Medea of Euripides
reasons, both conscious and subconscious, as people do in real life. Any
analysis professing to be exact would be misleading, but one may note
some elements in her feeling: (1) She had played dangerously long with
the notion of making Jason childless. (2) When she repented of this (l.
1046, p. 60) the children had already been made the unconscious
murderers of the princess. They were certain to be slain, perhaps with
tortures, by the royal kindred. (3) Medea might take them with her to
Athens and trust to the hope of Aegeus' being able and willing to
protect them. But it was a doubtful chance, and she would certainly be
in a position of weakness and inferiority if she had the children to
protect. (4) In the midst of her passionate half-animal love for the
children, there was also an element of hatred, because they were
Jason's: cf. l. 112, p. 8. (5) She also seems to feel, in a sort of
wild-beast way, that by killing them she makes them more her own: cf. l.
793, p. 46, "Mine, whom no hand shall steal from me away;" l. 1241, p,
68, "touched of none beside." (6) Euripides had apparently observed how
common it is, when a woman's mind is deranged by suffering, that her
madness takes the form of child-murder. The terrible lines in which
Medea speaks to the "Wrath" within her, as if it were a separate being
(l. 1056, p. 60), seem to bear out this view.
P. 59. l. 1038, Other shapes of life.]--A mystical conception of death.
Cf. _Ion_, 1067, where almost exactly the same phrase is used.
P. 61, l. 1078, I know to what bad deeds, &c.]--This expression of
double consciousness was immensely famous in antiquity. It is quoted by
Lucian, Plutarch, Clement, Galen, Synesius, Hierocles, Arrian,
Simpicius, besides being imitated, _e.g._ by Ovid: "video meliora
proboque, Deteriora sequor."
P. 63, l. 1123 ff., MESSENGER.]--A pendant to the Attendant's entrance
above, l. 1002. The Attendant, bringing apparently good news, is
received with a moan of despair, the Messenger of calamity with serene
satisfaction. Cf. the Messenger who announces the death of Pentheus in
the _Bacchae_.
P. 65, l. 1162, Dead self.]--The reflection in the glass, often regarded
as ominous or uncanny in some way.
P. 66, l. 1176, The cry turned strangely to its opposite.]--The
notion was that an evil spirit could be scared away by loud cheerful
shouts--_ololugae_. But while this old woman is making an _ololuge_, she
sees that the trouble is graver than she thought, and the cheerful cry
turns into a wail.
P. 68, l. 1236, Women, my mind is clear.]--With the silence in which
Medea passes over the success of her vengeance compare Theseus' words,
_Hip._, l. 1260, "I laugh not, neither weep, at this fell doom."
P. 69, l. 1249, Thou shalt weep hereafter.]--Cf. _Othello_, v. ii., "Be
thus when thou art dead, and I will kiss thee, And love thee after."
P. 69, ll. 1251 ff.--This curious prayer to the Sun to "save"
Medea--both from the crime of killing her children and the misfortune of
being caught by her enemies--is apparently meant to prepare us for the
scene of the Dragon Chariot. Notice the emphasis laid on the divine
origin of Medea's race and her transformation to "a voice of Hell."
P. 71, ll. 1278 ff., Death of the children.]--The door is evidently
barred, since Jason has to use crowbars to open it in l. 1317. Cf. the
end of Maeterlinck's _Mort de Tintagiles_.
P. 71, l. 1281, A mother slew her babes in days of yore, &c.]--Ino, wife
of Athamas, King of Thebes, nursed the infant Dionysus. For this Hera
punished her with madness. She killed her two children, Learchus and
Melicertes, and leaped into the sea. (There are various versions of the
story.)--Observe the technique: just as the strain is becoming
intolerable, we are turned away from tragedy to pure poetry. See on
_Hip._ 731.
P. 74, l. 1320, This, that shall save me from mine enemies'
rage.]--There is nothing in the words of the play to show what "this"
is, but the Scholiast explains it as a chariot drawn by winged serpents,
and the stage tradition seems to be clear on the subject. See note to
the Aegeus scene (p. 88).
This first appearance of Medea "above, on the tower" (Scholiast) seems
to me highly effective. The result is to make Medea into something like
a _dea ex machina_, who prophesies and pronounces judgment. See
Introduction.
P. 76, l. 1370, They are dead, they are dead!]--This wrangle, though
rather like some scenes in Norse sagas, is strangely discordant for a
Greek play. It seems as if Euripides had deliberately departed from his
usual soft and reflective style of ending in order to express the
peculiar note of discord which is produced by the so-called
"satisfaction" of revenge. Medea's curious cry: "Oh, thy voice! It hurts
me sore!" shows that the effect is intentional.
P. 77, l. 1379, A still green sepulchre.]--There was a yearly festival
in the precinct of Hera Acraia, near Corinth, celebrating the deaths of
Medea's children. This festival, together with its ritual and "sacred
legend," evidently forms the germ of the whole tragedy. Cf. the
Trozenian rites over the tomb of Hippolytus, _Hip._ 1424 ff.
P. 77, l. 1386, The hands of thine old Argo.]--Jason, left friendless
and avoided by his kind, went back to live with his old ship, now
rotting on the shore. While he was sleeping under it, a beam of wood
fell upon him and broke his head. It is a most grave mistake to treat
the line as spurious.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE.
ANDROMACHE: A Play.
CARLYON SAHIB: A Play.
THE EXPLOITATION OF INFERIOR RACES, IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES:
An Essay in "Liberalism and the Empire."
EURIPIDIS FABULAE: Brevi Adnotatione Critica Instructae,
Vols. I. and II.
EURIPIDES: Hippolytus; Bacchae; Aristophanes' 'Frogs.'
Translated into English verse.
EURIPIDES: The Trojan Women. Translated into English verse.
EURIPIDES: Electra. Translated into English verse.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
The following changes were made to the original text:
Page 40: mav --> may
Page 42: eves --> eyes
Page 81: P[)e]lias --> Pelias
Other than the addition of missing periods, minor variations in
spelling and punctuation have been preserved.