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"There is a maiden,
nurtured in the halls of
Aeetes, whom the goddess
Hecate taught to handle magic herbs with
exceeding skill ..." [Argus 4 to the
ARGONAUTS. Apollonius
Rhodius,
Argonautica
3.528]
"... nothing shall come
between our love till the doom of death fold us
round." [Jason to
Medea. Apollonius Rhodius,
Argonautica
3.1128]
Jason: O children, what a wicked mother
Fate gave you.
Medea: O sons, your
father's treachery cost you your lives.
Jason: It was not my hand that killed my
sons.
Medea: No, not your
hand; but your insult to me, and your new-wedded
wife.
Jason: You thought that reason enough to
murder them, that I no longer slept with you?
Medea: And is that
injury a slight one, do you imagine, to a
woman?
[Euripides,
Medea
1363]
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Medea, the curse of
Pelias 1, is the
princess, priestess, and witch, whom
Jason brought to Hellas on
his return from Colchis.
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Background
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Medea has been called daughter of
Hecate; for she served
this goddess as her priestess, but otherwise her
mother is said to be Idyia, one of the
OCEANIDS.
Her father Aeetes, who
had been king of Ephyraea
(Corinth) before he
emigrated to Colchis, was brother of Pasiphae, the
wife of King Minos 2 of
Crete, and of the witch
Circe. And while the
latter lived in the island of Aeaea in the
Mediterranean, Aeetes
ruled in the city of Aea in Colchis.
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Medea meets her destiny
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The young princess met her destiny when the
ARGONAUTS, searching
for the Golden Fleece, came to Aea; for then she
fell in love with their captain,
Jason.
Now Jason had his own
plan, which was to obtain the Golden Fleece; but,
as a matter of fact, the gods had their own, and
this was to let him bring Medea to Hellas so that
she would become the curse of King
Pelias 1 of Iolcus, the
same man who sent Jason in
his quest. For this king had outraged
Hera by killing a woman who
had sought refuge at the goddess' altar.
This is why Medea, on seeing
Jason, was pierced by
Love; and he in turn was
tempted by the invaluable help that the princess,
putting her magic powers and her courage at his
service, was willing to provide. And in exchange
for them, he promised
Medea to take her to
Hellas and there marry her and never dishonour her
for want of kinsmen.
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Medea helps her lover
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From then on there was nothing that she would
not do for the sake of the handsome stranger, so
that he, escaping all dangers and performing great
deeds, would become mighty and famous. Therefore,
she betrayed her country and her father, helping
Jason to cope with the
brazen-footed bulls and the sown men, and leading
him to the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by a
sleepless dragon, whom she lulled to sleep by art
and drugs.
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Apsyrtus
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And when they left Colchis pursued by the fleet
of Aeetes, she murdered
her own brother Apsyrtus, and having cut him limb
from limb, cast the pieces into the sea, so that
Aeetes, gathering
Apsyrtus' limbs, would fall behind in the pursuit.
And if she did not perform this terrible deed, as
others say, she nevertheless helped her lover to
get rid of Apsyrtus, sending him to the next world
in one way or another. For there are those who say
that it was Jason who cut
him into pieces, or even that Apsyrtus was, with
Medea's help, treacherously killed by
Jason on an island in the
mouth of the river Ister (the Danube).
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Talos 1
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And when they came to
Crete, she destroyed the
warder of the island, Talos
1, an invulnerable man of bronze, by drawing
out a nail, so that all the ichor [divine blood]
gushed out and he died. Others say that she first
drove him mad with the aid of drugs, or else that
she promised him to make him immortal. Yet others
assert that
Philoctetes' father
Poeas shot him dead in the ankle.
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Marriage
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The Colchians came after the
ARGONAUTS and, among
them, also King Styrus of Albania, who at the time
had come to Colchis to marry Medea. He drowned
during the pursuit, but the rest caught them up
when they came to
Phaeacia (Corcyra),
where King Alcinous received the fugitives and
protected them. When the Colchians demanded of
Alcinous to give her up, he answered that if she
already knew Jason, he
would give her to him, but that if she were still a
maid he would send her away to her father. It was
then that his wife, Queen Arete, anticipating
matters, married Medea to
Jason in the cave of
Macris, causing the Colchians to give up their
pursuit.
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Death of Pelias 1
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On their retur to Hellas, Medea went to the
palace of Pelias 1 and
persuaded his daughters to make mincemeat of their
father and boil him, promising to make him young
again by her drugs. The naive daughters of
Pelias 1 did as the
witch instructed, but since then no one heard
anything about Pelias 1,
whose daughters, some say, emigrated to
Arcadia. One of them,
Alcestis, was later
married to Admetus 1, king of Pherae in Thessaly.
On Pelias 1's death,
his son Acastus, who succeeded his father as king
of Iolcus, expelled both
Jason and Medea from the
city.
Some say that Medea was indeed able to restore
youth, and that she gave Aeson,
Jason's father, his youth
back. But what he did with his regained youth is
unknown.
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Jason changes his mind
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Having been expelled from Iolcus,
Jason and Medea settled in
Corinth, where they are
said to have lived happily for ten years. But then
Jason, having grown weary
of being married to a foreign sorceress, felt ready
for a younger and more representative wife.
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New marriage leads to tragedy
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He found her in Glauce 4, daughter of King Creon
3 of Corinth. But this
sort of humilitation and betrayal was more than
Medea could bear, and consequently she prevented
the new marriage by causing the death of both
princess and king in one of the following ways:
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Death of Jason's bride
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Pretending that she had accepted her husband's
decision, Medea sent to Glauce 4, as a wedding
present, a bridal robe steeped in poison, and when
the girl put it on, she caught fire. Creon 3 then,
tried to rescued his daughter, but died in the
attempt.
Others say that the king fell upon her
daughter's corpse and could not separate from her,
as his flesh was torn from his bones when he tried
to rise. And still others say that Glauce 4 died
when she threw herself into a well in the belief
that its water would be a remedy against Medea's
poison.
It has also been told that when Medea saw that
she, who had been Jason's
benefactress, was treated with scorn, with the help
of poisonous drugs, made a golden crown, and bade
her sons give it as a gift to their stepmother,
who, having taken the gift, was burned to death
along with Jason and Creon
3.
Apparently, the whole palace was on fire, when
these events took place.
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Death of Jason and his
children
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But concerning the death of
Jason it is also told that
Medea foretold that the wreckage of the Argo would
fall upon Jason and kill
him. And others say that Jason killed himself,
being unable to endure the loss of both wife and
children.
For on leaving
Corinth after the murder
of Creon 3 and Glauce 4, Medea also killed her sons
with Jason, Mermerus 1 and
Pheres 2, being very well remembered for this
horrible murder too. But others have said that her
children were stoned to death by the Corinthians,
having been removed from the sancturay of
Hera, where Medea, on her
flight, had left them for their protection.
Still others have said that
Jason and Medea had a son
and a daughter and that these were Medeus and
Eriopis 2.
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Medea about to kill her
children
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Almost nothing of what has been told before is
true
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The relation of Medea to
Corinth is sometimes
described in a completely different way:
Aeetes is said to have
been king in the region of
Corinth, and to have
left the kingdom to Bunus when he departed to
Colchis. When Bunus died, Epopeus 1 extended his
own kingdom to include
Corinth, and one of his
successors, Corinthus (after whom the land is
named), became king. Upon the death of Corinthus,
they say, the Corinthians sent for Medea. It is
through her, they assert, that
Jason was king in
Corinth (for they do not
mention Creon 3).
The reason of their dispute, they say, was that
Medea carried her children to the sanctuary of
Hera, where she concealed
them, believing this was the proper method to make
them immortal. She realized that this procedure did
not work by the time Jason
detected her, and he, unable to forgive these
manipulations, sailed away to Iolcus. For these
reasons Medea too departed, and handed over the
kingdom to Sisyphus.
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Medea in Athens and
return to Colchis
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Aegeus 1 weds Medea
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In any case, Medea left
Corinth and came to
Athens, as some say,
borne by a chariot with winged dragons, the
offspring of the TITANS's
blood, yoked to it. In this city, she was received
by King Aegeus 1, who
protected her well, since in vain Hippotes 3, son
of the Corinthian king, claimed from the Athenians
the person of Medea on account of her murdering his
father. Aegeus 1 married
Medea and had a child by her, himself ignoring that
he already was the father of another child.
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Poison again
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Medea lived peacefully in
Athens until the arrival
of Theseus, against whom
she plotted, fearing, with good reasons, that the
newcomer, instead of her own son by
Aegeus 1, would inherit
the throne. As the king ignored that Theseus was
his son, conceived years ago when he visited
Troezen, Medea could, at
first, persuade her husband that this was a
dangerous young man. Aegeus
1 tried then to get rid of the stranger by
sending him against the Marathonian bull, which
Theseus, however, either
mastered or killed. In face of this failure, Medea
induced Aegeus 1 to
poison his son, but just before drinking,
Theseus happened to show
his sword to Aegeus 1,
and the latter, recognizing the weapon he had once
left in Troezen,
prevented him from drinking by dashing the cup from
his hand.
This is how father and son knew who they were,
and this was also the end of Medea's sojourn in
Hellas.
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In her way back to Colchis
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Some say that she returned to Colchis, and on
her way she came to Absoros where her brother
Apsyrtus was buried, and that the people of Absoros
could not cope with the large amount of serpents
that were all around the place. So Medea gathered
them up and put them in her brother's tomb, where
they still remain.
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Death seems to follow her wherever she goes
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On her return to Colchis, Medea found that King
Aeetes had been deposed
by his brother Perses 3. To solve this
inconvenience, she killed her uncle and restored
the kingdom to her father.
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Intrigue in Caucasus
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But some say that when her son Medus came to
Colchis, he was put under arrest by Perses 3, who
had been warned by an oracle no to trust the
descendants of Aeetes.
Realizing he was in his enemy's hands, and in order
to save his life, Medus said he was Hippotes 3, the
son of the Corinthian king Medea had murdered. So
when Medea came back, pretending she was a
priestess of Artemis,
she bade Perses 3 to deliver this Hippotes 3, whom
she thought had come to avenge his father, into her
hands so that she could kill her, but when he was
delivered and she discovered who this young man
really was, she gave him a sword and Medus killed
Perses 3.
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Famous names derived from these persons
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It is said that the country Media was called
after Medea's son Medus, who is also called Medeus
and considered to be the founder of Meda in
Ecbatana. They say that he died during a military
campaign against the Indians; but the death of
Medea has never been reported. Some affirm,
however, that when she left
Athens she came to the
land called Aria, and that she persuaded its
inhabitants to be named after her Medes.
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