Looking at Medea

by David Stuttard

  Instead, of course, Medea will appear above the skene, lifted by the stage crane, with the corpses in her chariot. Beyond the surprise of this entrance, the staging offers significant dramatic effects, which contribute to the audience’s interpretation of the play at its conclusion. Medea’s spatial superiority to Jason in this final scene symbolizes the dominance and victory which she has gained over him. Assuming that the crane was already in use before Medea and that the appearance of gods by this method was an established convention, her appearance on the crane and her reference to the future (both Jason’s death and the establishment of cult) also suggest her disturbing usurpation of the place of a tragic deity. While both of these interpretations of dramatic meaning have been established by scholars, the potential further resonances with the Athenian audience have not yet been fully explored.

  Medea’s spatial superiority over Jason in this final scene can also be understood to have implications beyond the world of the play. If the audience included women and they were seated at the back (i.e. higher up than the men, see above), then Medea’s final appearance offers a reflection and radical reinterpretation of their positioning. Relegation to seats at the back with a worse view would presumably under normal circumstances be understood to represent and reinforce the inferiority of women’s position in society. The ending of Medea, however, invites an interpretation which sees the women, higher up the slope, as dominant. It is, in effect, as though the chorus’ ode (410f) about the reversal of order has been put into action, both on stage but also through the temporary shift in perception of the meaning to the theatre’s seating arrangements which this invites. The potential identification of the connection between Medea and the women of the audience makes Jason’s claim that no Greek woman would have acted as Medea had (1339f) all the more necessary. Though this potential audience resonance remains speculative (since we cannot know for sure if women were in the audience), it certainly seems worth taking into consideration.

  The second possible element to resonate in a particular way with the Athenian audience is the use of serpents to draw Medea’s chariot. The iconographic tradition shows Medea in a serpent-drawn chariot from c. 400 BC. It is not certain whether this was part of the original staging for Euripides’ production in 431 BC since it is not referenced in the text. There seem good dramatic reasons, however, for Euripides to have included these serpents in his staging, even if he does not refer to them directly. While commentaries have considered whether it makes sense for serpents to draw Helios’ chariot, and Medea’s connection with serpents (as a way of explaining their inclusion),13 the Athenian perspective has not been taken into account.

  If serpents were drawing Medea’s chariot, what did it mean for an Athenian audience? Serpents played a central part in Athenian ideology and were essential to the city’s identity. Their patron goddess Athena was a ‘serpent-mistress’ par excellence: the association was deeply entrenched through mythology and reflected in iconography. The culturally iconic statue of Athena which stood in the Parthenon showed a snake rising up by her side. Not only that, but she could also be shown in vase painting driving a serpent-chariot.14 So when Medea appears above the skene with her distinctive headgear (which, being equivalent to Athena’s helmet, could even make the silhouette similar) in a chariot drawn by serpents and acting like a deity, some of the audience could have interpreted this as a disturbing travesty of Athena.

  Medea does not simply usurp the role of a tragic deity by appearing in her serpent-chariot, but she appropriates the position of the patron goddess of Athens. This offers a means of visually symbolizing the disturbing implications of Aegeus’ earlier agreement: Medea, a child-murdering barbarian, will come to Athens and threatens to disturb its very core. Euripides probably invented the Aegeus scene and, through it, shows his interest in making this tragedy challenging for his Athenian audience. It is striking that, at the very moment that the horror of her actions should be revealed to Jason and her cold lack of remorse is expressed, Medea should remind the audience that she is on her way to Athens. Moreover, she invites them to reflect on none other than their mythological founding hero Erechtheus (1384–5) who was represented by the city’s guardian snake! All this would, I suggest, be made even more disturbing through the visual contamination of Athenian iconography, which fuses Medea’s connection with serpents to their own and creates a disturbing symbolic representation of her future infiltration into their city, while the formal structuring of the end of the play (and particularly the engagement in a ‘mini-agon’) resists offering a sense of closure and reinforces this sense of anxiety for the future.

  Other suggestions for the appropriateness of the serpents are possible, for example, that the chariot corresponds visually to the chains of imagery presented through the reference to earth and sky; symbolically Medea has control of both. A second interpretation of the serpent-chariot is through reference to Triptolemus, who is shown in iconography with a serpent-chariot and may already have appeared on stage with one in an earlier play of Sophocles. This point of reference would also have disturbing implications for the Athenian audience as Medea would be usurping the place of Triptolemus, who was worshipped as a hero at Eleusis.

  In my view, however, the primary point of reference for an Athenian audience would be the iconographic associations of their own city. This interpretation would also be consistent with the interest Euripides later demonstrates in exploiting the dramatic potential of precisely this Athenian serpent association in his Ion, a play which is even more closely involved with the question of Athenian identity (had he tried it out in his Medea first?)

  Conclusion

  Medea holds a special place in the assessment of Euripides since (if we keep the traditional date for Hippolytus) it is his second earliest tragedy to survive. An analysis of its staging shows both the influence of what had gone before (and, if more of his plays survived, we could say even more about the ghosts of earlier productions or Euripides’ ‘recycling’ of former stage strategies) and hints at what was to come in his later plays.

  After its production in 431 BC, Medea, too, would become an important haunting influence not only on subsequence plays on the Medea myth (and iconographic responses to this) but also on Euripides’ own work; the ending of Hecuba, for example, offers some very interesting (and dramatically meaningful) correspondences to Medea. Above all, this play’s staging demonstrates Euripides’ characteristic trait of presenting his audience with the unexpected.

  On the semantic level, Euripides emphasizes the novelty of this play through the frequent occurrences of the Greek word for ‘new’ in its script.15 I would suggest that much of the ‘novelty’ was felt through the experience of the production and the unexpected staging effects, particularly at the entrance of the chorus, the entrance of the protagonist, the death of the children, and the close of the play. Euripides also produces the maximum dramatic effect through an exploitation of audience expectations created through existing staging conventions or the evocation of previous productions.

  Medea was clearly intended to be a challenging play for the Athenian audience and must have been a disturbing one too. The invention of the Aegeus scene and the subsequent contamination and appropriation of Athenian iconography (through the use of serpents to draw Medea’s chariot) suggest a very serious warning to the Athenians (or at the very least a desire to disturb their tranquility). Whether this was a warning about an ill-wind from Corinth or the risks of trading with the Black Sea, or simply about women, is difficult to say, but what can be determined (and this play makes particularly apparent) is that staging is essential to appreciating not only the experience of an audience watching a tragedy but also their understanding of the meaning of it.16

  Notes

  1 Carlson (1994a) and (1994b).

  2 Torrance (2013) and Bond (1974).

  3 Csapo (2007) and Moretti (1999–2000).

  4 Goldhill (1994) and Henderson (1991).

  5 Taplin (1978), 11.

 
6 Hutchinson (2004) suggests, based on metrical arguments, that our extant Hippolytus may in fact be the earlier of the Euripides’ two Hippolytus plays.

  7 Mastronarde (2002), ad loc. (line 132). Mastronarde goes on to modify this statement with the comment that features in the drama downplay the importance of Medea’s foreignness.

  8 Sourvinou-Inwood (1997), 290–4.

  9 Goward’s introduction to Jebb (2004), 31.

  10 Lee (2004), 272.

  11 Segal (1997), 170–71.

  12 Mossman (2011), note on lines 1251–92.

  13 Mastronarde (2002) and Mossman (2011), 1317n. On Medea’s association with serpents see Ogden (2013), 198f.

  14 Athena is shown in a serpent-chariot on a vase-painting from c. 440 BC depicting the judgement of Paris (Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae s.v. Paridis iudicium 40). Although the arrangement of serpents on Athena’s chariot is slightly different, Ogden (2013), 200 acknowledges that the image gives a similar impression to Medea’s chariot, but he does not push the implications of this further.

  15 Torrance (2013), 224.

  16 The choice to set the play in Corinth, which was at this time an enemy of Athens, cannot be coincidental (I do not agree with Mossman’s claim that the setting was ‘apolitical’; Mossman [2011], Introduction). For Athens’ exploration of trading with the Black Sea at this time, see Hall (1989), 35. I am grateful to David Stuttard for pointing out to me the significance that Medea, as a threatening force on her way to Athens at the end of the play, should be coming from Corinth.

  5

  The Nurse’s Tale*

  Ian Ruffell

  The focus of most of Euripides’ Medea is on the figure of his compelling protagonist and her interactions with Jason, Creon and Aegeus. It is not, however, how an audience is introduced to her struggles. The play is set up through the extensive use of the nurse, who introduces Medea’s predicament, discusses her situation with another subordinate figure, the tutor (paidagōgos) of Medea’s children, responds to Medea’s anguished utterances within the house and provides further commentary to and with the chorus. This is not the first (and will not be the last) time that such low-status figures were used in Greek tragedy, but their role in Medea in setting up the plot is striking, not only for their sole occupation of the stage for such a long time and the extent to which the play is set up from their point of view, but in terms of the set of associations which they bring. In addition, the nurse shapes audience expectations and emotional response through three filters: the nurse as a faithful servant, going back at least to the Odyssey; the nurse as confidante of the tragic heroine, not least in relation to transgressive sexuality; and the broader run of low-status and slave characters in Greek tragedy.1 Yet the nurse is also a moral agent in her own right and it is her tale and her moral predicament that grounds the play.

  The involvement of the nurse

  The nurse’s contribution falls into four parts. The first part is a prologue speech, which shares common features with prologue speeches elsewhere in tragedy, not least in Euripides. Rather than a god (as in Alcestis or Hippolytus) or a central character (as in Telephus [438] or Stheneboea, or Heraclidae [Iolaos], or Andromache), the nurse is lower in status and has played less of a role in what she relates. She wishes that Medea had never met Jason, that Jason had never arrived in Colchis to win the Golden Fleece, that the Argo had never been built, and that Medea had never arrived in Greece with Jason. She refers to the daughters of Pelias, whom Medea induced to chop up and boil their father to death under the pretext of rejuvenating him – a topic that was the subject of one of Euripides’ first set of plays, Peliades (Daughters of Pelias) – and which is the reason for their arrival in Corinth. The nurse presents Medea as wronged – dishonoured, in terms that evoke traditional heroic ideology. She tells of Medea’s emotional reaction to being thrown over for the daughter of the king of Corinth, and worries about what she will actually do in response.

  Following this soliloquy, Medea’s children (who remain silent) and their tutor arrive. The second part of the opening scene (49–95) is a dialogue between the two slaves, with a certain amount of needling of each other. Their initial conversation is about how a good servant should behave in safeguarding their master or mistress. The conversation turns to Medea’s predicament, and the tutor is induced by the nurse to reveal an overheard conversation that suggests that Creon, king of Corinth, will exile Medea and the children, and that Jason will not do anything to prevent it. Expressing concern for the children’s future, the nurse urges the tutor and children inside.

  At this point (96), Medea’s cries are heard from inside. An exchange (in anapaestic metre) ensues, as Medea laments her lot and the nurse continues to urge the children inside and to worry about their future. As Medea’s anger escalates, she wishes death on her children as well as on Jason. The nurse stresses the innocence of the children, how they have been caught up in circumstances for which they have no responsibility. Finally, the chorus enter (131). They have heard Medea’s cries and have come to investigate and ask the nurse what is happening. As Medea’s cries continue, turning towards oaths and imprecations, the chorus join the nurse in responding. The chorus urge the nurse inside to ensure that no harm comes to those within and to bring Medea out to talk to them. The nurse departs with doubts about the likelihood of success and of curing such passions as these.

  There is some debate as to whether the nurse returns with Medea, as one of her attendants, at 214 or not. If she does return, then she remains a silent character from this point on, with the speaking actor swapping costume and mask with a mute actor. This would be an unusual technique for Euripides. If she stays, then she is brought into Medea’s plan to kill her own children at 820–3, without making a reply, and she will go off at 1076, taking the children to their ultimate fate. I will return to this problem at the end of the chapter. For now, I will concentrate on her role as a speaking character.

  The lost boys

  The use of the nurse in the opening scenes of the play, prologue and parodos, is not only to articulate the back-story, but to illustrate Medea’s character, to explore the predicament of her children, to situate the dispute between Medea and Jason in terms of the wider household, and to set up the audience’s expectations and emotional responses. In doing so, however, the nurse draws upon and evokes a range of poetic precedents, which further colour the interpretation of her commentary. Most fundamental, perhaps, is the tradition of the nurse in heroic narratives, the kinds of heroic narratives that the nurse’s account of Medea’s treatment evokes. Medea, according to the nurse, has been ‘dishonoured’ (ētimasmenē, 20, 26) by Jason (sphe … atimasas ekhei, ‘he has dishonoured her’, 33). Just as her mistress will do later when she appears, the nurse evokes the categories of masculine heroic ideology. In addition to timē, ‘honour’, the language of oaths and betrayal also evokes relations between male hērōes.

  The role of the nurse in such narratives lies elsewhere. The fundamental example is Eurycleia in the Odyssey. When Odysseus has returned to Ithaca alone after twenty years to find his house beset with suitors, his critical task is to discover who in his household (oikos) remains loyal. After staying with the swineherd Eumaeus and revealing himself to his son, he visits the palace in disguise, masquerading as a Cretan refugee, who claims to have heard of Odysseus’ death. In book nineteen, he is recognised by Eurycleia, when she washes his feet and glimpses a scar that he gained on a boar hunt in his youth. Demonstrating her loyalty, she remains quiet about his identity, even to her mistress Penelope, until Odysseus finally reveals himself, when she assists them to prepare for the battle in the hall. After the battle, she identifies the disloyal servants for execution and glories in the return of her master (22.390–432). In Odysseus’ restoration of his oikos, Eurycleia is the conspicuous example of loyalty among the female staff, loyal both to her master and mistress.

  In Greek tragedy, this theme of servant loyalty is picked up in the Oresteia, which like the
Odyssey is a tale of (multiple) homecoming. In the second play, Libation Bearers, Orestes has been exiled by Clytemnestra and has returned from Phocis to avenge the death of his father, Agamemnon. Just as Odysseus reported his own death, Orestes reports to Clytemnestra that he has died in exile. Clytemnestra sends the nurse, Cilissa, to inform Aegisthus of what is, to Clytemnestra, good news. The nurse emerges to give a despairing account of her task to the chorus (734–82). She is distraught at the supposed death of Orestes, and in her grief gives what is certainly the most detailed account of childcare in Greek tragedy (Libation Bearers 748–62):

  I drained the dregs of misery in every respect

  except for my dear Orestes, trouble dear to my heart,

  who I received from his mother and brought up

  along with the howls before dawn that made me wander the house at night,

  frequent, troublesome, and no good for me

  who endured them.2 Whatever has no reason, just like an animal,

  needs to be nursed (of course) according to its mood,

  for a child, when still in nappies, can not speak at all,

  if hunger or thirst or the need to wee takes hold.

  Children’s bowels, when young, are a law unto themselves.

  I was the one to watch out for this, though I think I was often

  misled, the cleaner of his nappies:

  cleaner and nurse performed the same function.

  It was with these twin roles that I received him in his father’s service.