Medea (NHB Classic Plays)

By Euripides

Euripides' classic about the woman who murders her own children in revenge for her husband's infidelity, here given a distinctive Scots flavour by the poet and playwright Liz Lochhead.
Winner of the Saltire Society's award for SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2001
'This outstanding work should firmly establish the Glasgow playwright as Scotland's greatest living dramatist... the finest piece I have seen on the Scottish stage this year' - Scotland on Sunday
'Liz Lochhead's stunning new version of Medea is the kind of interpretation - brave, visionary, risky - that blows a well-known text apart and reassembles it in a completely new light... ancient but new, cosmic yet agonisingly familiar' - Scotsman
'Some of the most exciting recent work on Greek drama in the English language' - Sunday Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Dec 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780015293

Euripides

Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC to his mother, Cleito, and father, Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. He had two disastrous marriages, and both his wives—Melite and Choerine (the latter bearing him three sons)—were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. He became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education. The details of his death are uncertain.

Book preview

A woman is talking to herself and us. This is the NURSE.

The people of this country all have Scots accents, their language varies from Scots to Scots-English – from time to time and from character to character – and particular emotional state of character.

NURSE

I wish to all the Gods it had never sailed the Argo

had never set its proud prow atween the humped blue rocks

of distant islands forced itsel through straits

breisted waves to land on unlucky Kolchis why?

why did the sun ever heat up the soil

in which there split that seed

that sproutit from sapling to a tall tree of girth enough

to be felled to build its keel? why was it ever oared?

why crewed wi heroes fit to filch the Golden Fleece?

adventurers!

my lady Medea would never then have sailed wi Jason

daft for him doted!

would no have for his sake

swicked Pelias’ dochters into killing their faither

for Jason’s sake she fled here to Corinth

wi Jason and their bairns ingratiatin hersel

sookin in a fawning exile a foreigner

for his sake

now it all sours on her see how he’s turned

brave Jason’s bedded a new bride Glauke

dochter of Kreon the King a princess of this land

and Medea left to rot

among the spylte and wastit love she’s stuck wi

she’s chucked out like

an old coat that nae langer fits him

nae wonder Medea winna be comforted shivers

stinks of fear canna eat

canna sleep greets till she can greet nae mair

stares at the cauld grunn greets again greets sair

try soothing her she’s a stone

in kindness leave her be she rolls in her rags

claws at hersel keening

too late she screams remorse for a faither loast

a land abandoned the betrayals

she made for Jason who faur waur betrays her noo

too late too late she learns she should

have clung to what she had

the children – she looks on them with empty eyes

as if they’re nothing to her

I’m feart for her fear her

I shut my eyes and see Medea

creepan through the labyrinthine palace

follying her hatred like a thread

I dream of a dagger thrust in yon double bed

skewering the lovers thegither

I see the skailt blood of Kreon the king

she’s capable of onything

A handsome young, strong MANSERVANT enters with the CHILDREN.

MANSERVANT

well auld yin my lady’s lady

what are you daen dithering here

girning on aboot the griefs of your betters?

they wouldnae greet for you

NURSE

here’re these sweet wee children playing

no a care in aw the warld

what are grown up griefs to bairns? play away

for your mither things could not be worse

MANSERVANT

oh could they no?

so much you know auld yin

that’s no what I heard I tell you

NURSE

what did you hear?

MANSERVANT

I’m saying naething

NURSE

tell me what you heard

MANSERVANT

to say naething is already to have said too much

NURSE

speak to me we’re slaves

baith in the same sair place in this catastrophe

MANSERVANT

I know it and when I greet it will be for masel

I heard talk

Reviews for Medea (NHB Classic Plays)

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

 This is rather though provoking. Medea has history here, we come in at the end of her story, this is set in just a few hours. But it would make little to no sense without understanding how she came to be in Corinth and why Jason, her husband in all but the legal sense, feels that he can up and marry someone else. Medea, unsurprisingly, doesn't see it that way. The play is dominated by her, with her presence on stage for the majority of the play. She faces Jason, Creon (the king of Corinth) and Aegeus (King of Athens) and manages to shock the first 2 severely. When the play opens, Jason's marriage to Creon's daughter (who, I think, goes unnamed throughout, which is interesting) has been planned and Creon banishes Medea, for fear that she may do him or his daughter harm. He allows her one day to leave - and calls himself a fool for allowing her the time - how right he is proven. I struggle to see how the chorus fit in here, if they were ladies of Corinth, would they really have stood by when Medea expands on her plot against the bride and her father? It feels unlikely, so I'm uncertain of who they are. In the play they serve as a foil to the action, taking the news and digesting it as we do the same, casting it into a different light or reviewing it. Medea leaves the stage under her own agency, relying on her lineage as the daughter of the son of the Sun, but she does so under her own agency. She leaves Corinth in a very different state than it was a few hours earlier. I can;t say that I understand her, or her actions, but she does feel real, which is a thing when this was written 2.5 thousand years ago. I wonder what this is like staged...

[janerawoof · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Penetrating psychological study of Medea, the wronged wife, and Jason, the unfeeling, selfish contemptible husband. Classic revenge tragedy.

[david.alfred.sarkies · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Surely, of all creatures that have life and will, we womenAre the most wretched. When, for an extravagant sum,We have bought a husband, we must then accept him asPossessor of our body. This is to aggravateWrong with worse wrong. Then the great question: will the manWe get be bad or good? For woman, divorce is notRespectable; to repel the man, not possible. (Trans Phillip Veracott)These few lines near the opening of Euripides' Medea pretty much describes what life was like for women in Ancient Greece: it was not pretty. What struck me when I read this play again (and it is one of my favourites) is how astute Euripides was to the plight of Greek women, and it was not as if it was any better elsewhere. Granted, women did have more rights in Ancient Rome (and would become very astute political maneuverers, such as Nero's mother Agripina) but in general the freedoms that women have won over the past 150 years are probably the furthest that they have come to participate in society than any other time throughout history (with a few exceptions).I should talk about about the play and its background (the legend that is, not the writing of it, which took place just prior to the Peloponesian War). The play is set sometime after Jason's return to Greece after obtaining the Golden Fleece from Cholchis. When he was in Cholcis, he had wooed Medea, the daughter of the king, and with her aid managed to steal the fleece and escape, but in doing so Medea was forced not only to kill her brother but renounce her citizenship of Colchis never to return. Years later, after they returned to Greece, Jason and Medea married and had children. However, Jason received an offer from King Creon of Corinth to marry his daughter and thus take the throne, so he pretty much ditched Medea, arranged for her exile, and shacked up with his new wife.If I can describe the play in one sentence, it would be 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'. Let all men out there understand this, and if there is one piece of literature I would recommend that all men who wish to have a relationship with a woman should read it should be this one. It is not so much that Medea is a noble character, she is not. She poisons Jason's wife and father-in-law, and then proceeds to murder both of her children, and this is after she forced an oath out of the King of Athens to provide her protection, no matter what. Medea is not a lovely person, and despite the argument that she was driven to this point by a nasty man just simply does not cut it. I agree that Jason is not a noble man either, but still does not justify Medea's actions.One can simply feel the pain of Medea in this play as she struggles with this change to her life. Yes, she acts on instinct and out of vengeance, but she has renounced her country and her people and fled to an alien land, all over the love of a man, only to discover that this man discards her once she is no longer needed by him. As she says, a Greek woman still has family and friends, whereas she has nobody (not quite true, as she secured sanctuary in Athens). We are reminded, over and over again, of the plight that is to be a woman, and an alien woman, in Ancient Greece, and it is not pleasant.Does Euripides' write a decent female character then? Well, that is difficult since we have fragments of only one female Greek poet, and that is Sappho. Everything else is written by men, though not necessarily about men. I believe Medea's character is representative of a woman scorned, seeking vengeance upon he who discarded her. She cries, and is in deep emotional pain, but then lines like 'it is the nature of a woman to cry' is clearly the writing of a man. However Euripides is different from the other Greek playwrights in that he stands up for the woman, and we see this clearly in this play. There are others where he covers such themes as well, but we will look at them when we do. Further, not all of Greek literature deals only with strong men and weak women. Homer's Odyssey is a clear example of this as Penelope is painted as a strong, loyal, and dedicated woman that we resist even the wise men to remain faithful to a husband that she believes is still alive. Further, we have gods like Athena and Artemis, who clearly break out of that mould that we like to put Greek women into (both of these gods are major gods, not married to any other gods, are warriors, and are worshipped by many Greeks of the time).Another thing that struck me in this play this time is the nature of children. Medea weeps about how it is difficult to know how a child turns out. Is all that time wasted in raising the child, only to see him either turn bad, or die in a war? Many parents fret and worry about that, and sometimes the more we worry, the less we actually look into ourselves and ask what can we do to make the situation better. This is a fallen world, and people die in fallen worlds: it is a fact of life. Death will always be painful, but sometimes we need to accept this. The more we try to mould our children into what we want, the more we force them away from us: many a piece of literature explores this (especially these days, just see Dead Poet's Society). However, Medea slays her children, if only out of spite.I have heard many people suggest that Christianity has made the world worse, not better, and that is something that I must heartily dispute. All we need to do is to look at the pre-Christian world to see how horrid and barbaric it was. In many of the Greek tragedies there are no noble characters. There are only two truly noble characters that I can think of in Greek antiquity, one of them being Penelope, the other being Leonidas. Athens, the beacon of freedom and democracy, oppressed women and maintained a slave economy. Further, during the early days of the Peloponesian War, they attacked the island of Mytilene, sacked the place, killed all of the men, and enslaved all of the women and children. While we may have had issues with the way the United States (and Britain) have acted in other lands, I cannot think (with the exception of the period of slavery) of any time where they have acted in such a way. Further, while birth control has always been around, the ancients would deal with unwanted pregnancies by breaking the baby's legs, and then leaving them in the wilderness to die.

[achromatic-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ancient greek feminist revenge fantasy

[stacy_chambers-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not sure what I think of the translation, but I liked that this was annotated.

[laneliterati · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The ultimate story of betrayal and tragedy.

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Grækenland i oldtidenJason har svigtet sin hustru Medea og hun tager en grusom hævn ved først at dræbe hans nye brud og denne far og derefter dræbe sine og Jasons børn.

[booksontrial · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Despair, Anger and Hatred

"Anger arises from offences against oneself, enmity may arise ...because of what we take to be their character. Anger is accompanied by pain, hatred is not;... for the one would have the offenders suffer for what they have done; the other would have them cease to exist."
--Aristotle in "The Art of Rhetoric"

Medea,  princess of Colchis and granddaughter of Helios, was both angry and hateful toward her husband Jason, who dishonored her by deserting her and their two children and marrying another woman, after he had sworn a solemn oath to her, and she had left her father, home and country to be with him. In revenge, she not only murdered Jason's bride and the bride's father by a cunning scheme, but also killed her own two children, for she knew that it would make him suffer the most, though she herself was also pained.

By killing Jason's bride and two children, Medea made him suffer for what he had done to her, he would feel the pain of losing everything and the only thing that he cared for -- for her the love of her husband and the honor and integrity their marital union, for him the advancement and security of his political status; Not only that, he would have no children to build his fame and continue his line, nor any chance of begetting others since his bride was dead. He, "the basest of men", would live to suffer, and yet cease to exist.

There is a precedent in Greek mythology. Procne, princess of Athens, killed her son and fed him to her husband King Tereus of Thrace, after the latter had raped her sister Philomela and cut out her tongue to silence her. The motive for the filicide was similar, i.e., to make the offender suffer and perish at the same time.

If the aim of tragedy is to arouse fear and pity, as Aristotle wrote in "Poetics", this Greek tragedy by Euripides has certainly achieved its aim: it arouses fear in men and pity in women.

Quote:

Jason: "Yea, men should have begotten children from some other source, no female race existing; thus would no evil ever have fallen on mankind."

[kaitlyneyre · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Disturbing, uninteresting, melodramatic-which makes since it is a drama. Helpful for studying that time period and greek myths but not a fun read if you are otherwise inclined.

[london_stj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While my experience with Greek theatre is far from extensive, I feel comfortable proclaiming a general interest in and enjoyment of the genre. I find the level of bawdiness in the satyr plays and comedies extremely entertaining, and I find myself moved and repulsed by the tragedies in such a way that I would never deny their literary superiority.That is, until reading "Medea." Rarely do I come across a protagonist so static and repulsive in her inability to invoke emotion; Medea's actions, rather than her words or character, propel the plot, and the presentation of those actions is wooden at best. As a reader I felt myself moved only for the fate of her sons, and for that I credit my own maternal state over the development of the text. As always, I am willing to shift some blame to the particular translation, because no translator can help but influence the text in his work. My desire to read Euripides has been sated. I'll return to Sophocles and Aristophanes with pleasure.