Brief synopsis
Euripides’ Medea tells the well-known Greek myth of the woman Medea who, upon discovering that her husband Jason of the Argonauts had left her to marry the wealthy daughter of King Creon, vows to take gruesome vengeance on Jason. She kills her husband’s new wife and also her own two sons, to cause Jason as much pain as possible.
In-depth plot summary
The play opens with Medea’s nurse bewailing the current state of Jason’s house. She even goes as far as to wish that the ship that carried Medea from her homeland to Corinth had never arrived and that she had not been able to marry Jason. Medea’s own cries of woe can be heard from within the palace (“I wish I could die!”). The nurse, with the first but certainly not the last eerie notion of dramatic irony in the play, turns to Medea’s children and says darkly:
“…Alas, children;
How I grieve for you in my fear that some suffering may await you.
Our royal masters have dangerous spirits and, perhaps because
They are subject to little control while their power is great,
Their moods veer violently.”
Medea enters and gives a long and dramatic speech, a passionate defense of women and a highly feminist monologue. This would have been greatly unexpected in Ancient Greek times, considering that few people─and certainly few men, such as Euripides─were at all concerned with feminist matters. When she is done, Creon, king of Corinth and the father of Jason’s new wife Glauce, enters and banishes Medea and her two sons. She pleads with him to allow her to stay in Corinth for just one more day; at first, he refuses, “because I am afraid of you,” but at last gives in.
Jason enters, for the first time in the play. He insults Medea frequently throughout the long speech that ensues, and concludes by saying that he is only marrying the wealthy Glauce so that he can support Medea and their children. He even offers Medea some money right there on the spot, but she denies his charity, and calls these ominous words after him as he leaves:
“Go on with your marriage. For perhaps─with god’s help it will be said─this will prove the kind of match which will bring you tears.”
Aegeus, king of Athens, now enters. He and Medea are happy to see each other, and both sympathise with the other’s situation─Medea’s unhappy marriage, and Aegeus’ childlessness. Aegeus has just returned from seeing the oracle; he asked her how he and his wife could be blessed with children, but she replied in a riddle which he could not understand. Medea now sees her opportunity to ensure that she will be granted safe haven at Athens when she is obliged to leave Corinth. She tells Aegeus that she would decipher the oracle’s message if only he would promise to provide her with shelter and protection in Athens.
When Aegeus leaves, and Medea is left mostly to herself, the eeriness that has been building up through Euripides’ use of dramatic irony culminates when Medea determines to kill Glauce and “anyone who touches the girl.” She sends a dress laced with a poisonous drug to Glauce. A messenger arrives a short while later, quaking with horror and claiming that the princess had “white foam coming from her lips,” that “her flesh [was] drained of all its blood,” and that “her eyes [were] starting from their sockets.” She died “on fire,” and so did her father Creon when he tried to lift up the corpse. He “kept tearing his old flesh from his bones” until “no longer could he master catastrophe.” The messenger describes the dead father and daughter as “a calamity to welcome tears.”
But Medea is not moved. In fact, she laughs, and says flatly, “with all haste I shall kill my children and leave this country.” However, she resorts to hesitancy when the time comes for her to actually kill her sons:
“Why do I delay to do the terrible but necessary crime? […] Do not prove a coward, do not think how very much you love your children […]. Forget your feelings for them for this one brief day and then lament. For even if you will kill them, still they were born your dear children─and I am an ill-fated woman.”
She eventually convinces herself that this would be the right thing to do if she wishes to truly take vengeance on Jason, and withdraws. The children’s screams can be heard from within the house. The Chorus considers stepping in, but decides against it. The play concludes with Jason sobbing over the death of his sons and Medea leaving Corinth for Athens in her chariot.
Themes
Revenge
There are many layers to why Medea feels obliged to enact such a deep and sinister punishment on her husband, but there are three main reasons for her anger: the jealousy that she feels, her enragement at Jason breaking a promise, and a heroic code that she feels obliged to follow. The jealousy is obvious; it stems from the fact that her husband has left her for another, younger, probably more beautiful woman, and so Medea feels rejected by her beloved husband simply because she is aging. She is also insulted by the fact that Jason broke an oath he made to her many years before: “Nothing will separate us in our love until the appointed death enshrouds us.” In Ancient Greece, breaking a promise was seen as a grievous insult to the victim of the act, Medea in this case. But these aren’t the only reasons for Medea’s wrath. She also wants to follow a code of heroic conduct. Jason wronged her, and she worries that if she doesn’t act accordingly, she will be greatly humiliated by her enemies. A helpful example of someone following this code is in the Iliad, when the great warrior Achilles is immensely offended by his leader Agamemnon taking away his war prize. Achilles, his pride greatly wounded, leaves the battle for many days and refuses to return, thus ensuring that the other soldiers can see that he won’t take this offense lightly. When Medea is deciding whether or not killing her children would really be necessary, she often comments that she cannot let her enemies see how she weakened at this last stage of her revenge. Ultimately, it was her pride that allowed her to commit such a difficult act.
Is Medea a goddess?
In many other mythological works that include the character Medea, she is often portrayed as a goddess. In Euripides’ Medea, she is the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, so her godlike capabilities exceed those of humans, but she is still mortal. At the end of the play, she stands on the skene, a platform that only actors portraying gods would stand on. In the final act, she leaves for Athens on a magnificent chariot, a reminder of her grandfather’s immortal identity.
Gods in Greek theatre are renowned for getting their own way at all times, while the mortals are generally forced to act the way their fate dictates. Medea, however, makes all her decisions herself, and gets everything that she wanted: her plan to kill Glauce worked; she followed through with killing her sons; she ensured that she would get safety and shelter at Athens after her crimes; and, ultimately, she caused the maximum amount of pain to her husband Jason as she could. In the scene in which Medea kills her children, we see a struggle between her two personalities, or the mortal Medea, and the godlike Medea. Her godly side is encouraging her to kill her children, even rationalising the act; she assures herself that the Corinthians would murder her sons away, and better that she should do it than them. But her human side hesitates, and she has to encourage herself: “Do not prove a coward!” Her fearless, godlike personality wins the battle, and she manages to kill her children.