Medea

This section of the play features Medea’s conversations with the three named male characters: Creon, Jason, and Aegeus. Creon sees Medea as a dangerous foreign witch who will stop at nothing to harm others. Jason sees her as an irrational wife who refuses to accept the reality of her situation. Finally, Aegeus accepts Medea as a hapless dove, a woman wronged by the world and in dire need of his protection. Each tries to pigeonhole Medea into a stereotypical role for women, but none of them have the full picture—Medea’s reality is significantly more complex. The men are at a further disadvantage, too, in their desire to behave as polite society dictates. Medea ultimately comes out on top because she will play any part necessary to get what she wants.

Up first is Creon, the king of Corinth. Notably, Creon does not know Medea personally. His understanding of her is rooted in gossip, as he admits to Medea: “A king has many ears, / through them he hears the darkest threats / made against his house. / I’ve heard yours” (304-8). He is most stricken by word of her ruthless reputation, so unlike a typical woman’s—Medea is defined throughout the play by her implacability, by her absolute refusal to relent from her anger. Creon’s reliance on hearsay underlines his distance from Medea and the lack of formal relationship between them. In other words, in the complex web of mutual obligations mentioned above, Medea has no leverage on Creon. In response, she deploys a tactical strike to quick-form an obligation between them: she supplicates him (346).

In ancient Greece supplication paradoxically created a social obligation for both the person supplicating and the person being supplicated. When the supplicant puts themselves completely at the mercy of the person they are supplicating, there is some social obligation to not toss them aside. (Remember, all the action of the play is taking place in a public arena.) By publicly supplicating Creon, Medea is making a last-ditch effort to make him “bound by [her] pleas to listen” (347). Interestingly, Creon rejects this obligation, saying he already has others that supersede it: his obligation to protect his family and his home from Medea’s wrath (347).

Medea is completely stymied. Up against the wall, her only option is to convince Creon that she accepts her exile and wring out one last benefit: an extra day in Corinth. Instinctively, Creon knows he will regret granting this reprieve, but he’s reluctant to appear a “tyrant,” an extremely loaded term in ancient Greek society, which loathed despotic rulers above all (369). This social pressure causes him to relent—and to grant Medea the time she needs to plot his destruction. Medea admits, “If he’d have stood his ground I’d have no hope / but foolish as he is, now I have a day” (390-91). While Creon feels bound to perform his social role stringently, Medea does not. She is completely happy to shamelessly lie and dissemble in front of the Chorus and the audience if it means getting what she wants.

Next up is Jason, who arrives preemptively declaring that he has done nothing wrong—and indeed, according to the social norms of Greek culture, he has not done anything particularly heinous. Jason’s actions are off-putting but not illegal, and perhaps not even uncommon, at least according to the Tutor (75-78). Jason is keenly aware, though, of the Chorus’s judgment. He attempts to ameliorate the distastefulness of his decisions by arguing that Medea brought her exile down on herself and claiming he’ll graciously extend his personal network of alliances to help her anyway. His behavior toward Medea is fully in line with the social obligations a husband owes his ex-wife. By some standards, it even goes above and beyond.

But Medea does not see herself as only Jason’s wife. After her crucial assistance on his adventures, she considers herself something distinctly more: his martial peer, his ally, his comrade-in-arms. In bringing up her martial accomplishments—including that he once supplicated her for assistance—Medea situates herself as an Argonaut like the rest of the heroes Jason sailed with, and she demands the respect Jason would show any of his male friends. This fundamental disconnect in how Jason and Medea view the nature of their relationship—and their subsequent obligations to each other—is the heart of the play’s conflict. Both Jason and Medea are “right” from a certain point of view. This sort of moral conundrum is common in Greek tragedy.

Finally, we meet Aegeus, the good-natured king of Athens. Aegeus is already acquainted with Medea, and their relationship seems friendly. Aegeus knows Medea to be clever and is the only character to see this as a plus; he wants her advice on an oracle he received about his difficulties in bearing children. In the process he inadvertently reveals a fatal point of weakness to Medea: he is desperate for sons. Medea reads this and quickly assumes the mantle of a friend who is eager to help—and makes Aegeus eager to help her in return. Again, Medea manages to establish or leverage a sense of social obligation. Aegeus’s only concern is that in saving Medea from Corinth now, he might encroach on his bond of guest-friendship between Creon and himself. Euripides may want us to think of the famous abduction of the Greek princess Helen by the Trojan prince Paris, a violation of guest-friendship that kickstarted the Trojan War. Aegeus does not want to offend Creon in this way. His primary obligation is to Creon first and foremost, both as the king and as a man.

For a second time, Medea deploys supplication to seal the deal. This time she promises to help Aegeus father sons in exchange for his protection in Athens (in some traditions, Medea went on to become Aegeus’s concubine). In the face of her cleverness, Aegeus is portrayed as something of a dolt; he is ready to make a solemn oath without being sure what it entails. And once Medea extracts his promise, she has essentially been written a blank check to commit any crimes she wants in Corinth. Creon’s extension gives her the time to commit the crime; Aegeus’s oath gives her a get-out-of-jail-free card.

All three men, but especially Creon and Jason, are also keenly aware of being spectated and judged by the Chorus (and the audience too). They are keen to not come off badly, and their behavior is reined in and dictated by societal expectations. Medea, on the other hand, moves comfortably between various personas, constantly reading the situation and resituating herself as favorably as possible. Each conversation is essentially a one-on-one debate between Medea and her opponent, and she uses any tactics necessary to achieve her goals.

Euripides uses these scenes to highlight Medea’s incredible command over communication—as a witch, her truest talent is in persuasive language. Ancient witchcraft was closely associated with the power over words and song; with her magic and her innate cleverness, Euripides writes Medea as an equal and often superior combatant in the realm of debate. With all three men in this section, Medea adeptly maneuvers through various expected roles for women, while occasionally letting her true character shine through. In denying these three men the ability to define her, Medea insists on driving the plot of her own story—for better or for worse.