Medea- the central character of the tragedy of the same name. The action of the drama takes place in Corinth, where M. with her husband Jason and two children is in exile after the assassination of the Thessalian king Pelias. The plot is based on Medea's revenge on Jason, who left her for the sake of marrying the daughter of the Corinthian king Creon. M. threatens to take cruel revenge on the offenders. Fearing her wrath, King Creon orders her and the children to immediately go to a new exile. Under the pretext of arranging the fate of the children, M. seeks a one-day delay, but does not yet know how exactly he will take revenge on the offenders. At this time, she is visited by the Athenian king Aegeus, who returns from the Delphic oracle, where he asked about the reason for his childlessness. Aegeus learns of M.'s misfortune and promises her shelter in Athens. Enlisting the support of Aegeus, M. creates a plan of revenge: she restores a feigned peace with Jason and begs him to keep her children, whom she sends to the princess with gifts - a poisoned peplos (cloak) and a crown. Having put them on, the princess and then her father die in terrible agony, and M. kills the children who have returned home and, on a magic chariot, escapes with their bodies from the grief-stricken Jason.
The main characteristic of the image of M. is her barbaric temperament, which makes all her feelings excessive and leads in the end to an act completely unthinkable, according to Jason, for a Greek woman - the murder of her own children. In this regard, the chorus recalls only one analogy - Ino, who, unlike M., was insane when she committed such an act.
M. believes that the rival is much lower than her, so her despair is combined with offended pride - not just wounded by female pride, but trampled on the honor of the royal daughter and granddaughter of Helios.
The main opponent of M. throughout the tragedy is Jason. Initially, the position of M. is described by Euripides as the position of the victim. She is passive, misfortunes fall on her one after another, betrayal is complemented by exile, and she does not know what to oppose to this, except for an unformed desire for revenge, which is commented by the chorus as completely fair and legitimate. Chorus also does not mind her intention to kill her rival. However, the force of M.'s response is gradually increasing. The turning point is the appearance in her house of the Athenian king Aegeus. Aegeus is childless, and his grief, apparently, makes M. think about the murder of children, which will be the most terrible revenge. However, the choir is already strongly protesting against the plan to kill children, thereby defining the boundary, transgressing which it turns the situation into the opposite, making Jason already a victim of terrible lawlessness. The chorus clearly now sympathizes not with M., but with Jason, who is deprived of even the last right to bury his children or simply say goodbye to them.
* This work is not a scientific work, is not a final qualifying work and is the result of processing, structuring and formatting the collected information, intended to be used as a source of material for self-preparation of educational work.
Plan:
1. Some moments of the author's biography. features of his work. The urgency of the problem. followers of Euripides. What is Euripides dissatisfied with. Poet's thoughts. General characteristics and place in the historical and literary context. History of theme development in literary circles.
2. The image of Medea. Comparison of the myth of Medea with the tragedy of Euripides. Similarities, differences.
3. Analysis of the content of the tragedy: quotes, facts, examples. Comparison of the tragedy of Euripides with other facts about Medea that have come down to us. What are the mismatches? Why did Euripides modify the plot?
4. The main idea of the text. Has the image of Medea been changed? To show the dynamics of characters, the fluctuations and suffering of the characters in the tragedy.
5. Main conclusions on the work done.
6. List of used literature.
Euripides (also Euripides, Greek Εριπίδης, Latin Euripides, 480 - 406 BC) is an ancient Greek playwright, a representative of the new Attic tragedy, in which psychology prevails over the idea of divine fate.
The great playwright was born on Salamis, on the day of the famous victory of the Greeks over the Persians in a naval battle, September 23, 480 BC. e., from Mnesarchus and Kleito. Parents were on Salamis among other Athenians who fled from the army of the Persian king Xerxes. The exact linking of Euripides' birthday to victory is an embellishment that is often found in the stories of ancient authors about the great. So in the Court it is reported that the mother of Euripides conceived him at the time when Xerxes invaded Europe (May, 480 BC), from which it follows that in September he could not have been born. An inscription on Parian marble identifies the year of the playwright's birth as 486 BC. e., and in this chronicle of Greek life, the name of the playwright is mentioned 3 times - more often than the name of any king. According to other evidence, the date of birth can be attributed to 481 BC. e.
Euripides' father was a respected and apparently wealthy man, while Kleito's mother was a vegetable merchant. As a child, Euripides was seriously engaged in gymnastics, even won competitions among boys and wanted to get to the Olympic Games, but was rejected because of his youth. Then he was engaged in drawing, without much, however, success. Then he began to take lessons in oratory and literature from Prodicus and Anaxagoras and lessons in philosophy from Socrates. Euripides collected books for the library, and soon began to write himself. The first play, Peliad, hit the stage in 455 BC. e., but then the author did not win because of a quarrel with the judges. Euripides won the first prize for skill in 441 BC. e. and from then until his death he created his creations. The public activity of the playwright was manifested in the fact that he participated in the embassy in Syracuse in Sicily, apparently supporting the goals of the embassy with the authority of a writer recognized by all Hellas.
The family life of Euripides developed unsuccessfully. From his first wife, Chloirina, he had 3 sons, but divorced her because of her adultery, writing the play Hippolytus, where he ridiculed sexual relations. The second wife, Melitta, was no better than the first. Euripides gained fame as a misogynist, which gave reason to joke with him to the master of comedy Aristophanes. In 408 BC e. the great playwright decided to leave Athens, accepting the invitation of the Macedonian king Archelaus. It is not known exactly what influenced Euripides' decision. Historians are inclined to think that the main reason was, if not persecution, then the resentment of a vulnerable creative person against fellow citizens for not recognizing merit. The fact is that out of 92 plays (75 according to another source), only 4 were awarded prizes in theater competitions during the author's lifetime, and one play posthumously. Only 19 have survived to this day.
Euripides criticized demagogues, political orators and praised rural workers; was guided by the patriotic ideals of the heroic era of Pericles, when democracy triumphed. The innovation and realism of Euripides did not immediately find recognition among the audience. His tragic pathos was ridiculed by Aristophanes in his comedy The Frogs.
The plots of the tragedies of Euripides are mostly mythological, but the characters are written out by him realistically, with positive and negative features, sometimes contradictory. After the death of the great playwright, his works became more and more popular. They influenced Roman authors as well as the development of drama in Europe. And it is not surprising, because the heroes of Euripides are very vital, the replicas are accurate, smart and witty, and the actions are sometimes unexpected, as is often the case in reality.
The Athenians requested permission to bury the playwright in his native city, but Archelaus wished to leave the tomb of Euripides in his capital, Pella. Sophocles, having learned about the death of the playwright, forced the actors to play the play with uncovered heads. Athens erected a statue of Euripides in the theater, honoring him after his death. Plutarch tells the legend ("Lycurgus"): lightning struck Euripides' tomb, a great sign that only Lycurgus was awarded among famous people.
The new forces of Euripides' drama are civic realism, rhetoric and philosophy. The reflection of philosophical problems in his work brought Euripides the title of "the philosopher on the stage."
His work presupposes a certain educational atmosphere and society, to which it addresses, and vice versa - that this poetry for the first time helps to break through the new form of man, bursting into the world, and puts before his eyes an ideal reflection of his essence, in which he feels the need for his justification. perhaps more than ever before.
The bourgeoisization of life for the time of Euripides means approximately the same thing as proletarianization for us, which it sometimes becomes like when a beggar vagabond appears on the stage instead of the tragic hero of antiquity. It was against this humiliation of high poetry that the rivals of Euripides rebelled.
The crisis of the Athenian polis, which escalated sharply during the Peloponnesian War, found a versatile reflection in the tragedies of Euripides. The growing individualistic tendencies in society, reflected in the theoretical sphere in the desire of the sophists to see in man the “measure of all things” (Protagoras) in the field of artistic creativity, are manifested in ever closer attention to the individual, his individuality, to the world of his feelings. In the dramas of Euripides, the tragic conflict unfolds as a conflict of opposite feelings in the hero's soul, as a psychological conflict. For the first time, human psychology receives a detailed artistic embodiment. Euripides depicted people as they really are, refused Sophocles' idealization and glorification, trying to show true reality without hiding its shortcomings (In his comedy The Frogs, Aristophanes condemns Euripides for his desire to show the dark sides of life in the theater).
In the tragedies of Euripides, one can easily recognize a tendency to portray especially acute and tragic situations and conflicts, to tragic pathos, because Aristotle called him "the most tragic of poets." At the same time, the depicted conflicts at the same time take on the features of everyday life, taking place in the sphere of purely personal relationships. The development of the everyday element leads to a contradiction between the mythological form and the content of the tragedy, which acquires the features of an everyday drama. In some of the later tragedies of Euripides ("Ion", "Helen") there are moments that anticipate a new type of dramatic work of the new Attic comedy.
The tragedies of Euripides, responding to the most important events in the political and spiritual life of Athens, sometimes acquired a purely journalistic character: discussions about social problems are sometimes only outwardly connected with the depicted plot. In the tragedies of Euripides, criticism of the traditional worldview sounds: religion, views on the position of women and slaves, on the political structure of society: noting the many shortcomings of Athenian democracy, Euripides speaks out in support of the democratic system, condemns autocracy (tyranny). In several tragedies ("Trojan women", "Hecuba") he protests against wars of conquest, their tragic nonsense, bringing only suffering to a person. Moreover, these sufferings are devoid of moral meaning, leading to the knowledge of the truth, as it was in the tragedies of Aeschylus (“suffering teaches”).
Some of the characters in his tragedies reflect the public mood of the crisis era for Athens - the desire to escape from public life, to look for the ideal in one's inner world, in communion with nature. But in his tragedies it is fashionable to meet heroic images that reflect the civic pathos and patriotism of the poet.
In artistic terms, the tragedy of Euripides marks the crisis of the genre of heroic tragedy. This is evidenced by the inconsistency of the mythological form with the content that acquires everyday coloring, the fall of the role of the choir, which turns from the main structural element of the tragedy into an optional element that loses organic ties with the whole, since the center of gravity shifts to the actor (the image of the hero’s inner world leads in the tragedy of Euripides to appear along with a monologue is also a monody (a solo musical aria).
The tragedy of Euripides paves the way for the drama of modern times with its deep interest in the inner world of man, depicted in all its contradictions.
In the tragedy of Medea, the political and spiritual freedom of the individual grows, the problems of human society and the ties on which it is based become clearer, the human ego claims its rights when it feels that it is constrained by bonds that seem artificial to it. With the help of persuasion and the means of reason, it seeks concessions and exits. Marriage becomes a subject of debate. The relationship of the sexes - over the course of centuries of noli me tangere conventionality - is brought into the light of God and becomes the property of the public: it is a struggle, like everything in nature. Does not the right of the mighty reign here, as elsewhere on earth? And so the poet discovers in the legend of Jason leaving Medea the passions of today, and puts into this shell problems that the legend does not even suspect, but which it can make relevant to modernity with magnificent plasticity.
The then Athenian women were not Medea at all, they were either too downtrodden or too refined for this role. And therefore, a desperate savage who kills her children in order to hurt her traitor spouse and break all contact with him, turned out to be a convenient opportunity for the poet to portray the elemental in a woman's soul, without being embarrassed by Greek customs. Jason, an irreproachable hero in the perception of all Greece, although not at all a born husband, becomes a cowardly opportunist. He acts not out of passion, but out of cold calculation. However, it must be such as to make the murderer of his own children of ancient legend a tragic figure. All the participation of the poet is on her side, partly because, in general, he considers the female fate worthy of pity and therefore does not consider it in the light of myth, blinded by the heroic brilliance of male prowess, which is valued only by exploits and glory; but above all, the poet consciously wants to make Medea the heroine of the petty-bourgeois tragedy of marriage, which was often played out in Athens at that time, although not in such extreme forms. Its discoverer is Euripides. In the conflict of boundless male egoism and boundless female passion, Medea is a true drama of its time. Therefore, both sides play it in a philistine spirit, this is how they argue, blame and resonate. Jason is all imbued with wisdom and generosity, Medea philosophizes about the social position of a woman, about the dishonorable oppression of sexual attraction to another man, whom she must follow and whom she must also buy with a rich dowry, and declares that childbearing is much more dangerous and requires more courage than military exploits.
The tragedy of Euripides, not without reason, was called the debating club of all the movements of his era. Nothing proves more strongly the problematic nature of all things for the consciousness of this generation than this decomposition of all life and all tradition in discussions and philosophizing, in which all ages and classes take part, from king to servant.
The image of Medea attracted many creators of various types of art: artists, composers and writers (mostly playwrights), and, wandering from work to work, this image underwent significant changes.
Medea is a figure of insane, violent passion. In Greek, and then in Roman literature, she is a type of witch (and then an evil sorceress). There are two main tragedies dedicated to Medea: Greek - Euripides, Roman - Seneca. Euripides did not confine himself to one episode of the legend; in his tragedy, he collected all the vicissitudes of the long life of Medea, up to the final crisis. The legend is as follows: Jason was the son of King Iolk; he lived on the Thessalian coast. His uncle Pelius took the throne from his father Iolk, and Jason sent to look for the Golden Fleece, guarded by a dragon, to Colchis, on the distant shores of the Black Sea, hoping that he would not return. Jason sailed on the ship of the Argonauts, passed the rocks of Symplega-dy and arrived in Colchis, in the possession of King Eet.
Eeta had a daughter, Medea. Her grandfather was Helios the sun himself. Circe, the king's sister, Medea's aunt, was also a sorceress (in Homer she turns men into pigs, lions and wolves), Ulysses loved her. He spent a sweet month with her, and she gave birth to his son Telegonus (who later founded Tuskul, where Cicero lived and where his daughter Terentia died in childbirth). Seeing Jason getting off the ship ashore, Medea fell in love with him at first sight, madly and forever. “She is staring at him. She doesn't take her eyes off his face. It seems to her, in the madness that has declared her, that these are the features not of a mortal, but of a god. She is unable to take her eyes off him” (Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII, 86).
Then the king gives Jason orders that are impossible to fulfill. And every time Medea saves him from death, helping to deal with fire-breathing bulls, helping to sow the teeth of the dragon in the field of Ares, from which warriors are born, who immediately take up arms.
So, thanks to Medea, Jason receives the Golden Fleece. As the ship prepares to sail, the Argonauts are threatened by Medea's brother, Ascyltus, and she kills him. She boards the ship; she gave herself to Jason in "a fit of feverish desire". Jason promised to marry her.
He returned to Thessaly, but Pelius refused to return his father's throne to him. Then Medea convinced Pelias to plunge into a vat of boiling water to regain his youth, and he was boiled alive.
The murder of Pelias forced Medea and Jason to flee from Iolkos. They settled in Corinth, with King Creon.
King Creon asked Jason to marry his daughter. Jason agreed, for she was a Greek, and expelled Medea the stranger.
Medea looks at her two children, born of Jason, when they still loved each other. For his sake, she betrayed her father, killed her young brother and killed Pelias. She gave him two sons, and now he rejects her. Anger strangles Medea. She enters the sons' room. One of them is called Mermer, the other is Feret. She tells their slave teacher: “Go, prepare for them what they need for every day,” knowing that these things will go with them to the underground dwelling - the grave. She looks at the children. Now she will kill them. Here it is - the moment of painting.
On a fresco in the house of the Dioscuri, boys play dice under the supervision of a slave teacher. Medea is on the right. A long, pleated tunic falls from the shoulders to the legs. The right hand gropes for the hilt of the dagger held in the left. Her eyes are fixed on the children, who are absorbed in their game with all the ardor and carelessness of their age. One stands cross-legged and leans lightly on a cubical table, the other sits on the same table. The hands of both are outstretched to the bones that they themselves will soon become. Medea's fury is calm. It is that same stillness, that most frightening silence, that is the harbinger of an explosion of madness.
On the fresco in Jason's house, on the contrary, the children meet their mother's eyes. The slave looks at Mermer and Feret. There are two possible explanations for Medea's behavior and look. Either, focusing her thoughts on the upcoming act, she oscillates between two conflicting feelings - pity and revenge (a mother and a woman are fighting in her, fear of what was conceived and a fierce desire for this double infanticide), or in her, frozen before the accomplishment of this bloody act, an irresistible anger rages, an irresistible thirst for fierce retribution. The first interpretation is from the field of psychology. The second has nothing to do with psychology, it is physiological, tragic. This is the only possible interpretation, because it explains the text depicted in the frescoes. For this is an interpretation of Euripides.
Medea by Euripides describes the rupture of civilized ties due to the passion of a woman for a man. Love turns into hatred, violent lust for the lover turns into deadly rage for the family.
Passion is a disease. In madness the soul succumbs to a violent impulse. A diver who has jumped into the water can no longer stop his fall. Even running - and that is the "madness" of movement: a running person is unable to stop and freeze in a single moment. Aristotle said: people who throw stones cannot bring them back. Cicero in Tusku-Lansky Conversations (IV, 18) wrote: “A person who has thrown himself (praecipi-taverit) from the top of Cape Leucadus into the sea cannot stop halfway to the water, even if he wants to.” Praecipitatio is falling headfirst into the abyss. In his treatise "On Anger" (I, 7), Seneca the Younger repeats this image of Cicero - the image of a man falling into an abyss - and comments on this "deadly leap" as follows: he who rushes down is not only unable to return back, but he is "incapable of not to go where I could not rush.”
Medea is a woman who throws herself into the abyss. There is no other way and there cannot be. Here we are not talking about Kornelev's heavy hesitation, about the clash of psychological motives. Like a plant or an animal, madness goes through three stages - birth, flowering and death. Madness is growth; it is born and grows, it becomes irresistible, it strives for its end, happy or unhappy.
The fresco vividly expresses the most famous verse of antiquity, put into the mouth of Medea: “I understand what atrocity I dared to do. But my thymos (life force, libido) is stronger than my bouleumata (things I want).” Medea sees ,
what did she decide to do? she sees that a wave of desire has swept over her mind and threatens to take everything with it. The moment captured on the fresco cannot be called psychological: the heroine is not torn between madness and reason. This moment is tragic: Medea is helpless before the current, which in a moment will carry her away to action. The moment is so non-psychological that Euripides accompanies it with a purely physiological explanation: all the misfortune comes from the fact that Medea's insides - her brain, heart and liver - are inflamed. That is exactly what the nurse says: “What is she to do when her whole being is inflamed (megalosplangchnos), when misfortune torments her, giving no rest (dyskatapaustos)?” Euripides describes all the signs of a serious disorder that has befallen Medea: she no longer eats, avoids the company of people, children inspire horror in her, she cries incessantly, or stubbornly looks down at her feet, or her eyes are filled with anger, like an angry bull, she is deaf to human speech and listens to the words of loved ones no more than a rock - "the noise of the sea waves."
"Medea" by Seneca is even more precise. His play not only concentrates all the action, in the Roman manner, on the final moment, but goes further: at the end of the tragedy, Medea announces that she will cut her womb with a dagger in order to make sure that the third child from Jason does not grow in it. By such a tragic device, it is shown what is the cause of her rage (inflamed entrails), what is the cause of her love (lust, indefatigable carnal passion, which she proved by her previous actions) and, finally, what are the fruits of this passion (a child in the womb). Two verses are magnificent that convey this state (Medea, 1012 and 1013): “In matre si quod pignus etiamnunc latet, scrutabor ense viscera et ferro extraham” (If one more guarantee of love remained hidden in the mother’s womb, I will cut this womb with a dagger and throw the germ away). Medea goes over and over again the three causes of her unhappiness, which will grow in her troubled soul until they lead to an act of murder. By this act, her “insides” will take revenge on her bosom, destroying the fruits that she spewed into the light of God - little Mermer and little Feret.
Medea Seneca will finally be able to say: "Medea nunc sum" (From now on I am Medea) and explain it this way: "Saevit infelix amor" (Unhappy love breeds madness). There is no individual conflict between what a person wants and what he wants. But there is a natural ocean that breaks the dam and lifts all the bodies depicted in the fresco to the crest of a growing wave of fury. “I don’t know what my wild soul has decided in the depths of me” (Nescio quid ferox decrevit animus intus).
What is Medea's view? A motionless, frozen gaze precedes a storm, an explosion, during which a person who has fallen into a frenzy seems to hallucinate, but does not see the action he is doing, the crime he is committing, he does not even see his own hallucination. His gaze is fixed numbly into space. He sees something different. Cicero uses a striking expression when he says that in a darkened mind "all the windows are covered" (Tusculan Conversations, I, 146). After this explosion, the look clears up to such an extent that, for example, the hero Oedipus rips out his own eyes: the windows of his mind, wide open, showed him what he had done. Madness heals itself in an act of madness, as soon as the madman recognizes his own hand in the perfect deed. An act of rage is nothing but a climax, followed by a decline and a pacification.
After killing the children, Medea flees to Athens. There she marries Aegeus and gives birth to his son Medes, whom she loves so passionately that she helps him kill the Persian in order to take over his kingdom.
Let's compare the ancient Medea with the modern one. The ancient frescoes describe a concentrated maturation, in which there is absolutely nothing dramatic: they show the moment that sums up this tragedy, and by no means reveal its end. In our era Medea was written by Delacroix. In 1855, Théophile Gauthier became acquainted with the painting, formulated its aesthetics, and in the strongest possible way opposed it (no matter how he claimed the opposite) to the spirit of ancient painting: “The enraged Medea Delacroix was painted with ardor, enthusiasm and generosity of colors that Rubens himself would have approved. The gesture of a lioness gathering her cubs near her, with which Medea keeps frightened children, is a magnificent invention of the artist. Her face, half hidden by shadow, is reminiscent of a snake expression. Not like the heads of marble or clay statues, it looks, nevertheless, truly antique. Her children, frightened, crying, not understanding what is happening, but guessing that something terrible is waiting for them, rush away from under the hand of their mother, who is already clutching the dagger. From convulsive efforts to free themselves, their short tunics pulled up, revealing children's bodies of fresh pink tones, which are in sharp contrast to the bluish, again snake-like pallor of the mother.
So, in Paris, gestures are important, in Rome, looks. In Paris, children worry, cry, resist. In Rome, they play, completely absorbed in this activity. In Paris, the hysterical Medea expresses the situation. In Rome, Medea, immersed in a vengeful fury, thinks more about it than acts. In Paris, the act of murder itself is depicted. In Rome - the moment preceding it. And not only this one preceding moment, but also the whole text of Euripides as a whole is concentrated in one moment, which froze, not to mention what it is going to become.
In Paris - a spectacular operatic cry. In Rome - a frightening silence (obstupefactus).
The Romans saw a beautiful plot in this terrible reflection of Medea, insulted by Jason and frightened by her own inevitable desire to kill Mermer and Feret at the very moment when they play. The whole ancient world admired Medea, written by Timomach. Caesar considered the painting so beautiful that he bought it with gold. The whole ancient world unanimously praised the eyes of Medea. This look is truly a miracle. The eyelids are inflamed. Anger is emphasized by furrowed brows. Pity - in the glittering moisture. Ausonius wrote: “In the picture written by Timomach, the threat is expressed in tears, a dagger gleams in his hand, not yet stained with the blood of her sons ... Timomach’s brush hurts just like the dagger that Medea clutches in her left hand, meeting her eyes with Mermer and Feret ".
Apuleius also created his Medea. This amazing Medea, separating the death of children from revenge, connects the scene of the first intercourse with birth in an even more concrete way than the insides ripped open by Medea's dagger in Seneca's play.
Consider the image of Medea in the tragedy of the same name by Euripides:
Aristotle considered it inadmissible for a poet to change the essence of a myth and cited Medea as an example of such preservation of the grain of a legend. Of the different versions of the myth about Medea, Euripides chooses the one in which she is the most cruel: hiding from her father's persecution, Medea kills her younger brother Aspirtus and scatters pieces of his body so that his father lingers to collect them; Medea kills her own children; Medea, not Jason, handles the dragon. Medea Euripides went to great lengths for Jason, to the most terrible crimes, and in tragedy she is not as powerful as she was in some myths (according to one myth, she is the daughter of the king of Colchis, Eeta and the oceanides of Idia, the granddaughter of Helios and the niece of Circe, and according to another, she is the mother Medea is the patroness of the sorceresses Hecate, and Circe is the sister).
Euripides chooses the myth that explains the root cause of the collapse of the family of Medea and Jason: Eros, at the request of Athena and Hera, inspired Medea with a passionate love for Jason, but her love was unrequited and he married her only because he made a promise, in exchange for her help. Those. on the part of Jason, it was a marriage of convenience, which is why it was so easy for him to abandon Medea and children for the sake of the royal throne of Corinth.
The nurse’s monologue opens the tragedy, where she briefly describes the situation (Aristotle considered the prologue of “Medea” a model of the prologue of a tragedy):
And she wouldn't have to be in Corinth now
Shelter seek with children and husband.
Let the citizens have time to please
She is in exile, remained to her husband
Submissive wife...
... destiny
Medea became different. They don't like her
And the tender heart suffers deeply.
Yasen children with his wife in exchange
I decided to give a bed to a new one,
He marries a princess - alas!
Medea is insulted, and her
She doesn't want to stop screaming.
We learn a lot about the character of Medea already from the first monologue of the nurse:
Refusing food, night and day
Having given the body to torment, melt the heart
In tears, the queen gives from that time,
How the evil news of resentment settled
In her soul.
... Misfortune opened the price for her
Lost homeland.
Children even
She became hated, and on them
The mother cannot look. I'm scared, like
What a crazy thought that didn't come
To her head. Resentment does not endure
Heavy mind, and such is Medea.
Thus, the personality of the main character of the tragedy is immediately indicated: smart, daring, with a strong character, not used to forgiving, immensely loving and driven to despair by the betrayal of the only close person for whom she sacrificed so much, a woman.
Knowing her mistress, the nurse is afraid of how much trouble she can do out of revenge:
Yes, the wrath of Medea is terrible: it is not easy
Her enemy will win.
The nurse feels a threat to the life of the children of Medea and Jason.
Medea is still groaning behind the scenes, and we already clearly imagine her, how she groans and calls the gods to witness Jason's reckoning. Medea's suffering is immeasurable:
Nobody's caress, not a single friend
She is not warmed by caress.
She calls for death, unable to endure the offense and curses herself for being bound by an oath to an unworthy husband, together with Jason, she lost the meaning of life:
Oh God! Oh God!
Oh, let heavenly Perun
Burn my skull!
Oh, why should I still live?
Alas for me! Alas! You, death, untie
I have knots of life - I hate her ...
Medea describes the unenviable social position of the Roman woman of that time and the female lot, which cannot arouse compassion. In many ways, this problem has not lost its relevance today:
We women are not more unhappy. For husbands
We pay - and not cheap. And you buy
So he is your master, not a slave.
And the first second grief is greater.
And most importantly - you take it at random:
He is vicious or honest, as you know.
In the meantime, go away - you're a shame,
And you can't remove your spouse.
And now to the wife, entering the new world,
Where customs and laws are alien to her,
One has to guess with what
The bed is divided by creation. And enviable
The inheritance of the wife, if the husband is the yoke
He carries his own dutifully. Death is different.
After all, the husband, when the hearth is cold to him,
On the side, the heart is filled with love,
They have friends and peers, and we
You have to look in the eyes with shame.
But they say that we are behind our husbands,
Like behind a wall, and they, they say, need spears.
What a lie! Three times under the shield
I would rather stand than once
One to give birth.
Medea's suffering intensifies when King Creon comes to her, demanding that she immediately leave the city with her children, he is afraid that the sorceress Medea will harm his daughter. Answering him, Medea very accurately describes herself, explaining the reasons for the bad attitude of people towards her:
Clever Medea - this is hateful
She is one, others are the same as you,
Insolence is considered dangerous.
Medea asks Creon to allow her to stay with the children in the city for at least a day, because she has neither the means nor the friends who would shelter them. Being a gentle enough person, Creon agrees, not suspecting that Medea needs one day to deal with him and his daughter, for she "is cunning and has comprehended her mind a lot."
The murder of Creon and the princess Medea conceives in cold blood, not at all doubting the correctness of the chosen decision:
To father, and daughter, and husband with her
We turned into corpses... hated...
There are also many ways...
Which
I'll choose, I don't know myself yet:
Hall to set fire to brides or copper
I must drive them sharp into the liver ...
The only thing that confuses her is that “on the way to the bedroom” or “on business” she can be “captured ... and the villains get mocked”
Do not change the path of direct us,
And, fortunately, he has been tested - poison on stage ...
Yes, it's decided...
Medea is prudent, logical and consistent in her plans and thoughts:
Well, I killed them... And then what?
Where is the city and friend who is the door
It will open for us and, sheltering, for us
Guarantee?
There is no such thing ... Well patience
At least not for long.
If the walls
Protection will open before me,
On the secret path of murder silently
I'll get up right away.
For business! ..Medea, all art
You call for help - every step
You have to think to the smallest detail!
Go to the worst! you heart,
Now show your strength.
Verbal duel with Jason Medea wins brilliantly:
That you are not a husband, not a warrior - worse, angrier
You can’t be what you are for us, and to us
You still come ... There is no courage ...
Do you need courage to, friends
So hurting, look into the eyes? Otherwise
We call this disease - shamelessness ...
Yes, be proud
Can I be a faithful husband, it's so...
And the glory of a happy newborn
It will not be covered with pale, if, for sure,
Spewed from the city, alone
And with defenseless children, wandering,
And with the poor, the one who saved him,
He will go to surprise people with his misfortune.
Oh Zeus, oh god, if you could for gold
Fake open signs to people
So why didn't you burn out the stigma
On a scoundrel, so that it catches the eye? ..
Medea remembers everything she did for him, she exposes him as the most complete nonentity and scoundrel:
My children's father
You started a new marriage. Let the seed
Yours was fruitless, I'm thirsty for a bed
I would understand something new...
Where is it?
Where are those sacred oaths?
And Jason, in response, openly admits that he is looking for material gain in marriage with the Corinthian princess, but in order to justify himself, he says that he is doing this in order to “raise children ... through their brothers.” Medea understands that Jason did not want to remain married to the barbarian princess.
What fate is happier for an exile
I could even dream about it than the union
With the queen?
... Married
I, in order to arrange myself, so that needs
Do not see us - from experience I know
That the poor are also alienated by a friend.
I wanted yours with dignity
Raise children, for your own happiness,
Through their brothers who will be born.
Medea differs sharply from the Greeks, and even after living with Jason among the Greeks, her character has not changed at all: she is hot, passionate, emotional, driven by feelings and instincts, proud, harsh, unrestrained and immeasurable. Medea is immeasurable in everything: in love, hatred, revenge. It is precisely because of this that other characters of the tragedy do not understand her (Medea says about herself: “Oh, I am in many ways, right, different from people and many ...”), that is why the tragedy was not appreciated by Euripides’ contemporaries (she was awarded the third place). Born for another life, Medea is outraged by the conditions of captivity in which the Hellenic wives live, who do not know who they are marrying, vicious or honest, and what are the sufferings of those who are not lucky.
The image of Medea reaches true tragedy when, together with the bride and the king, she plots to kill the children. Having found a future shelter with Aegeus, Medea thinks over a plan of murder: she reconciles with her husband and begs him to persuade the princess to leave the boys in Corinth; together with the children, she sends poison-soaked peplos and a diadem to the palace. And here Medea's most severe torments begin: maternal instinct struggles with a thirst for revenge, hatred - with love, duty - with passion. Medea changes her mind four times: first, she wants to kill the children in order to destroy Jason's family:
Should kill the kids. And they won't throw up
We have nobody. Yasonov herself with a root
I'll rip out the house.
This woman is vain and infinitely proud:
Neither weak nor pitiful, probably
I will not remain in the mouths of men; us
They will not call you patient; temper
Another me: in spite I am two,
And I answer double love.
All the children of glory in the world are like that.
But when Medea plays the scene of reconciliation with Jason, she begins to believe in it herself a little and, having brought the children to him, embracing them, she realizes that she is not able to kill them:
...Pity soul!
You seem ready to cry, trembling
You are embraced.
But imagining how her boys will grow up without her, how they will grow up, get married, and she will not participate in this and will not see their happiness (i.e. she suffered in vain, giving them life, hoping that they will support her in old age and will be buried with dignity), Medea decides to take her sons with her to Athens. Perhaps it is in this fragment that Medea's egoism is most noticeable: she does not think about what is best for her children, to live or die, to stay in the city or wander with her, she is driven only by her own feelings and her own desires. She wants to keep the children with her because in exile they will be her “delight”. But this decision does not ease her torment in the least, sending her sons to the palace with poison, she says: “Go away, go away quickly ... There is no strength to look at you. I am crushed by flour ... ".
Everything is changed by the messenger who came, who told that after the death of the princess and her father, angry Corinthians rush to the house of Medea in order to kill her and her children. Medea has no more doubts. Now this is a murder for salvation, a murder out of mercy, because the minions of Creon or an angry mob can simply tear apart innocent children:
…I am now
Finish them off and get out of here
Otherwise, another will make mine
A hostile hand, but the same; lot
Im dead now. Let the mother
She will do it herself.
What can not be seen by the enemies of my children,
Abandoned by Medea for mockery.
There is no longer a tragic contradiction, the image of Medea again acquires integrity.
The finale of the tragedy is very bright: Medea appears in a chariot drawn by dragons, which was sent to her by Helios. She has the corpses of her children with her. Her last dialogue with Jason takes place, which somewhat changes the nature of the drama: the accusations against Medea are just, it really may seem that if Skilla has a heart, she is kinder than Medea, her cruelty knows no bounds, but all Medea’s arguments also seem plausible: she’s guilty Jason, his sin killed them, and the jealousy of a woman gives her the right to any actions:
Medea
The gods know the culprit of misfortunes ...
And your cursed witchcraft.
You can hate. Just be silent...
Do not cry yet: early -
You will pay for your old age.
Beloved children!
For your mother, not for you.
This firm woman is true to herself to the end: even to dead children she does not give touch your ex-husband, despite all his pleas.
Tragedy carries a sense of the absurdity of life: there is no justice in the world, there is no border between good and evil, there is no measure, there is no truth, there is no happiness. Medea makes one doubt the highest values, the existence of the gods (she calls for their help, but they do not help her in any way), and her view of the world.
Euripides does not bring morals, does not insist on the principles of morality. He simply depicts human destinies. And the reader himself makes the choice of which of the characters to sympathize with, which side to take.
The author's position is manifested only in the choice of myths (in which Medea did more for Jason), the composition of the tragedy (Medea, her cries, monologues, torments are given most of the drama) and the system of characters (Creon is shown as a weak but cruel person, the princess is Medea's rival - there is only in the retellings of other heroes, the chorus is on the side of Medea, and Jason is pathetic and mercantile).
Medea is the undoubted center of the work, the world of tragedy revolves around her, she focuses on herself all the emotional and psychological content of the drama. Willy-nilly, you begin to empathize with her, her throwing causes a response storm of feelings. It seems that Euripides himself was fascinated by the image of this amazing inner strength of a woman.
List of used literature:
- Euripides. - "Medea", Hippolytus, Bacchae. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 1999
- Myths of the peoples of the world. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1988
- Goncharova, T.V. - Life of wonderful people. Euripides. Moscow: Young Guard, 1984
- Kozhukhova M.S. - Literary criticism of the creative manner of Euripides. - in the book "Questions of ancient literature and classical philology". - M.: Young Guard, 1966
- Ancient literature. Greece. Anthology. Ch.1 M., Higher School, 1989
- Ancient literature. Greece. Anthology. Part 2 M., Higher School, 1989
- History of ancient literature. Ancient Greece. M., "Flint", "Science", 2002
There is a myth about the hero Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. He was the hereditary king of the city of Iolka in Northern Greece, but power in the city was seized by his elder relative, the imperious Pelius, and in order to return it, Jason had to accomplish a feat: with fellow heroes on the Argo ship, sail to the eastern edge of the earth and there , in the country of Colchis, get the sacred Golden Fleece, guarded by a dragon. About this voyage, Apollonius of Rhodes later wrote the poem "Argonautica".
In Colchis, a mighty king, the son of the Sun, ruled; his daughter, the sorceress Medea, fell in love with Jason, they swore fidelity to each other, and she saved him. First, she gave him witchcraft potions, which helped him first to endure the test feat - to plow arable land on fire-breathing bulls - and then to put the dragon's guardian to sleep. Secondly, when they sailed from Colchis, Medea, out of love for her husband, killed her own brother and scattered pieces of his body along the shore; the Colchians pursuing them lingered, burying him, and could not overtake the fugitives. Thirdly, when they returned to Iolk, Medea, in order to save Jason from the deceit of Pelias, invited the daughters of Pelias to slaughter their old father, promising after that to resurrect him young. And they slaughtered their father, but Medea renounced her promise, and the parricide daughters fled into exile. However, Jason failed to get the kingdom of Iolk: the people rebelled against the foreign sorceress, and Jason with Medea and two young sons fled to Corinth. The old Corinthian king, having looked closely, offered him his daughter as a wife and the kingdom with her, but, of course, so that he divorced the sorceress. Jason accepted the offer: perhaps he himself was already beginning to be afraid of Medea. He celebrated a new wedding, and the king sent an order to Medea to leave Corinth. On a solar chariot harnessed by dragons, she fled to Athens, and told her children: “Give your stepmother my wedding gift: an embroidered cloak and a gold-woven headband.” The cloak and bandage were saturated with fiery poison: the flames engulfed the young princess, the old king, and the royal palace. The children rushed to seek salvation in the temple, but the Corinthians, in a rage, stoned them to death. What happened to Jason, no one knew for sure.
It was hard for the Corinthians to live with the notoriety of child-killers and wicked people. Therefore, the legend says, they begged the Athenian poet Euripides to show in the tragedy that it was not they who killed the Jason children, but Medea herself, their own mother. It was difficult to believe in such horror, but Euripides made him believe it.
“Oh, if those pines from which the ship on which Jason sailed had never collapsed ...” - the tragedy begins. This is Medea's old nurse speaking. Her mistress has just learned that Jason is marrying a princess, but does not yet know that the king tells her to leave Corinth. Behind the scenes, the moans of Medea are heard: she curses Jason, herself, and the children. “Take care of the children,” says the nurse to the old teacher. The choir of Corinthian women is in alarm: Medea would not have called out a worse misfortune! “Terrible royal pride and passion! better peace and measure.
The groans ceased, Medea goes out to the choir, she says firmly and courageously. “My husband was everything to me - I have nothing more. O wretched fate of a woman! They give her away to a strange house, pay a dowry for her, buy her a master; it hurts her to give birth, as in a battle, and to leave is a shame. You are here, you are not alone, but I am alone. The old Corinthian king comes forward to meet her: immediately, in front of everyone, let the sorceress go into exile! "Alas! hard to know more than others:
from this fear, from this hatred. Give me at least a day to decide where I should go. The king gives her a day. "Blind man! she says after him. "I don't know where I'm going, but I know I'll leave you dead." Who - you? The choir sings a song about universal untruth: oaths are violated, rivers flow backwards, men are more insidious than women!
Jason enters; an argument begins. “I saved you from the bulls, from the dragon, from Pelius - where are your oaths? Where should I go? In Colchis - the ashes of a brother; in Iolka - the ashes of Pelias; your friends are my enemies. Oh Zeus, why can we recognize fake gold, but not a fake person! Jason replies: “It was not you who saved me, but the love that moved you. I am counting on this salvation: you are not in wild Colchis, but in Greece, where they know how to sing glory to me and to you. My new marriage is for the sake of children: born from you, they are not full, and in my new house they will be happy. - “Happiness is not needed at the cost of such an insult!” “Oh, why can’t people be born without women! there would be less evil in the world." The choir sings a song about evil love.
Medea will do her job, but where will she go then? Here the young Athenian king Aegeus appears: he went to the oracle to ask why he had no children, and the oracle answered incomprehensibly. “You will have children,” says Medea, “if you give me shelter in Athens.” She knows that Aegeus will have a son on a foreign side - the hero Theseus; knows that this Theseus will drive her out of Athens; he knows that later Aegeus will die from this son - he will throw himself into the sea with false news of his death; but is silent. “Let me perish if I let you be driven out of Athens!” - says Egey, Medea doesn't need anything else now. Aegeus will have a son, and Jason will have no children - neither from his new wife, nor from her, Medea. "I will uproot the Jason family!" - and let descendants be horrified. The choir sings a song in praise of Athens.
Medea reminded of the past, secured the future - now her concern is about the present. The first is about her husband. She calls Jason, asks for forgiveness - “we women are like that!” - flatters, tells the children to hug their father: “I have a cloak and bandage, the legacy of the Sun, my ancestor; let them bring them to your wife!” - “Of course, and God grant them a long life!” Medea's heart shrinks, but she forbids herself pity. The choir sings: “Something will happen!”
The second concern is about children. They carried the presents and returned; Medea cries over them for the last time. “I gave birth to you, I nursed you, I see your smile - is it really the last time? Dear hands, dear lips, royal faces - won't I spare you? The father stole your happiness, the father deprives you of your mother; I will pity you - my enemies will laugh; don't be this! Pride is strong in me, and anger is stronger than me; decided!” The choir sings: “Oh, it’s better not to give birth to children, not to lead at home, to live in thought with the Muses - are women weaker in mind than men?”
The third concern is about the homeowner. A messenger runs in: "Save yourself, Medea: both the princess and the king died from your poison!" - “Tell, tell, the more, the sweeter!” The children entered the palace, everyone admires them, the princess rejoices at the dresses, Jason asks her to be a good stepmother for the little ones. She promises, she puts on an outfit, she shows off in front of a mirror; suddenly the color escapes from the face, foam appears on the lips, the flame covers her curls, the burnt meat shrinks on the bones, the poisoned blood oozes like resin from the bark. The old father, screaming, clings to her body, the dead body wraps around him like ivy; he tries to shake it off, but he himself becomes dead, and both, charred, lie dead. “Yes, our life is just a shadow,” the messenger concludes, “and there is no happiness for people, but there are successes and failures.”
Now there is no turning back; if Medea does not kill the children herself, others will kill them. “Do not hesitate, heart: only a coward hesitates. Be silent, memories: now I do not mother them, I will cry tomorrow. Medea leaves the stage, the choir sings in horror: “The ancestor sun and the supreme Zeus! hold her hand, don't let murder multiply by murder!" Two children's groans are heard, and it's all over.
Jason bursts in: “Where is she? on earth, in the underworld, in the sky? Let her be torn to pieces, if only I could save the children!” "It's too late, Jason," the choir tells him. The palace opens, above the palace - Medea on the Sun chariot with dead children in her arms. “You are a lioness, not a wife! Jason screams. “You are the demon with which the gods struck me!” "Call whatever you want, but I hurt your heart." - "And your own!" - "My pain is light to me when I see yours." - "Your hand killed them!" - "And before that - your sin." - "So let the gods execute you!" "Gods do not hear perjurers." Medea disappears, Jason calls out to Zeus in vain. The chorus ends the tragedy with the words:
“What you thought was true does not come true, / And the gods find ways for the unexpected - / Such is what we experienced” ...
One of which is Medea. The summary of this tragedy will deepen you into the atmosphere of Ancient Greece and tell you about the complexities of human relationships and human vices.
Philosophy of Euripides
The ancient Greek playwright Euripides argued that man is wiser than the gods, so he was one of the first to decide on a critical attitude towards the inhabitants of Olympus. Any supernatural power, he believed, is the fruit of human imagination.
Euripides writes his famous tragedy called "Medea", reviews of which are still very ambiguous. The main merit of the author is to portray not an ideal person, but a vicious one who suffers and commits terrible crimes. The characters in the play are negative. Events are developing in such a way that human suffering comes to the fore.
Characters. Biography excerpts
In Euripides, the heroes of tragedies could be gods, demigods or mere mortals. Medea is the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, the daughter of King Eet and the oceanid Idia, whose parents are Ocean and Typhis. It is curious that in the tragedy the sorceress is not able to correct the situation without massacre, because if she had punished Jason and his bride without the intervention of children, the end would have been less tragic. However, Medea becomes a humanoid bearer of vices.
The main characters have been married for twelve years and gave birth to two boys - Mermer and Feret. Their marriage was organized with the participation of magical power: the gods send love spells on Medea and she helps Jason and the Argonauts to get the Golden Fleece. In gratitude, the hero marries her. Although Jason was not a god, he came from a noble family and was the son of King Eson, the ruler of the city of Iolk.
After meeting with Jason, Medea immediately shows her cruelty: she flees from Colchis with him and, in order to detain the angry Eet, kills her brother Apsyrtus, who was her traveler. Pieces of the body were scattered on the seashore - because of this cruelty that Medea showed, reviews of this legend are very mixed.
Glauca is the daughter of the Corinthian king Creon. According to Jason, he marries her not out of great love, but in order to ensure a happy future for his sons. Having become related to the royal heirs, the boys could later live among noble people.
"Medea": a summary of the tragedy of Euripides
The king of Corinth offers Jason to marry his daughter Glauca, to which he agrees. The actions of his wife Medea sometimes begin to frighten the hero, and he is not averse to leaving her to her fate. The enraged woman calls her ex-husband ungrateful, because it was with her help that he obtained the Golden Fleece and regained his former glory. However, Jason says that he did his duty to her. He gave her two sons, and now he can live his life as he pleases. Perhaps this position will seem incomprehensible to women, so the reviews about Jason about the tragedy "Medea" can be negative.
The Corinthian king expels Medea, but she tries to take revenge on her ungrateful husband and decides on a desperate act - to kill the children so that Jason dies of despair. The villain persuades her boys to take a wedding gift to Glauca - a poisoned crown, which instantly corrodes the face of the beautiful queen. A desperate father, who decided to save his daughter, dies after her. Medea dooms her children to death: the angry Corinthians would tear them apart, so the unfortunate mother herself decides to kill them and does not even allow Jason to say goodbye to them.
About the main character
Medea is not able to put up with humiliation, so she starts and looks for a way to take revenge. She does not immediately decide to kill the children, but the boys' teacher instantly guesses about her plans. Creon appears to Medea - the father of Jason's future wife orders her to leave Corinth along with her offspring.
She makes the final decision about the murder after a meeting with the childless Athenian king Aegeus. She understands how a man without offspring suffers, so she decides to take the most precious thing from her husband. Medea and Jason were once a happy married couple, until the fateful day came on which the leader of the Argonauts did not make his harsh decision. The main character thinks about leaving the city alone - Aegeus offers her asylum, but the thirst for revenge is much stronger: with the help of her babies, she wants to take revenge on her rival. According to the myth, the children of Medea were killed by the inhabitants of Corinth, and Euripides changed the ending and depicted that the unfortunate mother herself takes on this sin and reassures herself that the boys died a less terrible death. In the play, Medea changes her mind four times - this is where the exceptional psychological skill of Euripides is manifested, which shows the complexity of human nature.
The trial of Medea or how the heroine was punished
Contemporaries of Euripides criticized the tragedy "Medea", the reviews were most often unflattering. The main opponent was Aristophanes, who believes that a woman had no right to kill her children. If the Greek comedians and tragedians tried the heroine, the accusations would be as follows:
Everyone knows that even the most recent traitor,
Keep and protect your child
And she is ready to throw herself into the jaws of a formidable beast for him.
But the granddaughter of Helios, accused by Medea,
He considers his anger higher than life
Their little ones - two sons.
She killed four at once:
Corinth lost the king and his heiress
And her unborn Jason descendants.
Murder is the worst sin
Kill four at the same time
And break the life of the fifth
For my own satisfaction
The solution is rather crazy,
rather than reasonable, therefore incur
Severe punishment must Medea.
The further fate of Medea
Despite the bloody crimes committed, the killer did not suffer execution and hid in distant lands. In Athens, she married Aegeus and bore him a son, Medes. Soon, Theseus, known for his fight with the bull Minotaur, visits their house. Medea wants to kill the guest, but Aegeus recognizes him as his son in time and makes sure that the villainess Medea leaves their country. The summary does not tell about the further fate of the heroine, but other works tell about this.
On the island of the blessed, the exile becomes the wife of Achilles. The sorceress lives a long life, which is the most terrible punishment for her. She constantly lives in exile, tormented by the mere thought of a perfect atrocity, everyone despises her. Perhaps this punishment is worse than death - such is the fate of the granddaughter of Helios.
Medea is a tragedy by Euripides. Placed in 431 BC It is based on a myth, which since then was destined to become one of the most popular (not only in antiquity) subjects. This was the poet's second appeal to the image of the Colchian sorceress: he made his debut with the tragedy Peliad, dedicated to another episode of the myth of Medea: the Thessalian, insidious deception of the daughters of Pelias, who killed their father in the hope of restoring his youth. The theme of Euripides' Medea - which, however, did not impress the then Athenian public - is completely different: the tragedy is dedicated to the disclosure of the ultimate passions of the female soul.
The Corinthian episode of the myth of Medea, which had previously played the role of a local legend, was seriously transformed by the poet for his own purposes: the traditional version, according to which the children were killed not by the mother herself, but by the Corinthians avenging the death of the king and princess, did not allow reaching such a depth of psychological penetration: For this, Euripides needed a guilty—and gravely guilty—heroine. At the same time, all the brutal details characteristic of Roman literature were eliminated from the action: as I.F. Annensky, “guided by a higher sense, the poet gave us in this tragedy minimum direct horror and filth of action, in order to make you feel all its terrible price all the more strongly. Contrary to opinions expressed later, the main character is impulsive and impulsive, and not prudently cunning (which is already clearly manifested in the prologue, where her state of mind is described by the nurse, as well as in the famous episode where she talks about common misfortunes for women): her decision at the same time secretly nurtured, and subjected to a strong influence of circumstances.
Medea in the tragedy of Euripides is opposed by Jason, who is portrayed as a sophist and a cynic with a well-spoken tongue, skillful in defending deliberately morally weak positions. Throwing Medea, he preserves the virtue of meanness: he does not personally wish her harm and is ready to take care, as far as it depends on him, of her and the children, and offers her money for the journey. In his mouth, the former behavior appears as a beneficence - after all, he delivered her from living in a barbarian country and gave her the opportunity for true glory in the only civilized land - in Hellas, and, moreover, she has no merit before him, since Aphrodite did all this. This remark strikes Medea all the more strongly because she now clearly sees her mistake in judging her beloved. However, after meeting with Aegeus, who promised her asylum, she finds the strength to pretend for the sake of revenge. And when this is done, she hides on the chariot of her grandfather, Helios, drawn by dragons. I.F. Annensky formulated the meaning of her image in this way: “It is not Eros that torments her, but Erinia, and Medea is by no means an abandoned mistress who mourns the lost joys of marriage.”
Tragedy - like its central image - was very popular in antiquity. "Medea" by Apollonius of Rhodes contrasts with the heroine of Euripides. Ennius adapted the tragedy - it is now difficult to adequately judge the nature of the translation - for the Roman scene. Ovid has an exceptional predilection for this image. Medea becomes the heroine of "Argonautics" by G. Valery Flaccus. Euripides is also imitated by Seneca, completely changing the color and atmosphere, and from the new poets - P. Corneille and F. Grillparzer. One of her images (Jason calls Medea "a lioness, not a woman, wilder than the Tyrrhenian Scylla") became a commonplace in ancient poetry. Romantic philology, beginning with the Schlegel brothers, took tragedy harshly. A.-V. Schlegel wrote: “As soon as she enters the stage, the poet takes care that with the help of banal reasoning<...>cool us down." An even stricter assessment by S.P. Shevyreva. In order for Medea by Euripides to regain popularity, it took an atmosphere of decadence at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
