Source: Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César, Royal MS 20 D I, f. 37v.
Medea Through the Centuries
By Maggie Yuan
Introduction
A witch. A sorceress. An enchantress. Each of these terms have been ascribed to Medea, the Colchian princess who married Jason and aided him in his quest for the Golden Fleece. Her story has fascinated audiences for centuries, inspiring writers to craft their own versions of the myth. Although many aspects of her story vary from author to author, she is always defined by her use of magic and outsider identity, two facets which are often intertwined. Beyond obvious plot differences, however, authors of various eras twist her myth for their own purposes. From ancient Greece to ancient Rome to the Middle Ages, Medea’s story has acted as a vehicle for cultures to weave in their own values and fears, particularly their anxiety over foreigners and treatment of women.
Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, Euripides provides an innovative twist to Medea’s story, highlighting the politics and xenophobia of the era. His play Medea is riddled with complexities and contradictions, creating space for the viewer to feel sympathy for Medea while simultaneously arousing feelings of disgust. Many new additions to the story, such as the intentional filicide and the theme of marital betrayal, stem from this retelling (Boyle 4). In spite of its many contradictions, or perhaps because of them, Euripides’ version creates the “greatest impact on the evolution of the myth” of Medea (Boyle 4). The political atmosphere within which Euripides penned his play is critical in understanding this evolution. In 455 and 450 BCE, the Athenian government passed a series of laws forbidding Athenian men to take foreign wives in order to curb the amount of mixobarbaroi (children of mixed blood) and “secure the purity of the race” (Nugent 322). This form of political eugenics can be seen reflected in Euripides’ play. It is clear to Medea, a foreign wife who had children with a Greek man, that she is seen as an outsider in Greek society. Indeed, rather than assimilating his wife into Greek society, Jason sees her foreignness as a burden to himself, as well as to their children. At one point, he even argues that he did Medea a favor, taking her from her barbarian land to Greece to learn “justice and the rule of law, with no concession to force” (Euripides, lines 535–540). Jason excuses his marriage to Creusa, a Corinthian princess, as a way to raise the status and secure the place of not only himself, but his entire family. However, his decision to marry Creusa and spurn his foreign bride leads to the death of everyone close to him, including his children and new wife. Although it is only when Jason takes a Greek wife that the people around him die, the initial transgression occurred because Jason deigned to take a foreign wife at all. Euripides’ solution to the inclusion of foreign blood into the proper Greek family was having Medea and Jason’s children killed, literally erasing their mixed blood. In addition, by having Medea commit filicide, the play implies foreign women could not assimilate into Greek society, no matter how much they seemed to fit in. Of course, in this situation, Jason is not blameless, since his choice of partner is what leads to their children’s eventual death. As Nugent suggests, Medea’s murderous tendencies “may represent … the Athenian male’s worst nightmare of what may happen with a non-Athenian wife” (323). Through Medea, Euripides issues a warning to the Greeks about the dangers of allowing a foreign woman into the home, disrupting their notions of family.
Medea’s magic also represents the potentially destructive power that every Greek wife wields over her household (Nugent 317). As the granddaughter of Helios, Medea has access not only to magic poisonous herbs, but also to the divine chariot that she later uses to flee the scene of the crime; her magical connections cement her status as a witch and an outsider in Greek society. Although she is a foreign bride, her marriage to Jason allows her to assume the role of a Greek wife, managing the children and household. Throughout the play, it is clear that Jason adheres to the strict gender roles of Greek society and expects Medea to do the same. When he abandons Medea for Creusa, he expects Medea to willingly leave the city as an exile. However, Medea is able to manipulate his misogynistic beliefs, saying, “A woman is born a female thing, and tearful” (Boedeker 135). By appealing to his belief that women are simple creatures who cannot control their emotions, she hides her own vengeful masculine attitude behind the simple label of “woman” (Boedeker 135). In their own way, her honeyed words are a form of magic, one that the typical Greek woman would never dare use. After all, as Pericles so fittingly implies in his funeral oration, to be unknown and silent is to be a proper Greek woman (4). However, once Medea murders their children, Jason abandons his prior views of her as a woman (Boedeker 137). He tells her that she is “a lioness, not a woman, with a nature more savage than Tyrrhenian Scylla’s” (Boedeker 137). Indeed, it is clear that Medea’s actions transgress the sphere of womanhood, not to mention Greek womanhood, through her violent behavior. After all, a Greek woman’s value lies in her status as a wife and a mother. By violently killing her children, she not only eradicates her status as a mother but also destroys her household, thereby symbolically erasing her status as Jason’s wife. Her final ascent away from Corinth on the divine chariot of Helios cements her exit from the role of a Greek woman, as she instead chooses to use magic and divinity to resolve her problems. For a Greek male audience, the fear of women who fall beyond the boundary of their proper role would have been clear in Euripides’ work.
The impact of Euripides’ play cannot be understated. Indeed, it sets the foundation for many of the themes that reappear in future narratives of Medea. Its exploration of “social alienation, moral responsibility … the nature of maternity, [and] humanity” turned the figure of Medea from a myth into a person (Boyle 4). Rather than writing her as a mere warning against specific behavior, Euripides complicates her character, shifting some of the blame for the destruction onto Jason and providing commentary on the unfortunate realities of life as a woman. In fact, one might see how the complexities of Medea’s character in Euripides are simplified in future retellings.
Ancient Rome
Picking up the narrative threads formed in Greece, Roman authors utilized Medea’s story as a commentary on the dangers of foreigners. Whereas the Greek tragedies seem focused on Medea’s role both as an outsider and as a woman, Roman writers highlighted her foreignness. Considering that Medea was from Colchis, a land located east of the Black Sea, Roman authors used her to reflect their general views of the entire east (Boyle 6). Ennius was perhaps the first Roman author to tackle the story of Medea, writing two plays on the subject: Medea Exul and Medea (Boyle 6). From the lines about preferring war to childbirth to Medea’s Nurse’s opening lines in the play Medea Exul, it is clear that Ennius draws from Euripides’ Medea as his source material (Boyle 7–8). However, he diverges from Euripides’ Greek themes, instead realigning the text “in accordance with Roman priorities” (Boyle 8). For example, Ennius highlights the divide between home and abroad, rather than focusing on the public versus private sphere debate that plagued Greek society (Boyle 9). Being an immigrant himself, Ennius would also have been conscious of his own portrayal of Medea (Boyle 9). As Boyle highlights, Ennius’ “exploration of the problems of alterity … and cultural isolation within a foreign city would have had obvious relevance to an … increasingly diverse and anxious Roman urban mass” (9). Ennius leveraged his own identity as a foreigner to insert a political message in his play, only serving as the first example of a Roman poet using Medea to call attention to the Roman fascination with the foreign.
Medea’s emotions and identity are heavily on display in Ovid’s Heroides XII, highlighting her lack of Roman values and acting as commentary on the definition of “foreignness.” Ovid’s use of the epistolary form highlights Medea’s emotional turmoil and humanizes her actions. Throughout the letter, she laments to Jason about the cruelty of his actions. Painting herself as a victim, Medea says, “My girlish innocence belongs now to a brigand who came from foreign places” (Ovid 109). In this statement, Ovid recognizes that Medea was not always the foreign one. In her own mind, Jason would have been the foreigner entering her domestic lands, which is exactly what she has been charged with in Corinth. Such an argument acknowledges the complexities surrounding labels of “foreignness,” a discourse that would have been all too familiar during the age of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, she continues blaming Jason for her misfortune throughout the letter. Although her words may garner sympathy from her readers, her promise to exact revenge shows the Roman audience that she is irredeemable. The complexity of her words is only magnified by what she chooses to omit. One particularly interesting detail in the text is that Medea is unable to articulate her exact crimes on paper, as if writing them down would make them true. For example, Medea speaks of her feelings of isolation, writing, “my dear mother and sisters are gone. But my brother, him I did not leave behind. My pen scratches, it cannot write on” (Ovid 109). The reader of XII would know that Medea did not just take her brother from their home; she actually murdered him in a gruesome manner. The final sentence shows that she acknowledges her crime, but in a roundabout way that leaves it up to the readers to fill in the blank. She later expresses a similar sentiment when she says, “I’ll not repeat the story of Pelias’ daughters” (Ovid 110). Once again, Ovid’s audience would have known that Medea had tricked Pelias’ daughters into killing their father. Her hesitancy to recount her crimes creates a measure of distance between herself and violent action, almost as if she cannot reconcile her own emotions with her actions. One could interpret that distance as her own admission of guilt. However, it is equally as likely that Medea is attempting to guilt Jason, bringing up crimes that she committed on his behalf without being overtly explicit. After all, just as the Medea of Euripides’ invention was clever with her rhetoric, so too is Ovid’s Medea. Regardless of the cause, Ovid makes it clear that Medea is a complex character, battling with her own emotions and using advanced rhetorical devices as she pleads her case to Jason. The sympathy that Medea garners, while effective, leaves no impression of her as a proper Roman woman. The fact that she is able to speak to Jason in an accusatory tone indicates her outsider status, something that Ovid explicitly highlights throughout his work.
Another aspect to Ovid’s Heroides is his characterization of Medea as a “barbarian.” Before she writes her own letter to Jason, Medea is explicitly referred to as a barbarian by Hypsipyle many times in Heroides VI. Hypsipyle laments Jason’s betrayal over his marriage to Medea, writing, “I feared your father would choose for you a bride from Greece. I never feared a barbarian slut” (Ovid 51). As Liu points out, Hypsipyle is surprised that Jason would invert the Greek hierarchy by choosing a Colchian princess over herself, a Lemnian queen (22). Indeed, she accuses Medea of using black magic to seduce Jason, rather than relying on feminine charms (Ovid 51). Instead of blaming Jason for betraying her, Hypsipyle blames Medea, whom she sees as beneath her. By casting Medea as a witch, she dismisses Medea as true competition for Jason’s love; if Jason was won over by witchcraft, Hypsipyle cannot do anything to stop it. Of course, in Medea’s own letter to Jason, her characterization as a barbarian is much less straightforward. In fact, she does not refer to herself as a barbarian until halfway through the poem, when she states, “I, the lass who is to become a barbarian to you” (Ovid 109). This statement shows that Jason did not think of her as a barbarian until after she helped him conquer the dragon (Liu 27). As Liu aptly puts it, “she was not barbara as long as she was helpful to him” (27). Once her usefulness had run its course, Jason cast her aside for a more proper Greek wife.
Hypsipyle goes on to accuse Medea of “stealing into the male sphere and laying claim to fame,” casting aside her role as a proper woman and a wife in order to usurp Jason’s fame (Liu 23). Here, one might see Euripides’ influence on Ovid. In Euripides’ Medea, Medea also assumes the role of a man by lamenting that she would rather go to war than give birth (Nugent 318). Whether the Romans held similar fears to the Greeks in terms of feminine power, or whether Ovid simply drew from the themes of Euripides, it is clear that Medea went beyond the stereotypical female role. Indeed, Hypsipyle’s casting of Medea as a witch blurs the lines between woman and foreigner, since witches straddled the divide between improper woman and foreigner.
While Ennius’ adaptation of Medea provides useful insight into the Roman construction of foreign identity, Ovid’s Medea provides the blueprint for the Middle Ages. His portrayal of Medea creates a complex picture of a scorned woman from which medieval authors would pick and choose qualities to take, repurposing the myth and the woman for their own agenda.
The Middle Ages
Although the medieval version of Medea shares many similarities with her ancient Greek and Roman counterparts, the focus shifts from her alien identity to her role as a woman. The source of most medieval accounts of Medea was Ovid, both in his Heroides and Metamorphoses (McElduff 190). Perhaps due to the lack of diverse classical sources, the Medea of the Middle Ages had much variation, as authors took creative liberties with adapting the scant source material. The Middle Ages was a tumultuous time, lacking the stability of empire that the Romans had enjoyed (McElduff 191). Although the era still maintained the practice of bartering women in marriage, foreign marriages were no longer looked down upon, as they had become necessary for political alliances (McElduff 191). In such a world where men create marriages, Medea “reflects anxieties about real situations” (McElduff 191). In the eyes of medieval readers, her willingness to disregard her father’s wishes by offering herself in marriage to Jason was dangerous and encroached upon the male sphere. In that regard, medieval fears seemed to mirror those of the ancient Greeks and Romans. However, with the rise of chivalric ideas, the story of Medea begins to shift even further (McElduff 192). Interestingly, Medea’s image benefits from this system; now, Jason shoulders some of the blame for his non-chivalric actions and womanizer ways.
One medieval author, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, writes his own version of the Medea myth in Roman de Troie. In this account, he attempts to reconcile the different versions of Medea that Ovid provides in Heroides and Metamorphoses, the former focusing on her inner turmoil and the latter loudly proclaiming her dark actions and magic barbarism. Initially, Medea fulfills her role as a traditional chivalric heroine and a dutiful daughter (McElduff 194). However, by the end of the narrative, Medea has shed that role in order to run away and marry Jason. Sainte-Maure does not solely blame Medea for her actions. In fact, he highlights Jason’s horrifying abandonment of Medea more than once (McElduff 194). As Saint-Maure refuses to squarely place the blame on one character or another, he harkens back to the complexities of Ovid’s works (McElduff 194). As McElduff comments, the “deliberately unstable Ovidian narrative” gives medieval writers the chance to choose their own representation of Medea (194), which often fits into their notions of medieval chivalry and womanhood.
In Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women, the Medea of the classical world seems to all but disappear. As the title suggests, the Medea of Chaucer’s world must fit into the framework already established, moralizing on the stories of “good women” (McElduff 197–198). He begins the tale with Jason’s misdeeds, which left a trail of broken-hearted women in their wake (McElduff 198). When Jason asks Medea for help on his quest, there is no mention of her witchcraft (McElduff 198). In fact, the brutal parts of Medea’s myth are left out entirely, from the murder of her children to the dismembering of her brother (Root 125). In Chaucer’s tale, Medea becomes the paragon of a virtuous medieval noblewoman. By depicting her in this manner, Chaucer reverses the roles of Jason and Medea; suddenly, Jason becomes the villain (Root 125). Indeed, Jason is presented with feminine characteristics, such as “his coyness and ability to deceive” (McElduff 198). Such characteristics that once solely belonged to Medea now defined Jason. However, Chaucer subtly acknowledges his simplification of Medea and omission of the more gruesome by pointing his audiences to the full Ovidian version of her myth, which is “too long for me to [write]” (163). As McElduff says, Chaucer manipulated the story for his own purposes, “deliberately point[ing] to the instability of the category of Medea” (198). In the growing world of the Middle Ages, Medea is warped for whatever purposes the author deems necessary. The only thread that links these stories may be their moralizing intent.
Conclusion
Of course, Medea has not remained static as she moved from the Middle Ages to the present day. Modern conceptions of Medea have shifted toward a more sympathetic view as the discourse around women and foreigners has progressed. Perhaps in part due to the widespread appearance of the “vengeful woman” trope in the media today, modern audiences are much more inclined to sympathize with a woman who commits unspeakable acts of cruelty as long as she has a justifiable reason . As it appears in popular films such as Kill Bill and Promising Young Woman, the idea of female rage counters the patriarchal notion that a woman’s emotions are irrational and must remain hidden. Such sentiments seem to extend to ancient characters like Medea; suddenly, her actions are examined as a culmination of her experiences and emotions, leading to a complexity in the way that she is perceived. There is no absolution of Medea’s crimes in our minds, but the focus shifts from her actions to her inner emotions. As if inevitable, Medea once again becomes a vehicle for our own thoughts and beliefs. Perhaps there is an element of universality within the myth of Medea that speaks to many cultures throughout time, the complexities of her character offering a multitude of interpretations. For ancient and medieval audiences, this universality was carried through Medea, who served as a warning against the dangers of women and foreigners. Now, modern audiences have a chance to reshape this narrative to reflect modern values, whereby Medea no longer remains a vehicle of caution and instead becomes the focal point in her own right. Although the myth is an ancient one, the myriad versions of Medea will always offer new perspectives, enticing scholars and audiences alike to engage with her story.
Works Cited
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Euripides. Cyclops ; Alcestis ; Medea. Translated by David Kovacs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
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McElduff, Siobhan. “Epilogue: The Multiple Medeas of the Middle Ages.” Ramus 41, nos. 1–2 (2012): 190–205.
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