Voyage of the Argo - Essay Example

Medea – Tragic Heroine of the Greek Mythology Introduction Myths are stories that involve various supernatural elements like gods, heroes and afterlife; to explain natural occurrences, talk of past history, and also to give a moral lesson to its readers. All ancient civilizations of this world have mythical stories, which are found in the form of narratives, poems or plays, and also in the form of representational art. These mythical stories tell us, of the views and thoughts on life, death, politics and religion by a civilization, which is long gone. This article will discuss two famous epics from the Greek mythology, ‘Voyage of the Argo’ or ‘Argonautica’ by Apollonius, and ‘Medea’ by Euripides. It will compare the role of the central female character named Medea, that is seen in both the myths, and explore her character as befits an atypical (or typical) Greek female figure. Body ‘Voyage of the Argo’ is a mythical poem written in the 3rd century BC by Apollonius Rhodius. This epic tells us the story of the famous Greek hero Jason and the Argonauts, who undertake a voyage to retrieve the Golden Fleece from the land of Colchis. Medea is the princess of Colchis, granddaughter of the sun god Helias and a powerful sorceress. She first meets Jason when he comes to meet her father Aeetes, the king of Colchis, to ask for the Golden Fleece. Here it is said that Hera, the queen of gods, to help Jason, makes Medea fall in love with him which is evident from Hera’s speech “Come, let us go to Cypris; let both of us accost her and urge her to bid her son (if only he will obey) speed his shaft at the daughter of Aeetes, the enchantress, and charm her with love for Jason. And I deem that by her device he will bring back the fleece to Hellas” (Apollonius, II, 22-29). Aeetes asks Jason to undergo a series of challenging tasks to get the Fleece. He was asked to span bulls that breathed fire, sow dragon’s teeth and then fight an army that came out from these teeth. With Medea’s help Jason manages to overcome all the hurdles, but Aeetes has no intention of handing over the Fleece. Again Jason seeks Medea’s help, who leads him to the grove where the fleece is kept and guarded by a fierce serpent. Here Orpheus puts the serpent to sleep with his music, and Medea slays it, while Jason escapes with the Fleece. Soon Medea joins him on the Argos as they set sail, but her brother Apsyrtus pursues them. Here, Apsyrtus tries to bargain, and agrees to let the Fleece remain with Jason, but demands that Medea be returned. Jason does not comply with this, and kills Apsyrtus. Seeing that Aeetes is coming to capture them, to buy time, Medea suggests that Jason cut up her brother Apsyrtus’s body and throw the pieces into the sea. Her father seeing the body is completely devastated at his son’s death, and stops to collect the pieces to give a decent burial as he laments “how then by evil doom did she slay Apsyrtus when he came to meet her…”( Apollonius and Seaton, 325). After Argonauts reach Iolcus, Jason’s kingdom, they find that Jason’s uncle Pelias has usurped the throne after killing his father Aeson. Here again we find Medea taking charge. She advises Pelias’s daughters to cut up their father and boil him in a potion, so that he regains his youth. In the whole process, Pelias dies a macabre death and after this the enraged the citizens of Iolcus drive out Medea and Jason. They settle in Corinth, where later Jason abandons Medea to marry Glauce, the princess of Corinth. It is here that the famous tragic play ‘Medea’ by Euripides starts, in middle of the conflict between Jason and Medea. The play tells us the story of a woman (Medea) who has been betrayed by her husband, a woman scorned. At the beginning of the play we find her to be in great despair over Jason’s betrayal, and lamenting bitterly over it. In fact, her children’s nurse is shown to be worried and fearful that she may take her own life. Later however her despair turns to fury, and she decides to take revenge and shuns all offers of help from Jason. Determined to kill the new bride she sends her a poisoned wedding gown that sets the bride on fire the moment she wears it, and her father, the king of Corinth, trying to save her, also perishes. After this, Medea, determined to complete her revenge on Jason, kills her children too, and escapes to Athens in a chariot given to her by her grandfather, Helias. Thus, at the end of the play we find, that the conflict which we see at the beginning has completely destroyed all that Jason valued, his chances to better his situation by marrying the princess of Corinth, his sons, everything. Thus Medea’s revenge is complete, with the annihilation of all things that Jason cared for. Medea as represented in both the mythological stories as a person who is powerful and a sorceress, and prone to emotional outbursts. This is evident when Jason says “How many times I have seen your wrath, fierce, ungovernable….”( Euripides, Slavitt and Bovie, 30). The portrayal of magic in Medea is quite unlike as seen in other Greek female mythical characters that all are generally shown as meekly subservient. As Graf points out “Medea’s character as a priestess of Hecate and an enchantress is unusual: typically, the maiden in this story type is young, beautiful, and somewhat dumb (consider, for example, Ovid’s Scylla). If supernatural powers are brought into the story, they usually belong to the maiden’s father, the king of the city…”( Graf, 24). In both the stories we find Medea committing crimes of a heinous nature. In ‘Voyage of the Argo’ Medea shows shades of evil in her character, when she betrays her father by helping Jason, and then suggests cutting her brother’s body into pieces to be thrown overboard, so as to delay her father in his pursuit. She is shown to be cold and calculating in this epical poem and this is evident when she plots the murder of Jason’s uncle Pelias. She is also a powerful sorceress which is evident in the manner she helps Jason overcome all difficult obstacles put forth by her father Aeetes. However in Euripides’s Medea, we find this same person to be in complete despair, as her husband prepares to re-marry and leave her. Euripides’s Medea is a wronged woman and is somewhat justified in her anger and her thirst for revenge. What is common in both the mythical stories is that, Medea is deeply and desperately in love with her husband Jason. She cannot bear the thought of anybody coming between her and Jason. Her love for him crosses all limits of normal boundaries and is limitless and irrational. All her actions are committed towards pleasing Jason. She betrays her father, takes part in the treacherous plot against her own brother Apsyrtus, in order to help Jason escape, “But she suddenly, neglecting her parents, chose the stranger…” (Apollonius, II, 616-635). At the end, she even kills her own children to take revenge on Jason. So, we find that all her actions are centered on Jason. She betrays all her blood connections and cuts all familial ties either to serve Jason or to extract revenge on him. What makes Medea stand apart, is that, whatever her actions are, there are no punishments. As Morwood frames it “Medea stands alone amongst tragic felons in committing her offense with impunity. In extant Greek tragedy no other kin killers reach the end of their plays unpunished. Euripides slightly ameliorates this scandal by suggesting that Medea, as granddaughter of the Sun, is not quite mortal and thus not entirely accountable to ordinary theological rules” ( Euripides and Morwood, xvi). Medea is a woman, who has been used against her blood relations by the very man whom she loved dearly, rejected by her own people and then abandoned by her own husband out to better his social standing. Her love for Jason is evident when the nurse in anguish exclaims “for then Medea, my mistress, would not have taken ship for high walled Iolchus, her heart clawed by love for Jason…”(Euripides, Slavitt and Bovie, 13). Her plight in a patriarchal society almost makes us sympathize with her condition, and makes us understand and empathize with her fury, against her husband. As Slavitt and Bovie opines “Medea is no force of nature, but a ruthless and sophisticated individual who at once disorders both natural and civil orders as they conjoin to betray her- the first through her misplaced passion for Jason…the second the city-state, which not only failed to protect her but, for the convenience of its rulers and out of fear of her reprisals, exiles her, expelling her like a foreign object from the body politic” (Euripides, Slavitt and Bovie, 10). Conclusion Medea remains, a famous tragic character in Greek mythology, and a mother who kills her own children. She is an atypical Greek heroine in her powerful and magical self, and in her escape from any reprisals, even after committing murders. She is also a person who becomes a victim of her situations, when she is used by Jason to betray her father and brother. She is also a victim of her deep and desperate love that almost borders on insanity. It is for Jason’s love that she kills her brother, and helps Jason to escape with the Golden Fleece, and again it is in deep anger against Jason, that she takes vengeance by killing his bride to be Glaucia, and also her own children with him. At the end, Medea remains a victim, a tragic lone figure of her own psychological conditions, and also in her misplaced love towards Jason, for whom she leaves behind everything, and who ultimately betrays her. Works Cited Apollonius, R . The Argonautica. Online Medieval and Classical Library Release #27b n.d. web. 3rd February 2010. http://omacl.org/Argonautica/ Apollonius, R and Seaton, C. The Argonautica. BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009. Print.  Euripides and Morwood, J. Medea: Hippolytus ; Electra ; Helen. New York: Oxford University Press US, 1997. Print.  Euripides, Slavitt, D. and Bovie, S. Euripides: Medea. Hecuba. Andromache. The Bacchae. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. Print. Graf, F. Medea, The Enchantress From Afar. In Clauss, J and Johnston, S. “Medea: essays on Medea in myth, literature, philosophy, and art”. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. Print. Read More

If supernatural powers are brought into the story, they usually belong to the maiden’s father, the king of the city…”( Graf, 24). In both the stories, we find Medea committing crimes of a heinous nature. In ‘Voyage of the Argo’ Medea shows shades of evil in her character, when she betrays her father by helping Jason, and then suggests cutting her brother’s body into pieces to be thrown overboard, to delay her father in his pursuit. She is shown to be cold and calculating in this epical poem and this is evident when she plots the murder of Jason’s uncle Pelias. She is also a powerful sorceress which is evident in the manner she helps Jason overcome all difficult obstacles put forth by her father Aeetes. However, in Euripides’s Medea, we find this same person to be incomplete despair, as her husband prepares to re-marry and leave her. Euripides’s Medea is a wronged woman and is somewhat justified in her anger and her thirst for revenge. What is common in both the mythical stories is that Medea is deeply and desperately in love with her husband Jason. She cannot bear the thought of anybody coming between her and Jason. Her love for him crosses all limits of normal boundaries and is limitless and irrational. All her actions are committed to pleasing Jason.

She betrays her father, takes part in the treacherous plot against her own brother Apsyrtus, in order to help Jason escape, “But she suddenly, neglecting her parents, chose the stranger…” (Apollonius, II, 616-635). In the end, she even kills her own children to take revenge on Jason. So, we find that all her actions are centered on Jason. She betrays all her blood connections and cuts all familial ties either to serve Jason or to exact revenge on him. What makes Medea stand apart, is that, whatever her actions are, there are no punishments. As Morwood frames it “Medea stands alone amongst tragic felons in committing her offense with impunity. In extant Greek tragedy, no other kin killers reach the end of their plays unpunished. Euripides slightly ameliorates this scandal by suggesting that Medea, as a granddaughter of the Sun, is not quite mortal and thus not entirely accountable to ordinary theological rules” ( Euripides and Morwood, xvi).

     Medea is a woman, who has been used against her blood relations by the very man whom she loved dearly, rejected by her own people, and then abandoned by her own husband out to better his social standing. Her love for Jason is evident when the nurse in anguish exclaims “for then Medea, my mistress, would not have taken ship for high walled Iolchus, her heart clawed by love for Jason…”(Euripides, Slavitt and Bovie, 13). Her plight in a patriarchal society almost makes us sympathize with her condition and makes us understand and empathize with her fury, against her husband. As Slavitt and Bovie opine “Medea is no force of nature, but a ruthless and sophisticated individual who at once disorders both natural and civil orders as they conjoin to betray her- the first through her misplaced passion for Jason…the second the city-state, which not only failed to protect her but, for the convenience of its rulers and out of fear of her reprisals, exiles her, expelling her like a foreign object from the body politic” (Euripides, Slavitt and Bovie, 10).

Conclusion

     Medea remains a famous tragic character in Greek mythology and a mother who kills her own children. She is an atypical Greek heroine in her powerful and magical self, and in her escape from any reprisals, even after committing murders. She is also a person who becomes a victim of her situation when she is used by Jason to betray her father and brother. She is also a victim of her deep and desperate love that almost borders on insanity. It is for Jason’s love that she kills her brother, and helps Jason to escape with the Golden Fleece, and again it is in deep anger against Jason, that she takes vengeance by killing his bride to be Glaucia, and also her own children with him. In the end, Medea remains a victim, a tragic lone figure of her own psychological conditions, and also in her misplaced love towards Jason, for whom she leaves behind everything, and who ultimately betrays her.

                                            

Read More