Myth Monday - Medea Murders the Children

The most familiar story of Medea comes from the third-prize winning tragedy of that name by Euripides, first produced in 431 B.C., the year the Peloponnesian War began.

In Euripides' version of the story of Jason and Medea, Jason tells Medea he is marrying the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. This will enhance his social position, something he has been harming since he took up with the barbarian Medea.

Jason: Since I have here withdrawn from Iolcos with many a hopeless trouble at my back, what happier device could I, an exile, frame than marriage with the daughter of the king? .... Nay, 'tis that we-and this is most important-may dwell in comfort, instead of suffering want for well I know that every whilom friend avoids the poor, and that I might rear my sons as doth befit my house; further, that I might be the father of brothers for the children thou hast borne, and raise these to the same high rank, uniting the family in one,-to my lasting bliss.
Medea

Medea left Colchis, with Jason, after betraying her father. She killed her own brother so that her father, who would be in pursuit, would have to stop to pick up the pieces of his son that Medea scattered on the water. When Medea and Jason arrived back in Iolcus, which Jason intended to rule, Medea connived to make King Pelias victim of his own flesh and blood. After Medea made Pelias' daughters kill their father, Jason and Medea had to flee, arriving in Corinth where they have been living as husband and wife, at the opening of the drama.

Nurse: [N]or would she have beguiled the daughters of Pelias to slay their father and come to live here in the land of Corinth with her husband and children, where her exile found favour with the citizens to whose land she had come, and in all things of her own accord was she at one with Jason, the greatest safeguard this when wife and husband do agree....
Medea

When Jason tells Medea he will be marrying the princess Glauce, Medea condemns him for breaking his oath to her. Although they were not married in the traditional manner, Jason made the binding gestures to Medea, in lieu of a paternal figure. [See Medea Marries Jason Picture.]

Medea: While Medea, his hapless wife, thus scorned, appeals to the oaths he swore, recalls the strong pledge his right hand gave, and bids heaven be witness what requital she is finding from Jason.
Medea

Jason had promised marriage in exchange for Medea's help in Colchis, and the love-smitten poisoner had been happy to oblige. Jason argues most unconvincingly and condescendingly, even attributing Medea's help, not to Medea, but the love goddess:

Jason: Now, I believe, since thou wilt exaggerate thy favours, that to Cypri, alone of gods or men I owe the safety of my voyage. Thou hast a subtle wit enough; yet were it a hateful thing for me to say that the Love-god constrained thee by his resistless shaft to save my life.
Medea

Even the chorus doesn't think much of Jason's speech:

Leader: This speech, O Jason, hast thou with specious art arranged; but yet I think-albeit in speaking I am indiscreet-that thou hast sinned in thy betrayal of thy wife.
Medea

Medea is furious, jealous, and, after all, at least a witch, if not immortal. [I haven't found the story of her death.] Despite her shenanigans, Medea continually evades punishment.

Medea resolves to get revenge, but how she will do so depends on what her fate will be. Luckily for her, the king of Athens, Aegeus, arrives on the scene in Corinth. He promises Medea a place to stay if she will help him with his problem -- lack of a son.

Aegeus: 'Tis thus with me; if e'er thou reach my land, I will attempt to champion thee as I am bound to do. Only one warning I do give thee first, lady; I will not from this land bear thee away, yet if of thyself thou reach my halls, there shalt thou bide in safety and I will never yield thee up to any man. But from this land escape without my aid, for I have no wish to incur the blame of my allies as well.
Medea

Last week's Myth Monday looked at passages from the Argonautica where Jason mentioned Theseus and the help Ariadne provided the hero in the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Since Theseus is Aegeus' son, the Euripides chronology obviously does not line up with Apollonius of Rhodes'.

The provision of refuge means that Medea can complete her diabolical plot. The theme of childlessness sets the framework. After pleading persuasively with Creon to let her stay just one more day, instead of leaving immediately, as Creon wished, Medea destroys Creon's daughter. Medea presents the princess with a poisoned robe delivered by Medea and Jason's children:

Medea: My children, take in your hands these wedding gifts, and bear them as an offering to the royal maid, the happy bride; for verily the gifts she shall receive are not to be scorned.
Medea

When Creon tries to help his daughter out of the infernal robe, he, too, is killed.

Messenger: The princess is dead, a moment gone, and Creon too, her sire, slain by those drugs of thine....

Soon as she saw the ornaments, no longer she held out, but yielded to her lord in all; and ere the father and his sons were far from the palace gone, she took the broidered robe and put it on, and set the golden crown about her tresses, arranging her hair at her bright mirror, with many a happy smile at her breathless counterfeit. Then rising from her seat she passed across the chamber, tripping lightly on her fair white foot, exulting in the gift, with many a glance at her uplifted ankle. When lo! a scene of awful horror did ensue. In a moment she turned pale, reeled backwards, trembling in every limb, and sinks upon a seat scarce soon enough to save herself from falling to the ground. An aged dame, one of her company, thinking belike it was a fit from Pan or some god sent, raised a cry of prayer, till from her mouth she saw the foam-flakes issue, her eyeballs rolling in their sockets, and all the blood her face desert; then did she raise a loud scream far different from her former cry. Forthwith one handmaid rushed to her father's house, another to her new bridegroom to tell his bride's sad fate, and the whole house echoed with their running to and fro. By this time would a quick walker have made the turn in a course of six plethra and reached the goal, when she with one awful shriek awoke, poor sufferer, from her speechless trance and oped her closed eyes, for against her a twofold anguish was warring. The chaplet of gold about her head was sending forth a wondrous stream of ravening flame, while the fine raiment, thy children's gift, was preying on the hapless maiden's fair white flesh; and she starts from her seat in a blaze and seeks to fly, shaking her hair and head this way and that, to cast the crown therefrom; but the gold held firm to its fastenings, and the flame, as she shook her locks, blazed forth the more with double fury. Then to the earth she sinks, by the cruel blow o'ercome; past all recognition now save to a father's eye; for her eyes had lost their tranquil gaze, her face no more its natural look preserved, and from the crown of her head blood and fire in mingled stream ran down; and from her bones the flesh kept peeling off beneath the gnawing of those secret drugs, e'en as when the pine-tree weeps its tears of pitch, a fearsome sight to see. And all were afraid to touch the corpse, for we were warned by what had chanced. Anon came her haples father unto the house, all unwitting of her doom, and stumbles o'er the dead, and loud he cried, and folding his arms about her kissed her, with words like these the while, "O my poor, poor child, which of the gods hath destroyed thee thus foully? Who is robbing me of thee, old as I am and ripe for death? O my child, alas! would I could die with thee!" He ceased his sad lament, and would have raised his aged frame, but found himself held fast by the fine-spun robe as ivy that clings to the branches of the bay, and then ensued a fearful struggle. He strove to rise, but she still held him back; and if ever he pulled with all his might, from off his bones his aged flesh he tore. At last he gave it up, and breathed forth his soul in awful suffering; for he could no longer master the pain. So there they lie, daughter and aged sire, dead side by side, a grievous sight that calls for tears.
Medea

Then Medea kills her children -- the ones fathered by Jason. Jason is middle-aged by this time, and having been driven out of Colchis, Iolcus, and soon, perhaps, Corinth, as well, he will have a hard time finding a suitable Greek woman willing to marry him and bear the wrath of the woman scorned, Medea; hence, Jason will have no heir.

For more on the outline of events in Euripides' tragedy, see Euripides' Medea.

Articles on Medea

The following articles look at themes from Euripides' Medea, including the amount of blame that should be cast on Jason.

• "Autochthony, Misogyny and Harmony: Medea 824-45," by Stephen A. Nimis
• "The Female Intruder: Women in Fifth-Century Drama," by Michael Shaw. Classical Philology, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 255-266.
• "Euripides' Medea and the Vanity of Logoi," by Deborah Boedeker. Classical Philology, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 95-112.
• "An Apology for Jason: A Study of Euripides' 'Medea'," by Robert B. Palmer. The Classical Journal, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Nov., 1957), pp. 49-55.