It’s different though, for me and you （she’s still addressing the chorus）。 Because you are in your own city, your father and friends nearby. Me, I have no one. I was homeless before my husband scorned me. I was carried off as booty from my barbarian land. I don’t have a mother, a brother, no relative I can turn to. So I ask one thing of you: if I can figure out a way of punishing my husband in retaliation for the wrongs he has done to me, keep quiet. A woman is filled with fear, she is a coward when it comes to war. But mistreat her in the bedroom, and no one is more bloodthirsty.
Let’s analyse what Medea has just said. Having got the chorus onside at the beginning with her wish to obey their customs, not to be considered aloof or withdrawn, she now appeals to their collective experience. The dowry, to buy a husband. The uncertainty of what you’re getting. The disparity in their options: men can fool around outside the home, but women are stuck there waiting for their husband to come back. And if it doesn’t work out, divorce isn’t respectable for women （unlike men, who can get divorced without difficulty. Although they would have to return the dowry）。 Perhaps you’re wondering if you missed a version of Medea’s story in which she marries Jason, respectably, with a dowry and a ceremony: you have not. Medea is employing all her rhetorical skill to build connections between her situation and that of the Corinthian women she wants to maintain as allies. Medea’s dowry was the fleece she and Jason stole from her father, their wedding ceremony was Pelias being cooked in a pot. She is presenting herself as an ordinary wife, but she is far from that. Why would we imagine Medea is going to wait at home for her man to come back? She didn’t wait for a marriage proposal, she ran off with an adventurer. She is no one’s fool.
The line about preferring to stand in battle three times than give birth to a single child is a masterstroke. What better way to bond with the chorus than remind them of the most intense physical experience they have ever known? And Medea is spot on: giving birth in the ancient world was incredibly dangerous. Maternal and infant mortality were part of why life expectancy was so low on average （perhaps thirty-five years）。
And then she comes back to her initial point, about being a foreigner, far from home, to further elicit the sympathy of these women who have always lived among family and friends. It would take magic powers to know what to do, she says, carefully glossing over the fact that she does, in fact, have magic powers. We saw it in Pindar’s version of her, we have seen it in vase paintings that predate this play: Medea is a witch, or a sorceress. Her aunt is Circe, the most renowned witch in Greek myth, thanks to her starring role in the Odyssey. She presents herself as a war bride, kidnapped by Jason. But there is no version of Medea’s story where that is the case. She always falls in love with him （even if Aphrodite makes it happen）。
And then we come to a truly magnificent moment. It’s not so bad for you, with your fathers, your friends, your homes: I don’t have a mother, a brother, anyone to turn to. Well, that is assuredly true, as far as it goes. Medea does not have a father she can turn to, because she helped Jason steal the golden fleece from him and then sailed away. She doesn’t have a mother because she abandoned her home for the man she had fallen in love with. And she doesn’t have a brother, because she killed her little brother, Apsyrtos: dismembered him, and threw his body parts into the sea, in order to delay her father as he pursued them while they were making their escape. So while it is technically the case that Medea is brotherless, she really does only have herself to blame.
The speech works brilliantly on multiple levels: if we take her at her word （as the chorus do）， we have a thoughtful, elegiac plea for support from woman to women. It’s an interesting moment to remember that all these roles were being played by men in fifth-century BCE Athens. If we are more aware of Medea’s backstory, we are watching a masterclass in revisionism and rhetorical sleight of hand. Either way, she concludes with her goal achieved: she has begged the chorus for discretion and they make the promise she wants. Whatever she decides to do to pay Jason back, they will keep silent. There is no one watching this play who doesn’t believe Medea will do something catastrophic in her revenge.
And now Creon, the king of Corinth, arrives onstage and delivers the news which the nurse and tutor have kept quiet up to now. Medea is banished. Why? she asks. I’m afraid of you,25 he replies. You’re clever and you’ve been threatening revenge on Jason and his bride, and that’s my daughter. So I want you gone now, before you can do any harm. Otherwise I’ll regret it later. Medea now switches persona again. It’s effortless. She uses his name repeatedly, like a hostage negotiator trying to build a rapport with a kidnapper. She downplays her cleverness: it’s just a reputation. It’s dogged me all my life. I bear you and your daughter no grudge. Let me stay.