The Male Characters of Euripides by Professor
E M Blaiklock MA
IN THE MIDDLE OF 1. 529, Verall suggests, he breaks the cowardly speech at an impatient gesture on Medea's part.
'You have also', he was about to add,
‘strong passions and were led by them to do what you did.’
With an assumption of generosity or, better, cowed by a movement of indignation, he curtails his speech. He was facing, after all, a murderess and a witch. With a confusion in his words, which a clever actor could easily simulate, he slides to the next subject. Medea, he asserts, has gained rich reward. Let her think of the security she enjoys:
Meisw ye pevro ins euns owrnpias(Translation from Greek needed)
(Med. 534, 53s)
Security, as we have already pointed out, is now Jason's chief concern. It had never been Medea's. As in the past, so now, she was ready to risk all for the object of her passion. Once it was love. Now it is vengeance. But Jason's irony is quite unconscious. He imagines that a few words, a little cash, and the assurance that all will be well, will quiet the turbulence of the woman's spirit. He cannot imagine her being fearful for anything but her comfort, her safety. The self-equation is damning. The Jason of the Clashing Rocks is quite obviously dead these many years. With a sophistry, not without application to fifth-century Athens, Jason tells how he has counselled for her and her children. Nay, let her be silent and interrupt him not (l. 550). Women, he sighs, can never reason when jealousy sets in:
But ye-ye women-so unreasoning are
That, wedlock-rights untrespassed-on, all's well;
But if once your sole tenure be infringed,
With the best, fairest lot are ye at feud
Most bitter.
(Med. 569-573. Way)
The words must have found more than one uncomfortable echo in the audience. The simple ethics of Medea's reply tear the argument to tatters. Her eye, untutored by Jason's collide-
tondereked fall being sword Why did
he act oryn dinov? The duel is all in her favour. Her tiring opponent tries all the old thrusts and parries feebly. His marriage had been her salvation had she willed. Royal brothers would have been born for her sons. Jason is a pitiable object matching his slow wit against Medea's rapier mind. He comes obstinately back to his offer of financial assistance. Surely "security explains all things, excuses all conduct? He is willing to give 'with hand ungrudging' (l. 612)—to the woman who had opened the way to the Golden Fleece! He might even make her gain the greater if she quits her anger! With the line Jason touches the depths of the onlookers' contempt. The Chorus, mirror in sort
of the audience, sing the woes of love too-passionate, and utter a curse on ingratitude.
Then comes Aegeus with a breath of Athens and a saner world. He is full of his troubles, and quite sure, as Page remarks, 13 that they are of absorbing interest to other people, a naif, in every way. He is used, like all the male characters in this play, as a foil. Moved by Jason's baseness, and the sympathy of the Chorus, the audience has forgotten Medea's callous contempt for old Creon, but now, in shocking reminder, all the evil of her nature flows out again. She deceives Aegeus, as she can deceive all men. Blessing shall fow for Aegeus' home, and issue for his line, if he but give her haven—such charms and magic she knows! Let him in mercy pity her distress and homelessness. Aegeus, full at once of sympathy and indignation, promises his patronage and help, if once she can reach his home for sanctuary. He confirms his promise by oath. No sooner is he gone than Medea, but now all tears and woe-begone, changes again. With a cry of triumph and a word of contempt for the male tool of her plotting, she turns to the Corinthian Chorus and explains her plan. She will use her children to compass the death of the princess, then kill them —oủ yàp yelâoda TAntov ef ExOpcv, idar (1. 797 Translation from Greek needed.)
The appeal of the Chorus leaves her unmoved (Il. 843-866). Jason arrives at her bidding bidding. No Creon, he is all unsuspecting in his middle-aged stupidity, and mightily relieved. Medea addresses him in wheedling deceit. Her cunning is base enough, but she has borne enough sophistic amorality from Jason to hold some of the sympathy of the audience-or of some part of it. Euripides knew how to throw his apples. There are some bold touches of drama. "Take his right hand' says Medea to the children (l. 899). There was irony here for a Jason able to sense such delicacy of scorn. Earlier in the play she had said something about that same right hand. It was the hand which this right hand
the righe hand, now stinging with the memory of it. Out on the right hand, which you oft wouldst clasp’. (L496)
Jason marks no undertone.
Swollen with magnanimity he forgives all. Forgives!—cikos yåp opyas Ondu moleiolar yévos, (Translation from Greek required) Forgives! In such domestic circumstances.
We might imagine him rubbing his hands as he runs pompously on, and notes to his speechless amazement that Medea weeps, and does not hear 'this speech'
(1. 924) with gladness. For the moment the mother in Medea has prevailed over the woman scorned. "They blame Euripides', runs the Greek argument prefixed to the play, 'because he did not maintain (Teulayévau - translation please) Medea's rôle, but allowed her to burst into tears as she plotted against Jason and his wife?
The obtuse critics were without Euripides understanding of the human mind. The revelation of the conflict which was going on in the woman's heart is a fine touch of reality, and one of the many clever artifices by which Euripides solves what was described as the initial difficulty of the play-the maintenance of the barbarian woman's true humanity.
The triumph of maternal feeling is shortlived. Over the ten lines of the utterance which answers Jason's last reproach, he determination to win vengeance can be seen regaining its dire control:
The echoing of vital words is one of Europa‘s dramatic devices, and is worth watching closely, note especially chapter 7 below.