MEDEA, The, a play of jealousy and re venge, in which the interest is sustained from the beginning to the very end, and is artistically almost without a flaw, was brought out by Euripides in 431 B c. Few tragedies of ancient or modern times are more dramatic. None ex hibit the working of a fiercer and more•intense passion. With the it forms the double summit of the poet's works, and prob ably no Greek tragedy has been more famous in the modern world. The great enchantress. who fell in love with Jason when he came to Colchis in quest of the Golden Fleece, escapes with Jason to Greece, and lives happily with L him for many years. ater Jason and his bar barian princess are obliged to flee to Corinth. In this city the scene of our play is laid. The old nurse speaks the prologue: Jason has de serted his wife for the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. Dishonored, forsaken, the hapless woman sits brooding. The pmdagogus enters and reports a conversation he has just over heard: Creon proposes to banish Medea. Medea is heard bemoaning her fate: oh, that she had never listened to the smoothing words of the deceitful Greek. Embittered, she im precates curses on Jason and her children and prays that the whole house may be blasted to naught. Then she comes out and explains her position to the Corinthian women, who form the chorus. Creon enters and orders Medea to get her gone. She dissembles: the king is mistaken in believing that she is dangerous she is simply hot with hate against Jason. °Let me remain — I shall yield to the stronger hand and hold my peace.° The king reluctantly consents for her to remain one day. A great change comes over the woman scorned after Creon's departure: °I would not have groveled so before him except to get revenge. I shall bide my time, find first a safe refuge, then compass their destruction in secrecy by craft Till then, my soul, sit still. By the Queen of Night that habits my hearth's dark shrine, no one shall ever vex my soul with impunity.° The chorus sing: °the old order is up turned; piety and fear, religion, justice, truth, loyalty all decline to their contraries, and naught hut confusion lives.° Jason appears and upbraids his wife for her froward spirit; she may rail at him, but not against the king. He had tried to appease the incensed ruler, but she persisted in her folly. But he will not desert her even in this dire extremity. most per nicious and perfidious man! You front me. you, the most hateful, insolent wretch on earth? But I am glad you came, for I shall tell you what you are, that you may chafe and wince.— I saved you, slaying the dragon and delivering you from death. I abandoned my home and followedyou. Yet now you forsake me, the mother of your children. A loyal spouse I have in you! I, a poor torn woman, with her two babes, a fine reproach for our newly wedded princely Jason feels that he must be a skilful pilot to run before the wind of her loud words; but he declares that she received more than she gave, for she lives in a good Greek land, where law and justice reign —she is no longer an obscure barbarian. He had her welfare at heart when he contracted the new alliance. Women are so unreasoning that they know not where their fortunes lie. Jason withdraws and the chorus sing a song on the power of love. King iEgeus of Athens enters. He promises to protect Medea, if she comes to his city seeking refuge. Then she sends for Jason and asks his forgiveness for the rash words spoken in angry mood: "Ho, children, come forth and welcome your father with me.Y But the thought of their impending death, when she beholds her babes, is too much even for Medea's iron courage. The tears force themselves to her pitying eyes. In explanation of her weakness she tells Jason that she is a woman, naturally born to tears, prone to weep, subject to fears: her heart melted at the thought of reconciliation. Jason has naught but praise for her altered mood; may his chil dren grow to manhood triumphant o'er his foes. Medea weeps. Jason asks her why she turns her face away and hears not with joy his beni sons. a'Tis nothing—I bare them, bred them, loved them, and when you prayed that they might live, I wondered whether this would come to pass." She begs Jason to intercede for her children and allow them to remain in Corinth—she will send his bride royal gifts. The children carry the presents in a casket to the palace. The chorus sing an ode and the pmdagogus enters to inform Medea that the children may remain. "Be of good comfort, thy children will yet bring thee back borne.° "Nay, I shall first send others home. Alas! 0 children, you have a home, hut I go to another land, just when I begin to feel that I am blest in you. Out upon my daring! 'Twas all for naught I toiled for you, my children. Ah, the fond hopes that your dear hands would minister to my wants and when I die put the shroud around me. Oh, why do you look at me thus? My, heart is unequal to the task. My babes' bright morning faces unnerve my arm. I
cannot do it. I will take my children with me. Why, to wring their father's heart, give my own a double pain? But am I to be mocked? Shall I let my foes go unpunished? I must do it. Out upon my cowardice! Go in, chil dren. Nay, my heart, let them live; spare the tender babes, my unblown flowers, my life, my joy, my all the world. No, by the avenging deities, I will not give up my children to my foes. But I must see them before I go. 0 my darlings! 0 sweet mouth and form and face, sweet kiss, sweet embrace! 0 balmy breath and tender touch of your delicate cheeks! Go in, go in. I can look no longer, I faint•) The chorus sing an ode on the comparative benefits of having children and having no children. A messenger enters: "when your children entered the palace we were all glad. The rumor spread that you were reconciled.° One kissed the hands of the children, the other their flaxen hair. The princess sat with fond look on Jason; hut when she espied the pair, she pulled down her veil and turned away in scorn. Jason entreated her to allay her wrath: "Accept these gifts and ask your father to remit the doom of exile, for my sake.* And when she saw the splendid gifts, she granted her lord's desire. Then she took up the robe — after they had gone — and tried it on. The golden crown she placed upon her head and arranged her hair before a mirror. Then she rose and walked about the room, stepping lightly with delicate foot and glancing oft toward the lowest folds around her ankle. Suddenly a ghastly spectacle presented itself. A pallor spread o'er her face. Back she tot tered all a-tremble, and barely reached her couch before she fell, frothing foam around her lips, her eyeballs rolling wildly. One serv ant darted to her father's chamber, another flew to call the bridegroom. The hapless girl lay full a minute speechless. Then she roused and gave forth a scream, for a double agony had charged upon her: from the inclusive verge of golden metal around her brow a marvelous stream of fire shot forth, while the robes began to eat her delicate flesh. Up she started and sped across the room, a pillar of fire, shaking hair and head in vain endeavor to cast off the crown. But firm it held. Whene'er she shook her locks the flames started up twice as high and fierce. O'erwhelmed she sank upon the floor, past recognition save to a parent's eye: the clear calm look was gone, the comely fea tures marred, drops of intermingling fire and blood dripped from her head, while gobbets and flakes of flesh dropped from her bones, like tears of resin from the pine, as those unseen jaws of the poisonous drug fed on her form. All feared to touch the corpse. Suddenly her father entered. He knelt and clasped her in his arms: "Oh, my poor child, what god brought thee to this cruel At last he stayed his tears and tried to raise his old bent form, but the robes did cling to him as the ivy to the laurel. He writhed upon his knees and tried to wrench himself away, but only pulled the flesh from off his bones. At last the ill starred sire gave up the ghost. Now their corpses lie side by side, a spectacle to draw tears of pity from the eye. Medea informs the chorus that she must slay her children and hasten away: "Now, my heart, put on thy armor for the deed. Shrink not. Think not on the happy days axone. For this one brief day forget thy children—e'en if thou dost slay them, they are most dear, and I the most unhappy woman in the Medea enters the house and soon the screams of the children are heard within. Jason enters and asks for Medea; he feels anxious for his children —the king's relatives may do them hurt. "Wretched man, your chil dren are dead, slain by their mother's hand.° Jason is overwhelmed. He orders the gates to he unbarred. Medea appears aloft in a chariot. Jason asks for the bodies; hut she refuses to give them up: she will take them and bury them herself, that her foes may not demolish the grave. She intends to go to the land of Erechtheus to live with 1Egeus. She prophe sies that Jason will die most miserably, struck on the head by a piece of fallen timber from the Argo. She soars away, and Jason calls on Zeus to witness the treatment he has received at the hands of the tigress. Thus the play, in which we see the perfection of Euripides' art, ends. The fury of her vengeance is as the love of Phaedra in the 'Hippolytus' ; but instead of overwhelming her soul, it excites to action, arms it against the deepest instincts of mother love and makes it triumph over everything in a kind of grandiose and savage egoism. The more impetuous the fury, the more pathetic the struggle of feminine instincts. In no other play is there anything more characteristically Euripidean than Medea's celebrated mono logue. Next to the human passions it is the natural affections, the tenderness of parents for their children, the love of brothers and sisters, of husband and wife, that Euripides portrays best.