Looking at Medea

by David Stuttard

  After the following three-way song/recitative dialogue between Medea, the nurse and the chorus, the chorus urge her to go indoors to pass on the goodwill of the chorus and invite Medea out. The nurse departs after another long passage of recitative, in which she expresses reservations, or more properly fear (phobos) as to the likelihood of persuading Medea, and then she again generalizes the situation. In a perhaps surprising set of concluding remarks, the nurse attacks earlier generations for being ‘stupid and not at all wise’ (skaious … kouden ti sophous, 190) in supposing that grief such as Medea’s might be cured by song of the sort that takes place at feasts and festivals. Here, perhaps, high-status epic traditions are particularly brought to mind.11 The nurse’s alternative is rather more robust and practical (201–4):

  But where there are feasts that

  provide a great meal, why do people make their voices shrill?

  The ample supply, close to hand, from the feast

  brings mortals joy.

  Such an emphasis on the material and the bodily in this way is a common tactic in deflating the pretensions of an elite culture, although it is something more commonly associated with (often self-consciously) lower forms of cultural expression.12 The sentiment would not be out of place in Aristophanes, for example. It is not as jarring or as potentially humorous here, because the nurse strikingly expresses this view while maintaining her tragic style and register. The point is nonetheless one that proceeds from her own background and her emphasis on humbleness and equality, which is set up in her first long passage of recitative. Focus on the power of song is simply the wrong element in such elite entertainments: what is effective in fostering human happiness is something much more fundamental, namely the food. Conversely, the wailing and lamentation that Medea has been engaging in is pointless in the context of the comfort provided by a square meal.

  This was not the only time that Euripides was to give such expression to and exploration of characters from lower down the social spectrum. Indeed, his moves in Medea are replicated in such characters as the poor farmer, to whom Electra is married in Electra, or Creusa’s old retainer in Ion, or even the eponymous character in the same play, or offstage characters whose words are reported in the assembly debate in Orestes, not to mention the other nurses I have mentioned above. Indeed, such presentation of social diversity is the source of well-worn humour about Euripides in Greek comedy. Thus, in the debate between Euripides and Aeschylus in Aristophanes’ Frogs, Euripides prides himself on using characters from a range of backgrounds and giving voice to all of them, a practice upon which both Aeschylus and Dionysus seize (Frogs 948–52):

  Euripides Next, right from the very beginning I’d not have left any character idle, but I’d have the woman speak and the slave no less, and the master and the girl and the crone.

  Aeschylus Shouldn’t you have died first, for daring this?

  Euripides I did it on a democratic basis.

  Dionysus Let this go: talking about this is no good for you.

  Such diversity is one of a series of related complaints about Euripides that Aeschylus makes in that play, including presenting kings in rags (memorably spoofed already in Aristophanes’ Acharnians with reference to Bellerophon and Telephus among others) and the shameless women, who so often have nurses in tow (Frogs 1007–88). The argument over those women is over the moral and didactic function of tragedy. In response to Euripides’ protest, that he is representing real life and its moral complexities, Aeschylus concedes that such things as adultery and incest do happen, but that the good poet should not present them, but instead present a good moral example. In the passage I have quoted, Euripides starts off from discussing poetic technique in making maximum use of his characters and not taking refuge in formulaic or stereotyped dramaturgy, but his explanation, that he presents a socially diverse range of characters ‘on a democratic basis’, suggests that Aristophanes is here exploiting a similar idea of a more realistic representation of society in Euripidean tragedy. Yet the extension of dēmokratikos to cover both free and non-free and both men and women is quite remarkable in a context where political rights were restricted to male citizens alone. Euripides’ claim does, however, resonate with the nurse in Medea using the language of political equality, and specifically democratic equality against tyrannoi, despite being a female slave. Euripides is clearly going beyond what is realistic in having the nurse articulate these thoughts. In other respects too, as I have noted, the nurse remains in the tragic register, and there are distinct limits to Euripidean realism: contrast the nurse of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers with her concern for dirty nappies.

  What is also surprising in Frogs is Dionysus’ warning Euripides off the claim of being dēmokratikos. The reasons for Dionysus’ objection are not entirely clear. It might be because Dionysus is simply endorsing Aeschylus’ position in Frogs, that tragedy ought to remain unambiguously in the heroic past and avoid blurring the boundary between the mythical and actual world. Such Euripidean movement as there is towards realism is, along with other elements such as extravagant displays of emotion, one of the reasons why his plays are said to be attractive to the mass of Athenians – who are characterized, further, as the lowest sort: robbers, father-beaters and burglars (Frogs 772–4). Going beyond what is democratic may, however, be the point at issue: an allusion to Euripides’ adventurous social thinking, particularly under the influence of contemporary philosophical (‘sophistic’) trends. In these terms, the nurse’s preference for humble equality represents a challenge as much to the restriction of the franchise and the practice of slavery as to the pretensions of the elite.13

  To consider the effect of Euripides’ technique, we can again compare Aeschylus’ Oresteia (458 BC), where the whole trilogy is introduced through a character of similarly low status. Agamemnon opens with a watchman, who has been keeping vigil on the roof of the palace for the signal that shows that Troy has been captured. In addition to bemoaning the discomforts of such night-time watch-duty, he drops heavy hints that all is not right with the household (oikos). The queen has instructed him, a queen with a heart that plans like a man (androboulon kear, 11), and his nightly wish for a turnaround in the house’s fortunes are on the ominous, if obscure, grounds that it is ‘not administered in the best way’. The sighting of the beacon leads to joy, but before departing to let the rest of the household know, his final words are full of foreboding (Agamemnon 36–9):

  As for the rest, I keep quiet: a great ox has come to stand

  on my tongue. The house itself, if it acquired a voice,

  would tell you very clearly. I speak readily

  to those who understand; to those who do not, I forget.

  In contrast to the nurse in Medea, the watchman in Agamemnon works through hints and implications, rather than through explicit reflection. He has much to say about the rigours of watch-duty, but the unhappy state of the household is not spelled out. The dark and empty mutterings about the oikos, however, rapidly take a fuller and rounder shape. The nurse in Medea, as well as being far more developed, is much more direct and is used, like many parallel characters in Euripides, to generalize and offer abstract reflections, including on the status of slaves themselves. Yet for all the satire on Euripides in Aristophanes’ comedy, it may be that Aeschylus (in particular) is more realistic, even if Euripides is more sympathetic and interested, and allows such characters to have a moral complexity and to take a stand on the broad issues of the play, in a way in which similar figures in Aeschylean and Sophoclean parallels do only indirectly.

  The function of the nurse

  There are, then, a number of important consequences to Euripides’ decision to open his harrowing tale of the choices open to Medea through the eyes of the nurse and to set up Medea’s decision to kill her own children through the nurse’s observations about the family and their history. Through the nurse’s own words and through the expectations set up by earlier appearances of nurses in Greek tragedy (not least Euripidean tragedy), atte
ntion is called to four elements which combine to provide both sympathy for and apprehension about Medea, and a worrying prospect for her children.

  First, the nurse is unequivocal in assigning blame for Medea’s predicament. Jason is clearly in the wrong for abandoning Medea, described by the nurse as an act of betrayal. The slaves are clear that Creon is taking advantage of the situation to drive Medea out. To the extent that the nurse is sympathetic to Medea and the tutor has a cynical view of human nature, which explains Jason’s actions, the pair of slaves anticipate the argument between Medea and Jason, but are by no means limited to that function. The tutor’s account of self-interest could as easily extend to cover other players in the drama that unfolds; as we have seen, the nurse’s sympathy is not without its complications and ambivalences.

  Second, the nurse evokes a pathetic image of the vulnerability of young children and even stories of their neglect (or worse) at the hands of mothers (notably Clytemnestra). The prospect of harm coming to the children is one that is explicitly considered by the nurse, and even though the decision of Medea to kill her own children is likely to be a Euripidean innovation, which escalates earlier accounts, the fate of the children in those pre-Euripidean accounts is cause enough for concern.14 However much both Jason and Medea attempt to rationalize their behaviour in the play, the nurse’s pathos, and the memory of other infants, is set up as a reproach to the adults from the very beginning.

  Third, parallels to the nurse in Euripidean tragedy of the same period point to stories where sexual passion is the focus, a sexual passion which leads women to all kinds of transgressions. Taken together with the comments the nurse (in particular) makes about Medea’s fearful rage, that brooks no gainsaying, a worrying picture emerges of a woman on the edge and not entirely in control. Together with the concerns that are expressed by the nurse about the children’s safety, the prologue and parodos are full of ominous prospects. It is striking, then, that Medea fights on other grounds, that are anticipated by the nurse, of justice, honour and betrayal, rather than sexual passion, and implicitly rejects Jason’s accusations of jealousy and sexually-motivated affront (555, 568). The connotations around the nurse in Euripidean tragedy, however, would tend to support Jason’s contention. Initially an audience might be led by Medea’s behaviour to reject that suggestion, but it is a lingering possibility of an uncontrollable emotional intensity, that Medea’s subsequent actions will reawaken with a vengeance.

  Fourth, the generalizations about social class and political power become particularly pointed in the light of what follows. It is a common observation that Medea deals in the language of traditional (especially Homeric) male heroes, in her desire to maintain honour (timē) and reputation (kleos), and an equally traditional ethic of helping friends and harming enemies. In particular, there are striking parallels between Medea and some of the heroic individualists of Sophocles, such as his Ajax.15 This adoption of heroic language and ideology by Medea is undercut by the nurse’s attribution of individual and social problems to the behaviour of an elite. The problem, from this point of view, is not so much the transgression of Medea adopting a primarily masculine language and ideology, but the problem of that ideology in general. The tutor may attribute human actions to self-interest, and thus set up Jason’s cynical pragmatism, but both manifestations of elite behaviour are, for the nurse and her egalitarian outlook, problematic.

  The parallels with other nurses in Euripidean tragedy also suggest a further possibility, that the nurse is ultimately, and notwithstanding the concerns she expresses for the children, the one who most helps Medea bring about the destruction of Creon’s family and the murder of her children. This suggestion turns on whether the nurse returns with Medea at 214 and stays on stage to be brought into the plan at 820–3, and exits with the children at 1076 to take them to their death (and perhaps fetches Jason at 866, and is involved with the gifts for Creusa at 951). It is somewhat difficult to reconcile these actions with the figure of the opening scene, with her concern for the children and anxiety about Medea. Medea addresses an attendant at 821 as being her best advisor and threatens her to stay silent, if she is loyal (823). These qualities (and demands) would certainly suit some of the other nurses of Euripidean tragedy, that I have discussed, although less obviously the nurse of Medea.16 Nothing the nurse has said suggests that she is an unthinking accomplice of her mistress, nor is there anything formally to prevent Euripides from using the nurse as a speaking character, since there are only ever two speaking characters on stage at the same time in the play. Yet it would be even more odd to remove the nurse and then single out an entirely silent character as a particular confidante. Clearly, this is something for any director to resolve in practice, but if the nurse is to be understood as becoming a silent character, then that silence demands interpretation, as does the failure to respond to Medea’s revelation at 823.

  The effect of the mute witness to the confrontation between Medea and Jason in the first instance serves as a reminder of the issues raised and stances adopted by the nurse: sympathy for Medea, anxiety for the children and a reminder of their fragility, an awareness of the depth (and origin) of Medea’s emotion and generalized reflections on the distorting and undesirable effects of class and status. This is similar to Sophocles’ Ajax, where the debate over what to do with the hero, once he has committed suicide, would seem to take place in the presence of the corpse and the values for which it stands. Unlike Ajax, the nurse could intervene, so the question remains why she does not. Here, I think, we can return to the nurse’s general reflections on class and specific reflections on Medea as a mistress. The nurse has already on more than one occasion expressed reluctance and even fear about the prospect of confronting Medea or changing her mind (93–4, 109–10, 171–2, 184–9). If we also consider what Medea says, then there is clearly threat here as well as the sharing of confidences (820–3):

  Right then, go inside and fetch Jason:

  I use you in all confidential matters.

  Do not mention any of my decisions

  if you are well disposed to your owners and you are a woman.

  Medea exploits both the loyalty of the nurse, as a good slave, and also female solidarity, both of which have been seen in the prologue, and the second of which is central to her discussion with the chorus. Although Medea emphasizes her habitual trust in her addressee, she does not disguise the reality of the relationship, expressed through a generalizing use of the masculine plural (despotais). The peremptory exclamations, commands and prohibitions of 820 and 822 do not countenance any opposition. Even the provision of being well disposed has more than a touch of implied threat. As far as the verse caesura, it would mean rather more bluntly: ‘if you have sense’. Whatever the complex sympathies and loyalties of the nurse, this passage seems to point clearly to the limited options for intervention that a slave would have had.17

  None of this is to downplay the moral problem that these lines present, or to excuse the nurse’s inaction. Indeed, these lines only sharpen a question that would be implicit in the play, even if the nurse were never to reappear: what should she do given her anxieties for the children’s future, and how might she have done more to safeguard them against either her mistress or any other threats? The situation in which the nurse finds herself gives the lie to the social analysis, which she essays. Even granted that the problems of the play stem in large part from different applications of elite ideology, this does not let off the hook those leading a less grand existence. The decisions facing Medea and Jason may have awful consequences, but their choices are straightforward. The nurse, while being used to construct the pathos, passion and ideology of the play, faces a much more complex set of challenges in conflicting loyalties and emotional and rational responses to the situation, and a powerless, even dangerous, social position, from which to intervene. The questions posed by the nurse’s sympathy constitute the moral centre to the play and they continue to pose questions to modern audiences. As a series of high-pro
file cases of child deaths in the UK has recently shown, it is all too easy to stand by and do nothing.

  Notes

  * Thanks to Chloe Stewart for comments on a draft of this chapter.

  1 On her identification as a nurse, see the end of the third section.

  2 The text is corrupt, but the general sense is clear.

  3 The term sōtēria could simply refer to Medea’s personal safety (as suggested in Stuttard’s translation), but it is often used with more general, and explicitly political, application: see, for example, Faraone (1997), 54–8. The verb dikhostateō is also suggestive of civil strife, stasis.

  4 The verb stygeō, ‘detest’ or ‘hate’, is very strong.

  5 The Octavia, in particular, is not generally thought to be by Seneca himself.

  6 With performance of epic poetry at the Panathenaea, there is no doubt that Eurycleia would have remained current. There is some suggestion of re-performance of Aeschylus already at around this time (primarily in Aristophanes’ Acharnians 9–11), although a recent performance of the Oresteia is by no means guaranteed.

  7 For dates and reconstructions of the plays, including a translation, commentary and further bibliography, see Collard, Cropp and Lee (1995).