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Euripides, Medea 639*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ra'Anana Meridor
Ra'Anana Meridor
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

Modern interpretation tends to take E. Med. 639, ‘driving from the senses over a second bed’ (θυμ⋯ν ⋯κπλήξασ' ⋯τέροις ⋯π⋯ λέκτροις), found within the petition of the chorus that ‘dread Cypris never…inflict angry arguments and insatiate quarrels’ (637–40a), as referring to a second bed that might allure these women themselves rather than one that might allure their husbands. None the less, the latter interpretation seems to be recommended by both the contents and the context of the line; it is also consistent with Euripidean idiom. As to the context, v. 639 is found in the second stasimon. An examination of the attitude of the chorus toward Medea up to this point may guide us towards a fuller understanding of the phrase.

In her opening speech in the first episode (214ff.) Medea, who was betrayed by the husband for whom she left family and country (252ff.), persuades the already sympathetic chorus (136–8, 178f., 182) to side with her as underprivileged women in a world dominated by egocentric men (230ff.). In the first pair of strophes of the following stasimon (410–30) they accept Medea's division of human beings into ‘the female stock’ (419) and ‘the race of males’ (429) and sing of male perfidy and discrimination against women. They stress their own personal involvement by replacing ‘women’ with ‘I’ and ‘we’ in five of the seven references to the second sex (415 and 422 ‘my’, 423 and 430 ‘our’, 428 ‘I’).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 95 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 E.g. Méridier, L, Euripide Tome I, Coll. des Universités de France (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar, ‘enflammant mon coeur pour un lit étranger’; Page, D. L., Euripides, Medea (Oxford, 1938), n. on 637 sq., ‘making my heart aflame for a stranger's love’Google Scholar; Warner, R., Three Great Plays of Euripides (London, 1944), ‘urge my passion to a different love’Google Scholar; Vellacott, P., Euripides, Medea and Other Plays (Penguin Books, Baltimore, Maryland, 1963)Google Scholar, ‘craze my heart to leave old love for new’; Duclos, M. C., Euripide, Théâtre Complet 4 (Gernier-Flammarion, Paris, 1966)Google Scholar, ‘en frappant mon coeur d'amour pour un lit étranger’. This interpretation was already in circulation earlier, e.g. Coleridge, E. P., The Plays of Euripides (London, 1891)Google Scholar, ‘smiting my soul with mad desire for unlawful love’; Headlam, C. E. S., The Medea of Euripides (Cambridge, 1897), n. on 635Google Scholar, ‘madden my soul with longing for strange love’.

2 E.g. Buchanan, G., Euripidis Tragoediae duae, Medea et Alcestis (Edinburgh, 1722)Google Scholar, ‘mentem mihi ne saucient Ulla dolentem pellice’; Humbert, L., Théâtre d'Euripide I (Classiques Garnier, Paris, n.d.)Google Scholar, ‘Qu'excite le triomphe d'une rivale’; Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, U. v., Griechische Tragödien, 3. Band3 (Berlin, 1910)Google Scholar, ‘Aphrodite verbanne eifersüchtigen Streit um des Gatten ungeteilten Besitz. This interpretation was considered by Weil, H., Euripide, Médée (Paris, 1879 2), n. on 637–42Google Scholar, and rejected in favour of the one which prevails now.

3 Griffith, M., Aeschylus, Prometheus (Cambridge, 1983), 887–906nGoogle Scholar.

4 εἰ δ' ἅλθοι ἔλθοι / Κύπρις, οὺκ ἄλλα θε⋯ς εὔχαρις οὔτως. The chorus is emotionally involved; cf. also 635–6 in the sequel. This is a case where the original cupitive of the єἰ-clause is still felt (‘Der Opt. d. Nebensätze d. Kondizional…perioden…1ässt sich nicht selten als ursprüinglicher Kupitiv verstehen’, Schwyzer, E., Griechische Grammatik 2 (München, 1953–1960), ii.327)Google Scholar.

5 A. PV 887ff., the Oceanids' impassioned reaction to the fate of Io, also starts with a gnome; it takes up the whole first strophe of the triadic stasimon. In the other two stanzas the chorus apply this gnome to their own case (as our chorus do in the entreaties 632ff.). Those two stanzas comprise the wishes — what the Oceanids hope not to experience and what they would have instead, and why. Io serves as a negative paradigm to the eyewitness chorus (898–900, with εἰσορ⋯σ' in 899). Prometheus too is a negative example in the earlier, second, stasimon (540–1, with δερκομένα in 540), and Medea in our stasimon, in the second pair of strophes (652–4, with εἲδομєν in 652).

6 This division is not the conventional one; usually 635–6 is connected to the sequel, separating the antistrophe from the strophe. However, the thrice repeated pattern outlined above cannot be accidental. Each of the second members of the three pairs includes an adversative δέ (630b, 635, 640b). The μηδέ ποτ' which begins the third pair (637) obviously refers back to the μήποτ' which opens the second (632) and thus binds the antistrophe to the strophe. The enjambement may be influenced by A. PV 526ff. There three consecutive negative optatives of wish (μηδάμ' 526, μηδ' 529, μηδ' 533), evoked by the appalling fate of Prometheus, are followed by one positive optative of wish in the last v. of the strophe (535). This verse includes τόδε pointing forward to the beginning of the antistrophe (536–9) which contains the bulk of the positive part of the prayer; see Griffith, op. cit. (in n. 3) 535n. — There does not seem to be any similarly connected pair of strophes in extant Euripides; however, the only certain τε-connected pair of strophes in Euripides is also found in the Medea (Kranz, W., Stasimon, Berlin, 1933, 178Google Scholar). Euripides does have a few subordinate transitions from strophe to antistrophe (there are more connexions between antistrophe and epode, or refrain/mesode and strophe); see Su. 48 (participle), Tro. 809 (local clause), Hi. 131 (indirect speech). In each case the two formally connected strophes are the first pair in their stasimon and constitute a thematic unity distinct from the sequel, as in our pair of strophes.

7 εὺδοξίαν…⋯ρετάν, seem to be a hendiadys (good repute for excellence). The translation is adapted from that of P. Vellacott (n. 1 above).

8 For ἄνδρες meaning ‘human beings’ see e.g. 518 above, Hi. 396; in a comparable context see e.g. Hi. 358 ἔρωτα δ⋯ τ⋯ν τύραννον ⋯νδρ⋯ν and cf. Hi. 1280. The last two passages are found in choral songs, as is ours; ἄνθρωπος/ἄνθρωποι is very rarely used in Euripidean lyrics.

9 Σωɸροσύνη(reasonableness, soundmindedness), translated here as ‘moderation’, isidentified by Euripides with the mastery of passion (North, Helen, Sophrosyne, Cornell U. P., Ithaca, 1966, 68Google Scholar). Cf. the meaning of σώɸρων in 1369: Medea explains that she killed the children because Jason took a new wife. Jason retorts that a σώɸρων wife (= a reasonable wife, a wife in control of her passions) would not have reacted in this way; cf. also 913 (these two are the only instances of σώɸρων applied to ‘woman’ in this play). In our choral song, where σωɸροσύνη is opposed to overwhelming sexual attraction, its meaning seems to be either soundness of mind sufficient to resist or master such passion, or a natural tendency to non-violent emotional experience. Medea, who betrayed her country and murdered her brother to follow her love, has obviously been denied this fairest gift of the gods on either interpretation.

10 The translation is adapted from Page, op. cit. (in n. 1) n. on 640.

11 That the chorus could not hear v. 8, not yet being on stage at the time, is irrelevant. What counts is that the audience has heard it.

12 Euripides uses ⋯κπλήσσειν (and ἔκπληξις) frequently to signify the temporary loss of rational thinking (and behaviour) caused by overwhelming emotions or circumstances which bring about such emotions: sexual passion (here and Hi. 38f.), joy (Alc. 1125), fear (Ion 403, Tro. 183, Ba. 604, IA 1535), fond memories (Hel. 1397), noise of crowded assembly (Su. 160), chance (IA 351).

13 Hermione, jealous of her husband's war prize concubine, is said to have raged ⋯ηέρῳ λέχει, ‘against the other bed’.

14 Acording to Elliott, A., Euripides, Medea (Oxford, 1964), 85 comm. on 635–41Google Scholar, these verses ‘deal with the disturbances…in a marriage when one of the partners falls in love with someone else’. This interpretation seems too wide for this play generally and for this chorus and the situation preceding the ode in particular. For these women, the party who falls in love with another and thereby destroys the marriage and ruins his former partner can only be the husband.

15 This unity is not monolithic, and the poet's artistry is also evident from the effect achieved by splitting the first prayer at the end of the strophe so that its first and negative part (IIa) ends the strophe, while its second and positive part (IIb) begins the antistrophe and thus gains great emphasis, balancing the (negative) opening statement of the strophe (Ia). Also, in the strophes themselves this quasi-caesura between them inverts the movement of the series of alternate negatives (a) and positives (b), so that the metrically identical units are diametrically opposed to each other in contents (strophe: a–b–a; antistrophe: b–a–b).