MedeaMedeia Jason back in Iolcos with Medea Revenge

Medea/Medeia

Jason back in Iolcos with Medea • Revenge for death of father Aeson (made by Pelias to commit suicide) • Medea’s rejuvenation of ram and trickery of Pelias and daughters (for an extreme, rationalizing version of this myth, cf. Palaephatus (3 rd c. BCE? ) 43 (=Anthology p. 338)) • Death of Pelias • Flight to Corinth

Medea rejuvenates old ram in cauldron. Daughters of King Pelias

Plot of Euripides’ Medea (431 BCE) • Jason and Medea have two sons in Corinth • Jason decides to divorce Medea and marry the princess of Corinth (unnamed in Euripides, Glauke elsewhere), daughter of Creon • Medea’s destructive gifts to Glauke (theme of poisoned clothing and gifts), Glauke and her father, Creon, die • Medea murders her own children • Medea escapes to Athens on a flying chariot drawn by dragon, refuge with King Aegeus (connection with Athenian mythology) • NB: Euripides’ tragedy is the first source we have where Medea deliberately kills her children

Medea kills one of her children. Athenian red figure vase.

Euripides Medea’s first speech, pp. 39 -41 • Impossibility of predicting quality of husband: cf. adaptation of Hesiodic take on women and impossibility of predicting quality of wife

Euripides Medea Creon to Medea p. 42 • Danger of being clever, esp. a clever woman

Euripides Medea 1 st choral ode p. 46 • Theme of inversion, possibility of new fame and honor for women, control of poetry and song by men.

Euripides Medea Debate between Medea and Jason, pp. 48 -51 • P. 49 theme of not being able to tell quality of man from outside (true gold vs. counterfeit) • P. 51 Male (Hesiodic) fantasy of being able to get children without females

More points to consider in Euripides’ Medea • How does Medea justify her final decision to kill her children? (p. 71) • Are her arguments convincing? • How does Jason argue for his decision to marry Glauke? • Are his arguments convincing?

Other variants (1): Eumelos, Corinthiaca (epic poem about Corinth) • Medea’s family is originally from Corinth, they only later migrate to Colchis • After their arrival in Iolkos, Medea and Jason are summoned to Corinth, where they become king and queen • Medea takes each of her children to the shrine of Hera Akraia (“of the Heights”) as they are born, in hope that they will become immortal. • Jason finds out, becomes upset and leaves. He returns to Iolkos. • Somehow the children die.

Other variants (2): scholia (explanatory notes) to poems of Pindar • Medea makes home in Corinth, and averts plague by sacrificing to Demeter and the Nymphs. • Zeus falls in love with her, but Medea refuses him, to escape the wrath of Hera. • In return, Hera promises to make her children immortal. • When children die, the Corinthians honor them [with a hero cult] under the name of mixobarbaroi [halfbarbarians]. • Question: did Hera keep her promise?

Other variants (3): another apparently Corinthian version (Kreophylos via Didymus) • Medea kills Creon, king of Corinth. • Fearing vengeance she flees to Athens. • Her children, who are too young to accompany her, she deposits in the temple of Hera Akraia ["of the Heights”]. • Creon’s relatives kill them, afterwards spreading the rumor that Medea killed her own children as well as Creon.

Other variants (4): Scholia to Euripides Medea • Corinthians are unhappy being ruled by a woman and a foreigner and a person skilled in drugs. • They plot against Medea and plan to kill her children, seven boys and seven girls. • The children take shelter in the precinct of Hera Akraia, but the Corinthians do not respect the goddess and kill the children at the altar. • A plague ensues and propitiation must be made. Hero cult of the children is established. • Nothing more is said about Medea.

Other variants (5). Pausanias (2 nd c. CE) (=Anthology p. 345) • On the right of the road (leaving Corinth for Sicyon) we see a temple with a bronze image of Apollo, and a little further on a water-basin named after Glauce; for they say she threw herself into it, thinking the water would be an antidote to Medea’s drugs. Above this water-basin has been built what is called the Odeon (Music Hall), beside which is the tomb of Medea's children. Their names were Mermerus and Pheres, and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians owing to the gifts which legend says they brought to Glauce. But as their death was violent and illegal, the young babies of the Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honor and a figure of Terror was set up. This figure still exists, being the likeness of a woman frightful to look upon, but after Corinth was laid waste by the Romans and the old Corinthians were wiped out, the new settlers broke the custom of offering those sacrifices to the sons of Medea, nor do their children cut their hair for them or wear black clothes.

Other variants (6): Aelian (Greek, 2 to 3 rd c. CE) 5. 21 (=Anthology p. 2): Euripides becomes part of the myth • One account says that the report concerning Medea is false, that she did not kill her children, but the Corinthians did. They say that Euripides made up this myth about the Colchian woman [Medea] in his play because the Corinthians asked him to, and the lie prevailed over the truth because of the poet’s excellence. To atone for the outrage against the children, they say, up to the present day the Corinthians offer sacrifice to the children as if paying them tribute.