Medea of Euripides

About the book

Medea finds herself in Corinth after Jason has chosen a new marriage that promises political advantage. Her position as a foreign woman, her attachment to their children, and the threat of expulsion make the separation more than a private injury. Euripides gives her powerful arguments about broken obligations while allowing anger and calculation to make her intentions increasingly alarming. Exchanges with Jason and Creon expose different understandings of security, justice, and what can be explained away as necessity. The chorus offers sympathy without possessing the power to settle the conflict. The play's intensity comes from making an intelligible grievance coexist with a terrifying response, refusing to let recognition of suffering become an easy guide to judgment about the actions that suffering may produce.

• Betrayal
• Exile and power
• Revenge

Why read it

For a tragedy that gives force to an injured person's argument without making that force resolve the moral difficulty of her choices.

English rhyming verse translation by Gilbert Murray