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Medea (Dover Thrift Editions)

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This play is regarded by many as Euripedes' masterpiece and should be required reading of all educated people. It retells the tragic story of Medea, who had helped Jason in his quest, became his wife, gave him two sons, and feels betrayed since he is marrying the daughter of the ruler of Corinth (Jason has come to the conclusion that this is necessary to protect Medea and his sons since she is a barbarian). With horrible vengence, she kills the bride and the king and then kills her two sons. Euripedes depicts how much passion and vengence can overcome not only individuals, but those who strive to be rational. Men (and governments) can't ignore the influence of emotion, and even irrationality, on their decisions and actions, even when those actions may seem rational and just. Man has to remain flexible. The play also shows how emotions, anger, and unbridled fury can cause a person to do stupid and irrational acts. Euripedes is undoubtedly warning Athens with respect to the war that is going on with Sparta.

This is one of those remarkable plays that feels like it was written just last week. Medea is the daughter of the evil King Aeetes in Colchis -- on the remote, eastern side of the Black Sea. She assists Jason in slaying the serpent that guarded the golden fleece, and fell deeply in love with him. (See Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica for a fuller treatment of the love episode at Colchis). She even killed her brother, Absrytus, on their way back to Greece.

Medea has one problem, however. Aside from the fact she is a witch, she is a barbarian, a non-Greek. The Greeks used the word "barbaros" to refer to all people who weren't Greek, because if they didn't speak Greek, it just sounded like "bar bar bar" to the Greeks.

So after Jason and Medea settle in together back in Greece, his homeland, he decides that his interests (and Medea's) are better served if he marries the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. Medea gets jealous, poisons the woman, and then kills her two children in revenge.

Medea is an absolutely riveting character, whose tragic problems are those of all woman who have left their homes and families to follow men to foreign lands, only to be scorned by them in the end. The speeches of Jason and Medea are remarkable point-counterpoint presentations which reflect the deep influence of the sophists of Euripides' day. Medea sounds, at times, like a proto-feminist. She is one of the most enduring dramatic creations of all times, revealing with each line the remarkable genius of Euripides, the most modern of the three great Greek tragedians

A murderous mother, a vain princess, a selfish husband, two unfortunate children, a naïve friend, a foolish king, and an inactive chorus are the key players in Euripides' morbid tale of humanity.Euripides brilliantly masks his agenda with the unreal (dragon-drawn chariot, poisoned dress, witchcraft) but upon close observation one can see his desire to unveil real problems in the world he lived in. All of Euripides' characters represent their stations, personifying the failure Euripides saw with males, females, citizens, authorities, and more. Reading through at a normal speed one will walk away feeling gloomy and none the better from the reading. But taking the time to delve into the mutliple levels and hidden meanings, one will find this old classic to be a rewarding yet chilling reading. Don't pass this up - Euripides DELIVERS!

"Medea" is a classical work that many have heard of, but few have actually read. It is the story of the wife of Jason, leader of Argonauts, and her chilling plot of revenge against an unfaithful husband and his new child-bride. The play is short, concise, and powerfully unnerving. Whether this is a history of misogyny or a warning of the vengeance of a wronged woman is a matter better left to scholarly debate. Provocative, disturbing, and at times heartbreaking, this is a definite must-read for neo-Classicists and avid readers alike. Not to be missed.

Every time there is a horrific story in the news about a mother murdering her children, the classic tragedy "Medea" by Euripides is mentioned. However, a close reading of the actual play shows that the point Euripides is trying to make in this drama is not about infanticide, but rather about the way "foreigners" are treated in Greece (this is best seen in the odes of the Chorus of Corinthian Women). The other key component of the play is the psychology of Medea and the way in which she constructs events to help convince herself to do the unspeakable deed and kill the two sons she has borne Jason. There is a very real sense in which Jason is the true villain of the piece and I do not think there is a comparable example in the extant Greek tragedies remain wherein a major mythological hero is made to look as bad as Euripides does in this play.

Another important thing to remember in reading "Medea" is that the basic elements of the story were already known to the Athenian audience that would be watching the play. Consequently, when the fact that Medea is going to kill her children is not a surprise what becomes important are the motivations the playwright presents in telling this version of the story. The audience remembers the story of the Quest for the Golden Fleece and how Medea betrayed her family and her native land to help Jason. In some versions of the story Medea goes so far as to kill her brother, chop up his body, and throw it into the sea so their father, the King of Colchis, must stop his pursuit of the Argo to retrieve the body of his son. However, as a foreigner Medea is not allowed to a true wife to Jason, and when he has the opportunity to improve his fortune by marrying the princess of Corinth, Medea and everything she had done for him are quickly forgotten.

To add insult to injury, Jason assures Medea that his sons will be well treated at the court while the King of Corinth, worried that the sorceress will seek vengeance, banishes her from the land. After securing sanctuary in Athens (certainly an ironic choice given this is where the play is being performed), Medea constructs a rather complex plan. Having coated a cloak with poison, she has her children deliver it to the princess; not only will the princess die when she puts on the cloak (and her father along with her), the complicity of the children in the crime will give her an excuse to justify killing in order to literally save them from the wrath of the Corinthians.

This raises an interest questions: Could Medea have taken the children with her to her exile in Athens? On the one hand I want to answer that obviously, yes, she can; there is certainly room in her dragon-drawn chariot. But given her status as a foreigner, if Jason goes to Athens and demands the return of his children, would he not then have a claim that Medea could not contest? More importantly, is not Medea's ultimate vengeance on Jason that she will hurt him by taking away everything he holds dear, namely his children and his princess bride?

In the final line of the play the Chorus laments: "Many things beyond expectation do the gods fulfill. That which was expected has not been accomplished; for that which was unexpected has god found the way. Such was the end of this story." This last line has also found its way into the conclusion of other dramas by Euripides ("Alcestis," "Bacchae" and "Andromache"), but I have always found it to fit the ending of "Medea" best, so I suspect that is where it originally came from and ended up being appended to those other plays sometime during the last several thousand years. However, the statement is rather disingenuous because one of the rather standard approaches in a play by Euripides is that his characters often deserve their fate. In a very real sense, Euripides provides justification for Medea's monstrous crime and his implicit argument to the Athenian audience is that the punishment fits the crime. However, Athenians would never give up their air of superiority; at least not until foreigners such as the Macedonians and the Romans conquered the self-professed cradle of democracy.

I was given the story of "Medea" to read in my junior year of high school. I read ahead of the class because I found the story so drawing. I didn't put it down until I had finished. Then I read it again 4 more times. "Medea" showed the readers the length to which a woman would go through when scorned. I would love to see a movie made about it. It was the best I've ever read.

Having given up home and family and virtually everything else to help Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece, Medea was stunned when Jason arranged to leave her and marry the rich and beautiful daughter of the queen of Corinth. But, Medea is a proud and capable woman, and she will not allow those that would abuse her to triumph in their plans. With cunning and resolve, she lays a plan so terrible that everyone around her will suffer her revenge, mostly Jason, the father of her children.

The Athenian playwright Euripides first saw his play, Medea, performed in 431 B.C. The play won third prize. But, that same play is now considered to have been one of the greatest works of Western literature to have ever been produced.

The story is powerful, with a brooding gloom hanging over it, as you, like the chorus, know what is going to happen and watch it with the same horror as watching a train wreck unfold. I liked how you knew what was going to happen, seeing the crime in all its cold-blooded terror. Euripides was indeed a genius, and I highly recommend this play to anyone who wants to know what great literature really is.

In his 1697 play, The mourning bride, William Congreve wrote, "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd." But, it had all happened before...long before. I highly recommend this classic!

I've heard a few professors say that while the Dover Thrift Editions are very economical for cash-strapped college students, the translations are hit or miss. I've read some Dover editions of classical works for both classes and on my own and that's definitely true, but as someone interested in ancient literature (largely prose, but I like verse as well) and who has been constantly frustrated over the years with the very complex (to put it mildly) translations that have flooded the market in years past, Rex Warner's translation of the Greek tragedy Medea was not only easy to follow, but I just wanted to keep reading until I was finished - and was disappointed when it ended!

So, yes, this is one Dover Thrift Edition where you get more for your money. - Donna Di Giacomo

The great screen writers and directors of the last century have nothing on Euripides when it comes to being an innovator of art. Euripides tore away the shackles of the "how to write a play" of his day--Aristotelian dramatic theory. In the process, modern Western drama was born. His play Medea is a prime example.

At first glance Medea does, in some respects, exemplify Aristotle's requirements for a tragedy. However, the play violates Aristotle's vision more than it corresponds to it. It does this through untraditional content and innovation.

In layout and movement of the plot, Medea closely matches the form of Aristotle's standard example of a tragedy--Sophocles's Oedipus Rex. Medea shares Oedipus's convention of beginning with the perspective of a mournful look back on the events that are about to be told.

Medea is highborn and descends from the lineage of the Gods. This in some ways fulfills Aristotle's requirement that the protagonist be exceptional. Likewise, both Medea and Oedipus depict what Aristotle would call "terrible and piteous events." However, this is where the similarity with Aristotle's ideal of the tragic ends.

The character of Medea is the main wrench that Euripides throws into Aristotle's description of tragedy. Aristotle's idea of the tragic hero demanded a change of experience and fortune that entails unmerited suffering on the part of the character and a fearful viewing of events on behalf of the audience. These things do not happen in Medea.

Medea has a history. She has killed spitefully and coldly in the past. She continues to do so throughout the play. She never even faces the threat of a fall from a high station because she secures sanctuary in Athens before she sets her revenge into motion (incidentally, one comes to feel like the psalmist who wrote: "I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil"--though in this case it is a wicked woman). Euripides uses Medea to make a commentary, not to bring about that lynch-pin of Aristotelian drama: catharsis.

Medea does not attempt to meet up with Aristotle's requirements. Instead, it is becomes new form of art--tragedy as social commentary. Euripides shows himself to be among the great artistic innovators in history by his transformation of a received dramatic form into something different but wholly effective in its own way.

I am teaching a 7th grade drama literature class. What I love about this translation, is that it is very reader friendly, as well as econmical. It has been a wonderful tool to use as an introduction to Greek Tragedy for younger readers. Medea (Dover Thrift Editions)