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Euripides' Medea and the Problem of Spiritedness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Aristide Tessitore
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Extract

The Medea is Euripides' most famous play and perhaps his most enigmatic. The unwieldy character of the play's central figure and the movement of the play as a whole defy the traditional categories of tragedy. Attentiveness to the usually neglected political dimension of Medea sheds new light on some of its persistent enigmas. It also suggests that Euripides was less than sanguine about the kinds of excesses the impending war with Sparta was likely to call forth from citizen soldiers. Most importantly, it brings to light Euripides' sober assessment of an enduring political problem: the irreducibly ambiguous character of spiritedness, the warrior virtue par excellence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , Fall 1991 , pp. 587 - 601
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1991

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References

1. It is not difficult to find representatives of these extremes. Knox, B. M. W. makes a convincing case for Medea's heroic stature in “The Medea of Euripides,” Yale Classical Studies 25 (1977): 193–225.Google ScholarPage, Denys L. seeks to render Medea's crime intelligible by depicting her as a barbarian and a witch. Medea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938; rpt. 1964), esp. pp. xvii–xxi.Google Scholar

2. Given the variety of traditions that comprise the Medea legend, Euripides had considerable latitude in fashioning his character. According to one tradition Medea unintentionally killed her children; according to another, they were killed by kinsmen of Creon. See Page, , Medea, pp. xxi–xxv.Google Scholar

3. For a thematic discussion of the relationship between Greek tragedy and political philosophy, see Euben, J. Peter, ed., Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), esp. pp. 1–42.Google Scholar

4. For a treatment of the problem of spiritedness as a theme in the history of political philosophy, see Zuckert, Catherine, ed., Understanding the Political Spirit: Philosophical Investigations from Socrates to Nietzsche (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Writes, Pietro Pucci, “The nurse ‘celebrates’ Medea's past and present situation, and she does it from the point of view of pity and compassion, just as the author, Euripides, presents Medea in the course of the drama” (The Violence of Pity in Euripides' Medea [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980], p. 32).Google Scholar

6. Medea is more forthcoming about the murder of her brother at 167. However, she is at this point effectively distanced from her crime; Euripides shows her bemoaning her past as shameful folly.

7. Jason, for his own purposes to be sure, also speaks of the honor in which Medea is held among the Greeks (539–40), something that is confirmed by the kind of reception Medea receives from King Aegeus.

8. Contrary to Page's, assessment, Medea, pp. xvii–xxi.Google Scholar

9. For resemblances between Euripides' Medea and Sophocles' Ajax, see Knox, , “The Medea of Euripides,” p. 196Google Scholar and Bongie, Elizabeth Bryon, “Heroic Elements in the Medea of Euripides,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 107 (1977): 27–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Knox, , “The Medea of Euripides,” p. 202Google Scholar; cf. p. 198.

11. After Creon leaves the stage, Medea explains to the Chorus her apparent submissiveness as a necessary part of her plan for retribution. Bongie, comments: “Euripides tears the veil from his Medea and we see her, clearly now for the first time, a veritable Achilles or an Ajax, filled with an unrelenting resolve to destroy her enemies and to vindicate her own honor” (“Heroic Elements,” p. 38).Google Scholar

12. Knox, , “The Medea of Euripides,” p. 208.Google Scholar

13. Buttrey, T. V. makes a similar observation about the way in which Euripides manipulates the attitude of the audience in this play. “Accident and Design in Euripides' Medea,” American Journal of Philology 79 (1958): 1–17, esp. pp. 7–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Translations, although indebted to Arthur Way (Loeb edition) and Rex Warner (Complete Greek Tragedies), are my own.

15. Although I believe “spiritedness” best captures the meaning which Euripides attaches to thumos in this context, my thesis does not depend upon it. Spiritedness is a convenient term for the constellation of qualities which I have already described and which are unambiguously at the heart of Medea's warrior-like character.

16. There is scholarly controversy regarding the authorship of 1021–80. Reeve, M. D. argues against the authenticity of these lines. “Euripides' Medea 1021–1080,” Classical Quarterly 22 (1972): 51–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarGrube, G. M. A., on the other hand, maintains that 1078–80 is the climax of the entire play. The Drama of Euripides (Methuen: Barnes & Noble, 1941; rpt. 1961), p. 162.Google Scholar

17. This statement is in no way intended to dismiss the importance of gender in Medea, merely to put it aside. The complexity and nuance of Euripides' treatment of this issue furnishes ample material for an essay of its own. I limit myself to the observation that Euripides both acknowledges (in the Chorus of Corinthian women) and defies (in person of Medea) the conventional Greek view of women. Medea, the only character in the play to wield a sword, debunks that arrogance which stems from male superiority on the battlefield (248–51), outmaneuvers the impotent King Aegeus, and inflicts devastating and complete defeat on the hero Jason. It may well be that Euripides' freedom from sexual stereotypes constituted an obstacle to the audience's appreciation of the play.

18. Page, , Medea, p. xi.Google Scholar

19. Similar observations about the formal design of the play are made by Buttrey, , “Accident and Design,” pp. 5–6Google Scholar, 10 and Dunkle, J. Roger, “The Aegeus Episode and the Theme of Euripides’ Medea” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 100 (1969): 97–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 97.

20. For example, Naylor, H. Darnley, “The Aegeus Episode, Medea 663–773,” The Classical Review 23 (1909): 189–90Google Scholar and Bongie, , “Heroic Elements,” p. 40.Google Scholar

21. See Conacher, D.j., Euripidean Drama: Myth, Theme and Structure (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), p. 190Google Scholar note 11 and Buttrey, , “Accident and Design,” pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

22. Dunkle, , “Aegeus Episode,” pp. 100–101, 107.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., pp. 104–107. H. D. F. Kitto defends the Aegeus scene in a different way. The encounter provides a “setting for the outburst of unreason.” He maintains that Euripides is justified in manipulating the scene so as to put his thesis in the clearest possible light; namely, that “the passions and unreason to which humanity is subject are its greatest scourge” (Greek Tragedy: A Literary Study [New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1939; rpt. 1950], p. 206).Google Scholar

24. Kitto, maintains that Medea is “the impersonation of one of the blind and irrational forces in human nature.” Greek Tragedy, p. 209Google Scholar; cf. pp. 204–209.

25. Thucydides speaks especially of the disputes over Epidamnus (435–3) and Corcyra (433). Histories 1, 146.Google Scholar

26. Histories, 1, 140–41Google Scholar; 144.

27. Histories, 2, 43.Google Scholar

28. Thucydides says that the excessive eagerness (agan epithumian) of the majority was such that those opposed to the expedition feared to speak lest their opposition be construed as a lack of patriotism. Histories 6, 24.Google Scholar

29. Page, , Medea, p. viii.Google Scholar

30. Pucci, notes that while the passage is consistent with the dramatic situation, it is also generally taken to describe what, in Euripides' own view, constitutes the essence of tragedy. Violence of Pity, p. 28.Google Scholar