Language of Manipulation in Euridipes' "Medea"

      Third essay for Dr. Dial-Driver's Lit Traditions course at Rogers State University.

     Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This is the type of phrase that has passed into public domain, more or less, and no one knows exactly where it originated. But whoever that was who coined the phrase, he might have been thinking about the character of Medea, the namesake and dominating force of one of Greek playwright Euridipes’ most well-known works. In her article for The American Journal of Philology, Melissa Mueller states that “Medea is a character that is adept at speaking many languages”. I will try to emphasize the importance of Medea’s use of persuasion and manipulation which brings about her revenge.

            To begin, some backstory is necessary, courtesy of the Medea preface in Penguin’s collection of Greek Tragedy: In the land of Thessaly, Pelias overthrew his brother Aeson to assume the kingship of the city of Iolchus, although mercifully sparing his brother’s life. Aeson’s son Jason is sent away for schooling from a centaur, returning to Thessaly some years later. An oracle had spoken to Pelias in the meantime, warning him to beware of a man wearing only one sandal. Jason lost a sandal while helping an elderly woman cross a river on his way to Iolchus, which was how Pelias knew that his nephew had returned; he volunteered to abdicate the throne, but only if Jason sucessfully gathered the Golden Fleece. So he sailed with the Argonauts, had many adventures, and eventually met a young princess/witch named Medea in the land of Colchis who fell in love with Jason and helped him retrieve the Golden Fleece. On returning to Iolchus, Medea’s sorcery tricked Pelias’s daughters into murdering their father via a faked rejuvenation potion Because of this element of foul play, the couple was banished and took up residence in Corinth with their two young sons (131-33).

      After living there apparently for some time, Jason has determined to wed the princess of Corinth in order to raise his future descendants’ standing within the city, as he reasons in lines 913-17. This greatly angers Medea; and so she sets out to break his heart. And since she is an extremely persuasive woman, as well as ruthless, this is an extremely frightening spectacle. She gives a long speech from lines 222-62 on Jason’s cruelties and laments the state of women in Greek society, which Mueller describes as “presenting herself as a woman like any other, but with fewer resources” (471). The Chorus, representing the women of the city, loyally declares in lines 412-13 that “deceit is men’s device now, men’s oaths are gods’ dishonor.” Writing about two thousand years later, William Shakespeare says much the same thing in Balthasar’s song in Much Ado About Nothing, as “Men were deceivers ever/One foot in sea, and one on shore/To one thing constant never” (II.3.61-63).  Creon banishes Medea from Corinth because he is afraid of her (287-91), and she responds by playing up the fact that she is a woman – and furthermore, a woman without male protection – and so would be considered helpless (304-08). In his Classical Philology article, Brad Levett comments that this “is a characteristic that aligns well with Greek assumptions concerning the deceptive nature of women” (54). And since the average Athenian was expected to be persuaded when it was beneficial or likely right (Levett 57), Aegeus agrees to safeguard Medea in Athens if she provides him with children (712-22). So in this exchange she adopts a businesslike, masculine attitude in order to gain a sanctuary. In lines 868-93, Medea gives a long monologue to Jason seeming to apologize for her earlier furious behavior, but this manipulative speech really just sets up her devious gift-giving to Creon’s daughter.01

As Simon Goldhill notes in his introduction to Penguin’s Greek Tragedy, “every scene in the play involves Medea persuading someone” (xxvii). Shakespeare’s Much Ado prominently features Beatrice, another talkative female caught in a societal situation she cannot remedy.  She rails at men’s reluctance to avenge the honor of women under their charge, ending with “I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving” (IV.1.320-21). Unlike Beatrice’s wish that Claudio die, Medea prefers that Jason should live, in order that his heart may be ripped out of his chest as he suffers humiliations galore, to paraphrase Rob Reiner’s movie The Princess Bride. Goldhill says that Medea “is female but speaks and acts as a man, indeed like a hero, an Achilles wholly committed to honor and revenge” (xxviii). Because these murders occur indirectly, that adds exponentially to Jason’s grief, as he will be forever tormented by what-ifs and brooding over what might have been done differently.

      One of her final lines is comes at line 1363, where she says “My pain is a fair price to wipe away your smile”. The line from “understandable vengeance” to “inhuman monstrosity” has obviously been crossed somewhere along the line, which is unsettling. Goldhill writes that her “bizarre and extreme feminine character” make her a problem for every character she meets, and also for audience to deal with (xxviii). Maybe what she represents - besides the obvious example of taking a concept way farther than recommended – is to serve a warning against trusting the motives of others at face value, or even simply the fact that life is unexpected. The Chorus closes with “Many the fates which Zeus in Olympus dispenses; many matters the gods bring to surprising ends. The things we thought would happen do not happen; the unforeseen the gods make possible, and such is the conclusion of this story” (1415-19).         

Works Cited

Euridipes. Medea. 431 B.C. Trans. Philip Vellacott. 137-182. Greek Tragedy. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

Goldhill, Simon. “Introduction”. Greek Tragedy. xiii-xxxiii. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

Levett, Brad. “Verbal Autonomy and Verbal Restraint in Euripides’ Medea.” Classical Philology 105.1 (Jan 2010): 54-68. JSTOR. Web. 21 October 2015.

Mueller, Melissa. “The Language of Reciprocity in Euridipes’ Medea.” The American Journal of Philology 122.4 (Winter 2001): 471-504. JSTOR. Web. 21 October 2015.

“Preface to Medea.” Greek Tragedy. 131-135. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. 1599? William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Stephen Orgel and A.R. Braunmuller. 371-400. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Print.