Page 25 - GALIET INFINITE MEDEA: Euripides IV

under Hera’s revengeful spell. Scary, mighty Hera: queen of discord, war, wrath, jealousy and torturing revenge. Pelias’ punishment: a good or bad deed? In Apollonius, Medea kills her innocent brother. Chops him up to bite-size bait. No Furies. This is her most pre-Euripides vile and repulsive act. But is it enough to throw-off Zeus’ scales?
The audience will recall many innumerable vile, grotesque acts in ancient myth, epic and tragedy: matricides, parricides, suicides, incest, human sacrifices; justified and unjustified. But then, in Iolcus, Medea rejuvenates Aeson. Perhaps even Jason.45 So powerful, indeed, are her herbal concoctions that, in this, she is closest to Asclepius’ resuscitate-the-dead touch. Beneficence or maleficence? In Dionysus Scytobrachion’s Argonautica, Medea, as Artemis’ cult priestess, saves the Greeks. She disobeys Aeetes’ decree to sacrifice foreigners to avert impending-doom-by-stranger prophecy. Again, Benevolence or malevolence? Then Aeetes persecutes her. Then she hides in Helios’ temple. Then she seeks support of recently landed Argonauts. Then Aeetes is killed in battle. Can the Athenian audience truly have an exclusive negative aura of Medea before they hunch, moan, shriek at her in.sane fury on Dionysus’ stage?
Now let’s suppose otherwise: Medea, hydra, Medusa, Scylla, witch, beast, cannibal, behind the skene. Fast forward. Chorus. Torn Medea at the ‘male portico’, facing her heart-stabbing agonies. Can no Greek hero-loving man commiserate with her
45In some other versions Jason is rejuvenated. March, Jenny. Cassell Dictionary of Classical Mythology. UK: Cassell, 1998.
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