The Medea, in spite of its background of wonder and enchantment, isnot a romantic play but a tragedy of character and situation. It deals,so to speak, not with the romance itself, but with the end of theromance, a thing which is so terribly often the reverse of romantic. Forall but the very highest of romances are apt to have just one flawsomewhere, and in the story of Jason and Medea the flaw was of a fatalkind.The wildness and beauty of the Argo legend run through all Greekliterature, from the mass of Corinthian lays older than our presentIliad, which later writers vaguely associate with the name of Eumêlus,to the Fourth Pythian Ode of Pindar and the beautiful Argonautica ofApollonius Rhodius. Our poet knows the wildness and the beauty; but itis not these qualities that he specially seeks. He takes them almost forgranted, and pierces through them to the sheer tragedy that lies below.Jason, son of Aeson, King of Iôlcos, in Thessaly, began his life inexile. His uncle Pelias had seized his father’s kingdom, and Jason wasborne away to the mountains by night and given, wrapped in a purplerobe, to Chiron, the Centaur. When he reached manhood he came down toIôlcos to demand, as Pindar tells us, his ancestral honour, and stood inthe market-place, a world-famous figure, one-sandalled, with hispard-skin, his two spears and his long hair, gentle and wild andfearless, as the Wise Beast had reared him. Pelias, cowed but loath toyield, promised to give up the kingdom if Jason would make his way tothe unknown land of Colchis and perform a double quest. First, if I readPindar aright, he must fetch back the soul of his kinsman Phrixus, whohad died there far from home; and, secondly, find the fleece of theGolden Ram which Phrixus had sacrificed. Jason undertook the quest:gathered the most daring heroes from all parts of Hellas; built thefirst ship, Argo, and set to sea. After all manner of desperateadventures he reached the land of Aiêtês, king of the Colchians, andthere hope failed him. By policy, by tact, by sheer courage he did allthat man could do. But Aiêtês was both hostile and treacherous. TheArgonauts were surrounded, and their destruction seemed only a questionof days when, suddenly, unasked, and by the mercy of Heaven, Aiêtês’daughter, Mêdêa, an enchantress as well as a princess, fell in love withJason. She helped him through all his trials; slew for him her ownsleepless serpent, who guarded the fleece; deceived her father, andsecured both the fleece and the soul of Phrixus. At the last moment itappeared that her brother, Absyrtus, was about to lay an ambush forJason. She invited Absyrtus to her room, stabbed him dead, and fled withJason over the seas. She had given up all, and expected in return aperfect love.And what of Jason? He could not possibly avoid taking Medea with him. Heprobably rather loved her. She formed at the least a brilliant additionto the glory of his enterprise. Not many heroes could produce abarbarian princess ready to leave all and follow them in blind trust.For of course, as every one knew without the telling in fifth-centuryAthens, no legal marriage was possible between a Greek and a barbarianfrom Colchis.All through the voyage home, a world-wide baffled voyage by the Isterand the Eridanus and the African Syrtes, Medea was still in her element,and proved a constant help and counsellor to the Argonauts. When theyreached Jason’s home, where Pelias was still king, things began to bedifferent. An ordered and law-abiding Greek state was scarcely the placefor the untamed Colchian. We only know the catastrophe. She saw withsmothered rage how Pelias hated Jason and was bent on keeping thekingdom from him, and she determined to do her lover another act ofsplendid service. Making the most of her fame as an enchantress, shepersuaded Pelias that he could, by a certain process, regain his youth.He eagerly caught at the hope. His daughters tried the process upon him,and Pelias died in agony. Surely Jason would be grateful now!The real result was what it was sure to be in a civilised country. Medeaand her lover had to fly for their lives, and Jason was debarred forever from succeeding to the throne of Iôlcos. Probably there was anotherresult also in Jason’s mind: the conclusion that at all costs he mustsomehow separate himself from this wild beast of a woman who was ruininghis life. He directed their flight to Corinth, governed at the time by aruler of some sort, whether tyrant or king, who was growing old andhad an only daughter.
