Classics 351
April 19, 2022

Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea (starring soprano Maria Callas)
Trailer to the 1969 film; Return voyage of the Argonauts

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Seneca, Medea 1-669

• mytheme of woman deserted by hero she has rescued (e.g. Ariadne ~ Theseus, Dido ~ Aeneas); Medea's rescue of Jason in Colchis (east end of Black Sea, Georgia)
  
  
  
  Jason Retrieves the Golden Fleece, Athenian red-figure vase, 470-460 BCE
  

• mythic background:
  
  Jason: son of Aeson, nephew of Pelias > kingship of Thessaly > quest of Jason & Argonauts (e.g. Hercules, Orpheus, Peleus) for Golden Fleece in Colchis (trials?)
  Medea: daughter of Aeetes (King of Colchis), granddaughter of the Sun/Helios, brother of Apsyrtus; her powers (Aeson vs. Pelias)?
  Corinth & the aftermath (Seneca's play): King Creon & his daughter (Creusa) = protective alliance against threat of Pelias's son Acastus
  

  
  
  
  Medea and Pelias, late 5th century pyxis
  
  
• Medea: Senecan study in anger (cf. Atreus in Thyestes); sympathetic character (as ab/misused woman)? proto-feminist (cf. Euripides's Medea; heroine of justice/revenge in patriarchal society)? misunderstood foreigner? cf. "Parental Alienation Syndrome”
  
  play's polarities (contrasted and confused?):
  
  civilization (Greek) ~ barbarism (Colchis/Other)
  male ~ female
  order ~ chaos
  reason ~ emotion
  law ~ retribution
  nativism ~ colonialism
  
  
• Medea's opening:
  
  
  L-De Morgan, Medea, 1889; R-Waterhouse, Jason and Medea, 1907
  
  the angry prayer
  
  Medea 1-18
  O gods of marriage! Juno, childbirth goddess,
  and you, Athena, who taught Tiphys how
  to harness the first ship that would subdue the waves,
  and Neptune, cruel master of the ocean deep,
  and Titan, portioning the world's bright day,
  and you, whose moonlight sees all secret rites,
  Hecate triple-formed—all gods Jason invoked
  when he swore to me; and gods who better suit
  Medea’s prayers: Chaos of endless night,
  kingdoms that hate the gods of heaven, blaspheming powers,
  master of the melancholy realm, and queen—
  abducted, but he kept his word to you. Now let me curse:
  Come to me now, O vengeful Furies, punishers of sinners,
  wild in your hair with serpents running free,
  holding black torches in your bloody hands,
  come to me scowling, as you did of old,
  when you stood round my marriage bed. Kill his new wife,
  kill his father, and all the royal family.
  
  Medea's frankness & self-awareness (object of spectacle & figure of dramatic myth)
  
  Medea 19-26
  What is worse than death? What can I ask for Jason?
  That he may live!—in poverty and fear.
  Let him wander through strange towns, in exile,
  hated and homeless, an infamous guest, begging a bed.
  Let him want me as wife, and want—the worst I could pray for—
  children who resemble both their parents.
  Now it is born, my vengeance is delivered:
  I mothered it.
  cf. (Nurse) "Medea—(Medea) I will be", 171; "Go on, be daring, begin / to do whatever Medea can do, and even more than that", 566-567
  
  Medea's self-exhortation (cf. Atreus); sense of development as a woman (and inevitable destiny)
  
  Medea 39-55
  I will be the one to kill the victims at the altar.
  Find out a path to vengeance even in the entrails,
  my soul, if you are still alive, if you retain
  any of your old strength. Away with feminine fears,
  dress up your mind like your old cruel home.
  All the horrors witnessed back at home by the Black Sea,
  Corinth will now see. Evils to make
  heaven and earth both shudder equally
  are what my mind revolves: wounding, murder, death
  creeping through the limbs. But all this is too slight;
  I did those as a girl. Let weightier rage swell up:
  now I have given birth, my crimes ought to increase.
  Take on the armour of anger, prepare for destruction
  possessed by fury. The tale of your divorce
  must match your marriage. How could you leave your man?
  The same way that you married him. Enough delay.
  A family formed by crime must be broken by more crime.
  
  
  Poster by Alfons Mucha for 1898 Paris Performance
  

• Jason (confrontation/agon #2): co-conspirator in Medea's crimes; opportunist? ("My luck is always bad, and fate is always cruel ...", 431); "If you gain from a crime, / you did it ... One who has sinned for your sake should look clean to you", 500ff.)
  
  
• Medea's case to Creon (203ff., confrontation/agon #1): her sacrifices for Jason & Argonauts (as champions of Greek "civilization"), "I have done so much harm, but never for myself", 280
  
  Medea 225-228
  This is the only thing that I brought from all my kingdom:
  that it was I who saved the glorious flower of Greece,
  the guardians of Achea, sons of gods:
  I am their saviour.
  
  
• Creon's 1-day reprieve (tragic irony), "do not let my innocent children suffer for their mother's guilt", 283; Creon's complicity (civilization's contradictions)?
  
  Medea 262-264
  Jason has a case, if you remove yourself;
  no innocent blood pollutes him, and his hands
  kept clear of the sword. He is clean,
  as long as he is not tainted by your company.
  

• Medea’s birthing of crime (fatal realization in aside, "Does he love his children so much?", 549); wedding gift plan launched
  
  
  **GROUPS**