Euripides' Medea: The play and the character: Part 1

33 tragedies survive from ancient Greece. 7 of these are the work of Aeschylus, 7 Sophocles and 19 Euripides. Of the 19 Euripides tragedies that have survived completely (well, almost), my favorite is 'Medea'.

Perhaps I like this play the best of all Euripides' work because I like the character of Medea the best of all the characters that Euripides employs. I liked her character a whole lot in classical myth before I even read the play. She is, in my opinion, one of the most dynamic, complex and multifaceted characters in classical myth and that's saying a lot. Unpredictable as the ocean, fickle as the winds, with the power of the sun and the beauty of the earth: the elements that combine to make Medea do so generously.

Euripides

In myth, Medea is the granddaughter of Helios, the god of the sun. She was a witch, which in ancient Greece meant that she had supernatural powers that allowed her to control things that humans generally could not. On a list of the most powerful/dangerous witches of classical myth, Medea would be second only to Circe, who I might discuss in a later post (she is almost as fascinating as Medea). Key to the ancient Greeks was the fact that she was what they called a barbarian, i.e. a non-Greek. She was from the far shores of the Εϋξεινος πóντος (the friendly sea) which was what the Greeks called the Black Sea. Her story is tied the that of Jason (Jason of Jason and the Argonauts) and that is far too long a story to go into now. I'll talk about it in my next post. Long story short, Jason and Medea fall in love and Jason brings Medea back to Greece with him.

By the time the play 'Medea' begins, Jason and Medea have two sons. However, all is not right with their lives (and that's why it's a tragedy).

The play is set in Corinth, a city in ancient Greece. At the opening of the play, Jason has left Medea for Glauce, the daughter of Creon, the king of Corinth. Medea, of course, is distraught and furious. In her fury, she has threatened Glauce and, fearing for the safety of his daughter, Creon has banished Medea and her children from Corinth. Jason defends his actions by insisting that marrying Glauce was the right thing for him and for their family. He says that his marrying the daughter of the king of the land would have served to secure their future if only Medea had acted sensibly. Now, because of her rash actions, he says, she is banished along with her children. He offers to help her seek shelter in another part of Greece but Medea is in no mood to accept any help from him. She yells at him for abandoning her and their children and insists that his decision was made with only self gain in mind. Frustrated, Jason leaves her. Medea vows to have her revenge...and she does. What does she do? Find out in part 2! (Oh, that rhymes!)

Heroes

Heroes. What exactly are they? More to the point, what were they to the ancient Greeks? If I was an ancient Greek, what image would my mind conjure when I heard the word 'hero'?

Unfortunately we do not have an ancient Greek brain to pick and so we have to look to archaic written sources. In Hesiod's Works and Days we find a reference to what the heroes were to the ancients. Hesiod tells us that men were created as five successive races (to date) and the current crop of men were of the fifth or iron race. The four preceding races (or ages) were the golden race, the silver race, the bronze race and the race of heroes. So by Hesiodic definition, heroes were the race of men that preceded the current Iron race of men.

Today classicists define a hero as any larger than life figure who has, or at one point had, an active localized cult. Basically, in ancient Greece, each hero had his/her own localized cult and all who pass through the land and past the cult would have to pay homage to the figure of the hero. So all the great heroes that we talk about today, like Perseus, Atlanta, Theseus, Achilles, Diomedes and the like, would have had their own localized cults in ancient Greece and this is what made them heroes.

An interesting case of a hero would be that of Heracles. Heracles was undoubtedly a hero of great significance. He traveled all over the ancient Greek world doing heroic things and killing all sorts of things. The problem arose when because of this travelling, and his stature, cults in his name sprung up all over Greece and beyond. He could no longer be strictly defined as a hero because his cult wasn't localized . So the Greeks elevated him to the rank of a god to explain his large following and this is why Heracles often exists in the dual roles of hero and deity in ancient Greek sources.

Goat songs and Revelry songs

The most unfortunate fact that students of Classics have to face is that there are no ancient Greek bards wandering around singing about the gods anymore. What we know about Greek myth, culture and society is not first hand knowledge. Part of it is gleaned from the songs sung and tales told by small populations in parts of Europe that still follow the oral tradition. They heard what they sing today from their parents and their parents heard it from theirs before them and so on. The stories that one can hear from them, if one is privileged enough to be invited to such a gathering, can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greece aoidoi. However, the problem with the information learned by the oral tradition is that we really don't know how trustworthy it is and so Classicists always double check their findings. The overwhelming majority of what we know about ancient Greek culture and myth we know from reading ancient texts and, far more often, fragments of ancient texts that have somehow survived through the ages.

Ancient Greek sources (texts) are many and varied. The type that we will be dealing with today is Drama. The ancient Greeks pioneered the Dramatic arts and the plays that survive today are treasure troves of information.

The popular portrayal of Comedy and Tragedy
Image credits: www.fanpop.com

The two types of drama in ancient Greece were Tragedy (literally goat-song) and Comedy (fun-song or revelry-song). These two genres can only very loosely be grouped together since they represent forms of art that are complete polar opposites of one another in terms of form, content and intent. Tragedy is the more ancient and revered form; Comedy was born much later and served a very different purpose. Tragedy was born simply to honour the gods. All tragedy and tragic poetry involved the gods and many of them involved heroes. Through tragedy, the Greeks acknowledged the existence and potency of a power that they could perceive but not comprehend. Almost all the examples of ancient Greek tragedy that have survived portray people as helpless in front of mighty, omnipotent deities that always have their way in the end.

The role of comedy was very different. Comedy basically existed to insult. It's purpose was to point out flaws and shortcomings in people, groups or systems so that they could be fixed. In this role, it must be admitted that Comedy was very successful indeed. In ancient Athens, especially, Comedy was a very powerful medium of communication and several heads rolled because of what Comic poets wrote.

Tragedy and Comedy share one characteristic though: they were aimed at an audience. Due to this simple inherent quality, they are invaluable for Classicists trying to piece together the image of the society and culture of the times. Because drama was aimed at an audience or, otherwise put, designed for an audience, it is fraught with information about the era and allusions to popular beliefs. Through ancient Greek drama, one can perceive the zeitgeist of ancient Greece.

Therein lies the importance of goat songs and revelry songs.