Only eighteen dramas are extant of the seventy-five which Euripides is known to have written. And an interesting small fact is that the two earliest of these surviving dramas are the Alcestis and the Medea, produced respectively in 438 B.C. and 431 B.C. Each of the two has a woman for the protagonist, and both have love for their central theme. To that extent therefore they are similar, and represent certain clear features of Euripidean drama as a whole.

We have already noted the poet’s interest in womanhood: his keen and careful study of feminine character. He was no less occupied with the influence of love in human life; but on both themes he was clear-eyed and penetrative, aspiring always to the ‘white star of truth.’ Therefore we do not find in his drama a troop of faultless women, moving in an atmosphere of romantic glamour; nor a treatment of love which reveals only the more beautiful aspects of it. He seems to have been content to acknowledge, as for instance in the Alcestis and the lost Andromeda, that life’s flowers do sometimes, given the right conditions, come to fair fruition. But he saw how often they are warped and blighted; and though he would not hide the grimmer facts, he was always careful to seek and show the cause of the aberration. Hence, though the truth of his presentation is sometimes merciless, and may have given colour to the contemporary gossip which called him a ‘woman-hater,’ one glance below the surface of his thought shows him to have been inspired by a nobler chivalry than that which is content to veil the facts of life in romantic illusion. So we find that although both the Alcestis and the Medea are preoccupied with the theme of love, there is a vivid contrast in the treatment of the theme, despite certain resemblances between the two dramas. It is true that both of the heroines are pre-eminent in devotion to the men with whom they are mated; and that the hero in each case moves on a plane from which he cannot reach the height of his wife’s spirit. But whilst on the one hand love takes possession of a gentle nature, and favoured by every circumstance of character and environment triumphs over death itself, in the case of Medea a wild soul spends itself recklessly for the object of its love, beats impotently against injustice, loses hold on sanity and sweet human ties, and is transformed into an avenging fury.

The story of Medea belongs to the old Argo legend, which was made into poetry by Apollonius Rhodius in the first century before Christ, and by our own Victorian poet Morris in The Life and Death of Jason.

Jason, the exiled heir to the throne of Iolchos, was reared by the centaur Chiron. Arrived at manhood, he determined to claim his right from his usurping uncle Pelias; and travelling to Iolchos on foot, he presented himself before the king minus a sandal. Now Pelias had been warned against a man who should come to him with one foot bare; and, moreover, he had no intention of yielding up the throne to his nephew. He therefore cast about for some means of ridding himself of Jason, and hit upon the plan of sending him on a wild and dangerous quest—to seek and bring the Golden Fleece from the barbarous land of Colchis. Jason gladly undertook the task: gathered the Greek heroes together and sailed with them in the good ship Argo.

After a perilous voyage, the heroes arrived at Colchis, and Jason made known their quest to the king AeÊtes. But they soon found that they had no hope of success. AeÊtes was false to them, made impossible conditions, and plotted against their life. Disaster seemed imminent, when there came a deliverance so glorious that it seemed like the interposition of a god. It was the quick wit of a girl, prompted by love. Medea, the young daughter of AeÊtes, had seen and loved the brave Greek prince whom her father now plotted to destroy. She was an ardent and impulsive creature; and she determined to save Jason. By the magic lore that she possessed, she secretly enabled him to overcome the fire-breathing oxen, and the earth-sown army that her father sent against him. Then, realizing too late that she had incurred the unpitying rage of her father, she fled at night from the palace, to take refuge with the Greek heroes.

Under cover of the darkness, she led Jason to the forest-precinct where the Fleece was hidden; and by her charms she lulled the sleepless dragon that guarded it. She even betrayed to him her brother Absyrtus, driven by the danger of a horrible death for herself, her lover and his comrades; and then, claiming from Jason a solemn oath of marriage when they should come to Hellas, she sailed with him on the Argo. AeÊtes pursued them in fierce wrath; and the gods, offended for the murder of Absyrtus, vexed them with storms. But at length they came to the island of Circe; and she, for the sake of her kinship with Medea, purified them of the murder of Absyrtus and set them on their way again. At PhÆacia, where they were driven for harbourage, AeÊtes overtook them, threatening war with King Alcinous if he did not yield up his fugitive daughter. It was then that the great wise queen Arete pleaded for Medea in gentle charity:

Alcinous yielded to his wife’s entreaties on one condition—that Jason and Medea should be married forthwith; for then he could return answer to AeÊtes that he would not separate husband and wife. Thus the two were hurriedly wedded; and sailed in safety from PhÆacia, to encounter many a terrible adventure before they reached Iolchos at last, triumphing in the possession of the Fleece. They gained great glory from their enterprise, but little else. For Pelias would not yield the throne to Jason; and it seemed to Medea that all she had wrought had been in vain. She brooded over Jason’s wrongs, chafing at the restraint imposed on her in her new life, and eager to strike for the kingship on his behalf. At last she evolved a plan by which she thought Pelias might be removed from their path, and the throne secured for Jason. Promising the old king renewed youth by means of her enchantments, she induced him to submit to death at the hands of his daughters. Then, in the storm of indignation which arose against her, she and Jason and their two young children fled to Corinth.

So the legend runs to the point where Euripides takes it up. In crude outline it is savage and incredible; and yet it contains all the elements which in the hands of idealistic poets have made a story of enthralling romantic beauty. In the Medea, however, the poet has avoided so far as might be both the barbarity of the legend and its potential charm. He has treated only the final catastrophe—the abandonment of Medea by Jason and her dreadful vengeance upon him. And although he could not escape from the data: although he is compelled to handle some of the most barbarous of them, he has translated them from terms of glimmering wonder and breathless excitement into the language of reality. He has brought Medea out of the region of myth, where she dwelt in eerie and tempestuous beauty, into the stream of human existence. The marvellous and the superhuman drop away, save for a fragment or two in the framework of the Drama; and Medea becomes simply a woman, struggling against her own wild heart and the injustice of her oppressors.

The Drama opens with the monologue of Medea’s old nurse, from which we learn all that is vital to an understanding of the action. Jason has forsaken Medea and is about to marry with GlaucÉ, the young daughter of Creon, King of Corinth. Medea is sick with misery and is lying in the house prostrate on her bed. Two things the old woman makes quite clear, as she stands talking outside: that the chief cause of Medea’s grief is shame at her betrayal; and that already the storm of passion is tending toward madness. When an attendant comes in, bringing Jason’s children back from their play, there is a clear hint of the catastrophe. The man tells of a rumour that he has heard: Creon has ordered the banishment of their mistress and her boys. The nurse breaks into a wail of commiseration, and then clearly states her fear for the effect of this new wrong upon Medea’s mind. She sends the little ones in before she speaks the dread she has that their mother may lift her hand against their lives; and almost immediately afterward the frenzied voice of Medea is heard, calling bitter curses upon her unfathered children.

There gather gradually the ladies of Corinth who form the Chorus. They are deeply sympathetic; and they give pitying answers to the nurse’s tale; while within the house, at intervals, Medea’s voice is heard, wailing her grief and anger, and the old remorse that has reawakened for her brother’s death.

The scene is one of weird impressiveness. So far, Medea has not appeared; but her cries within the house, the appearance of her children, the indignant fidelity of the old servants, the beautiful lyrics of the Chorus, and, above all, the knowledge we possess that another blow is about to fall on her, produce a cumulative effect which makes the moment of her entrance intensely dramatic. Yet she begins her speech quietly, almost in apology for her former unrestraint. She strives for self-control while she puts her case before the Corinthian women and begs their help. For a moment or two she succeeds, pathetically acknowledging her foreign birth and the flaw it intrudes in the legality of her marriage. But at this thought, emotion sweeps over her again:

She pours out her heart to the listeners; and it is not a mere selfish recital of her own sorrow. The brain that had been clear and quick to save her lover in the extremity of danger has not lost its power. She sees the base act of Jason in its broad aspect, as a wrong to womankind; and she rises from the contemplation of her personal suffering to the thought that this, after all, is but one of the many evils that subjection brings upon women. But the greatest evil—the helpless creature goaded to crime by injustice—is present to her at this moment only as a blind craving for revenge. It will seize and carry her on to its culmination as the sweetest thing that life now holds; but it will finally reveal itself, since she cannot but face the truth, as the last and deepest wrong, that has cancelled her humanity. The light of that thought has not yet dawned; and will not until the storm of passion has wrought sheer havoc. All her fervent nature is possessed by the idea of vengeance; and seeing that her friends pity and sympathize, she pledges them not to betray her. Their willing promise is only just in time, for they are interrupted by the arrival of the king, guarded by armed attendants whose very presence is a menace. Creon is old, and has grown hard and tyrannous with age. He has long desired a great match for his only daughter, hoping to see his line established on the throne of Corinth before his death. To him the marriage with the Argonaut hero is not only a prudent step, likely to bring him reflected glory; but a thing perfectly right in itself, because perfectly legal. By the letter of the law, which forbade a Greek to marry a ‘barbarian,’ Medea was not Jason’s wife; and the letter of the law merely was of concern to Creon. To him Medea was an uncivilized creature from outland parts: a being without rights, who might safely be ignored; and having won over Jason, the match was arranged and the preliminary formalities concluded. Not until a rumour reached him that Medea in her wrath had solemnly cursed his child and him, did any thought of her disturb him. Then, fearing that she might indeed do his daughter some injury, or at the least might move public opinion in her favour, he determined upon instant banishment for her and her two young sons. Without a word to soften or explain his action, he stands before Medea now, and curtly orders her to prepare for departure.

The blow is so crushing that for a moment Medea seems to sink under it; she can think of nothing but to ask what crime of hers has merited this punishment. But when Creon cynically replies that there has been no crime, and that the measure is one of precaution merely, to guard himself against her reputation for magic-lore, she rallies her wit and meets him on his own ground. Half ironically, she repudiates the damning possession of brains, and bids him set his mind at rest.

Creon sees that she is trying to placate him, and harshly repeats his decree. He even threatens her, when she continues her entreaties, with force from his soldiery; and Medea, shrinking in horror from the thought of personal violence, instantly ceases her petition. She pretends to yield; and in feigned humility, begs on her knees for one day’s respite. Creon, partly deceived, and entirely convinced that she can do no harm in so short a time, reluctantly consents. But he has hardly gone when Medea breaks into a torrent of speech which, in its fierce exultation over Creon, its wild leap to the height of daring and its rallying cry to her own spirit, comes very near to madness. All the shapeless thoughts of vengeance on which she had brooded spring into vivid life as she rapidly cons now this plot, now that, to reach her end. Of the end itself there can be no doubt; she must kill these three—the king, and Jason and his bride—in the few hours left to her. And for this she will need every resource of strategy and courage.

No wonder that the Chorus sing, as she rushes into the house, of a strange reversal of all the order of nature; of woman made terrible because man has forgotten God. They take up the story of Medea’s broken life: of the wonder and the pity of it: of her distant home: of her surpassing love for Jason, and of her betrayal. In the beauty and grace of the songs the emotional strain is lightened: but they have a further purpose. For while they tell the old story over in tender phrases, Jason himself enters and Medea again comes out of the house. The two stand face to face at last and the crux of the drama is reached. Jason is the first to speak; and one feels all the spirit of the man in his opening words—cold, ambitious, prudent, with ideals faded and every generous emotion dead. He protests that he has acted from motives of policy and considerations of their best interest: for the welfare of Medea and their children as well as for himself. The new marriage was the only way, in a land to which they were strangers, to secure a home for them all, and princely connexions for his sons. But Medea has spoiled everything by her ungovernable anger: and he has come, since nothing else is possible now, to make provision for the children in their exile.

The speech is clear, terse, moderate in tone, and pitilessly logical from Jason’s point of view. From that point, too, it is not unkind: he wishes to do what may be done to soften their lot. But to the woman who loves him his words are a mere blur of sound, the logic meaningless, the untroubled manner a thing of contempt. In tone and look and gesture one fact is certain—that her husband has ceased to love her, and is content to cast her off. It has clamoured in her ears while he spoke, drowning every other sound; and when she replies it is that which prompts her. It inspires her great indictment—the case for the woman against injustice throughout all time—and it evokes a shuddering recoil from baseness which she feels to be literally a pollution.

Jason’s anger is stung by her denunciation, but his purpose is quite unmoved. He flings a veiled insult at her love; and as he elaborates the reasons for his action, with no little skill and plausibility, we feel that with every word the conflict becomes more deadly. In apparent good faith, but with intolerable effrontery to the injured woman, he claims to have repaid that old debt, if indeed it were a debt. He has given her a home in an ordered country and her name has been linked in the glory of his. As to the marriage with GlaucÉ—with a sneer at the bare idea of sentiment—the affair is a bargain, with consideration given and received on each side. Let Medea look at the matter for one instant with the eyes of reason, and she herself will acknowledge that he has acted wisely.

But the very root of the tragedy lay there. Medea could no more detach herself from the emotion that possessed her than Jason could revive the tenderness that filled him when he lifted the sweet wild fugitive on board the Argo. So they stand, typifying the eternal struggle between the passionate heart and the arrogant brain; and striking at each other in baffled rage across the gulf between them. Jason makes one last offer of help, but it is vehemently refused, and with a final thrust at Medea’s savagery, he leaves her. When he has gone, the inevitable reaction comes. The Chorus, interpreting her mood, sing musingly of the pains of exile, and of her lonely state. She realizes that she has flung away her only chance of help, and she sees herself in a few hours expelled from Corinth without one friend to shelter her. Despair is settling upon her when a curious incident occurs, suddenly reviving hope and making the path clear for her revenge. It is the arrival of Ægeus, King of Athens. He is travelling back from Apollo’s shrine at Delphi, where he has been to renew an old petition that the god would give him children. Medea, thinking rapidly, questions him of his errand. She sees a possibility of succour; and putting all her wrongs before him, she begs him to give her refuge at Athens. He shall not fail of a reward, for she has magic arts which will secure to him his long desire for children. Ægeus is indignant at her wrongs, and promises to succour her if she comes to him; but knowing what she is about to do, she cunningly extorts an oath from him. He gives it willingly, and as he departs Medea breaks into a cry of exultation:

Quickly she lays her plan. She will recall Jason, feign repentance, and send the children to the bride with gifts—marvellous raiment and jewels which will hide under their beauty an agonizing death for GlaucÉ. But that done—she pauses in horror, the sweetness of revenge dashed by the thought of what must follow. Then, she must lift her hand to slay her children, before they can be caught and killed for their mother’s crime. There is a short altercation with the friendly women about her, who make a futile effort to restrain her. But brushing aside their remonstrance, she sends the nurse for Jason, and in a scene which vibrates with dramatic power, she pretends to make peace with him, and puts the frightful revenge in motion. Jason, completely deceived, promises that the children shall be taken to GlaucÉ, to present their gifts and beg for leave to stay in Corinth. But twice, as the little ones stand waiting, the motherhood in Medea rebels against the fury that is driving her. Tears that she cannot check rush into her eyes, and she almost forgets her rÔle, as she clasps them to her.

And again when Jason, softened by her submission, is promising to lead them up to an honoured manhood, a sudden movement of Medea arrests him. He cannot understand her grief, and the strangeness of her manner; and asks her if she doubts that he will act in good faith toward their children.

But the gentler mood passes, and when Jason, with characteristic canniness, counsels her not to send such precious gifts to his bride, the spirit of vengeance has regained possession of her soul. She overrules him, and Jason leads the children to the princess, carrying in their innocent hands the weapon that will slay her. Not until they are gone does Medea realize fully what the next step must be; and the realization brings agony. She waits for their return in a storm of emotion: suspense that almost stops the beating of her heart: hideous hope that her plot has succeeded and that GlaucÉ even now is dying from the poison; and ghastly fear that her children have been taken for the deed. But when they return at last, in unconscious gladness that the great lady has been kind to them, it is something more awful still that robs their mother of power of utterance. The children’s tutor is amazed at the grief that he sees is racking her, and asks its cause.

And as the man goes in, leaving her alone with her boys, a poignant scene follows in which every instinct of her nature struggles against her wrath. Their sweet young faces stir the tenderness that has hitherto been bound within her; and as it floods her heart it seems for a few moments to sweep away her evil purpose. But it only returns in added strength, and as her soul writhes in the conflict, reason totters, and she implores the vengeance within, as a living and implacable foe, to spare her babes. Backward and forward she sways, driven by hatred and love, until the scale is turned at last by the thought of her own irrevocable act. GlaucÉ, even at this moment, is dying from the poison that she has sent.

But even yet she cannot strike: one thing more is needed to nerve her hand, and it comes only too soon. A messenger is seen flying toward them from the palace in frantic haste. As he comes within hail, he shouts to Medea to flee—both Creon and the princess lie dead from the effects of her poisoned gift, and she has not a moment to lose. Her own life will surely be demanded for the crime. Medea remains immovable, smiling in awful joy at the news. She makes the man relate every detail of the ghastly scene in the palace; and for just so long as the story takes to tell, she clasps revenge complete and satisfying. But a moment later the thing has shrivelled in her hand; for there is now no hope to save her children.

She goes into the house; and a moment later the shrieks of the children are heard. They have hardly ceased when Jason rushes in, bent on carrying off his sons before the king’s avengers can capture them. A woman warns him of what is passing within; and as the agonized father bursts open the door of the house, Medea appears on the roof, in the dragon-chariot of the Sun, with the poor dead bodies lying at her feet. There is something weird in this touch of the supernatural; but there is something symbolic too. For Medea is a woman no longer: with her own hand, driven by foul wrong and an untamed heart, she has cast humanity away.

We need not follow to the end the last clash of the two bitter spirits. Jason pleads piteously for one poor boon: “Give me the dead to weep and make their grave.” But the fury that has smitten him is inexorable.

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