Medea

The following pathfinder will provide you with a guide to Medea. It includes Library resources, relevant databases and good sites on the web where you can commence your research.
 * ** Medea - Pathfinder Yr 11 English ** ||

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Dewey Numbers
These are some of the Dewey Numbers where you will be able to locate information on this subject area. 882.01   792.0938

Subject Headings
You can also do a **Keyword** or **Subject** search in the Library catalogue using some of the following headings. Medea Euripides Greek Drama Greek Theatre

Videos and DVDs
The following videos and DVDs are only some of audio-visual resources in the Library collections. These cannot be borrowed but you may arrange to view them in the library ** Medea ** DVD 882.01 MED This production of Euripides is by Classic Productions and the University of Otago. ** Medea ** VT 882.01 MED Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini Cast: Maria Callas, Guiseppe Gentile, Laurent Terzieff Motion picture adaptation of the Euripidean tragedy, which draws on the majesty of ritual theatre and provides an exploration of bizarre and Marxist interpretations of Freudian themes

Online Encylopaedias
** Wikipedia  **  1. [|**Medea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia**] **Medea** (Greek: Μήδεια, Mēdeia) is a woman in Greek mythology who was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun Helios, **...**

[|**Medea (play) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia**] **Medea** (Greek: Μήδεια / Mēdeia) is a tragedy play written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and **Medea** and first produced in 431 BC. **...**

Recommended Websites
** These are only some of the sites that you may find useful to your studies in this area. **  1. [|**Video results for Medea**] || || ||                       ||  [|**MEDEA (1983) Zoe Caldwell**] 9 min www.youtube.com    || ||  || || ||         4 min 33 sec www.youtube.com    || ||  ||  1. [|**__Medea__**] The **Medea** tells the story of the jealousy and revenge of a woman **...** Jason arrives and reproaches **Medea** with having provoked her sentence by her own violent **...** www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates018.html  1. [|**SparkNotes: Medea**] Message Boards Ask a question or start a discussion on the community boards. **Medea** · Classical Literature · Mythology **...** www.sparknotes.com/lit/**medea**/  1. [|**The Internet Classics Archive | Medea by Euripides**] By Euripides. Commentary: Quite a few comments have been posted about **Medea**. **...** While **Medea**, his hapless wife, thus scorned, appeals to the oaths he swore, **...**
 * [|**Callas Powerful Medea**]

|| OLMC IRC Pathfinder MJO/GMO 2/11 || Following this pathfinder are transcripts of some of the weblinks mentioned "I am the mother of your children. Whither can I fly, since all Greece hates the barbarian?" ||  || "It is not you," answers Jason, "who once saved me, but love, and you have had from me more than you gave. I have brought you from a barbarous land to Greece, and in Greece you are esteemed for your wisdom. And without fame of what avail is treasure or even the gifts of the Muses? Moreover, it is not for love that I have promised to marry the princess, but to win wealth and power for myself and for my sons. Neither do I wish to send you away in need; take as ample a provision as you like, and I will recommend you to the care of my friends." She refuses with scorn his base gifts, "Marry the maid if thou wilt; perchance full soon thou mayst rue thy nuptials." Meantime, Aegeus, the ruler of Athens, arrives at Corinth from Delphi, Medea laments her fate to him and asks his aid; he swears that in Athens she shall find refuge. Now, reassured, she turns to vengeance. She has Jason summoned, and when he comes she begs for his forgiveness. "Forgive what I said in anger! I will yield to the decree, and only beg one favor, that my children may stay. They shall take to the princess a costly robe and a golden crown, and pray for her protection." The prayer is granted and the gifts accepted. But soon a messenger appears, announcing the result: "Alas! The bride had died in horrible agony; for no sooner had she put on Medea's gifts than a devouring poison consumed her limbs as with fire, and in his endeavor to save his daughter the old father died too." Nor is her vengeance by any means complete. She leads her two children to the house, and that no other may slay them in revenge, murders them herself. Very effective is this scene in which, after a soliloquy of agonizing doubt and hesitation, she resolves on this awful deed: In vain, my children, have I brought you up, Borne all the cares and pangs of motherhood, And the sharp pains of childbirth undergone. In you, alas, was treasured many a hope Of loving sustentation in my age, Of tender laying out when I was dead, Such as all men might envy. Those sweet thoughts are mine no more, for now bereft of you I must wear out a drear and joyless life, And you will nevermore your mother see, Nor live as ye have done beneath her eye. Alas, my sons, why do you gaze on me, Why smile upon your mother that last smile? Ah me! What shall I do? My purpose melts Beneath the bright looks of my little ones. I cannot do it. Farewell, my resolve, I will bear off my children from this land. Why should I seek to wring their father's heart, When that same act will doubly wring my own? I will not do it. Farewell, my resolve. What has come o'er me? Shall I let my foes Triumph, that I may let my friends go free? I'll brace me to the deed. Base that I was To let a thought of wickedness cross my soul. Children, go home. Whoso accounts it wrong To be attendant at my sacrifice, Let him stand off; my purpose is unchanged. Forego my resolutions, O my soul, Force not the parent's hand to slay the child. Their presence where we will go will gladden thee. By the avengers that in Hades reign, It never shall be said that I have left My children for my foes to trample on. It is decreed. Jason, who has come to punish the murderess of his bride, hears that his children have perished too, and Medea herself appears to him in the chariot of the sun, bestowed by Helios, the sun-god, upon his descendants. She revels in the anguish of her faithless husband. "I do not leave my children's bodies with thee; I take them with me that I may bury them in Hera's precinct. And for thee, who didst me all that evil, I prophesy an evil doom." She flies to Aegeus at Athens, and the tragedy closes with the chorus: Manifold are thy shapings, Providence! Many a hopeless matter gods arrange. What we expected never came to pass, What we did not expect the gods brought to bear; So have things gone, this whole experience through!"   This drama is a masterly presentment of passion in its secret folds and recesses. The suffering and sensitiveness of injured love are strongly drawn, and with the utmost nicety of observation, passing from one stage to another, until they culminate in the awful deed of vengeance. The mighty enchantress who is yet a weak woman is powerfully delineated. The touches of motherly tenderness are in the highest degree pathetic. The strife of emotions which passion engenders is admirably shown; and amid all the stress of their conflict, and amid all this sophistical and illusive commonplaces which work upon the soul, hate and vengeance win the day. Medea is criminal, but not without cause, and not without strength and dignity. Such an inner world of emotion is alien from the genius of the religious and soldier-like [|**Aeschylus**] ; [|**Sophocles**] creates characters to act on one another, and endows them with qualities accordingly; [|**Euripides**] opens a new world to art and gives us a nearer view of passionate emotion, both in its purest forms and in the wildest aberrations by which men are controlled, or troubled, or destroyed.
 * || The //Medea// tells the story of the jealousy and revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband. She has left home and father for Jason's sake, and he, after she has borne him children, forsakes her, and betroths himself to Glauce, the daughter of Creon, ruler of Corinth. Creon orders her into banishment that her jealousy may not lead her to do her child some injury. In vain she begs not to be cast forth, and finally asks for but one day's delay. This Creon grants, to the undoing of him and his. Jason arrives and reproaches Medea with having provoked her sentence by her own violent temper. Had she had the sense to submit to sovereign power she would never have been thrust away by him. In reply she reminds her husband of what she had once done for him; how for him she had betrayed her father and her people; for his sake had caused Pelias, whom he feared, to be killed by his own daughters.