Medea - Short Summary
Medea - Short Summary
Greek audiences would have known the story of the ill-fated marriage between Jason, hero of the Golden Fleece, and Medea, barbarian witch and princess of Colchis. The modern reader, to fully understand the events of Medea, needs to be familiar with the legends and myths on which the play is based.
Medea was of a people at the far edge of the Black Sea; for the Greeks of Euripides' time, this was the edge of the known world. She was a powerful sorceress, princess of Colchis, and a granddaughter of the sun god Helias. Jason, a great Greek hero and captain of the Argonauts, led his crew to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece. King Aeetes, lord of Colchis and Medea's father, kept the Fleece under guard. A sorcerer himself, he was a formidable opponent. This legend takes place quite early in the chronology of Greek myth. The story is set after the ascent of Zeus, King of the gods, but is still near the beginning of his reign; Helias, the ancient sun god before Apollo's coming, is Medea's grandfather. Jason's voyage with the Argonauts predates the Trojan War, and represents the first naval assault by the Greeks against an Eastern people.
The traps set by Aeetes made the Golden Fleece all but impossible to obtain. By Medea's aid, Jason overcame these obstacles, and Medea herself killed the giant serpent that guarded the Fleece. Then, to buy time during their escape, Medea killed her own brother and tossed the pieces of his corpse behind the Argo as they sailed for Greece. Her father, grief-stricken by his son's death and his daughter's treachery, had to slow his pursuit of the Argo so he could collect the pieces of his son's body for burial.
Medea and Jason returned to his hereditary kingdom of Iolcus. Jason's father had died, and his uncle Pelias sat, without right, on the throne. Medea, to help Jason, convinced Pelias' daughters that she knew a way to restore the old king's youth. He would have to be killed, cut into pieces, and then put together and restored to youth by Medea's magic. The unwitting daughters did as Medea asked, but the sorceress then explained that she couldn't really bring Pelias back to life. Rather than win Jason his throne, this move forced Jason, Medea, and their children into exile. Finally, they settled in Corinth, where Jason eventually...