medea's divided self

Euripides' "Medea" and the Problem of SpiritednessAuthor(s): Aristide TessitoreSource: The Review of Politics, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 587-601Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf ofReview of PoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1407307 .

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Euripides' Medea and the Problem of Spiritedness

Aristide Tessitore

The Medea is Euripides' most famous play and perhaps his most enigmatic. The unwieldy character of the play's central figure and the movement of the play as a whole defy the traditional categories of tragedy. Attentiveness to the usually neglected political dimension of Medea sheds new light on some of its persistent enigmas. It also suggests that Euripides was less than sanguine about the kinds of excesses the impending war with Sparta was likely to call forth from citizen soldiers. Most importantly, it brings to light Euripides' sober assessment of an enduring political problem: the irreducibly ambiguous character of spiritedness, the warrior virtue par excellence.

I. AMBIVALENCE

Euripides' Medea demonstrates a clear irony of history; its orig- inal lack of popularity has been reversed in subsequent generations such that it is very likely the best known and most influential of Euripides' plays. The play has survived the transplants of culture and time and continues to captivate audiences with its riveting power. For all that, the play, or more precisely, its main character, persistently elicits an ambivalent reaction on the part of audiences. Medea is hardly a character whom one could love. Although she is capable of inspiring contemporary audiences as a champion of women's rights, even this enthusiasm is inevitably dampened by the heinousness of her crime. Medea is less an object of love and source of inspiration and more an object of fascination.

Although one might be tempted to dwell on one or another side of her unwieldy character, any attempt to do justice to the Euripidean portrayal of Medea requires attentiveness to both the inspiring and shocking elements which are somehow sewn together in Medea's soul. The tendency to simplify Medea by rendering her more consistently as a heroine or villain, although intelligible, betrays Euripides' play.' Euripides has presented the Medea myth

1. It is not difficult to find representatives of these extremes. B. M. W. Knox makes a convincing case for Medea's heroic stature in "The Medea of Euripides," Yale Classical Studies 25 (1977): 193-225. Denys L. Page seeks to render Medea's crime intelligible by depicting her as a barbarian and a witch. Medea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938; rpt. 1964), esp. pp. xvii-xxi.

587



588 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

in such a way as to retain and perhaps even augment an intractable ambiguity about the play's central figure.2 This ambiguity has not only proved to be a source of continued fascination through the ages but, as I will argue, points to the underlying political teaching of the play.3 On the eve of one of the greatest military conflicts of all time, Euripides' play directs the attention of his audience to the problem of spiritedness, the warrior virtue par excellence. As I hope to show, Euripides' diagnosis of the problem is sobering; he reveals the ineradicably ambivalent character of spiritedness at the very moment when we would expect this quality of soul to be most enthusiastically endorsed by his fellow citizens. If Euripides' analysis of the problem of spiritedness is drawn from the immediate context provided by the Peloponnesian War, it is, as continued interest in the play attests, a message for all time; Euripides' play sheds light on a permanent ambiguity at the heart of political life.4

The best way into the political dimension of the play is provided by Medea herself. To assert that Euripides refuses to simplify Medea by making her more sympathetic or at least more consistently the object of admiration or villainy is not yet precise enough. It is not merely that Euripides sharpens the two-edged character of Medea, but that the play is crafted in such a way that each of these aspects is presented in succession. It is only after Euripides has drawn the audience toward a heroine in the first half of the play, that he goes on to reveal her terrible brutality in the second half.

A. THE TRADITION OF THE GREEK HERO The play opens with the nurse's sympathetic account of Medea's

past, one calculated to conjure up heroic adventures on foreign shores (1-7), romantic love (8,13-15), and the delight (handanousa)

2. Given the variety of traditions that comprise the Medea legend, Euripides had considerable latitude in fashioning his character. According to one tradition Medea unintentionally killed her children; according to another, they were killed by kinsmen of Creon. See Page, Medea, pp. xxi-xxv.

3. For a thematic discussion of the relationship between Greek tragedy and political philosophy, see J. Peter Euben, ed., Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), esp. pp. 1-42.

4. For a treatment of the problem of spiritedness as a theme in the history of political philosophy, see Catherine Zuckert, ed., Understanding the Political Spirit: Philosophical Investigations from Socrates to Nietzsche (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).



EURIPIDES' MEDEA 589

caused by Medea's presence among the citizens of Corinth (11- 12).5 Actually, Medea has murdered and dismembered her brother, abandoned her father's house, and used trickery to get Pelias' daughters to kill their own father. Although this latter event is alluded to by the nurse (9-10), it is in the most neutral way possible. Responsibility for the crime appears to lie not with Medea but with the unsuspecting and gullible daughters of Pelias. Al- though Euripides is working within the constraints of a received tradition, his play begins by muting the most objectionable aspects of Medea's past; Euripides' initial presentation of Medea is striking in its restraint.6

Although Medea is a foreigner, the full and problematic force of this fact is initially blunted by Euripides. This is especially apparent in the sympathetic reactions of the chorus of Corinthian women.7 When they hear Medea's cries of anguish, their concern for Medea leads them to seek out her nurse. In the course of this exchange they assert three times that Medea is a friend to them (138, 179, 182). Medea uses the same expression when she comes out of her house to speak to the Corinthian women (227). Although Medea speaks of her status as a foreigner, the speech as a whole does not emphasize foreignness but rather the solidarity of the female sex. Medea delivers a famous speech on the plight of women and, after explaining the unjust treatment she has received from Jason, confides her intention to find some way to avenge those wrongs. The Corinthian women show no hesitation in acting as Medea's confidantes since they consider her desire for retribution entirely just (endikus) (267-68).

Shortly thereafter, when Creon announces his decree of banishment, Medea is more specific about her intention to slay three of her enemies: Creon, Jason, and his new bride (374-75). Far from being dismayed by the harshness of Medea's plan, the Corinthian women sing a song protesting the injustices perpetrated against

5. Pietro Pucci writes, "The nurse 'celebrates' Medea's past and present situation, and she does it from the point of view of pity and compassion, just as the author, Euripides, presents Medea in the course of the drama" (The Violence of Pity in Euripides' Medea [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980], p. 32).

6. Medea is more forthcoming about the murder of her brother at 167. How- ever, she is at this point effectively distanced from her crime; Euripides shows her bemoaning her past as shameful folly.

7. Jason, for his own purposes to be sure, also speaks of the honor in which Medea is held among the Greeks (539-40), something that is confirmed by the kind of reception Medea receives from King Aegeus.




womankind by male poets, and anticipate a day when future poets will balance the ledger by singing of the heroic deeds of women (410-30). The relevant point is that, far from seeing Medea as a wild and alien creature, the Corinthian women see her as their champion. Medea gives voice to the injustices suffered by all women, barbarian and Greek alike. Her spirited promise to requite those injustices, at least to some extent, is not presented as the excessive desire of a fierce barbarian but is embraced by the Corin- thian women as their own.8

Not only does Euripides present Medea as a new champion for Greek women, he also depicts her as belonging to a select group constituted by the greatest Greek heroes.' She has suffered unjusti- fied dishonor and will inflict a bloody retribution upon her enemies. Euripides fashions Medea with the boldness, determination, and passionate intensity characteristic of the hero. The argument has been best made by Knox who concludes his description of Medea in the following way.

She acts as if she were a combination of the naked violence of Achilles and the cold craft of Odysseus, and, what is more, it is in these terms that the words of Euripides' play present her. "Let no one," she says, "think me contemptible and weak, nor inactive either, but quite the opposite - dangerous to my enemies, helpful to my friends. Such are the qualities that bring a life glory" (807ff). It is the creed by which Homeric and Sophoclean heroes live - and die.1o

Although Medea is a foreign woman with a checkered past, Euripides' initial portrait of her is entirely sympathetic. Her past is painted in bold strokes and she is presented as a new champion, a heroine who stands within the tradition of the greatest Greek heroes. "

8. Contrary to Page's assessment, Medea, pp. xvii-xxi. 9. For resemblances between Euripides'Medea and Sophocles'Ajax, see Knox,

"The Medea of Euripides," p. 196 and Elizabeth Bryon Bongie, "Heroic Elements in the Medea of Euripides," Transactions of the American Philological Association 107 (1977): 27-56.

10. Knox, "The Medea of Euripides," p. 202; cf. p. 198. 11. After Creon leaves the stage, Medea explains to the Chorus her apparent

submissiveness as a necessary part of her plan for retribution. Bongie comments: "Euripides tears the veil from his Medea and we see her, clearly now for the first time, a veritable Achilles or an Ajax, filled with an unrelenting resolve to destroy her enemies and to vindicate her own honor" ("Heroic Elements," p. 38).




B. MORE AND LESS THAN HUMAN The turning point in Euripides' portrayal of Medea begins at

the start of the second half of the play. As the drama gradually builds to its appalling climax, Euripides systematically turns our sympathies away from his central character.

It is after her encounter with King Aegeus that Medea first announces her intention to kill her children (791-93). The pre- viously sympathetic chorus of Corinthian women protests this change in Medea's plan for revenge (811-16). Moreover, they call into question Medea's intention to take refuge in the holy city of Athens (824-50). The birth place of harmony, home to all virtues, and especially renowned for wisdom, how could Athens provide refuge for one polluted by the murder of her own children? The chorus compels Medea and the audience to consider in pictorial detail the horror of the deed she intends to do (851-65). The women will honor their promise of silence, but once Medea sets in motion the inexorable chain of events that will result in the death of her children, they give voice to their despair (976-77). Medea's new plan for revenge has set her at odds with her once sympathetic friends.

Euripides continues to unravel the emotional bonds between Medea and the audience which he has been so careful to forge in the first half of the play. When the messenger arrives to announce the death ofJason's bride and her father, the violence of the scene is painted in vivid detail. While the lurid particulars with which the messenger recounts the death agonies of Medea's unsuspecting victims draws with it the sympathy of the audience, Medea is shown to be taking pleasure in the gory consequences of her handiwork (1127-28; 1134-35). As the chorus expresses its pity for the innocent daughter of Creon whose only fault is to have been taken in marriage by Jason (1233-35), Medea turns her grim resolve against those who are more innocent still (1236ff.). And as the play reaches its grisly climax and the women pray for divine interven- tion, the audience hears the desperate cries of the children at the approach of their sword-wielding mother. As the terrified screams of the children give way to deadly silence, the once sympathetic heroine has become a repulsive and alien being.

The gradual distancing of Medea from the audience is completed in the last scene. From her final position above the stage, Medea gloats over her victory. She will not even allow Jason to see, much less touch, the bodies of his now dead sons. As she torments the




childless and wifeless Jason, Euripides effects a second reversal. Jason, the unambiguous villain of the play, has now become the object of our sympathy. For all his apparent strength, he turns out to have been the helpless victim of Medea's destroying fury. Medea herself, however, has been cut loose from the cords of human sympathy. She seems both more and less than human. The mur- deress of her own children, she exalts in the completeness of her triumph. Not only have the gods failed to intervene on behalf of her innocent victims, but they have furnished the very chariot by which Medea's escape is assured. As Medea stands far above Jason and prophesies his death, she has passed beyond simple human proportions. As she prepares to escape, Medea is distant and terrible; she has become a god.'2

II. THE FULCRUM OF SPIRITEDNESS

As I hope to have suggested, Euripides has carefully constructed his play in such a way as to move his audience from initial sympathy to repellent horror.'" His initial presentation of a new champion in the tradition of the greatest Greek heroes is gradually stripped away to reveal an alien being whose brutal crimes inspire fear and dread. What accounts for this shift and what does Euripides mean to accomplish by it? The remainder of this essay attempts to provide some answers to these questions.

A. THE FULCRUM One way to address these questions is to consider with greater

care exactly how Euripides effects the shift in attitude toward Medea. We are helped in this regard by the chorus of Corinthian women. They consider Medea a friend, sympathize with her vic- timization, and even approve her plan for bloody revenge. Their approbation turns to protest only when Medea decides to murder her children. To maintain that it is Medea's resolve to murder her children that, more than anything else, strains the emotional ties that have developed between Medea and the audience is to state the obvious. It is only slightly less obvious to point out that it is

12. Knox, "The Medea of Euripides," p. 208. 13. T. V. Buttrey makes a similar observation about the way in which Eurip-

ides manipulates the attitude of the audience in this play. "Accident and Design in Euripides' Medea," American Journal of Philology 79 (1958): 1-17, esp. pp. 7-9.




the very extremity of this deed which, more than any other, reveals the full truth about Medea herself. Most women would be angry were they to be set aside for a younger wife. A few would be capable of exacting bloody retribution. But very few, perhaps only one, are capable of carrying out a revenge which requires both the premeditated murder of one's children and the willingness to continue living in the full awareness of the atrocity of one's crime. It is Medea, and perhaps only Medea, who is forever associated with this horrific act.

If this deed is more revealing of Medea than any other, it is reasonable to expect that what enables Medea to make such a resolve and carry it through would be more revealing still. The Corinthian women ask: "From where will you get the courage (thrasos)? . . . How will you face the blood of your children with a steeled spirit (tlamoni thumai)?" (856, 865).

" Euripides' answer to

these questions is not only our best point of entry into Medea's soul, but, I would suggest, also reveals a central problem of the play. It is especially in those passages where Medea first announces her intention to kill her children and then struggles against and overcomes her own revulsion for this plan that we find Euripides' answer to these questions.

B. SPIRITEDNESS After the departure of King Aegeus, a specific path for retribu-

tion has opened for Medea. Although she is willing enough to contemplate the terrible death she will inflict on Jason's new bride (783-89), she laments even to think about what must follow. To obliterate the house ofJason requires the death of her own children. How does she account for the fierce extremity of her chosen plan? Medea explains succinctly with a phrase that recurs at crucial moments throughout the play: "The mocking laughter (gelasthai) of enemies is unendurable" (797). She adds, "Let no one consider me petty or weak or passive, but rather as one possessed of a different character - stern toward enemies and kindly toward friends - for to such belong the most glorious life" (807-10). Medea regards herself as belonging to the race of heroes. She seeks for herself a life of glory, one that is utterly incompatible with dishonor of any kind. Medea will be victorious over her enemies or die in the

14. Translations, although indebted to Arthur Way (Loeb edition) and Rex Warner (Complete Greek Tragedies), are my own.




attempt. Nor will she hesitate to use the sword against even those who are dearest to her, if that is what is required to maintain her honor.

But Medea does hesitate. When the moment for the final and most brutal act of revenge arrives, Medea is torn asunder by feel- ings of maternal love. Not only is Medea's reconsideration im- portant if she is to retain any degree of sympathy from her audience, it also lays bare a battleground within her soul and in so doing allows the audience to see still more clearly what it is that moves her most.

As Medea contemplates the bright hopes and innocent smiles of her children she decides that she cannot carry out her plan. She will spare the life of her children and bring them into exile with her (1040-48). This new course of action is, however, soon overturned. The all but unendurable pain of slaughtering her children is overcome by another pain which is simply unendurable. "Do I want to bring upon myself mocking laughter, letting my enemies go unpunished? This is unendurable" (1049-51). She resolves to do the deed.

Yet Medea again falters (1056-58). This time she curses the part of her soul which fuels her deadly course: "Wretched spiritedness (thumos),15 do not do these deeds." But even this hesitation is overcome. Swearing by the avenging furies, Medea declares that she will never surrender her children, leaving them as victims to be outraged (kathubrisai) by her enemies (1059-61). She is once again determined to do the deed (1062-69).

After calling the children to herself, Medea's resolve is for a third time in danger of unraveling (1069-77). Overcome by the horror of what she is about to do, she is compelled to send her children away. Medea's vacillations reach their harrowing climax as she makes what will turn out to be her final determination, one that will remain unshaken to the end. Medea's tortured ruminations conclude with a general and revealing statement about her state of soul.

15. Although I believe "spiritedness" best captures the meaning which Eurip- ides attaches to thumos in this context, my thesis does not depend upon it. Spirit- edness is a convenient term for the constellation of qualities which I have already described and which are unambiguously at the heart of Medea's warrior-like character.




Spiritedness (thumos) is stronger than my second thoughts, spiritedness which is the cause of the greatest evils among mortals. (1078- 80)'6

The sword will cut loose the bonds of maternal affection. Spirit- edness, the warrior virtue par excellence, is victorious on the battleground of Medea's soul.

C. THE AMBIVALENCE OF SPIRITEDNESS Medea is untypical among the extant plays of Euripides in that

it consistently focuses our attention on a single individual; other characters appear to be so many foils enabling Euripides to reflect the drama of his central character more vividly. What Euripides displays in his central character is the problem of spiritedness. The play's carefully crafted ambivalence toward Medea suggests Euripides' own ambivalence toward her dominating passion. It is the extreme character of Medea's spiritedness-her inability to tolerate dishonor and undaunted determination to exact the pen- alty from her enemies-that gives her stature among the "most glorious" Greek heroes. It is, however, this same extreme of spiritedness that leads to the appalling murder of her innocent children.

The difficulty with spiritedness is that it can lead to both noble and savage extremes. The Platonic Socrates later makes explicit the problematic character of spiritedness in what is undoubtedly one of the most famous discussions of warrior virtue in classical literature. In their effort to construct a perfectly just city, Socrates and his interlocutors speak about the class of guardians in whom the thumotic part of the soul dominates. The great challenge in forming a guardian class is to make them fierce toward their enemies and gentle toward their friends, since that fierceness could just as easily be turned towards fellow citizens (Rep. 375b-c). Clearly, Euripides is not interested in providing a philosophic forum within which to examine the issue. He does, however, write a play which, relying on the power inherent in drama, confronts his audience with the problematic character of spiritedness. What first appears to be sympathetic, attractive and even noble turns out to be repulsive, ugly and savage.

16. There is scholarly controversy regarding the authorship of 1021-80. M. D. Reeve argues against the authenticity of these lines. "Euripides' Medea 1021-1080," Classical Quarterly 22 (1972): 51-61. G. M. A. Grube, on the other hand, maintains that 1078-80 is the climax of the entire play. The Drama of Euripides (Methuen: Barnes & Noble, 1941; rpt. 1961), p. 162.




Whatever difficulties are occasioned by making the central character of his play a woman, there is at least one powerful conse- quence that is relevant to the thesis of this essay." It heightens the brutality of the final act and thereby intensifies Euripides' dramati- zation of the problem of spiritedness: The very quality which is most necessary to defend and protect one's own is shown to have a power capable of severing even the powerful natural bond which unites mother and child.

III. THE ATHENIAN CONNECTION

Euripides' Medea took last place in the competition. Many rea- sons are suggested to explain its initial unpopularity, among which the triumph of a foreign female and the approbation of the gods despite the brutality of Medea's crime must loom large. A further reason suggests itself as well. The date of the performance in the spring of 431 anticipates by only a few months the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Page's imaginative description of the tenor of life in Athens at the time of the performance must be close to the truth.

The imminent war was the topic of general conversation in Athens, and patriotic feeling was running high. Athens was the best country, war was a glorious thing, and soldiers were heroes.18

Euripides begins his play by stoking the fires of heroic warrior virtue as Athenians behold a sympathetic heroine unwilling to endure dishonor from her enemies. However, in a bold reversal, Euripides' play reveals the potentially destructive power of these same sentiments.

17. This statement is in no way intended to dismiss the importance of gender in Medea, merely to put it aside. The complexity and nuance of Euripides' treatment of this issue furnishes ample material for an essay of its own. I limit myself to the observation that Euripides both acknowledges (in the Chorus of Corinthian women) and defies (in person of Medea) the conventional Greek view of women. Medea, the only character in the play to wield a sword, debunks that arrogance which stems from male superiority on the battlefield (248-51), outmaneuvers the impotent King Aegeus, and inflicts devastating and complete defeat on the hero Jason. It may well be that Euripides' freedom from sexual stereotypes constituted an obstacle to the audience's appreciation of the play.

18. Page, Medea, p. xi.




A. THE DRAMATIC WEAKNESS OF THE AEGEUS EPISODE

That Euripides wishes to bring home to his fellow citizens the dangers of spiritedness is, I believe, revealed in the much maligned scene between Medea and King Aegeus. The scene has no prepara- tion and no follow-up. Euripides does not make the slightest effort to supply a pretext for the encounter. Quite literally, King Aegeus just happens to wander across the stage. The episode has a long history of criticism going all the way back to Aristotle. Aristotle maintains that there can be no defense for improbability (alogon) when it is not necessary and no use is made of it (Poetics 1461 b 19- 21). Whether this is an adequate assessment of the Aegeus episode remains to be seen. However, at least this much is incontrovertible. The completely gratuitous character of Aegeus' arrival on stage does weaken the dramatic integrity of the play.

The myth with which Euripides is working might offer an initial explanation for the weakness of this scene. Euripides must accept at least the general outlines of a story that has Medea escape to Athens where she will eventually take up residence with Aegeus. This is surely part of the explanation. It cannot, however, be the whole story. The difficulty lies in the fact that Euripides deliberately emphasizes the encounter between Medea and Aegeus; he uses and exploits a classical framework which has the effect of giving special prominence to this episode.

The play as a whole falls within a remarkably (especially for Euripides) symmetrical framework. The usual elements-prologue/parodos, five episodes, and exodos - are presented in parallel form throughout the play. The opening (prologue and parodos) is dominated by the unseen presence of Medea, who is heard from her position offstage. This is paralleled by the final scene in which Medea is again offstage, this time overshadowing the scene from above. The first and fifth episodes both deal with the royal house: Creon's banishment of Medea and Medea's triumphant revenge over Creon and his unnamed daughter. The second and fourth episodes concern Jason: his patronizing complacency toward Medea and, subsequently, her easy manipulation of him. Only the third episode is unparalleled; it is also the numerical center of the play (662 lines before; 656 lines after). This is the scene which recounts the meeting between Medea and Aegeus. If it was necessary for Euripides to include this material in his account of the




Medea story, it was certainly not necessary for him to build the dramatic structure of his play around it."1

B. SOME EXPLANATIONS

Why would Euripides choose to take the weakest link of his drama and provide a structural framework that cast it into relief? Various explanations have been offered. Some commentators have argued that it is the Aegeus episode which provides Medea with a specific plan for revenge. It is only when she sees the extent of Aegeus' suffering that Medea comes up with the idea of destroying Jason's children as a way of effecting her retribution.20 This is at best a partial explanation. Although Medea first announces her plan to kill her children after speaking with Aegeus, the fear that Medea might do violence to her children had been expressed from the outset of the play, much before Medea encounters Aegeus (90- 95, 98-117, 182-3).21

A more ambitious defense of the scene is offered by Dunkle who, building upon the work of Buttrey, attempts to relate this episode to the theme of the play as a whole. Dunkle argues that self-interest is a dominant theme in the play and that this comes most clearly to light in the Aegeus episode, which is the turning point of the play. The scene looks back and demonstrates how the Medea-Jason relationship, also based on self-interest, came into being.22 On the other hand, the scene looks ahead. The very irrationality of Aegeus' appearance anticipates the part played by chance and its terrible consequences given the self-interested opportunism that prevails in the drama.23

19. Similar observations about the formal design of the play are made by Buttrey, "Accident and Design," pp. 5-6, 10 and J. Roger Dunkle, "The Aegeus Episode and the Theme of Euripides' Medea," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 100 (1969): 97-107, esp. p. 97.

20. For example, H. Darnley Naylor, "The Aegeus Episode, Medea 663-773," The Classical Review 23 (1909): 189-90 and Bongie, "Heroic Elements," p. 40.

21. See D.J. Conacher, Euripidean Drama: Myth, Theme and Structure (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), p. 190 note 11 and Buttrey, "Accident and Design," pp. 3-4.

22. Dunkle, "Aegeus Episode," pp. 100-101, 107. 23. Ibid., pp. 104-107. H. D. F. Kitto defends the Aegeus scene in a different

way. The encounter provides a "setting for the outburst of unreason." He maintains that Euripides is justified in manipulating the scene so as to put his thesis in the clearest possible light; namely, that "the passions and unreason to which humanity is subject are its greatest scourge" (Greek Tragedy: A Literary Study [New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1939; rpt. 1950], p. 206).




Notwithstanding the sensibleness of Dunkle's attempt to find a thematic link between the play and its central scene, his interpreta- tion is problematic. It has the effect of leveling all characters by attributing to them a typically modern preoccupation with self- interest. Although Dunkle surely succeeds in shedding some light on Medea and a recurring theme in the play, he does so at the cost of flattening her character to the point where it becomes impossible to account for her attractiveness and, even less, her heroic stature. As I have already argued, Euripides' presentation is more complex. His portrayal of Medea contains both attractive and repulsive elements. Any effort to collapse or simplify her unwieldy character cannot account for the enduring fascination which Euripides' Medea has exerted on audiences through the ages.

C. DIDACTIC STRENGTH I would suggest a much less esoteric reason for the prominence

which Euripides gives to the Aegeus episode. The immediate effect of the scene is to bring Medea to Athens. Whatever the dramatic weakness of the scene, I would maintain that its didactic strength lies in the Athenian connection itself.

The Athenian king offers protection to someone who claims to be able to help him. Perhaps it is his preoccupation with the more immediate problem of childlessness that prevents him from seeing what he really gets. Medea personifies the full force and destructive power of spiritedness, both its noble peak and savage low point. Indeed, Medea's more than human stature at the end of the play invites the audience to view her less as an individual and more as an exemplar of this permanent aspect of human experience.24 What does it mean that Medea will now take up residence in Athens? Does Athens harbor sentiments which, unbeknownst to it, will prove as destructive to the fabric of its polity as Medea is shown to be for Corinth?

In a word, yes. The policy of Athenian imperialism with its promise of glory must necessarily rely upon and cultivate the spiritedness of its citizens. As the Athenians learn many years later, this same spiritedness will result in the ruin of Athens and the dismantling of its empire.

24. Kitto maintains that Medea is "the impersonation of one of the blind and irrational forces in human nature." Greek Tragedy, p. 209; cf. pp. 204-209.




At the time the play was being performed, the grounds of com- plaint and causes of disagreement between Athens and Sparta were already apparent.25 On the eve of war Pericles explained to his fellow citizens that capitulating to Spartan demands out of fear would be tantamount to slavery. Rather, he urged Athenians to emulate the resolve and courage displayed by their fathers in with- standing the Persians and pointed out that it is from the greatest dangers that the greatest honors accrue to both the city and the individual.26 The appeal to spiritedness to defend the Athenian empire became even more marked after the first year of war. In Pericles' famous funeral oration, he enjoined his fellow citizens to fix their gaze on the power of Athens and, falling in love with her greatness, to find the courage and daring necessary to continue the war." These sentiments reached a climax years later when the Athenians enthusiastically endorsed a scheme to enlarge their empire with an ill-fated expedition to Sicily.28 The devastating defeat of Athenian forces in Sicily marked the beginning of the end for Athens. The very sentiments which had once seemed most necessary to preserve the life and honor of Athens ultimately proved to be the cause of its undoing.

My claim is not, of course, that Euripides or anyone could have anticipated the specific outcome of these events. I would assert, however, that Euripides was less than sanguine about the kinds of excesses that the impending war was almost certain to call forth from citizen soldiers. At a time when Athenians would have most welcomed a patriotic play extolling the bright glory of heroic courage, Euripides chose instead to reveal the hidden and destructive darkness which lurks in the warrior soul.

The celebrated song in praise of Athens which follows the Aegeus episode (824-65) is often cited as evidence of Euripides' own patriotism. The subsequent decline of Athens in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War leads Page to assert that this was the last time that such a tribute to the glory of Athens could be written.29 This

25. Thucydides speaks especially of the disputes over Epidamnus (435-3) and Corcyra (433). Histories 1, 146.

26. Histories, 1, 140-41; 144. 27. Histories, 2, 43. 28. Thucydides says that the excessive eagerness (agan epithumian) of the ma-

jority was such that those opposed to the expedition feared to speak lest their opposition be construed as a lack of patriotism. Histories 6, 24.

29. Page, Medea, p. viii.




appraisal needs to be qualified. Euripides' song does indeed praise unconquered Athens for its harmony, virtue, and renowned wisdom (824-45). But it also asks how a city such as Athens could possibly provide a home for the fierce violence inherent in Medea (846-65). Euripides' "patriotic song" calls to mind the best qualities of Athenians while at the same time suggesting that these qualities are incompatible with Medea and everything she personifies.

The play ends with Medea's imminent escape to Athens. Medea, who will be welcomed by King Aegeus because of her promise to help him procure an heir (716-18), must escape to Athens in order to avoid punishment for having extinguished the royal line in Cor- inth. She who will be received into the hearth of Athens as a giver of life is in reality a harbinger of destruction.

CONCLUSION

Toward the beginning of the play, Medea's nurse complains of poets who write pleasant songs for those living at ease (190-203).3o She explains that their hymns are superfluous at best and completely devoid of wisdom. They understand nothing of the terrible pains which burden life. Whereas music that could heal these pains would be truly useful, poets have hitherto used their skills to accom- pany celebrations, providing pleasing sounds where they are least needed.

Euripides' Medea does not celebrate but rather exposes the power of spiritedness. Euripides is not one of the foolish poets who are only concerned to please their audience. Rather, he offers a beautiful but bitter song dealing with the deaths and terrible misfortunes which overturn homes and cities. The Athenians voted down Euripides' play. They would have better manifested Athens' renowned wisdom had they been willing to ponder the cautionary notes sounded by one of the city's wisest poets.

30. Pucci notes that while the passage is consistent with the dramatic situation, it is also generally taken to describe what, in Euripides' own view, constitutes the essence of tragedy. Violence of Pity, p. 28.



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