Medea

“Poor woman, misfortune’s taught her what it means / to live without a country.” 

Exiles were some of the most vulnerable members of Greek society besides slaves. After the divorce, Medea has nowhere to turn—she was driven from her own country for helping Jason, and now Jason has cut her loose with no allies in a foreign land. She is a citizen of nowhere.

“That marriage is finished. He has a new wife . / He’s no longer bound to honor Medea.” 

The Tutor neatly summarizes Jason’s position. Because he has legally divorced Medea and remarried, he owes Medea little now.

“She’ll make the children pay / for their father’s treachery. / Reason and moderation is what’s needed.” 

The Nurse hopes that Medea will rein her raging passions in with the virtue of clear-headed moderation. The tension between the passions and reason is a key dichotomy for the Greeks.

“Trust in Zeus. His justice / is the way to settle scores.” 

The Chorus reminds Medea that a divine apparatus exists to punish Jason, but Medea is not interested in relying on the justice of the gods. She would rather make her own.

“She’ll growl / and snarl when I approach, / like a lioness shielding / her cubs. She’ll snort like a bull.” 

Here the Nurse compares Medea to ferocious animals. This sort of animal simile is often used to describe heroes; Achilles is frequently compared to a lion in Homer’s Iliad.

“All of us judge by sight and not by knowledge. / Because I’m an outsider I know this better than most, / and have worked hard to fit in […].” 

Medea quickly summarizes ancient Greece’s shame culture. It is all about appearances—how people are seen behaving to other people versus how they are expected to behave. These cultural norms hold powerful sway over the behavior of Creon, Jason, and Aegeus, but the desperation of Medea’s situation means that she simply does not care how she is perceived anymore.

“What other creatures are bred so exquisitely / and purposefully for mistreatment as women are?” 

This quote exemplifies a key point of Medea’s monologue about the unfair treatment of woman, which centers on their inability, at every stage in their lives, to exist independently from men.

“We’ve lain / in our own blood before… and have survived.”

This is one of the most famous lines from Medea’s monologue, in which she compares the pain of menstruation and childbirth to men’s valorous acts in war.

“The truth is I fear you’ll harm my daughter. / Why? Because your nature, clever and vindictive, / thrives on evil and because you sting with loss.” 

Creon casts Medea as a femme fatale. Ironically, his read of her nature holds some kernel of truth, though he largely misunderstands the reasons for her anger.

“Then no one, / man or woman, should be encouraged / to be clever. Stay dumb! / It’s easier to fit in with fools.” 

This is a line from Euripides’s heroine, which expresses a sentiment we might wonder if the poet felt keenly himself. Euripides was often mocked in ancient comedies for being too brainy and intellectual.

“Nothing could be worse if I were caught / lurking in their house. They’d mock and laugh / at me intolerably before putting me to death.”

Medea does not fear death. Like any other hero, she fears dishonor most of all.

“Speak courage to yourself! / Be Medea, invent their grotesque murders.” 

In a neat twist, on a metatheatrical level Medea seems aware of her own story and her fame. She encourages herself to “play the part” of Medea—that is, of a terrifying murderer.

“Still, after all the trouble you’ve caused / I won’t be accused of neglect. I’m here / to do the right thing […].” 

Jason says this to Medea but also, obliquely, to the Chorus and the audience. He does not want to be painted as the villain, but Medea is in control of their story—and in her telling, Jason deserves to be punished, whatever the truth of his intentions might have been.

“Now, you live in Greece— / the center of the world. Justice, not force / rules here. Here your cleverness has brought you / fame.”

Jason argues that he did Medea a favor in bringing her to Greece, where her cleverness would be valued. As Medea has already discovered, cleverness may be a virtue in a man, but in a woman it results in profound mistrust at best.

“No, you’d admire what I’ve done if sex / wasn’t your obsession.” 

Jason repeats a common ancient stereotype about women: that they are completely obsessed with sex. He believes Medea to be motivated primarily by romantic and sexual jealousy of his new bride.

“Watch how my words / will pin him to the mat.”

Medea frames her ability to verbally spar with men as a kind of martial talent. In a battle of words, Medea will always come out on top.

“Say the word. What’s mine is yours. / It does no good to harden yourself / to charity. Leave behind your destructive anger.” 

Jason’s exhortation to Medea here functions as another explicit connection between her behavior to that of famous Greek heroes. In the Iliad Achilles is often begged to leave behind his destructive rage. While Achilles eventually acquiesces, Medea never changes her mind.

“I’m weak and need the gods to help.” 

Medea spins this lie to convince Aegeus of her desperate need of his assistance. While exile would have been an awful fate, Medea is also a powerful witch who leaves the stage in a golden chariot, so we know her supposed weakness here to be something of an exaggeration.

“Who then will dare to say I’m weak or timid? / No, they’ll say I’m loyal as a friend, ruthless / as a foe, so much like a hero destined for glory.” 

This is perhaps the line that most powerfully suggests that Euripides wants his audience to consider Medea as a hero first and as wife and mother second.

“We’ve listened to you. We want to help. / But the laws of man demand we urge you / not to carry out your plan.”

The Chorus acts in their role as a stand-in for the audience and a spokesperson for societal order. While they appreciate that Medea deserves to punish Jason for his crimes, killing the children goes a step too far for their brand of justice.

“Women are not dumb and wicked by nature / but we are what we are. Knowing this, / you should avoid treating me this way.” 

In her fake apology Medea tells Jason that his one misstep in this whole affair was forgetting her womanly nature to blow everything out of proportion. Jason buys the lie hook, line, and sinker.

“Angry passions / have mastered me—emotions of misrule / that destroy men.” 

This is Medea’s final observation before she exits the stage to kill her children. Compare this to lines 109-11, in which the Nurse hopes moderation will check Medea’s anger. Ultimately, Medea’s passions win the day.

“You women, gathered near the door, tell me, is Medea inside—such unspeakable crimes!—or has she fled? / She’ll have to use the underworld to hide / or fly on wings to heaven to avoid what she deserves.” 

Euripides foreshadows Medea’s exit with an ironic line from Jason. Medea will have to “fly on wings to heaven” to avoid punishment for her crimes—and, of course, she does.