|
|
The Nurse wishes the Argo had never sailed: then Medea would not deserted by Jason, left a wretched exile. (Jason plans to marry Creon's daughter.) The Tutor tells the Nurse of Creon's decision to exile Medea from Corinth. The Chorus of Corinthian women would comfort her.
Medea bewails the lot of women, who are tied to a single man and kept at home (while they go to fight: but I would rather stand in battle 3 times than bear a child!). A woman, otherwise timid, is bloodthirsty when wronged.
Creon will exile her: reluctantly, he agrees to let her stay one day to make preparations. After he leaves, M. mocks his naivite. She will murder father, daughter, husband. But where will she go?
Jason upbraids her for her harsh words which have brought on her exile. Medea shrieks at the breaker of oaths, who has put her into such straits: she is without family (she killed her brother for him), without country. Jason explains her good fortune: she now lives in civilized lands, and is famous for her clever exploits; he is marrying the princess for the sake of herself and the children. He will give her money even now, if she will let him. At her refusal, he washes his hands of the matter.
Aegeus, king of Athens, passes by, and offers Medea refuge in his land: but she must find her own way there. Medea plots the death of the princess and her own children. She summons Jason and tells him of her change of heart: she will send gifts of reconciliation by the children.
A messenger reports the gory death of the princess afflicted by the poison robe, and the hideous sight of Creon, carressing his dying daughter, unable to shake off the clinging poison. Medea enters the palace, sword in hand, to despatch her children. Chorus: Woman, you must have a heart of stone or iron.
Jason enters, eager to save his sons from the vengeance of the Corinthians for the king's death. He is told of their murder. Jason is aghast: Medea is no woman, but a lioness, more fierce than Scylla. Medea declares that she would not be mocked by his marriage to another woman, and lays the blame on Jason for these deaths. In mutual hatred, they part, Medea on a chariot pulled by dragons: she will bury the children and establish a rite in their honor to expiate the murder; she will then go to Athens. Chorus: Heaven finds ways to achieve the unexpected.
Structure
Prologus, Parodos, 131-
First episode, First stasimon, 410-
Second episode, Second stasimon, 627-
Third episode, Third stasimon, 824-
Fourth episode, Fourth stasimon, 976-
[Exodos]
MHDEIA. Medea.
In the Korinthiaka of Eumelos (reputedly of the mid-eighth century B.C.) Medea concealed her children in the temple of Hera, hoping to make them immortal, but they died. Another version of the myth had Medea leaving her children in the temple where they were killed by Kreon's kin, who then spread the rumor that Medea had murdered them. Euripides appears to have invented the variation of Medea herself murdering the children from jealousy.
The chariot probably appeared on the mechane (not the
ekkyklema). A scholiast (Med. 1320) wrote that it was pulled
by a team of dragons. South Italian vases of the fourth century depict
the dragons, and this version is familiar to later writers such as Horace
(Epod. 3.14) and Ovid (Metam. 7.350).
A sentence in the Argument claims that Euripides rewrote the
Medea of Neophron. The strongest evidence for this is that only
two actors are required, whereas all other extant tragedies of Euripides
require three. Fragments of Neophron's Medea survive, but details
of language and meter show that this play was later than that of Euripides.
Page speculates that there may have been an earlier Neophron.