Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #2)

by Stephen Fry

Now Medea prepared to kill her sons.222 It might seem that what Medea was about to do is the most terrible of her catalog of gruesome crimes; but in Medea, Euripides puts in her mouth a great speech in which she prevaricates over whether or not to do the deed. It stands as one of the great soliloquies in drama. From it Medea emerges sympathetically as a tragic and wholly human dramatic hero.223 The infanticide is something she agonizes over. At first she decides she cannot and must not do it. Then she pictures what the children’s fate will be if she does not. Less kindly hands than hers will take their lives. MEDEA I have determined to do the deed at once, to kill my children and leave this land, and not to falter or give my children over to let a hand more hostile murder them. They must die and since they must I, who brought them into the world, will kill them. But arm yourself, my heart. Why hesitate to do these tragic, yet necessary, evils? Come, unhappy hand of mine, take the sword take it, move to the dismal turning point of life. Do not be a coward. Do not think of your children— how much you love them, how you gave them birth. For this one short day forget your children, and mourn tomorrow. For even if you kill them still you loved them very much. I am an unhappy woman.