MedeaEuripides

Characters

Medea - Protagonist of the play, Medea's homeland is Colchis, an island in the Black Sea, which the Greeks considered the edge of the earth--a territory of barbarians.

the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, grand daughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children.

Jason - Jason can be considered the play's villain, though his evil stems more from weakness than strength.

A former adventurer, he abandons his wife, Medea, in order to marry Glauce, the beautiful young daughter of Creon, King of Corinth.

Hoping to advance his station through this second marriage, he only fuels Medea to a revenge that includes the deaths of his new bride, her father, and his children.

Jason's tactless self-interest and whiny rationalizations of his own actions make him a weak, unsympathetic character.

Children - The offspring of Jason and Medea, the children are presented as naïve and oblivious to the intrigue that surrounds them.

Medea uses them as pawns in the murder of Glauce and Creon, and then kills them in the play's culminating horror.

Their innocent deaths provide the greatest element of pathos--the tragic emotion of pity--in the play.

Chorus - Composed of the women of Corinth, the chorus chiefly serves as a commentator to the action, although it occasionally engages directly in the dialogue.

The chorus members fully sympathize with Medea's plight, excepting her eventual decision to murder her own children.

Creon - The King of Corinth, Creon banishes Medea from the city.

Although a minor character, Creon's suicidal embrace of his dying daughter provides one of the play's most dramatic moments, and his sentence against Medea lends an urgency to her plans for revenge.

Glauce - Daughter of Creon, Glauce is the young, beautiful princess for whom Jason abandons Medea.

Her acceptance of the poisoned coronet and dress as "gifts" leads to the first murder of the play. Although she never utters a word, Glauce's presence is constantly felt as an object of Medea's jealousy.

(Glauce is also referred to as Creusa.)

Aegeus - The King of Athens, Aegeus passes through Corinth after having visited the Oracle at Delphi, where he sought a cure for his sterility.

Medea offers him some fertility-inducing drugs in exchange for sanctuary in Athens.

His appearance marks a turning point in the play, for Medea moves from being a passive victim to an aggressor after she secures his promise of sanctuary.

Messenger - The messenger

appears only once in the play--he relates

in gruesome, vivid detail the death scenes

of Glauce and Creon, which occur offstage.

Nurse - Caretaker of the house, the nurse of the children serves as Medea's confidant.

Her presence is mainly felt in the play's opening lament and in a few speeches addressing diverse subjects not entirely related to the action of the play.

Tutor - A very minor character, the

tutor of the children mainly acts as a

messenger, as well as the person

responsible for shuffling the children

around from place to place.

Summary of

Medea

The Medea tells the story of the jealousy and revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband. She has left home and father for Jason's sake, and he, after she has borne him children, forsakes her, and betroths himself to Glauce, the daughter of Creon, ruler of Corinth.

At the beginning of the play, Medea's in dire straights. For one, her husband, Jason, has married another woman, Glauce, daughter of Creon the King of Corinth.

On top of that, Creon banishes Medea and her two sons from Corinth. Medea, however, is not the kind of woman to take such mistreatment lying down.

She swears bloody revenge and swiftly sets about finding a way to kill them all.

First, she convinces Creon to let her stay one more day in Corinth. It goes against his better judgment, but he allows it out of pity for Medea's two sons.

This gives Medea enough time to put her plot into motion. Next Medea has to secure a safe place to retreat to once she's committed the murders.

Jason arrives and reproaches Medea with having provoked her sentence by her own violent temper.

She had the sense to submit to sovereign power she would never have been thrust away by him.

In reply she reminds her husband of what she had once done for him; how for him she had betrayed her father and her people; for his sake had caused Pelias, whom he feared, to be killed by his own daughters.

"I am the mother of your children. Whither can I fly, since all Greece hates the barbarian?“

"It is not you," answers Jason, "who once saved me, but love, and you have had from me more than you gave.

I have brought you from a barbarous land to Greece, and in Greece you are esteemed for your wisdom.

And without fame of what avail is treasure or even the gifts of the Muses?

Moreover, it is not for love that I have promised to marry the princess, but to win wealth and power for myself and for my sons.

Neither do I wish to send you away in need; take as ample a provision as you like, and I will recommend you to the care of my friends."

She refuses with scorn his base gifts, "Marry the maid if thou wilt; perchance full soon thou mays true thy nuptials."

By an incredibly lucky coincidence, Aegeus, King

of Athens, happens by.

Medea promises to cure his sterility if he swears

to give her safe harbor. Of course, she neglects to

mention she's about to kill a bunch of people.

he swears that in Athens she shall find refuge.

Now, reassured, she turns to vengeance. She has

Jason summoned, and when he comes she begs

for his forgiveness.

Now that Medea has the time and a safe place to retreat to, she can really get to work. She snookers Jason into believing that she's now cool with his new marriage.

Medea begs her husband to ask Glauce if their two sons can stay in Corinth. Jason is moved and agrees.

Medea gives Jason a gossamer gown and a golden crown to sweeten the deal for Glauce. Jason and the children trot off to the palace with hope in their hearts.

Their hope is misplaced, however, for once again Medea neglects to mention a vital piece of information: the gifts are cursed.

A Messenger returns and tells Medea all about the horror she has wreaked. When the Princess put on the gown and crown, she received a rather nasty surprise.

Her entire body caught fire and the flesh melted from her bones.

When Creon saw his daughter's flaming corpse, he was so distraught that he threw his body onto hers and died as well. Medea thinks this is great.

Now she only has one thing left to do, in order to leave Jason totally devastated – kill their sons.

The murder of her children isn't easy for Medea. She struggles with her motherly instincts, but in the end her revenge is more important.

Medea drags the boys inside the house and kills them with a sword. Jason arrives too late to save his sons.

Very effective is this scene in which, after a soliloquy of agonizing doubt and hesitation, she resolves on this awful deed:

In vain, my children, have I brought you up, Borne all the cares and pangs of motherhood, And the sharp pains of childbirth undergone. In you, alas, was treasured many a hope Of loving sustentation in my age, Of tender laying out when I was dead, Such as all men might envy. Those sweet thoughts are mine no more, for now bereft of you I must wear out a drear and joyless life, And you will nevermore your mother see, Nor live as ye have done beneath her eye.

Alas, my sons, why do you gaze on me, Why smile upon your mother that last smile? Ah me! What shall I do? My purpose melts Beneath the bright looks of my little ones. I cannot do it. Farewell, my resolve, I will bear off my children from this land. Why should I seek to wring their father's heart, When that same act will doubly wring my own? I will not do it. Farewell, my resolve.

What has come o'er me? Shall I let my foes Triumph, that I may let my friends go free? I'll brace me to the deed. Base that I was To let a thought of wickedness cross my soul. Children, go home. Whoso accounts it wrong To be attendant at my sacrifice, Let him stand off; my purpose is unchanged. Forego my resolutions, O my soul, Force not the parent's hand to slay the child. Their presence where we will go will gladden thee. By the avengers that in Hades reign, It never shall be said that I have left My children for my foes to trample on. It is decreed.

Jason, who has come to punish the murderess of his bride, hears that his children have perished too, and Medea herself appears to him in the chariot of the sun, bestowed by Helios, the sun-god, upon his descendants. She revels in the anguish of her faithless husband.

"I do not leave my children's bodies with thee; I take them with me that I may bury them in Hera's precinct. And for thee, who didst me all that evil, I prophesy an evil doom."

Just as he's banging on the door to stop his wife, Medea erupts into the sky in a chariot drawn by dragons. Jason curses his wife, and she curses him back.

He begs to have the children's bodies so that he can bury them. She refuses him even this, and takes their corpses away with her as she flies away triumphant.

She flies to Aegeus at Athens, and the tragedy closes with the chorus:

Manifold are thy shaping's, Providence! Many a hopeless matter gods arrange. What we expected never came to pass, What we did not expect the gods brought to bear; So have things gone, this whole experience through!"

Medea, after killing her own children, riding in a chariot with winged serpents, escaped to Athens where she married Aigeus, the son of Pandion.

They had one son, Medus, although Hesiod makes Medus the son of Jason. Her domestic bliss was once again shattered by the arrival of Aegeus' long-lost son, Theseus.

Determined to preserve her own son's inheritance, Medea convinced her husband that Theseus was a threat and that he should be disposed of.

As Medea handed Theseus a cup of poison, Aegeus recognized the young man's sword as his own, which he had left behind many years previous for his newborn son, to be given to him when he came of age. Knocking the cup from Medea's hand, Aegeus embraced Theseus as his own.

Medea then returned to Colchis and, finding that Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother Perses, promptly killed her uncle, and restored the kingdom to her father.

Herodotus reports another version, in which Medea and her son Medus fled from Athens to the Iranian plateau and lived among the Aryans, who then changed their name to the Medes.

Prepared by:

Charlene C. Agbisit