Heroes: Volume II of Mythos

M EDEA RISES UP The story of Jason and Medea now moves to Corinth where they found refuge from the wrath of Acastus and the people of Iolcos.fn86 King CREONfn87 offered them sanctuary, and they soon settled in comfortably enough to life in his palace. Medea bore Jason three sonsfn88 and all was well until Jason’s eye fell upon Creon’s daughter CREUSA. Eros’s arrow, when it struck Medea, had never pierced a heart more ready for utter devotion. Her love for Jason was animal, obsessive and terrifyingly passionate. Her fury when she discovered his betrayal no less volcanic. To herself she swore revenge, yet she had enough inner strength somehow to conceal her rage, her hurt and her drastic intentions. ‘Can it be true,’ she asked Jason, ‘that you have decided to leave me?’ ‘It’s political,’ he replied. ‘If I marry into Creon’s family then one day our children might rule Corinth and Iolcos. You can see the value in that, surely?’ ‘After all I’ve done for you?’ Medea kept her voice steady. ‘Who was it who helped you defeat the fire-breathing oxen and the great serpent of the Grove of Ares? Who was it who overcame Talos of Crete …’ ‘Yes, yes, yes. But it was Aphrodite when you come to think of it. Idmon told me the whole thing before he died. Aphrodite sent Eros to make you fall in love with me. On the orders of my protectress Hera. It was all her doing really, she was the one who helped me. You were merely her vessel.’ Merely – her – vessel. In the days to come Medea would repeat those words to herself many times. But what came out of her mouth now was: ‘Of course, my love. You are right. I know that. I am happy for you, and happy for Creusa and her family. And to prove it, I shall send her the finest wedding gifts I can procure.’ ‘You’re an angel,’ Jason kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Knew you’d understand.’ Slapping her cheerfully on the behind, he left the room. Men! It’s not that they’re brutish, boorish, shallow and insensitive – though I dare say many are. It’s just that they’re so damned blind. So incredibly stupid. Men in myth and fiction at least. In real life we are keen, clever and entirely without fault of course. Creusa’s wedding gifts arrived, a gold coronet of leaves and a gorgeously embroidered and scented robe – all smeared by Medea with deadly poison. Creusa could not wait to try them on in front of a mirror of polished bronze. Within minutes the venom burned through her skin and entered her bloodstream. Her howls of pain summoned her father Creon, who held the dying girl in his arms, wailing and sobbing. But when he tried to lay her body down, he found that the poison gown was stuck to him and he too died in agony. Now Medea prepared to kill her sons.fn89 It might seem that what Medea was about to do is the most terrible of her catalogue 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.fn90 The infanticide is something she agonises 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. In an astonishing coup de théâtre Medea appears above the stage in a chariot drawn by dragons, sent by her grandfather Helios, god of the sun. She has the bodies of her children with her, fearing that if she leaves them in Corinth they will not be given proper burial. Jason, having been told what has happened to his sons, calls up to her. Their exchange of blame and curses is magnificent. Jason’s final plea to her falls on deaf ears: Jason In the name of the gods let me touch the soft skin of my children. Medea That will not happen. Your words are thrown into the empty air. (She flies off toward Athens)fn91 In Athens we will meet Medea again.fn92 A broken Jason lived on in Corinth until his old friend and fellow Argonaut Peleus, brother of Telamon, persuaded him to return to Iolcos and overthrow Acastus. This they managed and Jason was finally installed as king. His reign did not last long, however. He fell asleep one afternoon under the stern of his beloved Argo and a rotten and poorly attached beam fell on him and killed him instantly. Forward on the prow, the figurehead muttered to itself. ‘I warned him when the sternpost was sheared off by the Clashing Rocks all those years ago. “Mend it well,” I said. “Mend it well, or one day you’ll regret it.” Mortals, there’s no helping them.’