INTRODUCTION. THE Medea was brought out in the year B. c. 431, immediately after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. It was the first of a tetralogy which included the 'Philoctetes,' the 'Dictys,' and the Satyric drama of the Theristae,' or 'Reapers.' The Philoctetes is mentioned in the Acharnians of Aristophanes, v. 424, a play which was acted six years after the Medea1. Euripides was forty-nine years of age when he gained the third prize with this play, Euphorio, the son of Aeschylus, carrying off the first, and Sophocles the second. The author of the Greek Argument quotes the authority of Dicæarchus and Aristotle2 for the statement that Euripides adapted (dɩeσkeúaσe) his Medea from Neophron3. The legend was evidently very famous in antiquity, and there were many versions of it. The beautiful poem of Apollonius of Rhodes, the Argonautica, describes Medea's love for Jason and the aid rendered by her in his dangerous adventure; but it makes no allusion to the second marriage with the Corinthian bride Glauce. The story of the golden fleece, of which this is an episode-a tale, perhaps, of some early adventurers who went eastward in the vain attempt 1 The mention in that play of Aspasia's influence over Pericles in virtually provoking the war (527) adds probability to the view, that Aspasia is pointedly alluded to in 842 and 1085 of this play. See Schol. on Ar. Ach. 527, ἡ δὲ ̓Ασπασία Περικλέους ἦν σοφίστρια καὶ διδάσκαλος λόγων ῥητορικῶν· ὕστερον δὲ καὶ γαμετὴ γέγονε. An opinion has recently been expressed that the famous Μεγαρικόν ψήφισμα, which was carried by Pericles on that occasion, is hinted at in Medea's expulsion from Corinth; but this inference seems rather far-fetched. ? Perhaps a mistake for Aristophanes, viz. the grammarian. 3 Neophron of Sicyon is generally (but see K. O. Müller, Hist. Gr. Lit. p. 382) believed to have been junior to Euripides. The text may perhaps be corrupt, and rightly read may have meant that Neophron took it from Euripides. of finding the home of the Sun-god,-was evidently a solar legend. For the fiery robe given by Medea, herself the granddaughter of the Sun (1321), differs in no respect from that sent by Deianira to Hercules in the Trachiniae of Sophocles; and Hercules, we know, personified the Sun-god1. The aegis of Athene, the goddess of the Dawn, and the web of Penelope, are all representatives of the sun-lit mists which appear to us as fringed clouds. Medea herself typifies, in her human aspect, the sorceress or wise woman; but the notion of supernatural birth was commonly associated with witchcraft, as in the Calypso and the Circe of the Odyssey 3. In all ages and all religions the wierd or the sacred influence of woman over man's destiny has found a prominent place. In her semi-divine character, in which Medea appears as the companion and adviser of the Argonauts in the fourth Pythian ode of Pindar, she seems to represent an eastern cult of Hera, or perhaps (if that be really different) of the Moon, just as Helen was an impersonation of Aphrodite. The word probably contains the root of μýdeolaι, and implies the care bestowed on the objects of regard1. As the wife of Jason, she is the heroine of one of the most romantic stories of antiquity. Her attachment to Jason5, 1 His being burnt alive on a pyre on Mount Oeta (Trach. 1191 seqq.) is obviously the sun setting behind a hill. 2 That the idea is a natural one is further shown by the expression in Psalm civ. 2, ἀναβαλλόμενος φάος ὡς ἱμάτιον. 3 Diodor. Sic. iv. 45, says that Circe and Medea were both daughters of Aeetes, by Hecate the daughter of Perses. Strabo (i. 40) contends that Homer represented Circe as a sorceress who was the own-sister of the cruel Aeetes (Od. x. 137), from this wellknown story of Medea. 4 Her habit, according to the legend in Diod. Sic. iv. 46, was to save the lives of strangers, who might fall into his hands, from the ferocity of her father Aeetes ;-διατελεῖν τοὺς καταπλέοντας τῶν ξένων ἐξαιρουμένην ἐκ τῶν κινδύνων. Some accounts associated Media with the name of Medea, or her son by Aegeus, Medus (Diodor. iv. 56; Strabo, xi. 10, c. 526, and ib. 14. c. 531; Pausan. ii. 8, 8). Schol. on Med. 10, ὅτι δὲ καὶ ἀθάνατος ἦν ἡ Μήδεια, Μουσαῖος ἐν τῷ περὶ Ἰσθμίων ἱστορεῖ. 5 Pindar, Pyth. iv. 79, represents him as a strikingly handsome man, ἀνὴρ ἔκπαγλος. |