Medea

views updated

Medea

In Greek mythology, an enchantress and daughter of the king of Colchis who fell in love with Jason when he came to that country. Medea enabled him to slay the sleepless dragon that guarded the golden fleece. She fled from Colchis with Jason, who made her his wife, and from whom she exacted a pledge never to love another woman. They were pursued by her father, but she delayed the pursuit by the cruel expedient of cutting her brother Absyrtus to pieces and strewing his limbs in the sea.

Medea accompanied Jason to Greece, where she was regarded as a barbarian. Having conciliated King Peleus, who was now a very old man, she induced him to try to regain youth by bathing in a magic cauldron she had prepared. So great was his faith in her powers that the old man unhesitatingly plunged into her cauldron and was boiled alive. Her reason for this act of cruelty was to hasten Jason's succession to the throne. In due course, Jason would have succeeded Peleus, but now the Greeks would have none of either him or Medea, and he was forced to leave Iolcos.

Growing tired of the formidable enchantress to whom he had bound himself, Jason sought to contract an alliance with Glauce, a young princess. Concealing her real intentions, Medea pretended friendship with the bride-elect and sent her as a wedding present a garment, which as soon as Glauce put it on, caused her to die in the greatest agony.

Eventually Medea parted from Jason. Having murdered her two children by him, she fled from Corinth in a car drawn by dragons to Athens, where she married Argeus, by whom she had a son, Medus. But the discovery of an attempt on the life of Theseus forced her to leave Athens. Accompanied by her son, she returned to Colchis and restored her father to the throne, of which he had been deprived by his own brother Perses.

Much literature has been written about the character of Medea. Euripides, Ennius, Aeschylus, and later Pierre Corneille made her the theme of tragedies.