Greek Drama by Moses Hadas

Author:Moses Hadas [Hadas, Moses]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-90258-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1965-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

3

Euripides

MEDEA

IF MEDEA HAD NOT FALLEN IN LOVE WITH JASON and helped him when he was in quest of the Golden Fleece in far-off Colchis, Jason would never have survived. To enable him to escape she forsook her royal heritage and murdered her brother, and again when the pair returned to Greece she committed murder for his sake. Now after years of marriage and after she has borne him two children whom he loved dearly, Jason is casting her off in order to marry the princess of Corinth. We should surely condemn Jason’s conduct, and so would Euripides’ audience also—after they had seen his play, but hardly before. In Athens children of an alien mother did not enjoy the protection of citizenship and Jason was doubtless sincere in declaring that he wished to ensure his children’s future by giving them royal half-brothers. When Medea taxes him with ingratitude Jason says that if he owes any gratitude it is to Aphrodite, for Medea only did what is expected of women in love. Furthermore, he adds, he gave more than he received, for Medea was only an alien and he had brought her to the civilization of Greece. What Euripides is attacking, then, is Athenian smugness in their conventional superiority to foreigners and to women. But in nature foreigners and women are as human as Greeks and deserve the same consideration. When they are denied it, the results may be as tragic as they prove to be in the Medea. It is not that Euripides approves Medea’s behavior or thinks she should escape punishment: the god out of the machine who saves her in the end is intended to be as incredible as it is improbable. It is rather that Euripides condemns the conventional attitudes which make such conduct on the part of a passionate woman inevitable.

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