beautiful woman into his house without pain to himself and shame to her?
He protests that it is unthinkable, and begs Heracles to take her
elsewhere. She would be a constant reminder of his grief, and an insult
to the memory of his wife. Until this moment he has hardly glanced at
the silent figure by the hero’s side, except to notice that her rich
vestments proclaim her young. But something in her appearance seizes his
attention; and he proceeds, rapidly and in great agitation:
“_But, woman, thou,
Whoso thou art, know that thy body’s stature
Is as Alcestis, and thy form as hers.
Ah me!—lead, for the Gods’ sake, from my sight
This woman!—Take not my captivity captive.
For as I look on her, methinks I see
My wife. She stirs my heart with turmoil: fountains
Of tears burst from mine eyes. O wretched I!
Now taste I first this grief’s full bitterness._“[29]
It is Alcestis’ very self, won back from death as Apollo had promised;
but with the awful silence of the tomb still upon her. Heracles places
her hand in that of the reluctant and incredulous king, while he draws
aside her veil:
“_Yea, guard her. Thou shalt call
The child of Zeus one day a noble guest.
Look on her, if in aught she seems to thee
Like to thy wife. Step forth from grief to bliss._“[29]
-----
Footnote 28:
From _The Life and Death of Jason_, by William Morris (Longmans).
Footnote 29:
From the _Alcestis_ of Euripides, translated by Dr. A. S. Way (Loeb
Classical Library: London, Heinemann).
_Euripides: Medea_
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.
_She kissed her bed, and her hands on the walls with loving caress
Lingered; she kissed the posts of the doors; and one long tress
She severed, and left it her bower within, for her mother to be
A memorial of maidenhood’s days, and with passionate voice moaned
she._[30]
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:
“_In madness she sinned at the first, when she gave him the charm that
should tame
The bulls; and with wrong to amend that wrong,—Ay, oftimes the same
In our sinning we do!—she straightway essayed; and shrinking in fear
From her proud sire’s tyrannous wrath, she fled. Now the man, as I hear,
This Jason, is hound by mighty oaths which his own lips said,
When he pledged him to make her, his halls within, his wife
true-wed._“[30]
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.
“_Virgin of Righteousness,
Virgin of hallowed Troth,
Ye marked me when with an oath
I bound him; mark no less
That oath’s end. Give me to see
Him and his bride, who sought
My grief when I wronged her not,
Broken in misery,
And all her house._“[31]
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:
“_...I dazzle where I stand,
The cup of all life shattered in my hand,
Longing to die—O friends! He, even he,
Whom to know well was all the world to me,
The man I loved, hath proved most evil._“[31]
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.
“_’Tis not the first nor second time, O King,
That fame hath hurt me....
Come unto fools with knowledge of new things,
They deem it vanity, not knowledge....
Ah, I am not so wondrous wise!—And now,
To thee, I am terrible! What fearest thou?
What dire deed? Do I tread so proud a path—
Fear me not thou!—that I should brave the wrath
Of princes?_“[31]
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.
“_Awake thee now, Medea! Whatso plot
Thou hast, or cunning, strive and falter not.
On to the peril-point! Now comes the strain
Of daring. Shall they trample thee again?_“[31]
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.
“_Evil—most Evil ...
I will begin with that, ‘twixt me and thee,
That first befell. I saved thee. I saved thee—
... And hast thou then
Accepted all—O evil yet again!—
And cast me off and taken for thy bride
Another? And with children at thy side!
... 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? ...
... O great God, shall gold withal
Bear thy clear mark, to sift the base and fine,
And o’er man’s living visage runs no sign
To show the lie within, ere all too late?_“[31]
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:
“_God, and God’s Justice, and ye blinding Skies,
At last the victory dawneth!_“[31]
[Illustration:
MEDEA & ABSYRTUS
_Herbert Draper_
_By permission of the Corporation Art Gallery of Bradford_
]
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.
“_Shall it be
A long time more, my children, that ye live
To reach to me those dear, dear arms? ... Forgive._“[31]
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.
MEDEA. _I was their mother! When I heard thy prayer
Of long life for them, there swept over me
A horror, wondering how these things shall be._[31]
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.