Medea

In Greek mythology, Medea is portrayed as a witch or sorceress and is treated as a representative of a barbarian, pre-Hellenic culture. Medea is a cultural archetype of a woman seeking revenge, although some modern interpretations emphasize the injustice done to her by Jason, and her role as an outsider in Greek culture.

In Euripides's famous play, Medea falls in love with Jason during his quest for the Golden Fleece, using her magical powers as the priestess of Hecate, the granddaughter of the sun god, Helius, and the niece of Circe, to help him attain his quest. She returns to Greece with him: they marry and have two sons. When Jason casts her off as a foreigner in order to marry the king's daughter, she then uses her significant powers for the first time against him, burning his new wife, and, according to Euripides, killing her own sons as the ultimate punishment against him. Medea is shown as a powerful woman of legend who breaks from the maternal expectations of nurturing. Traditionally regarded as a witch in her use of herbal concoctions to gain her ends, she is a wronged woman who makes use of her skills to assert her will.

The tale begins when Jason journeys to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece, the king sets various arduous tasks before him in order to allow him to take the fleece back to Greece. Hera and Aphrodite make Medea fall in love with Jason, and when Jason promises Medea marriage, she uses her magical abilities to help him gain the fleece, giving him an ointment to protect him from fire-breathing bulls and a dragon. As Medea leaves with Jason and the Argonauts, they kill and throw her brother into the sea, dismembering his body to delay her father. Only when Medea and Jason marry do the Colchians finally give up pursuit. In these adventures, Medea uses her magical powers controversially, but Jason accepts these actions as they are in his favor. She abandons her family and destroys her brother because of her great love of a foreigner, thereby placing herself in the vulnerable position of becoming an outsider in future events.

Medea is pictured about to murder her children in an 1862 painting by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix.

When they return to Iolcus, Pelias reneges on his agreement to restore the throne to Jason. Medea again displays her magic, restoring Jason's father Aeson to youth by cutting him up and placing him in a cauldron with magic herbs, from which he emerges rejuvenated. Persuaded by this demonstration, the daughters of Pelias want her to use the same magic with their father, but this time Medea omits the magic elixir, thereby killing Jason's rival. However, this still does not enable Jason to gain the throne, and they are driven away by Pelias's son into Corinth.

After Medea has two sons, Jason discards his family, and then makes a politically astute marriage to King Creon's daughter Creusa. Medea voices her grief, wishing she were dead, and hints at the murder of her sons. The characters in the play both fear and respect Medea for her unmasterable skills and ruthlessness, which appear all the more striking in a woman, although Jason attempts to diminish her achievements and calls her behavior sexual jealousy. When she confides her plan to the Chorus, they are appalled at the idea of her killing her own children, but she suggests this is the best way to wound Jason, even if she also wounds herself.

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