If we are to understand Greek tragedy, we need to appreciate its peculiarities of form and its use of conventions which were familiar to the Athenian theatre-going public. Some of these are obvious: the constant presence of the chorus for most of the play, the long messenger speech, the alternation between speech and song. Another is the so-called deus ex machina, a Latinization of the Greek expression which was already used by Plato to denote a sudden and sometimes arbitrary intervention to bring a recalcitrant plot to its end. The device is typical of Euripides: it occurs in half of his extant plays (Hippolytus, Andromache, Suppliants, Electra, Iphigenia in Tauris, Ion, Helen, Orestes, Bacchae); it probably did occur in the original ending of the Iphigenia at Aulis; a novel adaptation of the technique is used at the end of the spurious Rhesus. Sophocles’ late play Philoctetes also uses the device, perhaps under Euripidean influence.
As already mentioned, Aristotle had his reservations about Medea. He comments disapprovingly on two aspects of the plot. One complaint, obscurely expressed, relates to the Aegeus scene (unless this refers to a play of that name); he may have been disturbed at the way in which the Athenian ruler turns up out of the blue, with no preparation or causality (Poetics 25). If so, that would be a criticism along the same lines as his other comment, which refers specifically to the finale:
in the representation of character as well as in the chain of actions one ought always to look for the necessary or probable sequence … Clearly, the denouements of plots ought to arise from the representation of character, and not from a contrivance as in the Medea and in the episode of the flight to the ships in the Iliad.
Poetics 15
‘Contrivance’ here translates me¯ chane¯ , and Aristotle evidently has the departure of Medea in a supernatural chariot in mind (the analogous Homeric episode also ends with a supernatural intervention: Athena intervenes to ensure that the Greek forces do not sail away). Aristotle objects to plots which do not unfold in ‘a necessary and probable sequence’, in which the dramatist cheats, so to speak, by introducing a completely extraneous element, something which could not have been predicted from knowledge of the initial situation or the characters. Even if we are willing to allow the tragedian more leeway than he does, we can understand the basis of the complaint, and also see why he has more difficulty with Euripides than with Sophocles in this as in other respects.
It has long been maintained that the final scene of the Medea is a bold exploitation of the deus ex machina convention. Aristotle’s wording, though typically compressed, suggests that he saw it in these terms. True, Medea is not a goddess, but she is related to the sun-god Helios, and refers to this relationship in her first speech in this scene; it is he who has sent her the supernatural vehicle in which she rides. The imperious tone in which she greets Jason recalls the authority exercised by deities in scenes of this type (they often challenge the human characters and bid them cease what they are doing). Like the intervening gods in other plays, Medea predicts the future (including Jason’s future demise, 1386–8), and in particular foretells the establishment of religious cult, here to commemorate her dead children (1381–3). Similarly Artemis in Hippolytus predicts that virgins of Troezen in time to come will cut a lock of their hair on the eve of marriage, in tribute to the virginal hero Hippolytus. Almost all the ex machina scenes offer parallels to this aetiologizing of future cult.
There are potential objections to this reading. One is that the crane may also be used for other purposes in tragedy. The parody in Aristophanes’ Peace makes it likely that Euripides’ Bellerophon used the device to represent Bellerophon riding on the winged horse Pegasus. Another reason for scepticism might be that there are no surviving cases of the deus scene earlier than Medea: can we assume that this was already established as a conventional ending for tragic drama, sufficiently so for a novel exploitation to be effective?
These objections are not decisive. Bellerophon probably is earlier than Medea, but even if it is, Bellerophon is attempting to ride to Olympus itself, a rash undertaking for which he is traditionally punished by being hurled to earth and lamed. The play would still be marking the air as the domain of the gods. Medea was first produced in 431 BC. We have only one play by Euripides earlier than that, but he had been a regular contender in the tragic festivals since 455. Selection and chance have conspired to give us a much fuller picture of his work in the second half of his career than in the first. But even in what we have, we see considerable continuity. Although we cannot prove it, it seems perfectly possible that he used the deus ending in at least some earlier plays. Such endings have been hypothesized for two plays produced in 438, Cretans and Alcmaeon in Psophis; there is no certainty, but neither can be categorically excluded. The end of Medea is more effective theatre if we make that assumption. The convention has become familiar, but is now subverted, even caricatured. On the other view, the novelty would be greater but also harder for the audience to comprehend; in particular, it would be hard to see why Medea could be sure of the future cult if such predictions were not an established motif in this type of scene.
If then we accept that the finale is a version of the deus ex machina scene, it is important to define how it differs from the norm. Several interesting aspects can lead us towards a sharper perception of the scene. It can be argued that the ways in which Medea falls short of divine status are more important than those in which she achieves it.
First, in all the surviving scenes of divine epiphany at the end of Euripidean plays, the god’s first speech on appearance above the stage is the most significant, and it is always of considerable length. Andromache exemplifies the simplest form of this type of finale: Thetis appears and proclaims her will in a speech of forty lines, to which the leading figure on stage, Peleus, declares his grateful assent in a much shorter speech; so ends the drama, apart from a choral tailpiece, which is either spurious or routine. Suppliants follows the same pattern: long speech by Athena; much shorter speech of obedient submission by Theseus; choral coda. Some of the other plays involve more elaborate structures, including dialogue with the god (as in Electra and Bacchae), but the initial long speech is invariable, and what follows generally assumes the finality of the god’s decrees.
In the light of this convention, the pattern of Medea’s initial exchanges with Jason is remarkable. Her first speech is a mere six lines, and is followed by a tirade of invective from Jason lasting nearly thirty. Her reply, though still adopting a tone of superiority, does at any rate engage with some of his insults (1358–9). Despite her triumph, Medea does not have the complete control of the situation that a deity can command. It seems that with typical ingenuity Euripides has merged an epiphany scene with something very like an agon.
The abnormality of this scene continues in what follows. After Medea’s second speech a passage of stichomythia ensues. This is not unknown in regular epiphany scenes, but in those the pattern is for the human characters to ask questions which the god will answer (so in Hippolytus, Electra and to some degree in Bacchae). Here Jason’s lines are aggressive and insulting, Medea’s responses contemptuous, and neither party is clearly taking the lead or asserting authority in the exchange. After this sparring match, Medea makes a longer speech, in which she predicts the commemorative cult and also Jason’s death. At that point the metre shifts from trimeters to anapaests (which often phase in as the end of the play approaches), but the interlocutors revert to quick-fire insults and retailing of their wrongs. Their utterances are asymmetrical, each interrupting the other with fresh jibes. The final say is Jason’s (a longer speech, 1405–14), in which he invokes Zeus and other powers as witness to Medea’s crimes and his own sufferings. Despite the apparent similarities to deus ex machina scenes, we could not be further from the pious submission with which speakers generally accept the dispensation of the intervening god (e.g. Iph.Taur. 1475ff.). The reason is obvious: Medea remains a wronged wife and a murderess; she lacks the detachment as well as the power of a god.
Second, the Ol
ympians, besides being more powerful than mankind, also know more, and are privy to the workings of fate. The gods of tragedy often make reference to divine justice or to some overarching plan. On the rare occasion when a mortal challenges a god’s pronouncement, the lesser deity can disclaim responsibility, declaring that all of this is Zeus’s will. Castor in Electra adopts this tactic when questioned by the chorus: ‘fate and necessity directed her [Clytemnestra] to her destined end’; Dionysus in Bacchae takes a similar line: ‘Long ago my father Zeus gave his consent to this.’ But in our scene Medea, although she can foretell the future, has no god-given insight into the divine will. Both Jason and Medea insist that the gods are on their side, that the other is hopelessly in the wrong. The issue is highlighted at 1371–2:
Medea The gods know who it was began this conflict.
Jason Yes, and they know your mind and it repels them.
(In the Greek text each line begins with the same word, bringing out the impasse.) It recurs at a later point, where the dialogue shifts into anapaests:
Jason The furies of your children’s vengeance, yes, and blood-soaked Justice damn you!
Medea There is no god or spirit hears you now, for you have broken solemn oaths and sullied all the sacred ties of friendship!
Is Medea right? If a god had stepped in to conclude the action, we might have been given clearer moral guidance (though even divine utterances on such matters can be questioned); as it is, we are left to form our own assessment. That Helios has sent her the means of escape is not decisive, for his assistance rests on a bond of kinship, mentioned several times in the drama. Earlier in the play we shared the chorus’ sympathetic distress at her situation, and it was easy to condemn Jason, all the more so when he cuts so unappealing a figure in the confrontation scene; but with each successive scene Medea has become a more alarmingly complex and horrifying figure. In the finale Euripides has achieved the seemingly impossible: to make Jason deserving of our pity.
This comes out especially in the handling of the issue of physical contact, Jason’s desire to touch his children:
Jason I wish so much that I could kiss my children one last time!
Medea Yes, there is so much you would say, so many kisses, yet a moment since you’d drive them out in exile.
Jason By all the gods! Let me caress their soft skin one last time!
Medea It cannot be. There is no longer any use in words.
1399–404
The lines in question possess intense pathos, and highlight the visual gap between the pair: he cannot reach up, she will not descend. They also remind us of the tenderness with which Medea herself caressed and kissed the children’s soft skin while they still lived (lines 1074–5 are particularly close). Euripides seems particularly sensitive to the physical aspect of mother-child affection (there are equally touching passages in Hecuba and Trojan Women).
Some readings of Medea interpret the finale as showing that Medea has transcended all such emotions, that she has abandoned her humanity, become something monstrous and daemonic: that is what the startling shift to quasi-divine status signifies. But that interpretation, even if it contains some truth, has to ignore the references within this scene to Medea’s own emotions. Jason tells her that her grief must be as great as his, and she does not deny it: rather, she replies that ‘you cannot ridicule me now, and that soothes all my pain’ (1362). Again, Jason cries out ‘My sons! I love my sons so much!’ and Medea responds ‘Their mother loves them. You do not.’ (1397: the lines do not exclude continuing affection even for the dead). These lines continue a theme which was present in the earlier scenes, when the deed was still to be done: at 1247–9, just before entering the house, Medea exhorted herself: ‘For this one day forget they are your children. You will have all your life to mourn.’ Here, as in the earlier monologue, other emotions conflict with and temporarily displace the grieving – hatred of Jason, bitterness at his sexual rejection, fierce pride and determination – but to deny that Medea does feel grief and will do so in future is to fly in the face of the text.
This argument also encourages a fresh contrast with more conventional epiphany scenes. It is not that gods in final scenes never grieve. Homer had set a strong precedent here (especially with Thetis, mater dolorosa of Achilles), and in Hippolytus the hero’s patroness, Artemis, expresses her sorrow at the youth’s untimely death. But that grief is strongly qualified: Artemis withdraws before the moment of death, she does not come close to Hippolytus, indeed appears to be invisible to him, and she declares that it is forbidden to her to shed a tear. The remoteness of deity is emphasized; there is austere pity but no sign of empathy. Similar points can be made about gods and revenge. The tragic gods are often vindictive (more often, indeed, than they feel pity): Aphrodite in Hippolytus, Athena in Ajax and Trojan Women, and above all Dionysus in Bacchae. Yet here too there is a sense of the vengeance being distant: the god will punish those who have offended, but this revenge is a cold-blooded affair. In the aftermath, divinity does not gloat (though Dionysus comes closest, in a play that draws god and man unusually close). Here again there is a lack of empathy: the gods seem scarcely to understand what a devastating effect their acts have on the human victims and their dependents. All this can be contrasted with the case of Medea, who even in the final scenes retains her fierce and passionate involvement with all that has taken place. Moreover, although we can find cases of gods who grieve and cases of gods who take revenge, we cannot find cases where the same deity does both, where a god does as Medea does, punishes a mortal while knowing that this will bring sorrow on himself. (Homer went some way in this direction, in portraying a Zeus who loves Troy and the Trojan leaders, but must accept the necessary destruction of Troy; but that experiment in divine complexity is a path which the tragedians do not seem to have followed.)
Finally, the normal epiphany scene naturally involves a god temporarily making an appearance before characters in the mortal world. In almost all cases the deity comes from Olympus and at the end returns there. Bacchae is unusual in that the god in question, Dionysus, has been resident on earth since his birth and has previously participated in the drama in human guise; but at the end he is clearly an Olympian and distances himself from the affairs of mortals as easily as his kindred gods in other plays. But neither of these scenarios suits the case of Medea. Hers is a temporary elevation, which will swiftly end – in Athens itself, as Aegeus promised and as she predicts in this very scene. Earlier in the play, the chorus of Corinthian women already expressed dismay at this outcome – how can civilized Athens shelter a polluted murderess? The Athenian audience must feel at least as much misgiving.
Medea’s apotheosis, then, is no such thing. She must return to earth, and resume a human existence which will include the pain and grief that she here thrusts aside and treats as secondary to revenge. Moreover, her control over events evidently has its limits. She predicts her own arrival in Athens and her cohabitation there with Aegeus; his desire for children was made clear in the earlier scene. Perhaps she hopes for children who will replace those now dead. But her insight into the future is imperfect. Here the knowledge of the audience must be relevant, even though the future events lie outside the drama. We know less than we would like about the myths of the Athenian royal house in the fifth century, but it is clear that Aegeus, Medea and Theseus figured in a number of tragic dramas by Sophocles and Euripides. Though now lost, they evidently influenced later works such as Plutarch’s Life of Theseus. According to the tradition, Aegeus was the father of Theseus but the boy grew up away from Athens, perhaps even unknown to his father (in Euripides’ play Aegeus believes himself to be childless). On reaching adulthood, he sets out on a journey in search of his father. The mythological handbook ascribed to Apollodorus gives the following account:
Theseus came to Athens. But Medea, being then wedded to Aegeus, plotted against him and persuaded Aegeus to beware of him as a traitor. And Aegeus, not knowing his own son, was afraid and sent him against the Mara
thonian bull. When Theseus had killed it, Aegeus presented to him a poison which he had received the selfsame day from Medea. But just as the draught was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword [which Aegeus had left with his mother], and on recognizing it, Aegeus dashed the cup from his hands. And when Theseus was thus made known to his father and informed of the plot, he expelled Medea.
‘Apollodorus’, Epitome 1.5–6
Exactly what would happen when Medea reached Athens may not have been clear in the audience’s mind, but they would naturally assume that she would cause trouble there too, and probably anticipated that she would pose a threat to Theseus, the favourite Athenian hero. Here we have yet another reason to find the end of the play disturbing in the extreme.
Greek tragedies are often open-ended. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King ends with the hero’s fate unsettled: will he remain in Thebes, or go into exile as he himself desires? The oracle must be consulted yet again. Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis leaves Clytemnestra embittered: the murderous designs that will mean Agamemnon’s death on his return are clearly anticipated. But when the deus ex machina is used, the god normally settles matters decisively: disputing parties are reconciled, subsequent events clearly marked out. In Medea the heroine does not possess that authority, and the opposing parties are even more antagonistic than before (here again there is a similarity to the agon, which rarely if ever brings those involved closer together). The gods’ view of the matter is never made explicit; Jason’s is obvious and extreme. The audience are thrown back on their own resources, and no member of the audience, ancient or modern, will take quite the same view of this weirdly unorthodox ending to an extraordinary play.
Looking at Medea Page 13