (particularly Aeschylus) to demonstrate how human actions -- especially a murder within the royal house -- could set the universe out of whack, tying moral and natural phenomena together. In his characteristically innovative style, Euripides employs the device to suggest that a rise to power by women would similarly unhinge the universe -- to contemplate their comeuppance remains as unnatural as a king's murder. Lines 448 - 660 Summary Jason emerges to rebuke Medea for publicly expressing her murderous intentions. While she grows more caustic, he remains in a balanced frame of mind and even presumes to sympathize with her.
Immediately recoiling against his gestures of compassion, which Medea interprets as hypocritical 'unmanliest' (line 466), she nevertheless uses the opportunity to tell Jason exactly how she feels. She begins by recounting how she helped Jason pass the tests her father had established for him to win the Golden Fleece. She continues by reciting the sacrifice she made in fleeing her father and homeland, as well as the role she played in King Pelias' death. Jason's betrayal after so much strikes her as the grossest offense possible; he has made their vows to each other, protected by Zeus, meaningless. She asks Jason where she could possibly go after he has deserted her -- she cannot return home to the father and family she has abandoned, nor to any of the lands where she has made enemies through helping him.
The chorus responds to her speech by commenting that the 'fiercest anger' arises to fill the place of the 'dearest love' (lines 520 - 521). After pointing out that Medea's cleverness as a speaker will force him to respond with equally persuasive arguments, Jason denies his debt to her and claims that solely Aphrodite, the goddess of love, holds responsibility for his safe passage home from Colchis. Furthermore, Jason argues that Medea gained far more than she lost in fleeing her homeland; among her newfound privileges he includes residence in a civilized country and a fame that would have been impossible had she remained at the 'ends of the earth' (line 541). Lastly, Jason defends his choice to remarry as the best decision for all parties involved, rather than a selfish whim. Marriage with a king's daughter will secure a better life for his children, and Medea, if she could see past her jealousy, would be thankful to him.
The chorus lauds Jason's reasoning, but still finds that he remains unjustified in divorcing Medea. Medea believes that all Jason's arguments stem from a need to rationalize a decision that he intuitively recognizes as wrong. He is unequivocally corrupt, yet successfully hides behind a mask of rhetorical eloquence. Jason continues to offer any help he can provide her -- for example, he suggests writing letters of introduction to friends abroad who might be willing to accept Medea into their home.
Interpreting these tokens of help as Jason's manner of alleviating his own guilt, Medea refuses his offers and sends him away to his new bride. Offering a hymn that expresses a wish to remain untouched by Aphrodite's arrows, which afflict their targets with a devastating passion, the chorus preaches against recklessness of love. No goodness can come out of violent desires, only endless disputes. The choral song continues by reiterating that exile represents the worst of all possible fates, a judgment the women of Corinth have formed through the example of Medea's own plight. They end by cursing men who unlock the 'secrets' of female desire and then 'disown' it (lines 659 - 660). Commentary Jason's arguments with Medea introduce his total lack of backbone as a character; he is the consummate whiner, making excuses for himself and patronizing Medea with the absurd claim that their divorce was for her benefit.
Though obviously fueled by her anger, Medea's criticisms of Jason provide a much more convincing account of his actions than his own half-baked self-defense. Rather than supply his character with depth, Jason's offers of help underscore his half-hearted approach to human relationships -- he is always offering people the bare minimum, whatever he can manage without sacrificing his self-interest. The play will ultimately punish Jason severely for his flaws, and his opening appearance introduces the stubbornly narrow perspective that will remain unchanged. None of the eventual suffering Jason witnesses sparks a reconsideration of his own responsibility for the destruction of his entire household. On a thematic level, the confrontation of wills highlights how Medea's steadfastness displays elements of heroism (or at least distinction), whereas Jason's makes him a limited, unsympathetic character. Furthermore, the character more in possession of his own reason, Jason, nevertheless exhibits a blindness to truth lacking in Medea's incisive, emotionally-charged speech.
Like most tragedians, Euripides was fond of these paradoxes, as they pointed to limits within conventional ways of understanding and the sources of much human error. While Jason's arguments offer ample opportunities for criticism, it should be recognized that the average Athenian of Euripides' time would have agreed with many of his viewpoints. His claim that Medea ultimately benefited by leaving barbaric Asia conforms with ancient Athens's elf-image as the cradle of civilization. Athens' defeat of Persia (see context), an Asian kingdom, was a source of deep pride for its citizens, as well as a hallmark of their identity.
In defeating this foreign empire, Athenians felt they had weeded out primitive values from their own culture and established the foundation for a new, enlightened form of life. Furthermore, Jason's attention to public status, even at the expense of domestic responsibility, is typical of the city's burgeoning commercial class. If Euripides' tragedies often serve as reproofs to the assumptions of his audience, then Jason's character can be interpreted as an exaggerated version of their own inclinations and pret...
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