Dead Lovers Society

Medea

Medea is certainly one of the most interesting characters of Ancient Greek Literature. Her magical powers and the terrible act of filicide have made her an interesting subject for many writers and artists, creating on one side a wild woman, justified by her own beliefs and culture in the terrible acts that she is pushed to, and on the other a scorned lover who did everything in her power to help a man who never rewarded her.

Her story is linked many times with the Argonauts' one, and so does Ovid in his Metamorphoses: everything begins with a blooming and forbidden romance between Medea and Jason, the hero who came to her kingdom to steal its most valued possession, the notorious golden veil. Instead, Apollonius Rhodium describes Medea's slow descent in her love for Jason, showcasing the woman's feelings with an amazing precision and attention in an incredible display of psychological knowledge and expression.

Through her knowledge of magic Medea helps her lover first in the conquest of the golden veil, offering him advice to win every trial imposed by her father, and then in the escape from Colchis and her father's clutches, when the sorceress reveals her bloodthirsty and determinate nature by killing her brother. Still, her love for Jason doesn't have a happy ending. After having found shelter in Corinth, Medea, Jason, and their children are hosted by the land's rightful king, Creon, who aims to marry off his own daughter to the infamous hero. Jason happily accepts the offer, fascinated by the allure of power and the possibility of having a younger and noble wife.

Medea isn’t blind to her lovers's intentions and threads carefully her revenge, killing the children she generated with Jason after having gifted a poisoned dress and a golden crown to young Glauce, Jason’s soon-to-be-wife and princess of Corinth, effectively murdering her as well as her father, who just wanted to help his daughter. After having alienated herself from everyone whom she loved and having killed those who were closest to her, Medea runs away on the Sun’s chariot, travels to Athens and later back to Colchis to reunite with her father.

All of this is also described in Euripides' tragedy by the same name as the infamous sorceress. The three authors we suggest for our repertory showcase three different perspectives on this mysterious woman, which we hope will further encourage your interest in such an interesting and magical figure.

The voices of our story

Euripides

Apollonius Rhodius

Ovid

The Author

Euripides was born in Salamina in 485 BC and died in 406 BC in Pellas, although it is plausible that he never visited Macedonia. In fact, many accounts of his life appear either fables or comic, to the point that many of the sources for his biographies are often his enemies, for example, Aristophanes, who had him as a character in three of his plays

Euripides was quite the contrasting figure when it came to opinions on his plays.

His first victory in the Dionysia, the main religious festivities of Greece, didn't come till 441 BC and his last was awarded posthumously.

In total he won five times, which was quite the low number if compared to Sophocles' eighteen times and Aeschylus' thirteen times

His production didn't in fact sit well with many of his contemporaries and is nothing else than a symptom of the historical passage they were living in, with a change of generations that made Euripides' continous evolution through his plays all more interesting to follow through.

Sadly this evolution isn't easy to follow through due to the fragmentary nature of Euripides' production, but other than his importance for bringing up new themes and a renown study of the human psyche, this author also invented a few elements that are still used in the modern theatre, for example:

The employment of further technical devices to further make the play spectacular
The use of rhethorical techniques to convey the knowledge that there isn't an universal truth
The deus ex machina, which was employed by others before Euripides, but with this author became an established stage machine.
This device was used to further convey an emotional involvement of the audience, alongside to present on stage the figure of a god, to enhance amazement

The Play

Medea is actually one of the first plays written by Euripides. It was produced in 431 BC and it earned Euripides the third prize at the City Dionisya, a terrible reception although the competition of that year was quite good, having Sophocles - a fan favorite - coming only at the second place.

The story revolves around the Colchian princess Medea who arrived alongside her husband, Jason, in the Greek world

Here she isn't only marginalized as a foreigner, but her husband also chooses to remarry a Corinthian princess to befriend her father, Creon, head of the city

All of this brings Medea to come up with a few different ideas to make her husband pay for his deeds and disrespect, involving in her plot not only his future bride but also the sons she had with Jason

Medea is the sole Greek tragedy in which a kin-killer ends up unpunished and triumphant, since at the end of the play it's Medea who triumphs, having lost everything she had

The main themes of this play are passion, love and vegeance, although different views have been given through the centuries, such as of Medea as a proto-feminist, fighting against the patriarchal society or as a foreign and irrational presence in an otherwise rational world

We hope you'll enjoy our choice in texts, which we thought better represent Medea's journey as a lover through the play.

The Author

Apollonius Rhodius is quite the mysterious author, since many sources differ about different aspect of his life and we could pinpoint his existence very very largely to the 3rd century BC

There still a few facts that are common among the sources, although many other details still diverge, such as his relationship of competition with Callimachus and the fact that for a certain amount of time he was the head of the library of Alexandria

Even his name seems still quite debated, mostly because although a few sources associate it to his move from Alexandria to Rhodes, at the end of his term as of the head of the Library of Alexandria, others instead insist that he actually came from Rhodes and moved to Alexandria.

Some other theories just say that, the epithet was just used to distance him from another Apollonius, and the choice of Rhodius was due to the fact that he wrote a poem about Rhodes

In all of this theorizing, many believes that his Argonautica, his finest work, was in fact created at Rhodes, in order to make the author famous and to make him chase away the hated Callimachus, who many rumored had written the Ibis poem against.

Still only recently Apollonius Rhodius have been able to reap the fruit of his hard work, since only recently his work had been truly recognized and appreciated

The Book

Instead of dealing with Medea, Argonautica deals with the lives of the infamous argonauts and their travel to reach the infamous Golden Fleece, which was rumored to be magic

At the head of the argonauts we have Jason, and in the third book of this work, we also find Medea, a very different Medea from the one we have met in Euripides

In this case, Medea has just come to the realization of her feelings for Jason, which creates a terrible contrast with her loyalty to her family, against whom her lover is fighting

The passage we chose in this case is meant to highlight this aspect, as we see Medea talking with her sister about her feelings and then with herself, foreseeing the shame that would follow her choosing Jason

Still, in the end Medea chooses to risk it all, and aid Jason through the various trials her father has decided to put the hero through

The Argonautica has been undoubtedly influenced by two main sources:

The old epic poems such as the Iliad and Odissey for its content
The stylistic theme of the time for the frame

This way Apollonius has recreated a new brand of epic, which has then influenced authors, first of which Virgil for the creation of the female figures in his own poem, across all centuries, in its reimagining of Jason's travels

The Author

Publius Ovid Naso was probably one of the most controversial authors in all ancient Rome, which raised many concerns in the conservative rule of Augustus

Born in 43 BC, Ovid was exhiled from Rome to Tomis in AD 8, for uncertain reasons, but it is very possible thta it was due to his rather lincentious writings, which went against the many rules the emperor had installed to keep its citizens under his regimen

Other hypotheses have been brought up, such as an involvement of Ovid in an affair with the emperor's daughter - who would be later exhiled, as well - or the accusal of conspiring agaist Augustus

Ovid himself described the cause of his exhile as worse than murder and more hamrful than poetry, and no matter his pleading he actually died in Tomisin the 17-18 AD.

His production didn't cease during the years of the exhile, and he worked on two poetry collections - Tristia and Epistulae ex ponto - and a poem -Fasti, which was published posthumously .

Still, it's the books before his exhile which contains his biggest crimes and can give us an hint of his personality.

Mixing a popular tradition with a knowledge of classical myth, Ovid created a perfect mix, which immortalized him in the world of poetry.

The Book

Metamorphosis is a concept that has been quite fashionable in literature and has never lost its own charm.

What Ovid creates is a magnificient collection of various myths that circles around the concept of change and changing.

But it isn't only a collection of myths, but also an old history manual, for Ovid's readers, which are taught through the book how the world came to be and how humans were made.

And quite interestingly which were the faults of manking, that brought them to be turned in animals or inanimate objects.

Composed by fourteen books, it tells the story from the origin of the world, to the yera before the death of Julius Caesar.

The main character of such a narrative is none other than the founding theme of Ovid's poetry, Love, who reigns over every other god, showing how much gods are under the control of passions, whereas humans are above that.

The style and language is also very new and interesting, since many times the latter is used to introduce the metamorphosis, whereas the former changes swiftly from a crasser humor to more exquisite example of classical themes

Metamorphoses is a work that created its own subgenre through centuries, since many tried to reply Ovid's lighthearted and elegant tone, which is part of his inheritance.

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