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Title: Medea (Dover Thrift Editions) by Euripides, Rex Warner ISBN: 0-486-27548-5 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.76 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Euripides uses Medea's infanticides to try teaching a lesson
Comment: Every time there is a horrific story in the news about a mother murdering her children, the classic tragedy "Medea" by Euripides is mentioned. However, a close reading of the actual play shows that the point Euripides is trying to make in this drama is not about infanticide, but rather about the way "foreigners" are treated in Greece (this is best seen in the odes of the Chorus of Corinthian Women). The other key component of the play is the psychology of Medea and the way in which she constructs events to help convince herself to do the unspeakable deed and kill the two sons she has borne Jason. There is a very real sense in which Jason is the true villain of the piece and I do not think there is a comparable example in the extant Greek tragedies remain wherein a major mythological hero is made to look as bad as Euripides does in this play.
Another important thing to remember in reading "Medea" is that the basic elements of the story were already known to the Athenian audience that would be watching the play. Consequently, when the fact that Medea is going to kill her children is not a surprise what becomes important are the motivations the playwright presents in telling this version of the story. The audience remembers the story of the Quest for the Golden Fleece and how Medea betrayed her family and her native land to help Jason. In some versions of the story Medea goes so far as to kill her brother, chop up his body, and throw it into the sea so their father, the King of Colchis, must stop his pursuit of the Argo to retrieve the body of his son. However, as a foreigner Medea is not allowed to a true wife to Jason, and when he has the opportunity to improve his fortune by marrying the princess of Corinth, Medea and everything she had done for him are quickly forgotten.
To add insult to injury, Jason assures Medea that his sons will be well treated at the court while the King of Corinth, worried that the sorceress will seek vengeance, banishes her from the land. After securing sanctuary in Athens (certainly an ironic choice given this is where the play is being performed), Medea constructs a rather complex plan. Having coated a cloak with poison, she has her children deliver it to the princess; not only will the princess die when she puts on the cloak (and her father along with her), the complicity of the children in the crime will give her an excuse to justify killing in order to literally save them from the wrath of the Corinthians.
This raises an interest questions: Could Medea have taken the children with her to her exile in Athens? On the one hand I want to answer that obviously, yes, she can; there is certainly room in her dragon-drawn chariot. But given her status as a foreigner, if Jason goes to Athens and demands the return of his children, would he not then have a claim that Medea could not contest? More importantly, is not Medea's ultimate vengeance on Jason that she will hurt him by taking away everything he holds dear, namely his children and his princess bride?
In the final line of the play the Chorus laments: "Many things beyond expectation do the gods fulfill. That which was expected has not been accomplished; for that which was unexpected has god found the way. Such was the end of this story." This last line has also found its way into the conclusion of other dramas by Euripides ("Alcestis," "Bacchae" and "Andromache"), but I have always found it to fit the ending of "Medea" best, so I suspect that is where it originally came from and ended up being appended to those other plays sometime during the last several thousand years. However, the statement is rather disingenuous because one of the rather standard approaches in a play by Euripides is that his characters often deserve their fate. In a very real sense, Euripides provides justification for Medea's monstrous crime and his implicit argument to the Athenian audience is that the punishment fits the crime. However, Athenians would never give up their air of superiority; at least not until foreigners such as the Macedonians and the Romans conquered the self-professed cradle of democracy.
Rating: 4
Summary: Hell hath no fury...
Comment: I didn't read Medea when I was in school, but I have now read through this slim tragedy twice over the last month, and the more I think about it the more I find the story line and its captivating protagonist fascinating and current.
Before opening the play, my knowledge of Medea had been limited to the occasional reference to it in news reports involving infanticide -- not something that made me eager to read the original.
Though Medea does take the lives of her children in a twisted revenge plot, it would be a serious mistake to consider that unforgettable act the central part of the play. Instead, it is Medea's evolution that is most important.
Despite the fact that she gave up her life to follow Jason, Medea is revealed as a kind of proto-feminist early on in the story, a woman defined more by cleverness than by rage ... and yet never seeming merely cunning or calculating. Sadly, this kind of dominating and complex female character would be somewhat unusual by the standards of popular literature today; she must have been exceptionally remarkable in the day of Euripedes, the play's author.
The tragedy itself indicates this kind of reversal in several ways, ranging from the manner in which Creon reacts to Medea in their conversation near the end of the story to the way the chorus makes mention of streams flowing upwards in the mountains.
But for all its value, Medea does not stand on its own. Readers must know what ancient Greek audiences already knew: that Medea sacrificed everything, including her life in her home country, to help Jason win the treasured Golden Fleece and to mother his children. But soon she is abandoned in favor of a woman of more noble birth, which is where the play begins. This edition -- not the play itself -- loses a star for failing to explain that context in what could have been a very brief but invaluable introduction.
Rating: 5
Summary: Euripides Play is a Masterpiece!
Comment: Euripides play "Medea" is a timeless reminder that certain human characteristics are universal in nature. Medea's readers will notice that, even despite they live 2,000 years after this play was written, the same types of disputes between individuals occur. Men still cheat on women, and women, just as then, had strong emotional displeasure with such behavior. What Euripides could never imagine is that this is an excellent story about evolutionary psychology. This story does not justify such behavior, and, in fact, shows that the consequences can be deadly.
We see today that the story of Medea is on every single day in our living rooms! Yes--every soap opera is about women who have been hurt by a man, while that man, because of biological instincts that encourage him to look for a variety of women--will search near and far for another female who will accept him. What most stories do not explain, however (and especially not in that time era) is that women do feel immense pain from this, mostly emotional. Medea was able to use that emotional anger she had -- and use it to cause physical and emotional pain on her philandering husband. The only question is, did she need to kill her children to make that point? That remains to be seen.
Michael Gordon
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