Medea by Euripides

1/ When my friend Himadri joined Tom’s read-along of the ancient Greek plays in 2022, he noted a few times the big differences between the English translations, which was concerning. Now I can see that myself. 

This for example is from the prose translation by John Davie: 

“NURSE There you are, my poor little loves! Wasn’t I right? Your mother has a troubled heart, and an angry one, too! Inside the house with you quick and no delay! Don’t let her catch sight of you or approach her! Watch out for that savage temperament of hers, that stubborn will and unforgiving nature! Off with you right now, go in and quickly! It’s clear that this anger of hers will grow; soon enough her grief like a gathering cloud will be kindled by it and burst in storm. What action will she take then, that proud, impassioned soul, so ungovernable now that she has felt the sting of injustice?”

Compare the same lines translated by Gilbert Murray: 

“NURSE Ah, children, hark! She moves again 

Her frozen heart, her sleeping wrath. 

In, quick! And never cross her path, 

Nor rouse that dark eye in its pain. 

That fell sea-spirit, and the dire 

Spring of a will untaught, unbowed. 

Quick, now!—Methinks this weeping cloud 

Hath in its heart some thunder-fire, 

Slow gathering, that must flash ere long. 

I know not how, for ill or well, 

It turns, this uncontrollable 

Tempestuous spirit, blind with wrong.” 

Quite different, no? 

For Medea, I mainly read Gilbert Murray’s verse translation. 

2/ It’s interesting that Euripides begins the play with people who love and feel compassion for Medea. 

“NURSE There is no house! ’Tis gone. The lord 

Seeketh a prouder bed: and she 

Wastes in her chamber, nor one word 

Will hear of care or charity.” 

Then Medea appears, and gets our sympathy. 

“MEDEA […] O friends! He, even he, 

Whom to know well was all the world to me, 

The man I loved, hath proved most evil.—Oh, 

Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow, 

A herb most bruised is woman. […]

Thou hast this city, and thy father’s home, 

And joy of friends, and hope in days to come: 

But I, being citiless, am cast aside 

By him that wedded me, a savage bride 

Won in far sea and left—no mother near, 

No brother, not one kinsman anywhere 

For harbour in this storm…” 

She has used magic to save and help Jason, she has abandoned her own home, they have had children together, and yet he leaves her for King Creon’s daughter. And she gets banished! The confrontation between Medea and Jason is a great scene. 

“MEDEA […] Is sworn faith so low 

And weak a thing? I understand it not. 

Are the old gods dead? Are the old laws forgot, 

And new laws made? Since not my passioning, 

But thine own heart, doth cry thee for a thing 

Forsworn.”

How false, selfish, and callous Jason is! He says he would support the children and their lives would be better when their (future) half-brothers are kings, but does nothing, till Medea asks, about Creon’s banishment of his sons. 

(On a side note, I had heard of it before but it was still weird to come across the name Jason—a name that looked so modern—in an ancient Greek play). 

3/ Roughly, the mid-point of the play is Medea deciding to kill her own children, after killing the princess, to make Jason suffer. Before that is the build-up: wronged and forsaken, Medea considers various ways of revenge. Then the rest of the play is the carrying out of the revenge, and its aftermath. 

I can see why readers and theatregoers see Medea as a striking, unforgettable depiction of hate, vengeance, and savagery; I can see why critics have debated the character for thousands of years. But I don’t particularly like the play, perhaps the same way I don’t really like Elizabethan/ Jacobean revenge plays or Japanese/ South Korean revenge films. Why do I love Sophocles’s Electra but not Euripides’s Medea, when both are studies of hate and vengeance? I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s the way Medea oscillates between being a loving mother and a hateful woman willing to kill her own children. Perhaps it’s the four-page speech describing the deaths of Creon’s daughter and Creon. Perhaps it’s the sensational nature of the story. Perhaps it’s the ending. I don’t know, but for some reason I don’t find the play satisfying. 

One difference, I guess, is that in Medea, Euripides is interested in the revenge; in Electra, Sophocles is not, he’s interested in what years of hate and anger do to the human psyche, and that I find more interesting.

I still get along best with Sophocles.