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Home , 431 BC, Absyrtus, Aegeus, Creon (king of Corinth), Greek tragedy, Kommos (theatre)

IB Literature I—Pfeiffer Year One, Semester Two 2013-2014: VACATION READING ’

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697)

Although from a later millennium, the above quote illustrates a theme in the dramatist Euripides’ play Medea (431 BCE). About its protagonist, Yale English professor Harold Bloom writes, “A truly complicated character, Medea displays brilliant, Machiavellian savagery, mourns her state as a woman scorned by her husband and the conventions of her civilization, and underscores her cold, calculating plan of revenge with a passionate desire for a husband she lost.”

This play is the first of our three works in Part One of the IB Literature curriculum, Works in Translation; these works are Euripides’s Medea, the of Anna Akhmatova, and Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. (Later in the semester you will choose one of these three works to examine for the IB Written Assignment, the externally assessed IB essay. This important essay will go through a nearly month-long writing process as it is the semester’s final assessment.)

1. Enjoy reading Medea. It may be short (just over 50 pages) but it’s intense. Medea is a Greek that for centuries other writers have alluded to, painters have depicted, and and directors have staged. Medea is a character that will stay with you forever. Because we will be reading the play aloud in class as well, for your first reading of the play on your own you only need to lightly annotate; this means ONE content note (what is written; e.g. about character, plot, theme) OR form note (e.g. about diction, dramatic structure, tone) per page. As always, you should look up words you don’t know, underline/star important passages, and—as you read—check my Study Guide for help with the many classical allusions and to check your understanding—you do NOT need to answer the questions; they are merely there to guide your reading. To spark our class discussion of the play, as questions or confusions occur to you as you read, use the margins to record those you will raise in class. At the end of this packet are Overall Questions that we will discuss in class.

2. Read the following “Greek Tragedy and Medea” information. Before beginning the play, read the following five-page introduction of Greek tragedy, which I think is necessary to help you make sense of the genre and its particular conventions and structure, which can be confusing to modern readers. Highlight any ideas you think are important to remember and discuss.

3. Look for 3 possible poems to work for the late February class round of the HS English Department’s Poetry Recitation 2014. See Pfeifferopolis for the information, guidelines for selection, and the list of poets. At the end of January, you will give me your list of top 3 poem choices.

As the rest of this semester texts are Part One, Works in Translation, it is IMPERATIVE that you have the right edition & translation!

Medea and Other Plays by Euripides (Penguin , translated by Philip Vellacott) ISBN: 0-14-044129-8

Medea, as performed by the Greek-American opera diva, Maria Callas (1953) Introduction to Greek Tragedy and Euripides’ Medea1

The Literary Genre Having already studied Shakespeare’s Othello, it won’t surprise you to learn that the word "tragedy" refers primarily to tragic drama: a literary composition written to be performed by actors in which a central character called a tragic protagonist or hero suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental (and therefore meaningless), but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected with the hero's actions. Tragedy stresses the vulnerability of human beings whose suffering is brought on by a combination of human and divine actions, but is generally undeserved with regard to its harshness.

Reading versus Viewing Tragedy Tragedy was a public genre from its earliest beginnings in ; that is, it was intended to be presented in a theater before an audience. In the fourth century points out in his that it is possible to experience the effect of tragedy without public performance (i.e., by private reading). Tragedy was still being written and produced in the Athenian theater in Aristotle's day, but the plays of the three great tragedians (, and Euripides) and no doubt of other were also being read privately. Reading, of course, is our primary means of access to ancient tragedy except for occasional modern productions, which help us to a certain degree to appreciate its theatricality, but for the most part provide quite a different theatrical experience from that offered by the ancient productions.

Private reading of tragedy deprives us of the visual and aural effects, which were important elements of this genre. The author of a tragedy was not just a writer of a script. When his work was approved for presentation at the state religious festival in honor of the god (the City ), the state assigned him actors and a chorus. The author then had to perform the additional tasks of training the actors and chorus and of composing the music for the various songs of the actors and chorus and providing choreography for the chorus. Because we usually read rather than seeing theatrical productions of them and also because our reading is usually in translation, we miss the following elements which are additional aids to interpretation beyond the script of the play: scenery, inflection of actors' voices, actors' gestures and postures, costumes and masks, singing, dancing, sounds of the original language and its various poetic rhythms. These handicaps, however, are no reason to neglect tragedy. We still have the most essential element of drama, the words, the 's most important medium of communication. According to Aristotle, "the plot is the soul of tragedy," and the plot is communicated to the audience primarily by means of words. You should, however, keep in mind that words are not all there is to tragedy. Use your imagination as much as possible in order to compensate for those theatrical elements lost in reading tragedy.

Tragic Festival The Athenian theater was financed by the Athenian state as an integral part of an Athenian religious festival in the city Dionysia. Three tragic poets were chosen to present their plays; each presented a (a group of four plays), three tragedies and a play (a comic entertainment to lighten the atmosphere). All the extant [still existing, not lost] tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides do not belong to connected , but are self-contained . The tragic poets competed with one another and their efforts were ranked by a panel of judges. Aeschylus won thirteen first place victories; Sophocles, twenty four; and Euripides, five. Euripides's relatively small number of victories is due more to his unpopularity among the Athenians because of certain radical themes in his plays than any lack of ability as a tragedian.

Theater Space The theater of Dionysus was, like all ancient Greek theaters, an open-air auditorium and, due to the lack of lighting, performances took place during the day. Scenes set at night had to be identified as such by the actors or the chorus; the audience, upon receiving these verbal cues, had to use its imagination. In general, the action of tragedy was well served by presentation in an open-air theater since interior scenes, which are common in our typically indoor theaters, are non-existent in tragedy. The action of a tragedy normally takes place in front of palaces, temples and other outdoor settings. This seemed natural to the ancient audience because Greek public affairs, whether civic or religious, were conducted out of doors.

The theater of Dionysus in the earliest days of tragedy (late 6th–early 5th century BCE) must have consisted of only the most basic elements. All that was required was a circular dancing area for the chorus (and the orchestra) at the base of a gently sloping hill, on which spectators could sit and watch the performance. On the other side of the orchestra facing the spectators there probably stood a tent in which the actors could change their costumes (one actor would play more than one part). This is suggested by the word skene which means “tent,” and was used to refer to a wooden wall having doors and painted to represent a palace, temple or whatever setting was required. The wall, which eventually became a full-fledged stage building, probably acquired this name because it replaced the original tent. The construction of the wooden skene (compare our theatrical terms "scene" and "scenery") and of a formal seating area consisting of wooden benches on the slope, which had been hollowed out, probably took place sometime toward the middle of the fifth century. This was no doubt the form of the theater in which the later plays of Aeschylus and those of Sophocles and Euripides were presented. The actors positioned themselves either in the orchestra with the chorus or on the steps

1 Adapted from Roger Dunkle. “Introduction to Greek Tragedy.” The Classical Origins of Western Culture. 1986. Brooklyn College. 7 December 2011. 2 leading to the doors of the skene. The theater of Dionysus as it survives today with the remains of an elaborate stone skene, paved orchestra and marble seats was built in the last third of the fourth century BC This stone theater had a capacity of approximately fifteen thousand spectators; the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in the earlier wooden theater were viewed by audiences of comparable numbers.

Mechanical Devices Two mechanical devices that were part of the ancient Greek theater deserve mention. One device is the ekkyklema (“a wheeled-out thing”), a platform on wheels rolled out through one of the doors of the skene, on which a tableau was displayed representing the result of an action indoors (e.g., a murder) and therefore had not been performed for the audience. The other device is called a mechane (“theatrical machine”), a crane to which a cable with a harness for an actor was attached. This device allowed an actor portraying a god or goddess to arrive on scene in the most realistic way possible, from the sky. The mechane deposited the actor on top of the skene so that he as a deity could address the human characters from an appropriately higher level. This device was not exclusively limited for use by divine characters, but was employed whenever the plot required any character to fly. On the other hand, not every god arrived on scene by means of this machine. The Latin phrase (“the god from the machine”) is often used to refer to the appearance of gods by means of the mechane in tragedy. (Just so you know, the phrase deus ex machina is also employed in a disparaging sense in modern literary criticism to refer to an improbable character or event introduced by an author to resolve a difficult situation; this secondary meaning of deus ex machina developed from the practice of inferior ancient dramatists who introduced a god at the end of a play in order to untangle a badly snarled plot.)

Actors and their Masks The actors in tragedy were hired and paid by the state and assigned to the tragic poets, probably by lot. By the middle of the fifth century three actors were required for the performance of a tragedy. In descending order of importance of the roles they assumed they were called the protagonist (“first actor”—a term also applied in modern literary criticism to the central character of a play), deuteragonist (“second actor”) and tritagonist (“third actor”). The protagonist took the role of the most important character in the play while the other two actors played the lesser roles. Since most plays have more than two or three characters (although never more than three speaking actors in the same scene), all three actors played multiple roles. [Note that in modern literary criticism, i.e. how we analyze literature today, the term “protagonist” refers to the central character of the play, not the actor.]

Since women were not allowed to take part in dramatic productions, male actors had to play female roles. The playing of multiple roles, both male and female, was made possible by the use of masks, which prevented the audience from identifying the face of any actor with one specific character in the play and helped eliminate the physical incongruity of men impersonating women. The masks with subtle variations also helped the audience identify the sex, age, and social rank of the characters. The fact that the chorus remained in the orchestra throughout the play and sang and danced choral songs between the episodes allowed the actors to exit after an episode in order to change mask and costume and assume a new role in the next episode without any illusion-destroying interruption in the play. The main duty of an actor was, of course, to speak the dialogue assigned to his characters. This, however, was not the only responsibility of the actor. He occasionally had to sing songs solo or with the chorus or with other actors (e.g., a song of lament called a kommos). The combination of acting and singing ability must have been as rare in the ancient world as it is today.

The Chorus For the modern reader the chorus is one of the more foreign elements of tragedy. The chorus is not one of the conventions of modern tragedy. We associate the chorus with such musical forms as opera and musicals. But tragedy was not just straight drama. It was interspersed with songs sung both by actors and chorus and also with dancing by the chorus. The modern parallel for tragedy is actually opera (along with its descendant, musicals), a dramatic form containing song and dance.

The chorus, unlike the actors, were non-professionals who had a talent for singing and dancing and were trained by the poet in preparation for the performance. The standard number of members of a chorus was twelve throughout most of Aeschylus's career, but was raised to fifteen by Sophocles. The chorus, like the actors, wore costumes and masks.

The first function of a tragic chorus was to chant an entrance song called a parodos as they marched into the orchestra. The entrance song took its name from the two ramps (parodoi) on either side of the orchestra that the chorus used as it made its way into the orchestra. Once the chorus had taken its position in the orchestra, its duties were twofold. It engaged in dialogue with characters through its leader (called the Coryphaeus), who alone spoke the lines of dialogue assigned to the chorus. The tragic chorus's most important function was to sing and dance choral songs called stasima (singular = stasimon). The modern reader of Greek tragedy, whether in English or even in the original Greek, finds it very difficult to appreciate the effect of these choral songs, which lack their original music and dance.

The Structure of Greek Tragedy Tragedy has a characteristic structure in which scenes of dialogue alternate with choral songs. This arrangement allows the chorus to comment in its song in a general way on what has been said and/or done in the preceding scene. Most tragedies begin with an opening scene of expository dialogue or monologue called a prologue. After the prologue the chorus marches into the orchestra 3 chanting the parodos. Then follows a scene of dialogue called an episode, which in turn is followed by the first stasimon. The alternation of episode and stasimon continues until the last stasimon, after which there is a final scene of dialogue called an exodos (“exit scene”). In general the exodos is a scene of dialogue, but, as in the case of episodes, sometimes songs are included, especially in the form of a kommos, a song of lament. To visualize the structure, here is the structure of a typical Greek tragedy, but keep in mind that some tragedies have one more or one less episode and stasimon; in fact, Euripides' Medea has five episodes/stasima; the specific structure of Medea is explained below.

Prologue Parodos First Episode First Stasimon Second Episode Second Stasimon Third Episode Third Stasimon Fourth Episode Fourth Stasimon Exodos, perhaps with Kommos

EURIPIDES’ MEDEA

Production The setting of Medea, as in the case of most Greek tragedies, does not require a change of scene. Throughout the play the skene with at least one door represents the facade of 's and Medea's house in Corinth. Even when the poet directs the audience's attention to events elsewhere, as in the case of the deaths of and his daughter in the royal palace, there is no shift of scene. These events are described in a speech delivered by a messenger (pages 52-55) rather than enacted before the audience. The messenger speech eliminates the need for scene changes, which, due to the limited resources of the ancient theater, would have been difficult and awkward. [This also explains why Creon rather surprisingly comes to Medea's house to deliver his decree of banishment (page 25) instead of summoning her to the royal palace.] Euripides, like Aeschylus and Sophocles, made a virtue of the necessity of this convention of the ancient theater by writing elaborate messenger speeches that provide a vivid description of the offstage action.

In the exodos of the play Medea appears with the bodies of her children in a chariot drawn by dragons either on the roof of the skene or suspended from the mechane in the manner of a deus ex machine. (Since there are virtually no stage directions in the texts of tragedies, we cannot be sure which manner of presentation Euripides intended.) She indeed acts with the power, authority and prophetic knowledge of a "god from the machine" when she establishes a festival and ritual in honor of her dead children, reveals her plans for the future, and prophesies the death of Jason (page 60).

Structure of Euripides’ Medea [with page numbers of our edition]

Prologue (lines 1-130, pages 17-21)—Nurse, Tutor, Medea Parados (lines 131-212, pages 21-23)—Chorus (sung), Medea, Nurse First Episode (lines 214-409, pages 23-29)—Medea, Chorus, Creon First Stasimon (lines 410-445, pages 29-30)—Chorus (sung) Second Episode (lines 446-626, pages 30-36)—Jason, Chorus, Medea Second Stasimon (lines 627-662, pages 36-37)—Chorus (sung) Third Episode (lines 663-823, pages 37-42)—Aegus, Medea, Chorus Third Stasimon (lines 824-865, pages 42-43)—Chorus (sung) Fourth Episode (lines 866-975, pages 43-47)—Jason, Medea, Chorus Fourth Stasimon (lines 976-1001, page 47)—Chorus (sung) Fifth Episode (lines 1002-1250, pages 48-55)—Tutor, Medea, Chorus, Messenger, Children Fifth Stasimon (lines 1251-1292, pages 55-57)—Chorus (sung), with interjections of Children’s cries Exodus (lines 1293-1419 end, pages 57-61)—Jason, Chorus, Medea

4 HISTORY BEHIND THE PLAY

Euripides’ Medea was staged just before the outbreak of war between Sparta and Athens; understanding the climate under which this great Greek tragedian wrote will enhance and deepen your understanding of the play.

The Peloponnesian War2 Athens and Sparta were two rival city-states, but at one time they had been united to protect the Greek states from a series of invasions by Persia; the two city-states were part of a coalition of 31 city-states fought together to defend their homeland. (A city- state was the city, such as Athens, and the surrounding country under its influence and protection, which in the case of Athens, was ). Led by Athens and Sparta, the Greeks defeated at the in 480 and at in 479 BCE.

The Spartans did not depend upon slaves from other territories for their labor force. Instead, they created what historian Sue Blundell calls a “serf class” from the native populations they had conquered. These serf-like peoples, known as helots, resented their suppression and presented a constant threat of rebellion against Sparta, which met this danger early on (in the 7th c. BCE) by turning their citizens into a highly trained, efficient army. A male citizen’s life was spent in learning and practicing the military arts: “All Spartan citizens were full-time professional soldiers,” writes Blundell. “They were trained for this role from boyhood, and up to the age of thirty they lived continuously in barracks. After that, they could set up their own domestic establishments, but for the rest of their lives they ate every night in a common mess.” As a result of a lifetime of training, the Spartans were famed for their military abilities. The Spartans and their alliance, the , were a strong military force and dominated the southern region of .

Unlike the Spartans, who were to a great degree self-sufficient and did not have business dealings with others, the city-state of Athens became wealthy through trade with others, tributes from states that looked to Athens’s navy for protection, and a large slave-based economy. In the early 400s BCE there were about 40,000 citizens in Attica (area of southern Greece containing Athens) and 100,000 slaves. Athens was wealthy. Many of its citizens had a relatively large amount of leisure, and they enjoyed contact with the outside world. The city produced a remarkable series of writers, thinkers, philosophers, and politicians; they invented theater, created democracy, and produced great art, architecture, and literature. [Remember that Medea’s audience consisted of Athenians.]

To protect its trade routes over the water, Athens created a strong navy, one that, over time, dominated the sea. Athens and its allies, known as the Delian League, came into conflict with the Spartans and the Peloponnesian League, and in 431 BCE war broke out between the two cities—a war based on trade routes, rivalries, and tributes paid by smaller dependent states. [Medea was staged the same year that the war began.]

This conflict, called the , essentially was a 28-year period of on-again off-again civil war among Greek city-states. Sparta had a clear military advantage on land, but the Athenian navy far surpassed Sparta’s capabilities at sea; neither side was able to seize and maintain the upper hand. Both sides experienced major victories and crushing defeats, and the war was frequently interrupted by periods of negotiated peace. Eventually, though, the war ended in 404 BCE with the defeat of Athens and its democracy.

The ancient Greek historian Thucydides chronicled the war in his book, The History of the Peloponnesian War (411 BCE)—a text you might read in a college social science or humanities class. According to many historians, Thucydides founded the method of scientific history through his strict standards of gathering evidence. He was also the first historian to analyze cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods.

In his plays, Euripides depicted the human condition in a realistic way [by showing] the cruel and unfair ways that war affects ordinary people. Perhaps more than any other ancient writer, he was concerned with not only the destruction and waste, but also the human suffering caused by war. The latter part of Euripides’s career took place during the disastrous Peloponnesian War, which ravaged Greece from 431 to 404 BCE and ended with Athens’ defeat at the hands of its arch-rival, Sparta. Perhaps fortunately for Euripides, he did not live long enough to see his country defeated and its cherished democracy dismantled by the enemy.3

2 Indiana University-Bloomington, Department of and Drama, 2002, n.p. 3 Readings on Medea. ed. Don Nardo. New York: Greenhaven Press, 2000. 5 IB Literature I—Pfeiffer Study Guide to Euripides' Medea (431 B.C.)

Included in this guide are overall questions, allusions and questions for individual pages, and background on Greek tragedy and Medea specifically. To more fully understand and appreciate this play, first read the Introduction to Greek Tragedy and Euripides’ Medea (above). See Pfeifferopolis, as well, for supplemental items, such as artistic depictions of Medea.

PAGE 17 (all page numbers based on our Penguin Classics PAGE 18 edition) Which she betrayed and left: When Medea helped Jason the Argo: ship in which Jason and his crew sailed to capture steal the , she betrayed and her the Golden Fleece, called the Argo after its builder father Aeetes, king of Colchis. (Argus), or from the Greek word argos, which means "swift."  Who has Jason married? Why? the grey-blue jaws of rock: i.e., the Symplagades, which means the "Clashing Rocks." Jason had to sail between these deadly rocks to reach Colchis [see below]. PAGE 19 Colchis: Medea is from Colchis. Colchis was a city kingdom  What intentions does Creon have for Medea and her on the southeast shore of the Black Sea, the home of the legendary Golden Fleece, which was initially a ram with children? gold wool: A Thessalian queen named Nephele prayed to for help because the Thessalian king had taken a new PAGE 20 wife, whom Nephele feared would threaten her children; Zeus helped Nephele by sending her two children to her eye like a wild bull's: Throughout the play Medea is escape death on the back of the ram: a girl named Helle, described in animalistic terms. For further bull imagery, who fell off and drowned in the sea (that’s where the see page 23. Hellespont gets its name), and a boy named Phyrxus, who ended up safely in Colchis and was welcomed. Phyrxus  What is some interesting imagery? sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the fleece to the king of Colchis, Medea's father, Aeetes, which he then put in a PAGE 21 grave, under the care of a sleepless dragon. Pelion's slopes: Mount Pelion was just east of , Jason's  According to the Nurse, what way is "best by far, in name birthplace. and practice"? Pelias: Pelias, king of Iolcus, promised that he would relinquish the throne to his nephew, Jason, the rightful  Where is Jason held "prisoner"? heir, when he came of age; Jason’s mother feared for his life, so she sent him away from Iolchus. Pelias had heard from an oracle that someone would kill him. When Jason PAGE 22 returned, Pelias felt threatened and sent him on the quest Themis: According to the ancient Greek poet , who for the Golden Fleece in the hope that the young man was a contemporary of Homer, Themis is the daughter of would be killed. [see our class site for more details on this Uranus and Gaia (Sky and Earth); she embodies divine and fascinating story about Jason’s past] moral order, law, and custom, and when disobeyed, bring Medea: Medea is the daughter of Aeetes, king of Colchis. wrathful retribution. Medea invokes her because Jason has She betrays her father to help Jason steal the Golden violated these rights by taking another wife. Contrast the Fleece. invocation of Themis here with Medea's later invocation When Pelias' daughters, at her instance, killed their of , the goddess of witches (29). father: Medea tricked the daughters of Pelias into killing : Artemis was the goddess of hunting and their father when Medea told them she could make Pelias paradoxically of weak creatures (wild animals, children). young again if they killed Pelias and put his body into a Hecate and Artemis are often associated. Hecate was bronze cauldron filled with one of Medea's magic potions. sometimes called Artemis, and she was a goddess of the Medea proved she could restore Pelias by first changing an crossroads, often associated with the dead. old ram into a frisky lamb. However, when Pelias' My brother I shamefully murdered: Medea killed her daughters killed their father, Medea let him die because brother (sometimes spelled Apsurtus) to help she hoped that with Pelias dead, Jason would become king Jason escape from Colchis with the Golden Fleece. of Iolcus. [Further information about the Jason-Medea According to , when King Aeetes had a fleet pursue story is on our class site.] the Argo, Medea had taken her child-brother Absyrtus as hostage, cut him up, and threw parts of his body into the sea. Medea did this because she knew Aeetes would stop  Why is Medea in exile in Corinth? to collect his son's body parts. The delay allowed Jason to escape.  What type of wife is Medea to Jason? PAGE 23  What general statements about humans are made early on? like a mad bull / Or a lioness: Note once again the animalistic terms used to describe Medea.  Where do you sense any tone shifts or foreshadowing? : Colchis is located in Asia. 6 Hellas: Greece. punished for his impiety by having to constantly roll a the salt strait: strait which guards the entrance to the Black boulder to the top of a hill in the underworld. Once the Sea is called the Bosporus. boulder reached the top of the hill, the boulder would roll back down again—a symbol of futility. the Pontic Sea: the Black Sea.

 What divinity does Medea venerate above all others?  Why does Euripides have Medea off stage until this part?  What is the Chorus’ commentary? PAGE 24  According to Medea, what is not respectable for women, PAGE 30 and not possible? Phoebus: . the Rocky Jaws of the eastern sea: The reference is to  According to Medea, in contrast to men, what are wives the Clashing Rocks that guard the entrance to the Black forced to look to? Sea. the King and the princess: Creon and . PAGE 25  What is Jason’s tone? Why does he have this attitude?  What would Medea rather do three times than bear one child? PAGE 31  What support does Medea have other than Jason? [See the Golden Fleece story, explained earlier, with more details on our class site.]  According to the Chorus, to punish Jason will be...what? master fire-breathing bulls: Aeetus agreed to give Jason the Golden Fleece if he yoked them and sowed the teeth  What order does Creon give to Medea? of the dragon that guarded its grave. It was known that the teeth would grow into armed men who would kill the sower. PAGE 26  What skills does Medea exhibit?  What does Jason say he "could never bear...to" Medea?

 How does Creon react to the reports?  What was Jason sent to master?  What kept watch over the Golden Fleece? What happened PAGE 27 to that guardian and who was responsible for doing it? I kneel to you: Medea becomes a suppliant at various times throughout the play in order to get what she wants.  According to Medea, she could have pardoned Jason for hankering after a new marriage if what had been the case?  What one final favor does Medea want from Creon?

 According to Creon, what will happen "if tomorrow's holy PAGE 32 sun/Finds you [Medea]...inside my boundaries"? My poor right hand, which you so often clasped! My knees which you then clung to!: Medea's words point PAGE 28 to the time when Jason, faced with dangerous tasks (compare page 31), was once a suppliant to her, begging  What does Medea plan to do to three of her enemies? for her help. Additionally, the mention of the right hand, the hand of friendship and agreement, hints at Jason's betrayal of his pledge of faith to Medea. Now the tables  What three enemies does she plan to attack? are turned and Medea will have to become a suppliant to save her own life. (The act of supplication is key in  By what means does Medea intend to attack her enemies? Medea.) On page 27 Medea knelt before Creon so that he will allow her to stay in Corinth one more day. On page PAGE 29 39, Medea kneels to so that he will grant her asylum in Corinth (see page 43, the Chorus’s words to Queen Hecate: [see page 22] goddess of sorcerers; Medea Medea). On page 46, Medea wants her children to kneel evokes Hecate's aid to perform magic in Colchis and at before their new mother so that she will accept the gifts Corinth. which will bring about her death. Your father was a king: The reference is to Aeetes, Hellene: Greek. Medea's father and king of Colchis. His father was the Sun-god: was the father of  To what or whom does Medea appeal? Medea's father Aeetes. Therefore, Medea has divine ancestry. PAGE 33 Jason and his new allies, the tribe / Of : Jason's alliance with Creon linked him by marriage to Creon's  According to Jason, who deserves credit for his successful ancestor Sisyphus, who was a notorious liar and was voyage? 7  What benefit, according to Jason, has living in Hellas PAGE 39 brought to Medea? I touch your beard as a suppliant, embrace your knees: Just as Jason became a suppliant to Medea in his  According to Jason, whose interests was he serving by time of need (compare page 32), so too Medea will marrying Creon's daughter? become a suppliant to Aegeus.

 By marrying Creon's daughter, Jason wanted to ensure  Of what town is Aegeus king? above all that...?  What promise does Medea make to Aegeus? How will she PAGE 34 accomplish this? give them all / An equal place: Jason's assertion here is  What does Aegeus not intend to do for Medea? Why? naive and almost certainly invalid. It seems almost What must Medea do on her own? impossible that Jason's children by Medea would ever have been on equal standing with any children Jason might have by the Corinthian princess, Glauce. In the realm of Greek PAGE 40 mythology it is unthinkable that a stepmother would have treated her step-children with anything but contempt. the house of Pelias: Medea had killed Pelias, king of Iolcus, so she could not return to that town; see also the  Where is misogyny shown? previous Study Guide note on page 17 of the play.

PAGE 36  What two things does Aegeus swear to Medea he will do? the dread Cyprian: , who was born on the island of Cyprus. PAGE 41 May the gods save me from becoming / A stateless coronet: a small, arch-less crown. refugee: The Chorus' prayer here may reflect fears of the impending war between Athens and Sparta, which The laughter of my enemies I will not endure: The broke out in the same year as the Medea was staged. hatred of being mocked and underestimated is one of Medea's primary concerns in the play. See also pages 42, 49, 59. Contrast Medea's mockery of Jason on page 60.  In the first nine lines of the Chorus' song, they advocate won over / By eloquence from a Greek: Jason is moderation in respect to what divinity? characterized as a smooth talker in the Medea. See also page 32.  What do they say about Jason?

 What do they prefer to exile?  What is Medea going to beg Jason to do?  What means will Medea use to attack the princess? PAGE 37 (Phoebus) Apollo: god of sun, light.  Whom will Medea attack after the princess?

 Who is the son of the wise?  What would you say is Medea’s moral code?

 From where has the son of Pandion come? PAGE 42

 What problem faces the son of Pandion? : According to mythological tradition, one of the early kings of Athens. Children of blessed gods: The people of Athens could PAGE 38 claim to have descended from Hephaestus and Gaia. "not to unstop the wineskin's neck": The oracle was They grew from holy soil: The people of Athens believed telling Aegeus not to have sexual intercourse before he that their descendants were born directly from the reached his homeland. ground. When Hephaestus tried to rape , his seed : Troezen was located on the southeast coast of spilled on the ground and impregnated the goddess Gaia. Greece, about 30 miles east of Argos. Troezen is famous unscorched by invasion: The reference anticipates the as the birthplace of the great Greek hero, ravaging of Athenian territory that will occur during the (founder-king of Athens). impending Spartan invasions. One of the first things an Pelops: This is the same Pelops whose father Tantalus cut invading army did was ravage their enemies territory, him up and served him as food for the gods. burning and destroying crops and property outside the city limits.

the nine virgin Muses: According to Hesiod, the nine  Whose advice is Aegeus going to ask about the oracle? Muses, goddesses who inspired writers of various types of literature, were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne  What is notable about Aegus’ reaction to Medea’s state? (Memory). How do you explain his response? Cephisus: river that flows through the Athenian plain.

8 PAGE 49  According to Medea, what "is the way to deal Jason the Are my enemies to laugh at me?: Once again we see deepest wound"? Medea's concern with being mocked by her enemies.

 Why does Euripides go into the history of Athens?  What act is Medea hesitant to commit?

PAGE 43  What is Medea's motivation for committing that act? Medea, by your knees: Here the Chorus supplicates to Medea. PAGE 50  How does Medea show her mental torment?  What question does the chorus ask the city of Athens in regard to Medea? PAGE 51  What inference does the Chorus' question have to the  What relevance does the Chorus' speech about children political climate in Athens in 431 BCE? have to the impending war between Athens and Sparta?

 What does Medea ask Jason to do? PAGE 52  Who is killed by Medea's poisons? PAGE 44  What does Medea pretend to do in regard to Jason?  What did Jason want Glauce to ask her father to revoke for his sake?  What is the dramatic irony on pages 44-45?  How does Medea get “double pleasure”? PAGE 45 PAGE 53 Only naturally a woman / Is angry when her husband marries a second wife: Euripides explores the same she was won over, / And agreed to all that Jason theme in the , staged a few years after the asked: Just as Medea was won over by Jason's smooth Medea in about 427 BCE In that play, Hermione, the wife talk in Colchis (compare pages 32, 41), so too Glauce is of Neoptolemus, is angry with Andromache, the slave and won over by the eloquent Jason. However, Jason's concubine of Neoptolemus. eloquence will prove his undoing as he convinces Glauce Tread down my enemies: Jason may be referring to the to accept the gifts that will bring about her own death. people of Iolcus, who exiled him and Medea after Medea Pan: god of music, shepherds, flocks—and more significantly brought about the death of Pelias, king of Iolcus. here—companion to .

PAGE 46 PAGE 54 My father's father the Sun: Medea's father Aeetes was the  What did the gown and coronet do to the princess? son of Helios, god of the Sun. Kneel down and beg your father's new wife: Once again  What happened to the King when he tried to help the we see the theme of supplication. Earlier in the play we princess? read how Jason used supplication to gain Medea's help (page 32), later Medea used supplication to get a favor from Aegeus (page 39), now Medea will use her children PAGE 55 as pawns in an act of feigned supplication in order to bring about the murder of the princess. Sun: the sun god, Helios, Medea’s grandfather.

 What does Medea want to be done in regard to the two  What decision does Medea finally reach regarding her children? children?  What does Medea want the two children to deliver for  What is the role of the children in Medea's revenge? her?  How does Medea steel herself to do the act? PAGE 47 PAGE 56  What does the Chorus lament? the blue Symplagades: i.e., the Clashing Rocks, which PAGE 48 guarded the entrance to the Black Sea. Jason had to pass between them to reach Colchis, where the Golden Fleece  What was the princess' attitude towards the gifts from was located. Medea? There was but... / One woman... / Raised hand against her own children. It was Ino...: Hera caused Ino, the wife of Athamas, to go mad because Ino had taken care of 9 Dionysus, whom Hera hated, when he was young. Ino No woman, but a tiger: Once again Medea is described in threw her son Melicertes into a boiling cauldron and then animalistic terms. jumped into the Gulf of Corinth with him. Of course, a Tuscan Scylla: The Scylla was a monster with six heads other stories of women killing their children did exist in who lurked about the strait between the toe of 's . For example, Euripides mentions boot and the island of . Tuscan refers to the Tuscan Procne's murder of her son Itys in the Heracles (Medea valley region of Italy. and Other Plays, 184).

PAGE 57  How does Medea get away? Through what means and support?  Explain this powerful line: “What can be strange or terrible after this?” PAGE 59 PAGE 58  According to Medea, her pain is a fair price to do what? in a land of savages: Medea's homeland Colchis was located in the area around the Black Sea, a region PAGE 60 regarded as barbarian territory by the Greeks. The same view is expressed many times in Euripides’ earlier play  Who will bury the children and where will they be buried? Iphigenia in Tauris, which is set in the barbarous Black Sea land of Tauris.  According to Medea, how will Jason die? You had already murdered your brother: Medea had murdered her brother Absyrtus in order to ensure her  Of what three sins does Medea accuse Jason? and Jason's escape from Colchis.

OVERALL QUESTIONS

1. What does Euripides seem to say about the sanctity of oaths in this play? What is the connection between oaths and the divine? Who takes oaths? Who breaks oaths? Who complains the most about broken oaths in the play? Does the person who complains the most about oaths abide by the oaths?

2. There are numerous references to bending one's knee in supplication in Medea. Who bends their knees in supplication in the play and why? Are their supplications honest? What is the reason behind their supplications? What effect does the supplication have?

3. What sort of imagery dominates the play? Why do you think Euripides uses these images?

4. To what extent does Medea develop as a character? How does she view herself, and how to others view her? How does Medea develop figuratively change her gender and species in the play?

5. After learning about Greek tragedy, think: who is the tragic figure of the play, Medea or Jason? Both?

6. Medea was staged in 431 B.C., on the eve of the outbreak of a war between Athens and Sparta that would rage for twenty- seven years. Where do you find imagery of war? What feeling would you say this play expresses about that imminent war?

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