Medea (Ancient Greek: Μήδεια, Mēdeia) is a tragedy based on a myth, written by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was first performed in 431 BC as part of a trilogy, the other plays of which have not survived. Its plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis and the wife of Jason. She finds her position in the world threatened as Jason leaves her for a princess of Corinth and takes vengeance on him by murdering his new wife, his new father-in-law, and her own two sons. She then escapes to Athens to start a new life.
Euripides's play has been retold and reinterpreted for centuries. Playwrights across the world have explored it in a variety of ways, offering political, psychoanalytical, feminist, and many other original readings of Medea, Jason, and the core themes of the play.
Medea, along with three other plays, earned Euripides third prize in the City Dionysia. Some believe that this indicates a poor reception, but "the competition that year was extraordinarily keen"; Sophocles, often winning first prize, came second. The play was initially rediscovered with Rome's Augustan drama, and then again in the 16th century. It has remained part of the tragedic repertoire, becoming a classic of the Western canon and the most frequently performed Greek tragedy in the 20th century. It experienced renewed interest in the feminist movement of the late 20th century, often being interpreted as a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Medea's struggle to take charge of her own life in a male-dominated world.
Contents
History
Medea was first performed in 431 BC at the City Dionysia festival. Here every year, three tragedians competed against each other, each writing a tetralogy of three tragedies and a satyr play (alongside Medea were Philoctetes, Dictys and the satyr play Theristai). In 431 the competition was among Euphorion (the son of famed playwright Aeschylus), Sophocles (Euripides's main rival) and Euripides. Euphorion won, and Euripides placed third (and last). Medea has survived the transplants of culture and time and continues to captivate audiences with its riveting power. The play's influence can be seen in the works of later playwrights, such as William Shakespeare.
While Medea is considered one of the great plays of the Western canon, Euripides's place in the competition suggests that his first audience might not have responded so favorably. A scholium to line 264 of the play suggests that Medea's children were traditionally killed by the Corinthians after her escape; so Euripides's apparent invention of the filicide might have offended, as his first treatment of the Hippolytus myth did. That Euripides and others took liberties with Medea's story may be inferred from the 1st-century-BC historian Diodorus Siculus: "Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out." A common urban legend claimed that Euripides put the blame on Medea because the Corinthians had bribed him with a sum of five talents.
In the 4th century BC, South-Italian vase painting offers a number of Medea representations that are connected to Euripides's play — the most famous is a krater in Munich. However, these representations always differ considerably from the plots of the play or are too general to support any direct link to Euripides's play. But the violent and powerful character of Medea, and her double nature — both loving and destructive — became a standard for later periods of antiquity. Medea has been adapted into numerous forms of media, including operas, films, and novels.
With the text's rediscovery in 1st-century Rome (the play was adapted by the tragedians Ennius, Lucius Accius, Ovid, Seneca the Younger and Hosidius Geta, among others), again in 16th-century Europe, and the development of modern literary criticism, Medea has provoked multifarious reactions.
Form and themes
The form of the play differs from many other Greek tragedies by its simplicity; most scenes involve only Medea, one other character, and The Chorus, representing the women of Corinth. These simple encounters highlight Medea's skill and determination in manipulating powerful male figures. The play is also the only Greek tragedy in which a kin-killer makes it unpunished to the end of the play, and the only tragedy about child-killing in which the deed is performed in cold blood, as opposed to in a state of temporary madness. Medea's rebellion shakes the world as she tells of her history, shedding light on the actions that ultimately lead to her denigration and dethronement. Euripides depicts Medea as a witch and a devourer of men and children, rather than as a wife and mother wronged.
Euripides' characterization of Medea exhibits the inner emotions of passion, love, and vengeance.
According to classics scholar Fiona Macintosh, "[Medea] has successfully negotiated her path through very diverse cultural and political contexts: either by being radically recast as 'exemplary' mother and wife, or by being seen as a proto-feminist wrongly abandoned by a treacherous husband."
Feminist readings have interpreted the play as either a sympathetic exploration of the disadvantages of being a woman in a patriarchal society, or as an expression of misogynist attitudes.
In conflict with this sympathetic undertone (or reinforcing a more negative reading) is Medea's barbarian identity, which some argue might antagonize a 5th-century BC Greek audience.
It can be argued that in the play Euripides portrays Medea as an enraged woman who kills her children to get revenge on her husband Jason because of his betrayal of their marriage. Medea is often cited as an example of the "madwoman in the attic" trope, in which women who defy societal norms are portrayed as mentally unstable. A competing interpretation is that Medea kills her children because she cares for them and worries about their well-being; once she commits to her plan to kill Creon and Jason's new bride, she knows her children are in danger of being murdered. This is not a paranoid fantasy; at this time in myth and history, helping one's friends and hurting one's enemies was considered a virtue. Thus, by their code of ethics, the Corinthians would do right to avenge their king and princess. (In another version of the myth, the people of Corinth kill her children to avenge the deaths of Creon and his daughter Glauce.) Conversely, a focus on Medea's rage leads to the interpretation that "Medea becomes the personification of vengeance, with her humanity 'mortified' and 'sloughed off'" (Cowherd, 129). Medea's heritage places her in a position more typically reserved for males. Hers is the power of the sun, appropriately symbolized by her great radiance, tremendous heat and boundless passion. In this view Medea is inhuman and her suffering is self-inflicted, just as Jason argues in his debate with her. And yet, if we see events through Medea's eyes, we view a wife intent on vengeance, and a mother concerned about her children's safety and quality of life. Thus, Medea as a wife kills Creon and Glauce in the act of vengeance, and Medea as a mother thinks her children will be better off killed by her hand than left to suffer at the hands of an enemy intent on vengeance.
Story
Medea is centered on Medea's calculated desire for revenge against her unfaithful husband. Medea is of divine descent and has the gift of prophecy. She married Jason and used her magic powers and advice to help him find and retrieve the golden fleece. The play is set in Corinth some time after Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, where he met Medea. The play begins with Medea in a blind rage towards Jason for arranging to marry Glauce, the daughter of king Creon. The nurse, overhearing Medea's grief, fears what she might do to herself or her children.
Creon, in anticipation of Medea's wrath, arrives and reveals his plans to send her into exile. Crouching at Creon's feet, Medea begs him in the name of her children to allow her one day's delay. At this Creon is moved and grants to her one more day in Corinth. Medea's unexpected power of persuasion or even of fascination lies in her change of attitude: instead of preaching to Creon about the unpopularity of the sophoi she plays the role of a desperate mother, needing one day to prepare for exile. Medea is aware of the humiliating quality of this tactic, but she justifies it on the grounds of a gain and of her need to remain in Corinth: "Do you think that I would ever have flattered that man unless I had some gain to make or some device to execute? I wouldn't have even spoken or touched him with my hands". In the next scene Jason arrives to explain his rationale for his apparent betrayal. He explains that he could not pass up the opportunity to marry a royal princess, as Medea is only a barbarian woman, but hopes to someday join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. Medea, and the chorus of Corinthian women, do not believe him. She reminds him that she left her own people for him ("I rescued you [...] I betrayed both my father and my house [...] now where should I go?"), and that she saved him and slew the dragon. Jason promises to support her after his new marriage ("If you wish me to give you or the children extra money for your trip into exile, tell me; I'm ready to give it with a lavish hand"), but Medea spurns him: "Go on, play the bridegroom! Perhaps [...] you've made a match you'll one day have cause to lament."
In the following scene Medea encounters Aegeus, king of Athens. He reveals to her that despite his marriage he is still without children. He visited the oracle who merely told him that he was instructed "not to unstop the wineskin's neck". Medea relays her current situation to him and begs for Aegeus to let her stay in Athens if she gives him drugs to end his infertility. Aegeus, unaware of Medea's plans for revenge, agrees.
Modern productions and adaptations
Theatre
Catulle Mendès adapted Medea into his play Medée in 1898, in three acts and in verse. Alfons Mucha drew a poster for a performance of this play starring Sarah Bernhardt.
Jean Anouilh adapted the Medea story in his French drama Médée in 1946.
Robinson Jeffers adapted Medea into a hit Broadway play in 1947, in a famous production starring Judith Anderson, the first of three actresses to win a Tony Award for the role. It was directed by John Gielgud, who co-starred as Jason. Medea opened on Broadway at the National Theatre on 20 October 1947, transferred to the Royale Theatre on 15 December, and closed on 15 May 1948, after 214 performances. At the 2nd Tony Awards on 28 March 1948, Judith Anderson shared (with Katharine Cornell and Jessica Tandy) the Award for Best Actress in a Play. Another staging, produced and directed by Guthrie McClintic at the City Center, premiered on 2 May 1949, and closed, after 16 performances, on 21 May. A staging in 1982, at the Cort Theatre, brought a Tony win for Zoe Caldwell, who played Medea, and a Best Featured Actress in a Play nomination for Judith Anderson as Nurse. With a subsequent Tony win for Diana Rigg in 1994, the play holds the American Theatre Wing's Tony Award record for most wins for the same female lead character in a play.
Ben Bagley's Shoestring Revue performed a musical parody off-Broadway in the 1950s which was later issued on an LP and a CD, and was revived in 1995. The same plot points take place, but Medea in Disneyland is a parody, in that it takes place in a Walt Disney animated cartoon.
Canada's Stratford Festival staged an adaptation of Medea by Larry Fineberg in 1978, which starred Patricia Idlette in the title role.
Yukio Ninagawa staged a production called Ohjo Media (王女メディア) in 1978, followed by a second version in 2005.
In 1982, George Eugeniou at Theatro Technis London directed Medea as a barefooted unwanted refugee played with "fierce agility" and "dangerous passions" by Angelique Rockas.
In 1983, kabuki Master Shozo Sato created Kabuki Medea uniting Euripides' play and classical Kabuki storytelling and presentation. It debuted at Wisdom Bridge Theater in Chicago.
Film
Pier Paolo Pasolini adapted the legend into a movie of the same name in 1969 starring Maria Callas as Medea
In the 1983 film Storia di Piera by Marco Ferreri, Isabelle Huppert as the protagonist learns the part of Medea at school and plays it when she is an adult actress.
Asian-American filmmaker Michael Justin Lee reinterpreted the story into a noir short film set in modern-day America starring Amy Gordon as Medea. (2018)
Television
Australian actress Zoe Caldwell's performance in the 1982 Broadway adaptation of the Jeffers' script was recorded for broadcast on the PBS series Kennedy Center Tonight.
Lars von Trier made a version for television in 1988, based on the script adaptation by Carl Theodor Dreyer.
Theo van Gogh directed a miniseries version that aired 2005, the year following his murder.
OedipusEnders, a documentary broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 13 April 2010, discussed similarities between soap opera and Greek theatre. One interviewee revealed that the writers for the ITV police drama series The Bill had consciously and directly drawn on Medea in writing an episode for the series.
Playwright Mike Bartlett was inspired to create a modern-day suburban Medea after adapting the Euripides play for a theatre production in 2012. Bartlett's 2015–2017 BBC1 miniseries Doctor Foster follows the structure of the Greek tragedy. A Korean remake of the series, The World of the Married, became the highest-rated cable drama in Korean history, with its final episode reaching a nationwide rating of 28.371%.
English translations
Robert Potter, 1781 - verse: full text
Michael Wodhull, 1782 – verse
Edward P. Coleridge, 1891 – prose: full text
Theodore Alois Buckley, 1892 – prose: full text
Gilbert Murray, 1912 – verse: full text
Arthur S. Way, 1912 – verse
F. L. Lucas, 1924 – verse
Augustus T. Murray, 1931 – prose
Countee Cullen, 1935
Moses Hadas and John McLean, 1936 – prose
R. C. Trevelyan, 1939 – verse
Rex Warner, 1944 – verse
Robinson Jeffers, 1946 – verse
Ray Mathew, 1953 – verse
Peter D. Arnott, 1961 – verse
Philip Vellacott, 1963
Rush Rehm, 1973 - prose
John Davie, 1996
James Morwood, 1997 – prose
Paul Roche, 1998 – verse
Ruby Blondell, 1999 – verse
George Theodoridis, 2004 – prose: full text