Creon has the measure of her: you speak gently,26 but you could be planning something terrible. A quick-tempered woman （and the same goes for a man） is easier to guard against than a quiet, clever one. It is agonizing to watch: Creon is completely right, and yet still he underestimates Medea, fails to realize just what she is capable of doing in her single-minded pursuit of vengeance. She is calm, polite, humble, and she makes him believe that he has the better of her. She could not be playing on the weakness of a less-clever, arrogant man any better. He leaves the stage convinced he has upheld his intentions: Medea is still banished. She has, however, persuaded him to give her one day, just to sort things out before she leaves. His final words are chilling: fine, stay for one more day. It’s not like you can do the kind of awful things I fear in that time.27 Should you be in any doubt: she definitely can.
The moment Creon is out of earshot, Medea drops the humility and the subservience. She spits her contempt for him and his idiocy. Do you think I would ever have fawned over him if it hadn’t been to my advantage? she asks. Having won over the chorus earlier, she can now treat them as her co-conspirators. Medea has a plan and it is to use the day’s grace she has wheedled out of Creon to cause the death of three of her enemies:28 the father, the daughter and her husband. Her mind is racing with potential plans: fire, stabbing, poison. She wants to be sure she can carry out her plan before she is caught. Poison is the best bet, she concludes.
There is no ethical concern as she makes this decision, it is all about practicalities. Which way can she most successfully carry out her revenge? The idea that this revenge might not be proportionate to Jason’s behaviour is nowhere to be found. Medea has already moved on, anyway: where can she go after she has killed the entire royal family of Corinth? If she can find an exit strategy, she will go ahead with the poisoning. If not, she’ll just attack Jason and Glauce with a sword and, if she is killed in the immediate aftermath, well, so be it. And then she swears by Hecate that no one will hurt her and be glad of it.
This is central to Euripides’ Medea. No matter how many personae she puts on and takes off as she addresses different characters in this play, it remains intact. If you hurt her, she will make you regret it. Her revenge will exceed your original wrong and no one will ever be able to say of her that she let her enemies get away with something. It is no exaggeration to say that this prospect pains her more than anything else. She reminds herself that she is the daughter of a king, the granddaughter of Helios, the sun god. No one gets away with laughing at her.
The chorus sympathize with her about the dishonesty of men and her isolated status as a foreigner. And then Jason walks on. He is gratifyingly ghastly, all pompous opinions billed as common sense, mixed with a total lack of personal responsibility. You see what happens when you get angry, he says. You could have stayed in Corinth if you’d just kept quiet and not made such a fuss. But you had to sound your mouth off, and now you’re banished. Still, I won’t renounce my loved ones: you and the children won’t leave here poor.
It takes a certain sort of person to say this to the mother of his children, after he has decided to marry someone else. Medea hurls abuse at him – pankakiste29 – ‘worst of men!’ Euripides writes these agones – ‘debates’ – better than anyone. And this one is particularly good: even as the couple take pot-shots at one another, we can sense the sexual attraction between them. Medea lists everything she has done for Jason: saved your life from the fire-breathing bulls, killed the snake that guarded the golden fleece, deceived my father and left my home, persuaded Pelias’ daughters to kill him. And now you’re throwing me over for a new wife, even though we have sons. If I was childless, she says, I might understand it: men want heirs. What of the vows you made? The gods know you are guilty of perjury. You say you’re still a friend to us, so where do you suggest I go? Back to my father’s house? Back to Iolcus and Pelias’ daughters? The help I gave you cost me my home.
Jason’s reply is smooth, completely unapologetic. You’re keen to talk about how you helped me, he says. But that was all Aphrodite’s doing. She made you fall in love with me. Besides, you haven’t done badly out of it. You left a barbarian land and made your home in Hellas （Greece）。30 You’re famous here. So yes, you assisted me, but that’s what you got out of it. As for my new marriage, it’s not about lust. We came here as exiles from Iolcus. So marrying the king’s daughter is a really lucky break. It’s not because I was bored of you, or wanted someone new. I didn’t want more children. I wanted us not to be poor, I wanted my sons to grow up well, I thought this was a good idea, and I thought you’d agree. If you weren’t obsessed with sex, you would agree.