Euripides & His Love of Chaos
The theme of Euripides Medea is near opposite of most of Ancient Greek drama that came both before and after it. Disorder, a thing most distasteful to a person of this era, is the key theme that runs through all of the minor sub-motifs that the playwright weaves into the piece. Greece, supposedly the bastion of Justice in the ancient world is absolutely lacking in this play. Justice is nowhere to be found, the murderer gets away, the man who deserves most to be slain for his crimes lives on, and innocent children die.
Medea represents the opposite of the Greek idea of moderation and the Golden Mean. According to the great Greek philosophers, the best means of living is with moderation in all things. Specifically, moderation was most important within the idea of the tripartite soul. Appetites such as hunger, power, and greed occupied one part of this platonic concept. Next came the spirit which encompasses ambition, pride and anger. Lastly, was the function of reason and its ability to control the prior two components of the soul. With an ideal amount of rationality, one would be able to accomplish a balance, or a mean, in order to attain the three cardinal virtues of the Ancient Greek world: Temperance, Courage and Wisdom. Once these virtues were achieved, the person in question would understand and practice the concept of Justice.
Medea has no sense of moderation in any facet of the concept. She understands only passion, and she acts and thinks through its haze. She does use reasoning, but in an adverse way. She uses her intellectual prowess to get whatever she wants, with no consideration for other people, even the ones she supposedly loves. She allows her greedy and power-hungry nature to take over her personality.
Even within the background of the play, there exists examples of the play’s chaos. The framework for the themes of Injustice and Chaos were present prior to Euripides ever putting his mind to the myth. Medea, so infatuated with the Greek hero, Jason, betrays her father and her homeland in order to win his love. She sacrifices her own citizenship, the most valuable possession of someone in the ancient world, in order to be with him. This blinding passion is the first example of chaotic schema within the storyline.
Not only does she sacrifice the safety of her homeland, Medea also murders her own brother in a gruesome fashion, chopping him into pieces and leaving them as hindrances for their pursuants. This is congruent with the sub-theme of love as “diseased” or love which “poisons” the mind of Medea. Love of Jason has sickened her mind to the point that she kills her own flesh and blood. This is also a foreshadowing as to what she is capable of later on.
Once Medea has learned of Jason’s betrayal, she immediately shifts from passionate love to passionate hatred. She wants nothing more than to make the captain of the Argo suffer and she is willing to do absolutely anything in order to bring on this hurt. And she begins to plan, deviously, to make this desire a reality. The mother of Jason’s children vows to see his new life smashed to pieces:
“My hateful husband. I pray that I may see him,
Him and his bride and all their palace shattered
For the wrong they dare to do to me without cause.” (Medea, line 161)
Medea’s lost love manifests itself as new over-indulgences, seemingly pride and rage. The banished princess refuses to be shamed and tossed aside for a bride with more to offer. She instead allows her rage to consume her and to direct her very sharp mind. She devises a very clever and very brutal of revenge, to strike back at the “hero” Jason.
Medea’s passion is inextricably entwined with her pride, and her self-image. She will not allow any person less intelligent than her to gain a foothold on her. This includes, the king of Corinth, Creon. The murderess states that because the king showed her the mercy of one last day in his city, she will kill him:
“By exiling me, he has given me this one day
To stay here, and in this I will make dead bodies
Of three of my enemies, - the father, the girl and my husband.”(Medea, ln 368)
Creon therefore has earned death simply by being less merciless than Medea. His weakness in the face of this hellishly astute woman signed his own death warrant.
Euripides brings nature as a metaphor into the early parts of the play, comparing Medea to a “lioness guarding her cubs.” This immediately made me consider species of animals who actually eat their young when they are posed with dangerous situations. Typically, this is most common in insect and reptilian species, but lions and tigers are also known to eat their own children. This was perhaps another means of foreshadowing for the playwright, in order to soften the blow of eventual infanticide. Euripides almost certainly purposefully did this, in order to claim that he gave fair warning for what was to come.
The playwright incorporates images of natural phenomenon of chaotic happenings. These are things that should never happen in the minds of rational people. One mentioned above is the mother killing her own cubs. Another is expressed in the lines:
“Flow backward to your sources, sacred rivers,
And let the world’s great order be reversed.”
Rivers flowing in reverse is a thing that I can say I’ve never seen, let alone considered normal. Disorder at its height. Natural and unexplained chaos.
Chaos even reaches into the classical unities of the play, namely time. Twice, characters appear without any solid explanation. First, Aigeus, the king of Athens, comes to Medea’s house to visit his old friend. At the time, she had been thinking of means of escape after her terrible deeds were done, Aigeus offers her that doorway. Later, after all the murdering of the play is done, Jason miraculously shows up to speak with her. This too is unexplained, as he should be at his wedding, rather than visiting his scorned and angry lover.
Rather than being punished for all of her crimes, Medea is, in the end, aided by the gods. Her chariot drawn by the dragons is Euripides last slap in the face to an audience already stunned by the events that unfolded before them on stage. In an attempt to cover his bases, the playwright throws in a half-hearted disclaimer:
Zeus in Olympus is the overseer
Of many doings. Many things the gods
Achieve beyond our judgment. What we thought
Is not confirmed and what we thought not god
Contrives. And so it happens in this story” (Medea, line 1390)
Things never happen the way they were “supposed” to. The good rarely end up on top, the bad nearly always do. Nothing goes “right,” the poor stay that way while the rich benefit from being rich by getting wealthier. The guilty walk free, while the innocent suffer. The world is cruel and no explanation as to why bad things happen is offered for the reasonable person. This was exactly Euripides point in allowing the barbarian murderess get off scott free, with no repercussions. Completely contradictory to all concepts of Justice, Medea escapes the play without a punishment. Hate, rather than Justice, is triumphant.
Medea represents the opposite of the Greek idea of moderation and the Golden Mean. According to the great Greek philosophers, the best means of living is with moderation in all things. Specifically, moderation was most important within the idea of the tripartite soul. Appetites such as hunger, power, and greed occupied one part of this platonic concept. Next came the spirit which encompasses ambition, pride and anger. Lastly, was the function of reason and its ability to control the prior two components of the soul. With an ideal amount of rationality, one would be able to accomplish a balance, or a mean, in order to attain the three cardinal virtues of the Ancient Greek world: Temperance, Courage and Wisdom. Once these virtues were achieved, the person in question would understand and practice the concept of Justice.
Medea has no sense of moderation in any facet of the concept. She understands only passion, and she acts and thinks through its haze. She does use reasoning, but in an adverse way. She uses her intellectual prowess to get whatever she wants, with no consideration for other people, even the ones she supposedly loves. She allows her greedy and power-hungry nature to take over her personality.
Even within the background of the play, there exists examples of the play’s chaos. The framework for the themes of Injustice and Chaos were present prior to Euripides ever putting his mind to the myth. Medea, so infatuated with the Greek hero, Jason, betrays her father and her homeland in order to win his love. She sacrifices her own citizenship, the most valuable possession of someone in the ancient world, in order to be with him. This blinding passion is the first example of chaotic schema within the storyline.
Not only does she sacrifice the safety of her homeland, Medea also murders her own brother in a gruesome fashion, chopping him into pieces and leaving them as hindrances for their pursuants. This is congruent with the sub-theme of love as “diseased” or love which “poisons” the mind of Medea. Love of Jason has sickened her mind to the point that she kills her own flesh and blood. This is also a foreshadowing as to what she is capable of later on.
Once Medea has learned of Jason’s betrayal, she immediately shifts from passionate love to passionate hatred. She wants nothing more than to make the captain of the Argo suffer and she is willing to do absolutely anything in order to bring on this hurt. And she begins to plan, deviously, to make this desire a reality. The mother of Jason’s children vows to see his new life smashed to pieces:
“My hateful husband. I pray that I may see him,
Him and his bride and all their palace shattered
For the wrong they dare to do to me without cause.” (Medea, line 161)
Medea’s lost love manifests itself as new over-indulgences, seemingly pride and rage. The banished princess refuses to be shamed and tossed aside for a bride with more to offer. She instead allows her rage to consume her and to direct her very sharp mind. She devises a very clever and very brutal of revenge, to strike back at the “hero” Jason.
Medea’s passion is inextricably entwined with her pride, and her self-image. She will not allow any person less intelligent than her to gain a foothold on her. This includes, the king of Corinth, Creon. The murderess states that because the king showed her the mercy of one last day in his city, she will kill him:
“By exiling me, he has given me this one day
To stay here, and in this I will make dead bodies
Of three of my enemies, - the father, the girl and my husband.”(Medea, ln 368)
Creon therefore has earned death simply by being less merciless than Medea. His weakness in the face of this hellishly astute woman signed his own death warrant.
Euripides brings nature as a metaphor into the early parts of the play, comparing Medea to a “lioness guarding her cubs.” This immediately made me consider species of animals who actually eat their young when they are posed with dangerous situations. Typically, this is most common in insect and reptilian species, but lions and tigers are also known to eat their own children. This was perhaps another means of foreshadowing for the playwright, in order to soften the blow of eventual infanticide. Euripides almost certainly purposefully did this, in order to claim that he gave fair warning for what was to come.
The playwright incorporates images of natural phenomenon of chaotic happenings. These are things that should never happen in the minds of rational people. One mentioned above is the mother killing her own cubs. Another is expressed in the lines:
“Flow backward to your sources, sacred rivers,
And let the world’s great order be reversed.”
Rivers flowing in reverse is a thing that I can say I’ve never seen, let alone considered normal. Disorder at its height. Natural and unexplained chaos.
Chaos even reaches into the classical unities of the play, namely time. Twice, characters appear without any solid explanation. First, Aigeus, the king of Athens, comes to Medea’s house to visit his old friend. At the time, she had been thinking of means of escape after her terrible deeds were done, Aigeus offers her that doorway. Later, after all the murdering of the play is done, Jason miraculously shows up to speak with her. This too is unexplained, as he should be at his wedding, rather than visiting his scorned and angry lover.
Rather than being punished for all of her crimes, Medea is, in the end, aided by the gods. Her chariot drawn by the dragons is Euripides last slap in the face to an audience already stunned by the events that unfolded before them on stage. In an attempt to cover his bases, the playwright throws in a half-hearted disclaimer:
Zeus in Olympus is the overseer
Of many doings. Many things the gods
Achieve beyond our judgment. What we thought
Is not confirmed and what we thought not god
Contrives. And so it happens in this story” (Medea, line 1390)
Things never happen the way they were “supposed” to. The good rarely end up on top, the bad nearly always do. Nothing goes “right,” the poor stay that way while the rich benefit from being rich by getting wealthier. The guilty walk free, while the innocent suffer. The world is cruel and no explanation as to why bad things happen is offered for the reasonable person. This was exactly Euripides point in allowing the barbarian murderess get off scott free, with no repercussions. Completely contradictory to all concepts of Justice, Medea escapes the play without a punishment. Hate, rather than Justice, is triumphant.
posted by Brian at 10:27 a.m.
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