She sacrifices not only those whose murder will hurt Jason most, but her own happiness thereafter. Revenge can be a reckless emotion, and Medea's actions sweep up the innocent with the guilty. He made her murder her own children, which was not in the original legend. The denouement is inevitable, and ends in unmitigated horror, the purging of which through art Aristotle saw as tragedy.īut Euripides went further than portraying a barbarian sorceress who escapes punishment. The denouement is inevitable, and ends in unmitigated horror, the purging of which through art Aristotle saw as tragedy. One by one, playing on their weaknesses, Medea outwits Creon, Aegeus, Jason and Glauce. Events are prefigured by the nurse's fears in the opening scene, and the plot unwinds swiftly. The themes of Medea are clear enough: the destructiveness of revenge, the unfair treatment of women in Greek society, the threat posed by barbarian peoples and attitudes, the constant prospect of exile, the guile and cunning underlying Greek city politics, and the less attractive aspects of the Greek hero, whom Medea comes to resemble. In a final revenge, Medea kills her own children, and escapes to Athens in a winged chariot provided by her ancestor, Helios, the sun god.
Creon tries to save his daughter, but he too perishes. Apparently to win over Glauce, who would persuade Creon not to exile her sons, Medea sends the princess a robe and a golden chaplet, which the gullible woman dons and dies from in great pain. But Medea extracts a stay of execution from Creon, and then the promise of sanctuary from the visiting Aegeus, King of Athens. The repudiated wife plotted revenge, and, as the play opens, faces exile for speaking against the royal house. Unfortunately, though she had borne him two sons, Jason then threw Medea over for Glauce, the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth. After the voyage of the Argonaughts, and the dangers which the love-smitten princess helped him escape, Jason married Medea and brought her to Iolchus, fleeing to Corinth when Medea contrived to have King Peleas murdered by his own daughters. The Medea legend was well known to Greek audiences.
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