Euripides, "Medea": reviews, summary

In the history of world literature there are several fatal women, one of which is Medea. The brief content of this tragedy will deepen you into the atmosphere of Ancient Greece and tell you about the complexities of human relationships and human vices.

Philosophy of Euripides

The ancient Greek playwright Euripides argued that man is wiser than the gods, therefore one of the first to decide on a critical attitude towards the inhabitants of Olympus. Any supernatural power, he believed, was the product of human imagination.

Euripides writes his famous tragedy under the name "Medea", reviews about which are still very ambiguous. The main merit of the author is to depict not an ideal person, but a vicious one who suffers and commits terrible crimes. Characters in the play are negative. Events develop in such a way that human suffering comes to the forefront.

Characters. Excerpts from biography

In Euripides, the heroes of tragedies could be gods, demigods or mere mortals. Medea is the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, the daughter of King Eet and the oceanids of Idia, whose parents are the Ocean and Tiphida. Curiously, in the tragedy, the sorceress is unable to correct the situation without a bloody massacre, because if she punished Jason and his bride without the intervention of children, the end would be less tragic. However, Medea becomes an anthropic bearer of vices.

The main characters lived in marriage for twelve years and gave birth to two boys - Mermer and Feret. Their marriage was organized with the participation of a magical power: the gods send Medea love charms and she helps Jason and the Argonauts to get a gold fleece. In gratitude, the hero marries her. Jason, although not a god, came from a noble family and was the son of King Eson, the ruler of the city of Iolcus.

After the meeting with Jason, Medea immediately manifests her cruelty: she flees from Colchis with him and, in order to detain the angry Eta, kills his brother Apsirt, who was her traveler. Pieces of the body were scattered on the seashore-because of this cruelty, which Medea showed, the reviews of this legend are very ambiguous.

Glavka is the daughter of the King of Corinth, Creon. According to Jason, he marries her not out of great love, but to provide his sons with a happy future. Having puffed up with the royal heirs, the boys in the future could live among noble people.

"Medea": a brief summary of the tragedy of Euripides

King Corinth offers Jason to marry his daughter Glaucus, to which he responds by consent. The actions of his wife Medea sometimes start to scare the hero, and he does not mind to leave her to the mercy of fate. Enraged woman calls the former spouse ungrateful, because it was with her help that he extracted the golden fleece and regained his former glory. However, Jason says that in front of her he has done his duty. He gave her two sons, and now he can live life as he pleases. Perhaps this position will seem incomprehensible to women, so the tragedy "Medea" reviews about Jason may be negative.

The Corinthian king banishes Medea, but she tries to take revenge on the ungrateful husband and decides on a desperate act - to kill the children, so that Jason is killed by despair. The villain encourages his boys to take to Glavka a wedding gift - a poisoned crown that instantly corrodes the face of the beautiful queen. Desperate father, who decided to save his daughter, dies after her. Medea condemns his children to death: angry Corinthians would tear them to pieces, so the unfortunate mother herself decides to kill them and even does not allow Jason to say goodbye to them.

About the main heroine

Medea can not tolerate humiliation, so she begins to hate her husband and is looking for a way of revenge. She does not immediately decide to kill the children, but the boy educator immediately realizes her plans. To Medea is Creon - the father of Jason's future wife orders her to leave Corinth with her offspring.

The final decision on the murder, she takes after meeting with the childless Athenian king, Egei. She understands how a man without offspring suffers, therefore decides to take away from her husband the most expensive. Medea and Jason were once a happy married couple, until the fateful day arrived, in which the leader of the Argonauts did not take his severe decision. The main heroine thinks about leaving her city alone - Agei offers her a refuge, but the thirst for revenge is much stronger: with the help of her little ones she wants to take revenge on her opponent. According to the myth, the children of Medea were killed by the inhabitants of Corinth, and Euripides changed the ending and pictured that the unfortunate mother herself takes on this sin and reassures herself that the boys died a less terrible death. In the play, Medea changes his decision four times-this is the manifestation of Euripides' exceptional psychological skill, which shows the complexity of human nature.

The trial of Medea or how the heroine was punished

Contemporaries Euripides criticized the tragedy "Medea", reviews were often unflattering. The main opponent was Aristophanes, who believes that the woman had no right to kill her children. If the Greek comedians and tragedians judged the heroine, the accusations would be as follows:

It is known to everyone that even the most recent traitor,

He keeps and protects his child,

And ready to rush for him in the mouth of a formidable beast.

But the granddaughter of Helios, accused Medea,

His anger is above life

His little ones have two sons.

She killed four at once:

Corinth of the king also lost his heiress

And the unborn of its Jason descendants.

Murder is a terrible sin,

Kill four at the same time,

And to break the life of the fifth

For your own satisfaction,

The decision is, rather, crazy,

Than reasonable, so suffer

Medea must be severely punished.

The content of the tragedy does not imply the existence of a court, and the author enables readers to condemn or justify the heroine himself.

The fate of Medea

Despite the committed bloody crimes, the murderer did not suffer a penalty and fled to distant lands. In Athens, she married Egeya and gave birth to his son Meda. Soon their house is visited by Theseus, known for his struggle with the bull Minotaur. Medea wants to kill the guest, but Aegei learns in time his son in it and makes sure that their villain is abandoned by the villain Medea. The summary does not tell about the future fate of the heroine, but other works tell about it.

On the island of the blessed, the exile becomes the wife of Achilles. The wizard lives a long life, which is the most terrible punishment for her. She constantly lives in exile, suffers from one thought about the perfect atrocity, all of her despise. Perhaps this punishment is worse than death-this is the fate of Helios's granddaughter.