Medea Plot

Medea is centered on a wife's calculated desire for revenge against her unfaithful husband. The play
is set in Corinth some time after Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, where he met Medea. The
play begins with Medea in a blind rage towards Jason for arranging to marry Glauce, the daughter of
king Creon. The nurse, overhearing Medea's grief, fears what she might do to herself or her children.
Creon, in anticipation of Medea's wrath, arrives and reveals his plans to send her into exile. Medea
pleads for one day's delay and eventually Creon acquiesces. In the next scene Jason arrives to
explain his rationale for his apparent betrayal. He explains that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to
marry a royal princess, as Medea is only a barbarian woman, but hopes to someday join the two
families and keep Medea as his mistress. Medea, and the chorus of Corinthian women, do not
believe him. She reminds him that she left her own people for him ("I rescued you [...] I betrayed
both my father and my house [...] now where should I go?")[13], and that she saved him and slew the
dragon. Jason promises to support her after his new marriage ("If you wish me to give you or the
children extra money for your trip into exile, tell me; I'm ready to give it with a lavish hand"[14], but
Medea spurns him: "Go on, play the bridegroom! Perhaps [...] you've made a match you'll one day
have cause to lament."[15]
In the following scene Medea encounters Aegeus, king of Athens. He reveals to her that despite his
marriage he is still without children. He visited the oracle who merely told him that he was instructed
“not to unstop the wineskin’s neck.” Medea relays her current situation to him and begs for Aegeus
to let her stay in Athens if she gives him drugs to end his infertility. Aegeus, unaware of Medea's
plans for revenge, agrees.
Medea then returns to plotting the murders of Glauce and Creon. She decides to poison some
golden robes (a family heirloom and gift from the sun god Helios) and a coronet, in hopes that the
bride will not be able to resist wearing them, and consequently be poisoned. Medea resolves to kill
her own children as well, not because the children have done anything wrong, but because she feels
it is the best way to hurt Jason. She calls for Jason once more and, in an elaborate ruse, apologizes
to him for overreacting to his decision to marry Glauce. When Jason appears fully convinced that
she regrets her actions, Medea begins to cry in mourning of her exile. She convinces Jason to allow
her to give the robes to Glauce in hopes that Glauce might get Creon to lift the exile. Eventually
Jason agrees and allows their children to deliver the poisoned robes as the gift-bearers.
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.
Medea kills her son, Campanianred-figure amphora, c. 330 BC, Louvre (K 300).

In the next scene a messenger recounts Glauce and Creon's deaths. When the children arrived with
the robes and coronet, Glauce gleefully put them on and went to find her father. Soon the poisons
overtook Glauce and she fell to the floor, dying horribly and painfully. Creon clutched her tightly as
he tried to save her and, by coming in contact with the robes and coronet, got poisoned and died as
well.
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.
While Medea is pleased with her current success she decides to take it one step further. Since
Jason brought shame upon her for trying to start a new family, Medea resolves to destroy the family
he was willing to give up by killing their sons. Medea does have a moment of hesitation when she
considers the pain that her children's deaths will put her through. However, she steels her resolve to
cause Jason the most pain possible and rushes offstage with a knife to kill her children. As the
chorus laments her decision, the children are heard screaming. Jason then rushes onto the scene to
confront Medea about murdering Creon and Glauce and he quickly discovers that his children have
been killed as well. Medea then appears above the stage with the bodies of her children in the
chariot of the sun god Helios. When this play was put on, this scene was accomplished using
the mechane device usually reserved for the appearance of a god or goddess. She confronts Jason,
reveling in his pain at being unable to ever hold his children again:
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 escapes to Athens with the bodies. The chorus is left contemplating the will of Zeus in Medea's
actions:
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!
In Greek mythology, Antigone (/ænˈtɪɡəni/ ann-TIG-ə-nee; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter
of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta. The meaning of the name is, as in the case of the masculine
equivalent Antigonus, "worthy of one's parents" or "in place of one's parents".

In Sophocles[edit]
See also: Oedipus

Genealogy of Antigone

The story of Antigone was addressed by the fifth-century BC Greek playwright Sophocles in his
Theban plays:

Oedipus Rex[edit]
Antigone and her sister Ismene are seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as Oedipus laments the
"shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving his daughters to. He then begs Creon to watch over them, but in
his grief reaches to take them with him as he is lead away. Creon prevents him from taking the girls
out of the city with them. Neither of them is named in the play.[1]

Oedipus at Colonus[edit]
Antigone serves as her father's guide in Oedipus at Colonus, as she leads him into the city where
the play takes place. She stays with her father for the majority of the play, until she is taken away by
Creon in an attempt to blackmail Oedipus into returning to Thebes. However, Theseus defends
Oedipus and rescues both Antigone and her sister who was also taken prisoner.
At the end of the play both Antigone and her sister mourn the death of their father. Theseus offers
them the comfort of knowing that Oedipus has received a proper burial, but by his wishes they
cannot go to the site. Antigone then decides to return to Thebes.[1]

Antigone[edit]
Antigone is the subject of a story in which she attempts to secure a respectable burial for her
brother Polynices. Oedipus's sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had shared the rule jointly until they
quarrelled, and Eteocles expelled his brother. In Sophocles' account, the two brothers agreed to
alternate rule each year, but Eteocles decided not to share power with his brother after his tenure
expired. Polynices left the kingdom, gathered an army and attacked the city of Thebes in a conflict
called the Seven Against Thebes. Both brothers were killed in the battle.
King Creon, who has ascended to the throne of Thebes after the death of the brothers, decrees that
Polynices is not to be buried or even mourned, on pain of death by stoning. Antigone, Polynices'
sister, defies the king's order and is caught.
Antigone is brought before Creon, and admits that she knew of Creon's law forbidding mourning for
Polynices but chose to break it, claiming the superiority of divine over human law, and she defies
Creon's cruelty with courage, passion and determination. Creon orders Antigone buried alive in a
tomb. Although Creon has a change of heart and tries to release Antigone, he finds she has hanged
herself. Creon's son Haemon, who was in love with Antigone commits suicide with a knife, and his
mother Queen Eurydice, also kills herself in despair over her son's death. She has been forced to
weave throughout the entire story, and her death alludes to The Fates.[1]
Antigone is a typical Greek tragedy, in which inherent flaws of the acting characters lead to
irrevocable disaster. Antigone and Creon are prototypical tragic figures in an Aristoteliansense, as
they struggle towards their fore-doomed ends, forsaken by the gods.