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Agora ∞ Greek Group Readings
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The Philhellenic Bookshelf: Liz Lochhead's MEDEA and more
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I read and reviewed Koumandareas's Koula, a wonderful, suspenseful novella. During the reading I wondered what will happen to the characters, in particular, to the older woman. Will life overtake her with an heart attack, a train wreck, a mental collapse? The gist is that an affair with a younger man initiates a change in her interpersonal relations, which are emotionally distant from co-workers and husband. The story also studies people, how and when they respond or not respond to others. There is cause for hope when risk-taking and humanitarianism subtly change her bleak, routine life to one of possibility.
I'd Like
. Amanda Michalopoulou. Translated by Karen EmmerichThese short stories can stand alone, but bits recur leading to the belief that the stories form chapters of a novella about the characters' fluctuating familial roles and the illusory writer. The style transcends fiction into metafiction, the term, along with non-linear, George Fragopoulos and Michalopoulou use in an interview and a review. If metafiction refers to illusions an author sets up, then a reader of "I'd Like" builds up piecemeal the characters' lives and relations, like a jigsaw puzzle. The opening of 'I'd Like' seems graspable, but fantasy builds up at least until 'Teef' in which an unknown woman regresses to babyhood and literally grows out of it. By the ending the reader even doubts story#1 while other relations are clarified. And, without the sparse mention of renowned Greek people and places, the setting yields to dialogue and pronouns (he, she). Michalopoulou said:
"someone else must narrate his or her own point of view or that a letter or telephone call or diary should come in to the story to explain something. I also like the idea of characters who try to investigate things, who search. And with metafiction you can always change point of views."
http://www.literaturfestival.com/bios...
http://quarterlyconversation.com/aman...
http://quarterlyconversation.com/id-l...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction
I'd Like, cont'd from the previous post. Story of a married couple, who is a painter and a writer. The couple attends an acclaimed reading by a famous writer Vandoros; the couple is coincidentally introduced to Vandoros and Pia in the hospital Emergency and spend the remaining evening with the successful writer; on the next day the couple reviews yesterday's events, deciding not to accept Vandoros's unexpected invitation to brunch; the wife-painter heads to Paris; the husband-writer follows her there...A Slight, Controlled Unease. A mother and baby visit a café. The story is mostly an interior dialogue between her writer self and reader self, which sometimes returns to her childhood dream to become a (I'd Like...) ballerina through the real sweat, practice, and pain and sometimes to her book, being read or written.
Pointe.
A question enters the reader's mind--does the woman/wife/mother/bankclerk lead a sinister, second life about which the husband and daughter are unaware? In the one she encourages her daughter's decision making and fulfills her responsibilities at work and home; in the other she runs a sort of brothel at home.
NEXT STORY IN THE COLLECTION: Dad and Childhood.
In the continuation of "I'd Like" a family biography becomes evident. This fuzzy hint begins with 'Dad and Childhood', a story in which a precocious, imaginative child, Stella, visits a psychologist with Dad then relives her childhood through home movies when she is forty. Her memory reverts to Dad, whose frustration with her imaginativeness mention a mother and sister. The next story 'Light' focuses on Stella's lifelong relationship with her big sister, the painter with the red beret, when they are children then single octogenarians.
'Nail' reverts to the period when Dad, Mom, the painter sister, and Stella are still a family. Mom sees the possibilities of a falling-down, second home, and is kidded about it.
'What Will You Do Next' depicts Dad as the writer whose character(s) resist his control, claiming to be autonomous and unlimited by the parameters of a story.
NEXT: 'The Most Wonderful Moment'
More about "I'd Like": 'The Most Wonderful Moment' and onward. The author is sentimental but not romantic about the characters. Sympathetic feelings of characters for each other persist over the unpleasantness of life's physicality. Characters might slip into untidiness but others help them back into order, making tea or homemade soup for a cold as an example.
"Thanks for calling me to order," she said.
"Order came on its own. I didn't do anything. I'm just trying to maintain it."
"There's no order anywhere. Anywhere."
I told her it would take a little time for us to see the results...
'Overcome' (103)
Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems, set in the Mediterranean, strays occasionally out of Greece, but the variety of light and sensations caught my attention. The introductory poem takes place in nighttime Florence and imagines a fitful sleeper drawn out of the room into the still lively streets. The restful mood of the opening is initially created by the fading natural light and the ritual brushing of scented hair. The poem plays with light, which is variously back-lit, mirror-reflected, and palely fluorescent until the deep shadows remain only within a fist. The various lights complemented by nighttime activity however arouse the poet, drawn sensuously into the lingering commotion: how cantaloupe-flavored gelato tastes; what a narrow alley lined with bicycles looks like; what melodies are sung by laughter and vehicles; how pungent are the strong smells of herbs; and how his wife's hair feels on his fingers.http://patrickkanouse.com/PortraitBoo...
The Praise Singer (1978) by Mary Renault is historical fiction based on the long life of Simonides, the Greek bard. The story opens in sixth-century BCE Keos, the Archaic era before the Golden Age of Athens. A teen-aged Simonides prefers to compose and sing poems than to be a shepherd on his father's prosperous farm. At a wedding he is introduced to Kleobis, a master singer. After Kleobis persuades Simonides's parents to let the boy go, Simonides takes off to learn the trade, traveling through Ionia, Samos, and Delos, to Athens. Renowned Greeks such as Pythagoras the mathematician, Anakreon the poet, Theodoros of Samos the architect, and Pisistratos of Athens and his sons also enter the narrative, told by eighty-three-year-old Simonides. The historical period sees many changes of oligarchs and tyrants, and Renault describes the social mores of everyday life and court life. Readers will also find scenes set at athletic games and chariot races as well as at festivals and processions. The Author's Note mentions that Simonides, though of independent wealth, would have had to ply his trade at court and that, though literate and numerate, he favored memorization of epics to writing them down. Besides "The Praise Singer" Renault has written several other novels set in ancient Greece.
'The Aegean' in Patrick Kanouse's "Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems is about drifting on the Aegean Sea and on its memory. All nature--stars, islands, wind-blown hair, and cliffs with olive groves are identified with the vast sea. Memory of the sea is spoken of as "sheltering", a "harbor", and "cozy". All is sweetness (the wine) and light ("radiant") and renders technology a fuzzy dream. The golden sunlight vibrating ("trilling") on hair, evokes earlier images of islands appearing and fading successively on the horizon and another one of the poet adrift on the boat of memory.http://patrickkanouse.com/PortraitBoo...
"Carnations in Venice" by Patrick Kanouse is the impressions of an evening walk through that city. The poet, along with his companion, notices "fresh carnations", swaying to the breeze, newer than the stately, crusted, buildings yet briefer in their mortality. All of the city "leads to water"--the the layout of streets, the city's destiny, as well as the essence of life."Santorini" mingles that island's volcanic past and its subdued present state. The stark effects of the enormous eruption has since been gradually refashioned by nature, so the landscape now wears a beautiful mask (is "visored"). The poem then transitions from the physical to the spiritual--the island's being the catalyst for paganism's giving way to Christianity, represented in "the white-washed, blue-domed Church". The awesomeness of sky, water, land, and spirit on the island brings the poet contentment.
"Unde Origo Indue Salus, from the origin comes salvation" continues the trope of water. A lagoon at "dusk" is the setting for "the riddle of time and space", exemplified by his new self emerging from the foam of imagination, a younger, energetic self who seems immortal. The poet then stoppers his sight, the catalyst to invigorate his imagination and hence his speech. He steps into the sea, producing ripples that spread out to the boats and further to join with "the sea and light". The sea's direction then reverses to erode the shore (the sand around his feet?), its "millennial work" which may allude to the future thousand-year reign of Christ on earth and to salvation of mankind.
"Matala" by Patrick KanouseThe notes say the Roman burial site in southern Crete is renowned for cliff caves. The poem contemplates the long-gone dead from these caves, the impressions of a cave's interior and its entrances. The setting goes between the beach to cave to beach. Inside the sound-proofed cave it is startling the absence of surf, wind, and heart. The only noise is reminders of the dead in "rustling" dried leaves--the intonations of a mass for the dead. The setting not only blocks the living world but initiates the reader into the deathly realm, reminding me of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" in the numerous images of round, black, "gasping" mouths, or greedy maws, at the sight below of "the peopled beach". The conclusion moves back to the beach, the "wind" and "sea" acting alive, the poet "touch(ing)" another human being and looking into her eyes. The reader may get an eerie afterthought that those orbs say something more.
"Ruins Above the Sea" and Notes by Patrick KanouseThe narrative poem's motif is how the islands in the Aegean Sea are affected by the enormous volcanic eruption of 1645BCE that began the decline of Minoan civilization. The particular focus is a temple above the sea, situated on Mt Juktas, Crete. Animal and human sacrifices are ineffectually being raised to the gods when the big blast occurs, inundating the island region and with ash and water. The story is illustrated with vivid images and personification,
...A bronze knife faced with a boar,More symbolic passages come towards the end,
Its gleaming candlelit edge honed with blood,
And slivers of hope offered to the sky.
...
From a temple above the sea, the water
Rising strangles the sun’s light on the slender
Islands that vanish in the wave’s gluttony.
...The temple hallowedThe first quote I read as an allusion to the athletic victory odes which sing of a great event that can pause the world, and the second as a period of nature at rest when the undisturbed wasp slowly flutters its wings.
Now for the blaze of iconic language:
Schism of idea, comma of creation.
...
But somewhere the slow panting of wasp’s wings.
The following examples of alliteration, assonance, and consonance stood out like "...clear sight / Into an opal sea...",
...of marble palaces,
Shattered ships, and hyacinth gardens
Awash in ash and fish...
...
...Ships sailing slip beyond
An island’s rib with wines and seed.
"Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems" takes place in the eastern Mediterranean, and its environment engages the poet's five senses. Physical impressions of the region are the play of light, the flowing water, the layers of age, the "peopled beaches", the unending nightlife, and the ubiquitous reminder of spirituality in the blue-topped churches and the Christian millennium. The description of the present melds with the Greek past that is found in the absent remains of Roman burial caves, which dot the cliffs of Matala, and in the passing of the Minoans. This historical perspective contrasts with today, and there are others: life and death, light and dark, near and far. One look at the past, which shaped Santorini, is "Ruins In the Sea", which imagines a natural catastrophe that occurred about 1645 BCE. An enormous volcano exploded and left a gaping hole/Caldera/lagoon on that island. The poem's narrative tells about the animal and human sacrifices performed by a pagan priest whose rites prove useless when the surge of ash and water reach over the Cretan temple. In my opinion this poem was highly passionate. Crystal images as well as stark oppositions in personification and figurative as well as descriptive language all intertwined ("gluttony" versus "slender", uplifted knife, high tide claiming the cliff) as the volcanic activity is ceaselessly "rising". The poem created a rush, and an exertion, of language that denoted contentiousness and high activity--"blaze", "schism", and "creation"--as well as destruction. All was then spent and unhurried in the metaphor of a slowly fluttering wasp, and history left its imprint on the normal present. These poems capture the essence of the Greek isles.
Selected Odes. Pindar. Translated by Carl Ruck and William Matheson Pindar's odes built upon the Homeric tradition of singing myths. Although Pindar took some liberties with tradition, as exemplified in "Olympia II", he continued the close association of immortal gods and mortal men through their Earthly origins. The gods however exceeded in strength and authority but both were subject to moral laws. Since Homer's eighth century BCE poets and audiences became more literate. Poems were written rather than being memorized during their composition, but performances ought to be oral. These songs affirmed Greeks' national identity and might use a Homeric theme about a wanderer, who receives "hospitality" during his homeward journey. In "Pythia IV" Battos, a stutterer, journeys to seek a cure at Delphi. This victory poem combined the story of the gods and the athletic victor, Arcesilaos, who won in chariot racing. There were also stories about the hierarchies of elements (fire, gold, water) and those in praise of the lyre and of talented persons such as Pindar himself, soldiers, and politicians. Aetna, the Sicilian volcano, was another connection between gods and man, being found in "Pythia I".
The fables of Aesop are available in a virtual format, http://www.holyebooks.org/authors/aes...
some of which add explanatory material,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop%27... ('List of some fables by Aesop').
A book version is Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs and published by Oxford World's Classics; a version by Signet Classics is edited by Jack Zipes and has many readers.
Bloomsday, Wednesday June 16, celebrates James Joyce's great novel Ulysses, which adapts the events of Homer's "Odyssey" to early twentieth-century Dublin. There is possibly no better day for rereading the story of Leopold Bloom.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_... (a survey of the novel)
http://www.online-literature.com/jame... (an online, searchable text)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday
Derek Walcott's The Odyssey: A Stage Version
audio interviews with DW at http://nigelbeale.com/2006/04/28/24/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/... 16 Dec 2008New Character: 'Blind' Billy Blue, a singer narrates the Prologue and
is the Chorus.
Similar settings with Homer's The Odyssey : Ithaca, Pylos, Sparta, The Ship, Scheria, The Island of the Cyclops, The Island of Calypso, and the Underworld.
Performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, 1992.
Character doubling
Nausicaa and Melantho;
Arneus and the Cyclops;
Antinous and Ajax;
Penelope to Helen and Circe;
Telemachus and Eurylochus;
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/caribb...
Prologue
Billy Blue says to watch for "a swallow's wings" when a Chord sounds.
Act 1
1. The Greek survivors of the Trojan War prepare to return home. Thersites, a mercenary, doesn't know what to do with himself and refuses O's invitation to Ithaca.
2. The scene jumps ahead ten years to Telemachus and his old nurse Euracleia. Athena disguises herself as a swallow and Captain Mentes. The swallow twitters to Telemachus that O is coming back. The "old warrior" corroborates the oncoming of strange deeds here, advising Telemachus to flee personal danger for now.
Penelope parts the stunned crowd of suitors with her entrance.
T sails to Pylos and Sparta after Mentes reminisces about Odysseus' wooden horse.
Penelope discovers T's absence. Eumaeus the swineherd intrudes upon a worrying P and Euracleia. Antinous enters with complaints that T is overreaching his authority and that P's long mourning period is contrary to O's wishes.
A maid Melantho betrays Penelope, spilling the beans that T sailed away on Antinous' vessel and that P unravels her weaving every night. Antinous commands the suitors to ambush T at sea but his attempt at persuading P to marry him gets nowhere. P uses fine figurative language to spell out her feelings.
A chorus of chanting oarsmen have meanwhile eluded their pursuers, landing T safely at Pylos.
3. At the Pylian palace, Telemachus and Captain Mentes (Athena) chat, waiting for King Nestor. When all are present, the talk changes to the "ungovernable" sea and Nestor describes his last knowledge of O on the storm-tossed ship. A fast chariot then speeds T to the palace of King Menelaus.
4. Menelaus' palace on Sparta. The king mourns his brother Agamemnon. Helen's beauty captivates Telemachus; she and Menelaus squabble over Troy. M tells T what Odysseus was like and admits that the war was worth bringing Helen back. A figured vase is brought in, prompting imaginative stories from M. Helen asks T for forgiveness. M continues with the fog-bound vision. A crab-like Proteus crawls from the surf, but T is familiar with this tale. M has a second scenario about Egypt and seal-skins, and Proteus' struggling with Odysseus. T imagines calling repeatedly out to sea and its echo returns.
5. The sailors load onto the ship Odysseus' riches, which include a knotted bag from King Aeolus. At sea, O and the crewmen share their thoughts about homecoming. O goes to the upper deck; the sailors argue among themselves whether their looking into the inconspicuous sack is okay because of O's other wealth. The loosed winds from all corners of the earth create a swirling maelstrom. O immediately knows what the men below did. The storm winds crack the ship's oars, as the boat approaches the shallows around Ithaca. Once the helmsman is swept away, the vessel veers off course, then founders, its crew falling into the sea.
6. Odysseus survives the hurricane, washing up on Scheria. One of a trio of girls at play runs for their ball, spots him, but cannot convince the others of his being there. O then walks up from the surf with their retrieved ball and collapses before the king's daughter, Nausicaa, who is enamoured by the aged, muscular stranger. From somewhere comes the roar of athletic games, not unlike the sea's roar and his memories of Troy.
7. In the palace of King Alcinous Odysseus competes in athletic games then tells a tale about "Odysseus" who refused immortality from Calypso so that he could wend his way home to Penelope.
8-9. Walcott mixes the ancient and modern with a philosopher named Socrates Aristotle Lucretius, Odysseus, Eurylochus, a tyrannical Cyclops called The Eye, Ram, and two patrolmen. O introduces himself as 'Nobody', taking the dialogue up to the monster's urgent call.
10. The scene changes to Circe's island. The crew who have gone ashore for water succumbed to the lassitude of the island, its red flowers emitting a drug.
11. The flowers also metamorphose the men into grunting, squealing swine. Odysseus avoids the shape change with a "milky flower", moly, Athena gives to him.
12. O spends the night with Circe but Athena's intrusion, Circe's prophesy, and O's impatience bring an angry close to it.
13. Priests and Circe help Odysseus into the Underworld.
14. In the Underworld Odysseus meets Tiresias the Seer, Anticlea his mother, and ghosts of Ajax, Thersites, Achilles, and Agamemnon. Tirersias prophesies O's future.
Act 2
1. Adrift at sea, Odysseus catches fish and receives two mermaids as well as his lost crew, the latter preventing his demise from the Sirens and the monsters Scylla and Charybdis.
2. Odysseus with his shield and wealth washes up on the Ithacan shore. After his awakening from a week-long sleep, a shepherd (Athena) befriends him. O proceeds to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, who takes him in. On the next day O and E bring swine to O's palace.
3. Odysseus and Athena talk about O's irreverence of the gods. O's feelings when he approaches the door of his house.
4. Odysseus, disguised as an unkempt wanderer, encounters Penelope, Eurycleia, Argus, and Telemachus. The sister mermaids, Nausicaa, the Cyclops are transformed into household retainers.
5. Odysseus and Penelope share a quiet moment of conversation. Eurycleia reluctantly washes O's feet, recognizing the white-boar's scar. Telemachus and O embrace; T agrees to hide the available weapons from the suitors.
6. The suitors bully Odysseus, until he tell them to get their weapons. Penelope brings the longbow, which Antinous cannot string. Telemachus oils it for Odysseus, who discharges arrows through Antinous' neck and through the twelve axes. The suitors prepare to retaliate, but O's small group of warriors is aided by eye-plucking swallows. In the aftermath, O becomes disoriented, imagining events at Troy. Penelope is at first reluctant to believe the evidence that the beggar is really O. Anticlea and Athena appear, their forecast for O's contented, long life having been proved. Billy Blue concludes the play with a brief song. ##
The Burial at Thebes: A version of Sophocles' Antigone by Seamus Heaney Genre: Drama, Poetry
Related subjects:
Oedipus
The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus & Antigone
Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Ag...
Dragon and Dragon's Teeth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%2...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmus
The Lament For Art Ó Laoghaire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caoinead...
Summary:
Antigone and Ismene, daughters of King Oedipus, learn of the new king's decree: one of their brothers, Polyneices, cannot be lawfully buried with the customary mourning, internment, and rites; the other brother, Eteocles, a defender of Thebes, can be buried with honors. Ismene refuses to act against Creon's decree, i.e., to help Antigone to bury Polyneices properly. Antigone sees herself justifiably acting in accordance with the laws of Hades and the gods.
The Chorus of "old men" fills in previous events. The defenders of Thebes defeated its invaders; during the conflict, the brothers, sons of King Oedipus, had fought in opposition and to the finish. The Chorus listens attentively to the new king's announcement. In the end Note, Heaney describes the Chorus' function as "both the utterance of proverbial wisdom and the invocation of gods"(p79).
Creon announces that Eteocles should be buried with full rites and honors while Polyneices, an anti-Theban exile should be abandoned to the elements. A good ruler he reasons should form his own judgment, avoid nepotism, and act on patriotism.
A Messenger unexpectedly arrives, defensive about the message he bears -- someone has buried Polyneices. Creon rejects the Chorus' suggestion that Theban gods favorably regarded such a traitor; rather he suspects a small rebellion or a taken bribe.
The Chorus summarizes the crux of the play:
Among the many wonders of the world
Where is the equal of this creature, man?...
... Nothing seems beyond him. When he yields to the gods,
When truth is the treadle of his loom
And justice the shuttle, he'll be shown respect--
The city will reward him. But let him once
Overstep what the city allows,
Tramp down the right or treat the law
Wilfully, as his own word,
Then let this wonder of the world remember:
He'll have put himself beyond the pale.
When he comes begging we will turn our backs.
The same Messenger brings the captive Antigone before Creon, who wants details about what happened. Antigone admits to the unlawful deed, but to act so was compatible with the immortal law of justice. Creon accuses both sisters. He argues with Antigone about her dishonoring loyal Eteocles. Ismene attempts to remain steadfast to her sister. Antigone however admits to having acted alone; Creon is insensitive to the feelings of Haemon, his son, betrothed to Antigone.
The Chorus again intervenes:
Whoever has been spared the worst is lucky.The Chorus anticipates Haemon's entrance.
When high gods shake a house
That family is going to feel the blow
Generation after generation...
Haemon appears to agree with Creon, who advocates discipline, self-discipline, obedience, and respect from citizens. The son confronts the king with what people are really saying about Antigone's "heroic" act and Creon's decree of death. The young man adds,
All of us would like to have been born
Infallible, but since we know we weren't,
It's better to attend to those who speak
In honesty and good faith, and learn from them.
The Chorus admits father and son are both right. Creon sees himself as a tyrant of the city while Haemon says,
There's no city that belongs in single handsreminding Creon that a king also submits to the gods.
Creon informs the Chorus of how Antigone will die; the Chorus sings about love,
Eternal, sexual, smiling,
The goddess Aphrodite
Is irresistible.
Love mounts to the throne with law.
...Antigone, you are a bride
Being given away to death.
The Chorus attempts to reconcile Antigone to fate:
...powerAntigone in turn explains herself -- her irreplaceable brother was the remaining family, but she is uncertain about what the gods deem right. She is led away as the blind prophet Tiresias is led in.
And everyone who wields it
Will brook no opposition.
You were headstrong and self-willed
And now you suffer for it.
Creon accuses the seer of fake signs of pollution:
Nothing done on earth can defile the gods.Tiresias replies that only the gods below have "authority over the dead" and their furies will exact vengeance.
After Tiresias departs, the Chorus reminds Creon that the prophet's predictions have always come to pass. The king changes his decree and goes out. The Chorus asks Dionysus, the god of Thebes to "Bewilder us with good." Tiresias' predictions, however, are fulfilled. The king with worldly wealth loses loved ones.
A Messenger arrives to tell what has happened to Polyneices, Antigone, and Haemon, then returns with the news of Eurydice's death and of how it happened. Creon accepts blame for all the misfortune but must nevertheless submit to his sorry fate.
The Chorus ends the drama with a parable:
Wise conduct is the key to happiness.
Always rule by the gods and reverence them.
Those who overbear will be brought to grief.
Fate will flail them on its winnowing floor
And in due season teach them to be wise.
The play is followed by an essay, written by Seamus Heaney.
Medea by Liz LochheadProduced, along with Thebans, by Theatre Babel http://www.theatrebabel.co.uk/home.html
About the playwrights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euripides
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Loch...
Background:
Jason and the Golden Fleece Argonautica
Foreword:
Changes to Euripides' play;
Also, Greeks with Scotch accents
The Cast and Setting (Corinth GREECE):
Medea of Kolchis
Jason her husband of Iolcus and the ship Argo
Their three children
The children's Nurse
Medea's Manservant
King Kreon of Corinth
Glauke his pregnant daughter and Jason's bride-to-be
Guard
Chorus of Greek women
Plot:
The Nurse and Chorus' reactions to Medea's three primal screams. Medea then appears before the Chorus, having been transformed into a dignified, rational woman. The Chorus takes her side against Jason's faithlessness.
Kreon enters the scene, banishing Medea and her children out of distrust. He however grants her request for one more day. Medea uses the time to plan the murders of Glauke, Kreon, and Jason(?).
Jason and Medea argue. He says the marriage with Glauke is political, a quasi-outsider building material security for his sons, but she and the Chorus will have none of that argument. Unlike the revengeful Chorus, Medea begins to reason that Jason's taking the children might be for the best.
Glauke the princess comes to Medea and the Chorus to make amends. Her perspective however contrasts with Jason's argument--Jason loves her and she him; she's pregnant with his child; Medea is sexually unattractive to Jason and has a dried up womb. Medea counters that she and Jason are still lovers. The Chorus notes the young woman's happiness in love as well as her "unkindness" and her "righteous" attitude. They also begin to agree with Medea that the children would be well cared for at the palace. Glauke's visit and request to send the children to the wedding infuriate Medea, who lays out the plan to poison Glauke and all who touch her. The Chorus of Greek women voice their affinity with the barbarian Medea: no mothers anywhere would murder their offspring.
Jason arrives by Medea's request. She disguises her murderous plan with a sweet reconciliation, admitting he is right. To the children, it appears the family quarrel has been righted; kisses, embraces, and happy words all around. The Nurse brings in the "golden" shawl and crown, wedding gifts from the children. Jason objects that Glauke has gold and attire in abundance but relents.
The Manservant comes with news that the children will be allowed to stay in Greece. Medea is stricken by details of the gift-giving, the man thinking the anguish arises from loss of the children. He emphasizes his faithfulness during exile and obeys the request to bring back a description of "what the bride was wearing".
Alone with the children, Medea reluctantly bids goodbye to them. The Manservant and Nurse frantically return, afraid for their lives. Medea delays the man to tell her the agonizing details of the deaths before he flees. Medea exits to murder the children before others do it. Jason arrives for the children as Medea reenters. The play ends with the lines of the Nurse, Jason, and the Chorus in a cacophony.
The World's Literature in Europe
Books mentioned in this topic
Argonautica (other topics)Medea (other topics)
Thebans (other topics)
The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (other topics)
Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes (other topics)
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DRAMA
GREEK POETS
GREEK FICTION
HISTORICAL FICTION and ADAPTATIONS