Pociña - López - Ferreira Morais - Silva - Finglass - Portraits of Medea in Portugal During The 20th and 21st Centuries-Brill (201

Portraits of Medea in Portugal during the 20th and 21st Centuries
Metaforms
Studies in the Reception of
Classical Antiquity
Editors-in-Chief
Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin)

Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
John T. Hamilton (Harvard University)
Editorial Board
Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus)

Constanze Güthenke (Oxford University)
Miriam Leonard (University College London)
Mira Seo (Yale-nus College)
volume 14
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca

Portraits of Medea in
Portugal during the
20th and 21st Centuries
Edited by
Andrés Pociña
Aurora López
Carlos Morais
Maria de Fátima Silva
Patrick J. Finglass
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover Illustration: Euripides, Medea – performed in Lisbon, Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, May–June 2006.
Directed by Fernanda Lapa. Medea (Manuela de Freitas), Jason (João Grosso).
Author of the photograph: Margarida Maria Oliveira Dias (CC-07349324).
We are deeply grateful to Margarida Dias and the National Theatre D. Maria II for their generous
permission to use this image.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
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Contents
Abbreviations vii
Contributors viii
Introduction 1
Part 1
Main Sources
1 Euripides’ Medea in Context 11

Patrick J. Finglass
2 Medea: the Bewitched Witch in Apollonius of Rhodes 21

Maria do Céu Fialho
3 Versions of Medea in Classical Latin 31

Andrés Pociña and Aurora López
4
Os encantos de Medeia by António José da Silva: Comedy Version
of a Tragic Theme (18th Century) 45
5 In Search of Lost Identity: Jean Anouilh’s Medea 65

6 The Reception of Medea in the 20th and 21st Centuries 87

Rosanna Lauriola
Part 2
Portuguese Versions of Medea in the 20th and 21st Centuries
7 Medea as an Aesthetic and Ethical Space in Fiama’s Work 113

Ália Rodrigues
8 A Portuguese Medea: Eduarda Dionísio, Antes que a noite venha

(Before the Night Comes) 123
vi Contents
9 Hélia Correia’s A de Cólquida (The Woman from Colchis) 144

Maria António Hörster and Maria de Fátima Silva
10 Language, Barbarism, and Civilization: Hélia Correia’s

Desmesura (Excess) 158
11 Measure in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura: an Exercise in Recreating

Classical Rhythm 184
Carlos Morais
12 Medea in the Society of Entertainment: a Reading of Mário Cláudio’s

Medeia 200
13 Revisiting Medea – Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Escrita da água:

no rasto de Medeia (Water Writing: In Medea’s Wake) 216
Susana Hora Marques
14 The Art of Translating a Classic: Author’s and Translator’s Marks 233

Conclusion 258
Appendix: a Chronology of Recreations, Editions,

and Performances 263
Bibliography 270
Index Locorum 289
Index of Modern Authors 295
Index of Subjects 303
Abbreviations
Breithaupt M. Breithaupt (ed.), De Parmenisco grammatico (Στοιχεῖα 4; Leipzig

and Berlin 1915).
EGM R. L. Fowler (ed.), Early Greek Mythography, 2 vols. (Oxford 2000–13).
GEF M. L. West (ed.), Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth
Centuries BC (Loeb Classical Library 497; Cambridge, MA and London
2003). 
TrGF Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. I Didascaliae Tragicae, Catalogi
Tragicorum et Tragoediarum, Testimonia et Fragmenta Tragicorum
Minorum (ed. B. Snell; Göttingen 19711, 19862). Vol. V Euripides, 2 parts
(ed. R. Kannicht; 2004).
Voigt E.-M. Voigt (ed.), Sappho et Alcaeus. Fragmenta (Amsterdam 1971).
Contributors
Ália Rosa Rodrigues

earned a PhD in reception studies with the subject “Tragédia e política: João
de Castro Osório”, published in 2013. From then her research interests included
history of political ideas, namely the history of the concept of lawgiver, consti-
tution making, radical foundings and revolutionary breaks. Among her pub-
lications are the article “To be a lawgiver, a more sublimated form of tyranny:
Solon and Peisistratus’ expression of power” (in Figure d’Atene nelle opera di
Plutarco, Florence, 2013) and “Antigone, Daughter of the d’Annunzian Oedipus.
The Oedipus Trilogy (1936) by Castro Osório” (in Portrayals of Antigone in
Portugal, Leiden, Brill, 2017).
Andrés Pociña Pérez

(Lugo, 1947) is Full Professor of Latin Philology at the University of Granada,
having been Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and Director of
the Latin Philology Department. He is currently responsible for the Junta
de Andalucía HUM 318 Research Group. He teaches Latin literature (un-
dergraduate) and Greco-Latin drama and its continuity in modern theatre
(MA). His main areas of research include Latin literature (different genres):
the continuity of classical drama; Galician literature; 20th century Greek
poetry.
Aurora López López

(Sarria, Lugo, 1948) is Full Professor of Latin Philology at the University of
Granada and Director of the Equality between Women and Men Research
Unit. She currently teaches Latin texts (undergraduate), Roman women (MA),
and Greco-Latin Drama and its continuity (MA). Her main lines of research
include Latin Literature, especially comedy and tragedy; studies on women’s
literature and literature on women; classical continuity and tradition, notably
in the field of drama.
Carlos Morais
earned a PhD in Literature (area of specialization: Greek literature) from the
University of Aveiro with the thesis O Trímetro Sofocliano: variações sobre um
esquema (The Sophoclean Trimeter: Variations on a Scheme), published in
2010 (Lisboa, FCT/FCG). A Professor at the Universidade de Aveiro (Languages
and Cultures Department), his main areas of research include Greek literature
Contributors ix
and the reception of Classical drama; he has published Máscaras Portuguesas

de Antígona (Portuguese Masks of Antigone) (Aveiro 2001), and has several
chapters and articles on the Antigone myth in Portuguese and Spanish litera-
ture published in international books and journals.
Maria António Hörster

is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra.
Her PhD thesis (1993), entitled Para uma história da recepção de Rainer Maria
Rilke em Portugal (1920–1960) (Contribution to the Reception Story of Rainer
Maria Rilke in Portugal (1920–1960)), was published by Fundação Calouste
Gulbenkian/FCT in 2001. Her main research include comparative literature
and translation studies. She is the author of about a hundred publications.
Maria do Céu Grácio Zambujo Fialho

has been Full Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Coimbra and is
coordinator of the Greek studies area of the Centre for Classical and Humanistic
Studies of the same university. She was scientific coordinator of the Center be-
tween 2000 and 2014. Teaching activities, research interests and publications
include: classical studies, Greek theatre and its reception, poetics and ethics
(Plato and Aristotle), Plutarch, Alexandrian epic, and the Greek novel. She has
authored several books and papers and translated into Portuguese Sophocles’
Trachiniae, Oedipus the King, Electra, Oedipus at Colonus, and Plutarch’s Life of
Theseus and Life of Alcibiades.
Maria de Fátima Sousa e Silva

is Full Professor in the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of
Coimbra. Her PhD field of research was ancient Greek comedy (Theatre Criti
cism in Ancient Greek Comedy). She has since been undertaking research in the
same area and has published several articles. She has also published transla-
tions, with commentaries, of nine comedies by Aristophanes, and a volume
with the translation of Menander’s plays and best-preserved fragments.
Patrick J. Finglass
is Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek and Head of the Department of
Classics and Ancient History at the University of Bristol. He has published edi-
tions of Sophocles’, Oedipus the King (2018), Ajax (2011) and Electra (2007), of
Stesichorus (2014), and of Pindar’s Pythian Eleven (2007), and has (with Adrian
Kelly) co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Sappho (2019) and Stesichorus in
Context (2015), all with Cambridge University Press.
x Contributors
Rosanna Lauriola
(Ph.D. in Greek and Latin Philology, University of Firenze – Italy), currently
Adjunct Assistant Professor at Randolph-Macon College (VA), has taught
as a Lecturer, Visiting Professor, and Assistant Professor of Classics in sev-
eral American Institutions of Higher Education, such as the University of
Texas in San Antonio, the University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth
University, Marshall University, and the University of Idaho. She has published
several papers on Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, and Aristophanes both in Italian
and in English, and more recently on Classical Reception. Her books include
Aristofane serio-comico. Paideia e Geloion. Con una lettura degli Acarnesi (Pisa:
Edizioni ETS, 2010); Aristofane. Acarnesi (Milano: BUR, 2008); Sofocle. Edipo Re
(Milano: Mondadori-Pearson, 2000). She has co-edited Brill’s Companion to the
Reception of Euripides (Brill 2015), to which she has also contributed four chap-
ters, on Hippolytus, Medea, Suppliant Women, and Trojan Women.
Susana Maria Duarte da Hora Marques Pereira

Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Classical Studies, Faculty of Letters,
University of Coimbra, belongs to the Center of Classical and Humanistic
Studies in the same University and to the project DIAITA. Her PhD thesis
(2006), in Greek literature, has the title “Dreams and Visions in Greek tragedy”.
She has authored several titles in the areas of Greek literature, reception stud-
ies, didactics, neolatin literature, and has translated into Portuguese Strabo’s
book on Lusitania.
Introduction
1 The Plastic Quality of an Old Myth
The continuous popularity of the ‘Medea’ theme undoubtedly echoes the

persistence with which it was treated, developed, and diversified throughout
Antiquity. It is also clear that Euripides’ tragic version has become the stan
dard, definitively marking the theme with its specific form and interpretation.
Thanks to his play, Medea’s experience has become the story of a voluntary,
planned filicide as well as the examination of the possible reasons and feelings
of a mother who is prepared to kill her own children. This is certainly a deeply
emotional subject, and the frequency with which her gesture has repeated it
self in real life has awakened a fresh interest in the archetypal motif of Medea.
However, the Euripidean version of Medea was part of a complex web of
multiple readings, and its ancient origin was certified by the Homeric poems
themselves. For the poet of Odyssey (12. 69–72), the adventurous journey of the
Argonauts to Colchis was older even than the remote Trojan war. This being so,
the fact that this mythical journey is depicted, more or less extensively, in the
different phases of the development of Greek literature seems only natural. The
myth served as a theme for the poetry of the epic cycle, as illustrated by the de
scriptive title of an anonymous Argonautica and of the Korinthiaka attributed
to an obscure Eumelus; it also piqued the interest of lyricists, like Sappho and
Pindar, who made references to the story of the Argonauts. And a kind of epic
revivalism in Hellenistic times – through the pen of Apollonius of Rhodes –
crowned and systematized the different motifs that the story had accumulated
during its long cultural journey. As far as drama is concerned, Euripides him
self was not alone in his preference for Medea; other tragedians also dedicated
plays to the myth (Neophron, the younger Euripides, Melanthius, Morsimus,
Dicaeogenes, Carcinus II, Theodorides, and Diogenes of Sinope), although
time eventually confirmed the particular impact of Euripides’ play.
Latin authors also joined Greek antiquity in its interest in Aeetes’ daughter.
Again in the forms of tragedy, epic, and elegiac poetry, Latin literature depic
ted Medea’s extreme passions, violent actions, and dark magic. In Rome, trage
dy was possibly again the form that produced a reference version of Medea:
Seneca’s. However, also in this case, multiple plays had been written before him
by great Latin tragedians like Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius, and Lucius
Accius. No less famous, and certainly no less influential, was Ovid’s approach
to the myth in his elegies, which included innovations that may be considered
the result of a comprehensive reception of previous approaches to Medea’s
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004383395_002

2 Introduction
saga, both Greek and Latin; the feminine sentimentality of a passionate, be
trayed wife is a major topic in Heroides XII, while in Metamorphoses VII the
poet chooses an epic ambience for his rewriting of the Argonauts’ adventure
in Colchis; here Medea is the magician who, with the potions she concocts, be
comes Jason’s indispensable accomplice and a key element in his success. And
lastly, in Rome, the Colchian adventure would inspire Gaius Valerius Flaccus’
epic poem Argonautica. In sum, in their different ways, all the Latin rewriting
would add innovative elements to the Greek tradition, notably, for us, that of
Euripides. However, the Roman Medea that had a definite impact on the mod
ern reception of the myth was principally Seneca’s tragedy, both in itself and
associated with the old Euripidean original. Due to the influence of both, the
Corinthian episode, with all the sentimentality involving the now conflicted
couple, tended to become the core of the princess of Colchis’ story.
Within this heterogeneous development, the myth eventually branched out
into well-defined topics, situated in different geographies, in line with one of
the heroine’s facets: her ‘stateless’ condition. These topics include: the Colchian
adventures, mostly associated with the epic aspect of the Argonauts’ quest for
the Golden Fleece; the adventures in Corinth, where barbarian Medea is the
focus of an unfortunate story of love, treason, and motherhood; and the ad
ventures in Athens, where the Colchian princess completes her long journey
of exile, which is also a long journey of violence and crime.
New connotations emerge and are consolidated with each new setting and
with the different motifs emphasized in each successive treatment of the story.
First, civilizational motivations, aiming to affirm the worth of Greek heroes in
opposition to the barbarians, and the heroes’ victory over the monsters who,
in remote lands, still kept secrets which only ancestral aretē and timē could
expose to the civilized world. In Corinth, civilizational issues became politi
cal arguments, since this was the territory of which the Argonaut dreamt of
becoming the acknowledged ruler and where Medea killed Creon without
hesitation, taking her fearless revenge on the king for his contempt of her as a
foreigner. Athens, the city that gave shelter to Medea, the supplicant criminal,
also had a role within this politicized development of the myth as an image of
the ‘ideal city’, a polis respectful of the value of philia. And, lastly, the elements
present in all the versions of the story, though variously emphasized: the sac
redness that naturally surrounds the Sun’s granddaughter, and the passions of
the feminine and barbarian soul of Medea, the poison maker.
It is worth tracing the reasons for the surprising persistence, up to the
present, of the tragic features of a woman that were the object of a tragedy per
formed in Athens in 431 BC, almost two thousand and five hundred years ago.
It seems obvious that the story of our protagonist includes different elements
Introduction 3
which have the ability to generate interest and to move people in so many dif
ferent times and places. The reason can be found in the two original dramas,
Euripides’ Greek play and Seneca’s Latin tragedy. Both plays dealt in depth
with multiple feelings, all fundamental to human experience, and this gives
the subject an extraordinary modernity. Medea’s behavior is determined by
strong feelings of love and deception, jealousy, betrayal, injustice, hate, pride,
anger, revenge, and punishment. The versions that followed elaborate on these
sentiments, which can be as relevant in the present as they were in Euripides’
and in Seneca’s time.
Besides the different passions that come into play in these tragedies, an
element that unfailingly brings Medea to the present is the fact that she is a
woman. She has a strong, vibrant soul, which endows her with exceptional
grandeur when confronted with the limitations imposed by her condition as a
member of the ‘second’ sex. And that is the reason why she has become a para
digm for endless discussions on women, ‘the feminine’, and their role.
Marginalized, a victim of injustice as a woman, a wife, and a mother, in
Corinth Medea was also a foreigner, a barbarian. Being a foreigner was a no
less problematic phenomenon than it is in today’s civilized, educated, and
wealthy Europe. That is why the ancient Medea, coming to Corinth from the
remoteness of Colchis, is unfortunately still an absolutely relevant and topical
character.
As centuries went by, the myth experienced the same proliferation it had
undergone in Greek-Roman antiquity, gaining a truly universal projection.
New rewritings were produced in significant numbers, varieties, and geo
graphical locations, and Medea brought forth an inexhaustible wealth of
‘other Medeas’, to which numerous international studies have done full jus
tice: Clauss, Johnston, Medea. Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy,
and Art, 1997; Hall, Macintosh, Taplin, Medea in Performance 1500–2000, 2000;
Rubino, Medea Contemporanea, 2000; López, Pociña, Medeas. Versiones de un
mito desde Grecia hasta hoy. I–II, 2002; Pociña, López, Otras Medeas. Nuevas
aportaciones al estudio literario de Medea, 2007; De Martino, Medea: teatro e
comunicazione, 2006; Bartel, Unbinding Medea: Interdisciplinarity Approach to a
Classical Myth from Antiquity to the 21st. Century, 2010; Foley, Reimagining Greek
Tragedy on the American Stage, 2012; Lauriola, Demetriou, Brill’s Companion to
the Reception of Euripides, 2015.
For some years, a number of essays have also been written on the subject
in Portugal; besides numerous articles focusing on the hermeneutics of an
cient texts or on examples of the reception of Medea, the collection Actas do
Colóquio Medeia no Drama Antigo e Moderno (Proceedings of the Colloquium
Medea in Ancient and Modern Drama), 1991, and the book Sob o signo de
4 Introduction
Medeia (Under the Sign of Medea), 2006, are both noteworthy. The studies in
cluded in the present volume add to and systematize the discussion on the
reception of the ancient myth of Medea in Portuguese drama.
2 Presentation of the Volume
In the 20th and the 21st centuries, the chronological space considered in this
book, the theme of Medea in Portuguese literature did not include an epic
component, being mostly approached in the form of drama. As a rule, the
central episode in the Portuguese rewritings in the last two centuries is the
one that takes place in Corinth, i.e., the break between Medea and Jason’s and
Medea’s filicidal retaliation. Besides the complex play of emotions that pro
vides this episode with an essence of humanity, the issue of gender was key in
determining the interest that this story raised in a society which was itself in
search of social renovation, after deep political transformations – in a some
what abrupt transition between dictatorship and democracy, in 1974 – that
generated instability and established a requirement to find alternative rules of
social intercourse in the path towards a new Portugal.
However, how different authors approached this episode necessarily varies
according to their different sensitivities and perspectives. As a result, the rea
sons for the return of the Medea theme are varied. First, the enthusiasm for
the great classical plots on the part of some authors, particularly Hélia Correia.
This is visible in her literary production, which includes plays inspired by the
myths of Antigone, Helen, and the women of Troy, not to mention Medea,
which illustrate the author’s persistent return to the old Greek models. The
challenge to reinterpret and remodel the Classics is therefore the main motiva
tion behind these Portuguese rewritings.
However, the predominant and most visible topics in these new Medeas
clearly include gender issues, the traditional subservient position of women
vis-à-vis their male competitors, the increasingly stronger affirmation of fe
male personality, the tumult of emotions involved in marriage, and the trigger
ing of extreme vindictive reactions. This does not necessarily mean, however,
that there is a contradiction between this specific approach and a more or less
generalized tendency in the reception of the myth.
Last, though not least, the motif of the foreign woman and the social dis
ruptions that she caused has also influenced contemporary rewritings. On the
one hand, it serves as an incentive to reflect on xenophobia and the malad
justment and vulnerability which different territories and, especially, different
social and linguistic codes generate in human behavior. But in symbolic terms,
Introduction 5
the topic of ‘the other’ can also express the lack of understanding that different
groups of people experience, generationally or culturally, within the same so
ciety, as if the growing lack of understanding between new and young, parents
and children was equivalent to a political boundary.
In her rewritings, Fiama Pais Brandão (1985, 1998) and Eduarda Dionísio
(1992) do not stray too far from the female portrait and the devastating con
sequences of passion, as enhanced by Euripides (and Seneca). The major dif
ference between these Portuguese texts and their ancient model, notably the
Euripidean model, is their form.
Brandão (chapter 6) returns to the myth of Medea twice, in different genres:
first in dramatic form – Eu vi o Epidauro (I Saw Epidaurus) – and later in her
novel Sob o Olhar de Medeia (Under the Gaze of Medea). These two perspec
tives are different not only as regards literary genre but also in their approach
to the myth; in Ália Rodrigues’ words (see below), “while the play shows Medea
as the Euripidean dramatic character, ‘the classical woman who killed her own
children’ as well as the eternal icon of feminine otherness, the novel explores
the shamanic power of Medea’s gaze from an ethical point of view”. In Eu vi o
Epidauro, Medea is diachronically placed within the framework of the great
theatre of the world, of which Euripides, Shakespeare, and Wagner are major
voices, with Epidaurus as a model setting. That is why Medea’s interlocutors in
this play are not just the characters of the old myth, but also those whom the
diachronicity of the great theatre gave her: Juliet and Brünhilde, besides their
male partners, Romeo and Siegfried. The novel Sob o Olhar de Medeia (Under
the Gaze of Medea) presents an evaluation of Medea’s experience not by her
self but by a woman reader who had been introduced to the myth at school
and is now, years later, able to reassess the impact that her reading of the text
had on her life and her self. The Medea which her memory had preserved is the
sorceress, a kind of chthonic goddess whose magic gaze possessed the power
to transform reality.
Following the model used by Spanish author María Zambrano in the
‘Antigone’ case, Eduarda Dionísio’s (chapter 7) Antes que a noite venha (Before
the Night Comes) is structured as a series of monologues through which
Medea interacts at a distance with Jason, with herself, and with the audience;
the subject of that interaction is love and death. Telling the story of the two
protagonists, the theme of passion – an extreme, betrayed passion – is key,
overshadowing the importance of all the other traditional characters and
circumstances.
This volume dedicates three chapters (8–10) to the works by Hélia Correia
that were inspired by Medea. The first two are a close analysis of two of her
texts which, between them, present a kind of agon of opposite arguments
6 Introduction
regarding the adoption of the myth. First, an ‘essay’ titled A de Cólquida (The
Woman from Colchis) (2002), one of a set of four short texts under the gen
eral title Apodera-te de mim (Take Possession of Me), is part of Correia’s assess
ment of the development of the female condition since the ancient Minoan
times. Within the framework of Greek history and culture, which is to say, a
context that symbolizes the first steps of our civilization, the history of women
and the conditions that govern their lives exhibit a well-defined development.
Condemned by nature to a secondary role, throughout history women have
waged a relentless war for the affirmation of their talent and intelligence.
However, despite their many qualities and abilities, there seems to be a weak
spot in their life: sentimentality, expressed through the fire of passion, that
transforms their strength into weakness. Medea and Penthesilea are significant
instances of this: both are powerful women who are able to match their male
opponents but whom love causes to surrender to the weakness of their condi
tion. Medea is the barbarian woman who relinquishes her natural vitality and
the high status she enjoyed in her motherland to come to Greece and become
just another forgotten wife and a mother of two weak, sickly boys, who are, like
herself, stateless and maladjusted; in other words, a passive, complacent being,
visited by misfortune and whom the crimes usually attributed to her do not
fit. Originating from a tradition not chosen by Euripides, this is also the ver
sion which Correia discards, in order to, some years later, portray the vibrant
violence of another Medea, the aggrieved, vengeful barbarian, in a play titled
Desmesura (Excess) (2006). In this version, Medea relates to other women in
Corinth, Greek or foreigners like her, her royal past in Colchis and difficult
present in Corinth, and through their confrontations Hélia Correia signifies
different ways of living, or tolerating, exile. The important element in this text
is the continuously unsuccessful search for a word, the ‘right’ word, to describe
the turmoil of feelings that trouble the human soul. Contrary to what had hap
pened in two other texts by Hélia Correia – Perdição. Exercício sobre Antígona
(Perdition. An Exercise on Antigone), 1991; and Rancor. Exercício sobre Helena
(Rancor. An Exercise on Helen), 2000 –, which, together with Desmesura, form
a trilogy of dramatic mythographies on classical subjects, written “in the
feminine”, this play is marked by specific rhythmic choices by way of which
the author recreates the cadence of both the speeches and the songs of
Euripides’ drama. This specific topic of literary aesthetics is discussed and
analyzed by Carlos Morais in chapter 10.
Carlos Jorge Pessoa (1997–1998) and Mário Cláudio (2007) follow the in
escapable Medea models in a ‘freer’ and more ‘symbolic’ manner, adapting
it to their reading of a contemporary, domestic, social and political reality.
Curiously enough, in both their texts, an artistic framework – the theatre or
Introduction 7
the cinema – is the filter through which the old story is reproduced and its abil
ity to express feelings and emotions that may still have a deep impact on new
audiences is tested. These are definitely the two rewrites of the Medea theme
that are the most committed to portraying their contemporary Portuguese so
ciety and its configuration.
Carlos Jorge Pessoa (chapter 11) returns to the myth, including Escrita da
água: no rasto de Medeia (Water Writing: In Medea’s Wake) in a wider sequence
of plays, which he titled Pentateuco – Manual de sobrevivência para o ano 2000
(Pentateuch – A Survival Manual for the Year 2000). This collection of texts
is generally meant to reflect on the values and behaviors that underpin what
might be called ‘modern western culture’. “A fé, a Europa, Portugal, a família, o
futuro” (faith, Europe, Portugal, family, the future) are the topics used to por
tray Portugal’s own identity as well as the wider bloc whose destiny it inevita
bly shares. The title Escrita da água suggests the fluidity of time, which creates
affinities and dissimilarities between human experiences in their different
stages of civilization. The myth of Medea becomes a pretext for that reflection,
disconnected as it is from the pattern set by Euripides to which it nevertheless
alludes. Nonetheless, it remains generally opportune for a reflection on a cri
sis of values, broken affections, family ties, power, love, and death. Within the
contemporary setting of a new story – in which the father is the only survivor,
as well as the living, painful memory of a shattered family, whose mother died
during a surgery, and the two children drowned in the swimming pool of a
hotel where they were trying to relieve the pain of losing their parent – Jason
and Medea are just a distant suggestion that helps articulate the chaos of both
family and society in our times.
Aware of the fact that different times have their own myths, or at least their
specific reading of the myths they inherit, Mário Cláudio (chapter 12) com
poses his Medea as a dialogue between contrasting times and cultural con
texts. The protagonist is a frustrated actress who had dreamed her whole life
of performing Euripides’ Medea, Jason’s wife being the role that she had always
aspired to play. However, even if her stage dream did not come true, because
the government authorities responsible for culture and theatre never provided
her with the means to materialize it, she had the opportunity of playing her
dream role in ‘real’ life. But only in her daily life does this woman coincide with
Medea, in her story as a betrayed wife, a mother who ‘castrates’ her weak, up
rooted children who live in a world that is so distant from the sound values of a
true, active and participatory polis; or also in her role as a creature that gradu
ally becomes ‘stateless’, as a result of the lack of understanding that surrounds
her, both as regards her personal wishes and expectations, and her dream of
reviving the paradigmatic grandeur of classical Greek tragedy in 20th-century
8 Introduction
Portugal. However, she lacks the extreme, violent energy that transformed tra
ditional Medea into a revengeful murderer; that is why, despite being a victim,
this ‘Medeia portuguesa’ (Portuguese Medea), who is incapable of killing, is
the one who dies, while the noisy sledgehammers relentlessly demolish the
theatre boards.
And lastly, the closing chapter (13) focuses on the subject of ‘translation’
as a primordial element facilitating the connection between new readers or
audiences and classical texts. Again, Euripides’ play – the most influential an
cient source for Portuguese authors – is at the core of this analysis. Besides
the more ‘scholarly’ version – by Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira – which has
provided access to the Euripidean original for many generations of students,
the Portuguese audience was given a poetic translation produced by one of
the major names of contemporary Portuguese poetry, Sophia de Mello Breyner
Andresen, also a trained Classicist. If, on the one hand, this reflection asks in
evitable questions pertaining to the translation of a classic, on the other hand
it emphasizes how, without committing blatant ‘infidelities’, Andresen’s text
is nonetheless able to express her own literary taste and a poetic aesthetics in
which Greece is the source of memorable pages.
In conclusion, in its Portuguese reception, as in the rest of the world, the
story of Medea is far more than a tale about the mere misfortunes of a woman
who is abandoned by her husband, condemned to exile, deprived of her chil
dren, and who exacts her terrible revenge by murdering her sons. From its first
versions, it has always been much more than a mere interesting plot, much
more than a story of love and disenchantment, of betrayal, anger, and revenge.
This is precisely what makes it a classic, that is, topical, contemporary, and as
much alive today as it has been in the past and will no doubt continue to be in
the future. After all, despite the passing of time, perhaps human beings do not
change that much!
Andrés Pociña
Aurora López
Carlos Morais
Patrick J. Finglass
part 1
Main Sources
∵
chapter 1
Euripides’ Medea in Context

Patrick J. Finglass
A slave-woman standing alone on the stage opens the play.1 From her the audi-
ence learns the tragic situation: having helped Jason gain the Golden Fleece,
Medea, together with her children, has been abandoned by him in favour of a
Corinthian princess. Another slave now enters, bringing Medea’s children and
further bad news: Creon, king of Corinth, is intending to send Medea and her
children into exile. Such is the beginning of Euripides’ Medea.
The chorus of Corinthian women arrive, having heard of Medea’s distress.
Her cries are heard from inside the house; soon she comes out and address-
es the chorus in more moderate tones. She laments the lot of women before
focusing on her particular misery as a defenceless female in an alien society.
After the chorus pledge their support, Creon enters, ordering Medea to leave
Corinth immediately with her children. He expresses his fear of her; never-
theless, when she abjectly begs permission to remain just one more day, he
eventually concedes, despite strong misgivings. When he is gone, she reveals
her intention to kill him, his daughter, and his new son-in-law – her own for-
mer husband, Jason. The choral song that follows describes how honour is now
coming to the race of women, and commiserates with Medea on how appall-
ingly she has been treated since coming to Greece.
Jason now arrives, criticising Medea for her temper, but offering to assist
her and the children before they go into exile. Medea’s response is angry and
passionate: Jason has abandoned her, despite everything that she has done for
him, despite the children that she has given him, despite her having no remain-
ing source of help. Jason counters by claiming that her assistance should rather
be credited to Aphrodite and Eros, and by listing the benefits that Medea now
enjoys, thanks to him: she lives in Greece, not among barbarians, and thus in
a civilised country where she can acquire a reputation for her intelligence. He
claims that his marriage to the Corinthian princess is the best way to secure
1 The standard Greek text is Diggle (1984) 93–155, reprinted with an English translation in
Mossman (2011) 82–207; see also the text and translation of Kovacs (1994). Commentaries,
all with helpful introductions, can be found in Page (1938), Mastronarde (2002), Mossman
(2011); the first two also offer their own Greek text. But despite its popularity, Medea has not
yet received a modern editio maior, unlike many other Euripidean plays.

12 Finglass
financial and political security for his family. The chorus and Medea are un-
convinced, the latter noting that if Jason was speaking the truth, he would have
informed her of his intentions in advance. The pair continue to argue until
Jason departs, after which the chorus sing of the power of Aphrodite and the
misery of losing one’s homeland.
The next entrance is a surprise: Aegeus, king of Athens, on his way from
consulting the oracle at Delphi to Troezen to ask for advice from his friend
Pittheus of Troezen. Seeing an opportunity, Medea persuades him to swear an
oath that he will give her refuge once she has gone into exile. When he has
gone, Medea expresses her joy, and describes how she will send her children
with gifts to Jason’s new bride – gifts that will kill her if she touches them. But
in a new twist, she announces that she will also kill her own children, to wipe
out Jason’s house altogether. The chorus fail to persuade her to abandon this
purpose, before singing in praise of Athens, a song that turns into an impas-
sioned address to Medea not to kill her offspring.
Jason now returns in response to Medea’s request. She expresses regret
for her former words, and sends her children with him to bring gifts to his
new bride – though not before hugging them tearfully, as she contemplates
the subsequent terrible stage of her plan. The chorus lament her decision to
kill her children, before the Tutor arrives back with them, announcing that
her gifts have been warmly received; he is surprised to see Medea react with
deep distress to this apparently good news, and departs. Embracing the chil-
dren, Medea now delivers a great monologue, expressing how inwardly torn
she is over the deed which she is about to commit. After she brings them
inside, the chorus sing of the woes of women with children. Medea returns
on stage, encountering a Messenger who comes with news of the deaths of
Jason’s new bride and of Creon as a consequence of the gifts sent by Medea,
deaths narrated in excruciating detail. Once the Messenger has gone, Medea
announces her continuing determination to kill her children, and departs
back inside. The chorus’s song calling on the Sun to behold what is happen-
ing is succeeded by the cries of the children as they are murdered; the chorus
then continue to sing, citing Ino as a mythical child-killer parallel to Medea
herself.
The final scene begins with the entrance of Jason, appalled at the murder
of his new wife and father-in-law. With difficulty, the chorus bring themselves
to announce to him a further, far more intense, grief: the death of his children.
He attempts to enter the house to revenge himself on Medea, but the doors
are locked; suddenly Medea appears on a winged chariot above the house. No
longer grieving, but defiant, she blames Jason for her children’s deaths, and
declares that she will bury them in the sanctuary of Hera Akraia near Corinth,
Euripides ’ Medea in Context 13
before seeking sanctuary in Athens. The despairing Jason is left alone on stage
as she departs.
∵
Today Medea is one of Euripides’ most popular plays among audiences and
readers alike. When it was first performed at Athens, on the south side of the
Acropolis, at the spring-time festival of the Dionysia, in 431 bc, the first play
in its tetralogy (the other plays being Dictys, Philoctetes, and the satyr-play
Reapers or Theristae, all of which are lost), it was less successful; Euripides fin-
ished third (that is, last), behind Euphorion, Aeschylus’ son, who came first,
and Sophocles, who was second. It is tempting to ascribe this defeat to the au-
dience’s distaste at the play’s controversial subject-matter: the deliberate mur-
der of two children by their mother. Yet the curious way in which votes were
tallied meant that a tetralogy popular with the judges might nevertheless finish
last;2 and there was anyway no guarantee that the judges’ preferences would
correspond to those of the audience. Moreover, if the tetralogy was genuinely
unsuccessful, that might have been the fault of one or more of the other plays;
and Euripides in general was not fortunate in this competition, winning only
four times during his lifetime, and once posthumously.3 Frustratingly, then, we
have no reliable data about the reaction of that first audience for what today is
regarded as a supremely important and influential work of European drama.4
Most of the spectators who sat in the theatre in Dionysus’ sanctuary that
spring day in 431 will have been familiar with Medea as a figure of myth.5 The
Theogony by Hesiod, in a passage that may be later than Hesiod himself, de-
scribes Medea’s birth to Idyia, wife of Aeëtes, child of Helios;6 she may also
have been mentioned by Sappho, in an unknown context.7 She will have been
prominent in the epic Argonautica, probably a work of the seventh century,
which described the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to the east to recover
2 Ten judges, each representing one of the tribes, cast a vote; five votes were chosen at random,
and, if a dramatist had a majority, he was the winner; if no dramatist had a majority addi-
tional votes were randomly selected, one at a time, until somebody did (see Marshall and van
Willigenburg [2004]). A play might have as many as five votes and still come last.
3 See Eur. test. 65a, 65b TrGF. For possible links between the plays of the tetralogy see
Karamanou (2014).
4 For the popularity of Medea in the ancient world see Vahtikari (2014) 172–5; for performances
of Medea since the Renaissance see Hall et al. (2000).
5 For this subject see Mastronarde (2002) 44–64, which refers to earlier discussions.
6 Hes. Th. 956–62.
7 Sappho fr. 186 Voigt.
14 Finglass
the Golden Fleece.8 Later accounts, such as Pindar’s Pythian Four of 462 bc,
Apollonius of Rhodes’s Argonautica of the third century, and indeed Euripides’
Medea, emphasised her vital contribution to Jason’s success in recovering the
Fleece; they will all have been influenced by this lost epic.
The first account known to have taken an interest in what happened to
Medea after her arrival in Greece is the Korinthiaka ascribed to Eumelus, com-
posed perhaps not long after the institution of the Isthmian games in 582.9
In this poem, after the death of their king Korinthos, the Corinthians install
his grand-daughter Medea, newly-arrived in Greece from Colchis with Jason,
as the new ruler.10 During her reign, whenever she gave birth to a child, she
buried it in the temple of Hera, believing that this would make it immortal.
Unfortunately her plan was unsuccessful, and when Jason discovered what
she had been doing, he left her, despite her pleas, sailing back home to Iolcus;
Medea then herself gave up the kingship in favour of Sisyphus.11 Medea’s as-
sociation with Corinth, and the deaths of her children in that city, are thus at-
tested at least as early as the 570s. Perhaps a commemoration of some children
in a cult that originally had nothing to do with Medea was connected with
the story of Aeëtes’ daughter by the author of the Korinthiaka in his desire to
set Corinth – a city barely mentioned in earlier epic – more firmly within the
world of Greek myth.12
Another version of the story which may date before the treatments found in
tragedy involved Medea killing Creon, for an unspecified reason, and fleeing to
Athens. Unable to bring her children with her, she laid them on the altar of Hera
Akraia, thinking that Jason would respect the protection afforded by the holy
place; but Creon’s οἰκεῖοι (family, servants?) took revenge by killing them. This
is first attested in Creophylus of Ephesus, who dates to the fifth century at the
earliest.13 A related account is recorded by the grammarian Parmeniscus, from
the second or first century bc, in which the Corinthians tire of having Medea,
a foreign, female, sorceress, as their ruler, and plot against her, intending to kill
8 For this poem see West (2005) = (2011–13) i 277–312.

9 For this poem see West (2002) = (2011–13) i 353–91.
10 Eumelus fr. 20 GEF.
11 Ibid. fr. 23.
12 See West (2002) 124 n. 78 = (2011–3) i 376 n. 78, Johnston (1997) 65–7. I have not seen
Hudelson (2013).
13 Creoph. fr. 3 EGM. The attribution of this story to this Creophylus is much more prob-
able than the alternative, to the poet Creophylus of Samos; see Fowler, EGM ii 232 n. 102.
Fowler tentatively dates the Ephesian Creophylus to the late fifth century.
her (fourteen) children; they flee to the altar of Hera Akraia, and are killed by
the Corinthians there.14
In both these accounts the threat to Medea’s children comes not from Medea
herself, but from the Corinthians, or the Corinthian royal family. As we have
seen, in the final scene of Euripides’ play Jason is afraid that Creon’s family may
take revenge by killing his children;15 it may be that Euripides knew a version
in which this event took place. We should be cautious in drawing this infer-
ence, however. Jason’s fear is intelligible in its own terms, and Euripides did not
need to rely on such a putative earlier version to devise this motivation for his
entry. The reference to Medea’s flight to Athens in Creophylus’ story may also
be influenced by Euripides’ play rather than the reverse. Parmeniscus’ version,
too, may or may not reflect a pre-Euripidean story. It could have been fash-
ioned to enable the absurd charge that Parmeniscus makes against Euripides,
that he was bribed by the Corinthians to attribute responsibility for the deaths
to Medea herself. It is nevertheless tempting to regard it as a survival of an
earlier account which Euripides did dramatically alter, prompted however by
literary rather than financial motivations.
Greek tragedy shows a particular interest in Medea’s story. As well as
Euripides’ famous play, we have dramas attested by numerous others:
Neophron, the younger Euripides, Melanthius, Morsimus, Dicaeogenes,
Carcinus II, Theodorides, and Diogenes of Sinope.16 A recently-published pa-
pyrus containing a rhetorical treatise from the early empire remarkably refers
to an earlier Medea by Euripides himself, in which Medea’s killing of her chil-
dren took place on stage. Careful investigation of this text, however, reveals
that it provides evidence not for the existence of another Euripidean Medea,
but for how literary history can be reshaped and reinterpreted by subsequent
generations without regard for historical truth.17
Of these other Medea plays, one of the few about which we know anything
significant is by Neophron. This play, like Euripides’, portrayed Medea as a vol-
untary child-killer.18 It was suggested in antiquity that Euripides plagiarised this
drama,19 an anachronistic accusation based on the mistaken idea that poets
were not entitled to adapt the material of others without acknowledgement;
14 Parmeniscus frr. 12–13 Breithaupt. The sanctuary in question should probably be identi-
fied with that of Hera at Perachora; see Menadier (2002).
15 Eur. Med. 1301–5. Cf. 1236–41, where Medea voices the same fear to justify her decision to
kill her children.
16 See Wright (forthcoming).
17 P.Oxy. 5093; see Colomo (2011).
18 For discussion see Nervegna (2013) 90–1.
19 Thus the hypothesis to Medea; see Mastronarde (2002) 57–64.
16 Finglass
the targeting of Euripides, rather than some other dramatist, probably results
from the negative biographical tradition associated with him from as early
as the plays of Aristophanes. The bombastic style of Neophron’s fragments
suggests a much less able poet than Euripides; it has been argued that they
show the influence of a later text of Euripides’ play, after it had suffered from
interpolation at the hands of subsequent producers.20 More likely than not,
Euripides came first.
Euripides certainly predated the only other dramatic account of Medea
for which we have significant details, namely the Medea of Carcinus II in the
fourth century.21 In that play Medea is falsely accused of killing her children
when she had in fact concealed them, probably in the temple of Hera. Medea
had, however, killed Jason’s new bride, Glauce, and her concealment of the
children was probably intended to protect them from the wrath of Glauce’s
family; her plan did not succeed, however, perhaps because Glauce had or-
dered the children to be killed before her own death. This is a quite differ-
ent version from the one familiar today thanks to Euripides; it reminds us that
his account did not become canonical immediately, and that just as Euripides
probably innovated in his account of the myth, so too later tragedians felt no
compulsion to follow his distinctive version when producing their own plays.
Thus whereas Medea’s connexion with Corinth, and the deaths of her chil-
dren, are certainly pre-Euripidean, Euripides’ Medea may well be the first liter-
ary work that made those deaths the result of Medea’s own conscious choice.
Such a reshaping of myth was hardly rare in Greek tragedy – having recourse
to a finite body of tales, the dramatists constantly innovated in their perpetual
attempt to impress their audience – but this one was more striking than most,
involving as it did the breach of a fundamental human taboo, the idea that
mothers nurture their children. A child-killing parent of any sort is an unlikely
repository for audience sympathy; one who is female, and a foreigner, might be
thought to suffer from insurmountable difficulties in overcoming the prejudice
of Greek spectators to emerge as a character with any tragic credibility.
By making Medea a filicide, Euripides may have been innovating with re-
spect to her myth; but in tragedy as a whole this theme was far from unfamiliar.22
As we have seen, the figure of Ino was even cited by the chorus as the only
possible parallel for Medea (1282–9), but even as they mention her they indi-
cate the fundamental difference between the two women: Ino, according to
the chorus, kills her children when maddened by the gods, whereas Medea is
20 See Diggle (2004) ≈ (2008).

21 See TrGF i 70 F 1e, West (2007) 1–7 = (2011–13) ii 334–45.
22 See McHardy (2005).
appallingly sane both when she takes her decision and when she carries it out.
The Ino of Euripides’ homonymous play is distinct from Medea, too. Four chil-
dren are killed by a parent in that drama – two sons by their mother Themisto,
Learchus by his father Athamas, Melicertes by his mother Ino – but in every
case the parent is attempting to kill someone else’s children (Themisto) or
driven mad and thus not fully responsible for his or her action (Athamas, Ino).23
Such failures of recognition, and divine-sent madness (paralleled in Euripides’
Heracles, where the title character kills his children when out of his mind), are
not at issue in Medea.
Closer parallels are in fact available, such as Procne, who in Sophocles’
Tereus killed her own child Itys, and served his flesh as a meal to her unwitting
husband Tereus, who had raped her sister Philomela.24 Althaea in Euripides’
Meleager was probably responsible for the death of her son by deliberately
burning a brand that she knew to be coeval with his life, although that version
was certainly attested before tragedy.25 Astyoche in Sophocles’ Eurypylus was
bribed by Priam to send her son Eurypylus to fight for the Trojans even though
she knew that he would die as a result; a surviving papyrus fragment describes
her intense grief over his corpse.26 Laius and Jocasta in Sophocles’ Oedipus the
King have their son exposed when he was a baby, thanks to an oracle predict-
ing that it would kill his father and marry his mother.27
But if Medea was not unique as a tragic filicide, the presentation of that act
of killing is certainly unparalleled in what remains to us of Greek tragedy. The
only other case involving the intentional killing of a child by the mother’s own
hand is that of Procne, and in that case the man’s offence was greater (rap-
ing the woman’s sister) than Jason’s (abandoning his wife for another woman).
Meleager’s mother Althaea is equally culpable for her son’s death, but as with
Procne, loyalty to her natal family is the motivating force;28 moreover, she does
not actually do away with her child face to face. Only Medea kills both her
children with her own hand, not to avenge some other close relative (having
already rejected her natal family by killing her brother and abandoning her
father), but out of a sense of personal betrayal. And while these other dramas
23 Our evidence for this play comes from P.Oxy. 5131 and Hyg. Fab. 4; see Finglass (2014a),
(2016a), (2017b).
24 For Sophocles’ Tereus, recently augmented by a new papyrus, see Finglass (2016b),
(forthcoming 2).
25 For this and other Meleager plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles see Davies and Finglass
(2014) 517.
26 For this papyrus see Finglass (2018/19) ch. 6.
27 For the exposure of children in Greek tragedy more generally see Finglass (2018) 63–70.
28 For this topic see Visser (1986).
18 Finglass
will no doubt have contained moments of high pathos, it is hard to imagine

a speech more moving than Medea’s great monologue in which her purpose
sways back and forth with such emotional power, a speech probably imitated
by Neophron some years after its first performance, and probably added to
by actors in the fourth century, who had identified it as a high point in their
repertoire.29
It has been argued that Medea’s status as a barbarian, a non-Greek, and as a
woman30 will have severely compromised the capacity of the Greek audience
to feel sympathy for her plight. Yet (to take Medea’s status as a barbarian first)
Greek literature depicted non-Greeks sympathetically from as early as the
Iliad; in that poem, although the Trojans are at fault for starting the war, their
suffering is movingly depicted, especially at the climax, the ransoming and fu-
neral of their greatest fighter, Hector. This tradition is continued in tragedy,
where plays such as Euripides’ Trojan Women are far from an uncomplicated
celebration of Greek success. Moreover, our earliest extant tragedy, Aeschylus’
Persians, sympathetically recognises the grief of the Persians who have lost so
much in their attempt to conquer Greece; it is striking that such a production
was possible only eight years after the last Persian invasion. A Greek audience
(with the exception, perhaps, of its most blinkered and chauvinistic members)
would not have been automatically hostile to Medea simply because she was
not Greek.
When Jason declares that she should be happy because he has brought her
to Greece, allowing her to encounter justice and civilisation (536–44), the au-
dience will be aware that these words are spoken by a man who has just aban-
doned the person who saved his life at the very moment when she most needs
his help. Tragedy relies on this kind of contextualisation; an audience member
who took these words as the literal truth without reflecting on who was de-
livering them, or for what purpose, was probably missing out on quite a bit of
the tragic experience besides.31 Nor were the Greeks of this period unaware
that non-Greek peoples had crafted civilisations of their own as complex as
anything to be found in Greece, making a nonsense of Jason’s Hellenocentric
claim that now Medea is in Greece she can acquire a famous reputation.
29 For such interventions by actors see Finglass (2015); for the popularity of Medea later
in antiquity (evident from the healthy number of papyri of that play) see Finglass
(forthcoming 1).
30 For these aspects of Medea’s presentation see Mastronarde (2002) 22–8, Papadodima
(2013) 253–62.
31 So in Hermione’s anti-barbarian tirade in Euripides’ Andromache (147–80) ‘the viewer can
easily see how this rhetoric is self-serving and that Hermione is a disreputable character’
(Vlassopoulos (2013) 193).
The form of the encounter between Jason and Medea repays scrutiny in
this context. In this type of scene in which opponents are each given one long
speech, followed by a section of line-by-line dialogue (the so-called ‘agōn’), it
is usually the second speaker who has the advantage; he or she puts forward
arguments that the earlier speaker is unable to counter. In Medea, on the other
hand, not only does Jason fail to answer Medea’s charges satisfactorily, but his
speech also meets with a devastating, unanswerable response from Medea her-
self: why, if what he says is true, did he not inform her of the plan before going
through with it? No other extant agōn-speech receives such a mortal rhetori-
cal blow.32 In this contest between Greek man and barbarian woman, it is the
latter who deploys her arguments with the greater skill and, the audience may
feel, sincerity.
As for Jason’s further supposed advantage over his ex-wife, his status as a
man, that too turns out to be more complicated than we might have thought
at first. There is no good reason to think that women were banned from per-
formances in the Athenian theatre – indeed, some passages in comedy, the
only genre performed there which explicitly refers to its audience, are expli-
cable only under the hypothesis that they were present.33 Any reading of a play
which assumes that men automatically sympathised with men is not only fool-
ish on its own terms – Greek men, like men today, were, it is fair to presume,
capable of sympathising with a woman in a dispute with a man – but also
chauvinistically denies these women in the audience the right to have their
hypothetical views taken into consideration.34 And indeed, elsewhere in trag-
edy female figures differ widely in the levels of sympathy that they are likely to
have awoken in an audience, just as is the case with male characters. If Medea
is less sympathetic to male members of the audience because she is a woman,
then the same must be said of Hecuba, of Electra, of Antigone; such an as-
sumption turns Greek tragedy into a rather uninteresting form of literature,
into a genre where words, actions, and moral choices are of little significance
compared to the contingent facts of gender. We may wonder whether such an
impoverished art form could have succeeded in casting its spell over so many
subsequent generations, a spell so clear from the contributions to this volume.
Encouraging a Greek audience to feel sympathy for a powerful female
barbarian is not in itself a remarkable achievement on Euripides’ part. The
achievement of his Medea is rather to create a mother who deliberately kills
her children, face to face, to avenge not a natal relative, or other third party,
32 See Finglass (2007) on Soph. El. 612–33.

33 See Csapo and Slater (1994) 286–7 and the passages cited there.
34 See Finglass (2017a) 315.
20 Finglass
but herself, and to turn her into a figure with whom the audience can imagina-
tively sympathise, even as they instinctively recoil from her actions. Euripides
does this despite the innovative way in which he handles the myth, probably
being the first to make Medea kill her own children, and with her own hand –
something avoided by other tragic filicides. He achieves his end through the
vivid depiction of the war within Medea’s soul between her conflicting desires
to preserve her offspring and to punish her children; and through careful plot
construction, not having Medea announce her decision to kill her children
until the chorus, and the audience, have been won over by seeing the appall-
ingly undeserved suffering which she has had to endure. Only when that sym-
pathy is established does the audience learn of that decision, and although
it is natural to regard it with horror, it is nevertheless difficult to abandon all
sympathy for Medea’s plight at that point, especially since that very plight is
driving her to perform this most dreadful act.
Persuading an audience to feel sympathy for someone who knowingly and
deliberately commits a terrible crime is perhaps the most challenging aspect
of the tragic poet’s art. We should perhaps not be surprised, then, that few
of the plays that have come down to us involve this kind of plot; Euripides’
Electra and Sophocles’ Ajax are examples, but in both these cases the killing,
or attempted killing, in question has taken place before the action of the play
begins, and its consequences lead to the destruction of the perpetrator. Medea
is so distinctive because the killing takes place within the timeframe of the
drama itself and the perpetrator is not punished by mortals or by gods, but
rather almost appears as a substitute deus ex machina at the play’s end. And
yet the audience is nevertheless encouraged, if not to approve the filicide, yet
at least to understand what has driven Medea to the point where such a crime
can, in part, seem a legitimate response.
From this perspective, the play is arguably the most intensely tragic of all
surviving Greek tragedies. Whether Euripides succeeded in captivating his
audience at the play’s first performance is impossible to tell; but subsequent
readers and audiences have rightly regarded the work as a classic of the genre.
Indeed, the play has become such a classic that today ‘Medea’ is overwhelm-
ingly Euripides’ Medea, to such an extent that people familiar with the myth
are quite unaware that Medea ever did anything else apart from kill her chil-
dren; and thanks to that success, it is easy to forget how startlingly innovative
the play must have seemed when first performed in Athens, all those years ago.
chapter 2
Medea: the Bewitched Witch in Apollonius

of Rhodes
Maria do Céu Fialho
Born1 and raised in the great cosmopolis of Alexandria,2 Apollonius received

his intellectual education within its erudite circles, including the then recent
Museum and great Library complex, which he frequented.3 The place was
positively sizzling with activity thanks to the collection and critical reading
of manuscripts,4 whose contents were genuine treasures of a cultural past;
Alexandria and other Hellenistic centres thereby sanctioned their identity and
their sense of simultaneously belonging to the chain of tradition and to the
extended world that had adopted Greek as a means of communication and
Greece as its heritage.
It is debatable whether Apollonius was a disciple of Callimachus’ as the
Suda claims, or whether they merely frequented the same circles. It is a fact,
however, that he was the second head of the Library, after Zenodotus and be-
fore Eratosthenes, and that he held this post between the years 60 and 246,
when Eratosthenes was appointed chief librarian by Ptolemy.
According to tradition, Apollonius’ Argonautica had a less than enthusi-
astic reception when it was publicly read in Alexandria, and this supposedly
led Apollonius to move to the island of Rhodes and dedicate himself to his
work, with as much success as he had expected: thence his epithet Apollonius
of Rhodes. His literary decision to write an epic poem may certainly be con-
sidered audacious. He had behind him an unrivalled tradition – that of the
Homeric poems – which at the time had become the focus of a passionate
1 This research was developed under the project UID/ELT/00196/2013, Centre for Classical and
Humanistic Studies, funded by the Portuguese FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology.
2 Apollonius was probably born in the early 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy I,
‘Soter’.
3 The Museum was established in the early 3rd century by Ptolemy I, who was advised and
encouraged by Demetrius of Phaleron, the former tyrant and later a disciple of Theophrastus;
as for the Library, which was probably adjacent to the Museum, it must have been built some
time later, under the aegis of Ptolemy I, although this is still a matter of debate.
4 Ptolemy I Soter, his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and Ptolemy III Euergetes invested large
sums to hire agents whose task was to find valuable Greek manuscripts and buy them for the
Library: Marlowe (1971) 68–9.

22 Fialho
activity of commentary and text criticism, exemplified by Zenodotus. In his

time, and as regards aesthetic patterns of poetic composition, a number of cel-
ebrated poets, such as Callimachus (Epigram 28. 1–2) and Theocritus (7. 45–8),
were raising their voices against the writing of cyclical poetry, of long, sono-
rous epics.
Apollonius thus creates his own aesthetic challenge: an epic poem in four
books,5 where he follows a variety of poetic traditions – not just the epic
genre – while adopting a poetic-discursive register very much in tune with
the times. The different invocations of the Muses are directly aligned with his
topic; the pathos, so popular in the representation of Hellenistic art, is often
highlighted by the emotional intervention of a narrator who, although only
discretely present, is no longer a flat character, and who is capable of descend-
ing into the depths of the human soul, with its dramas and discords.6
Apollonius’ epic characters resemble some of Homer’s, evoking their traits
or dealing with similar situations, but their action mobilizes new resources,
such as active magic, as in the cult of Hecate, which illustrates the esoteric ten-
dency and the attraction of witchcraft in the cosmopolis, a place where west-
ern and eastern cultures meet and melt together; or passive magic, imposed on
human beings by a cruel, versatile, and arbitrary Eros.7
The inner landscape of the soul is combined with the dynamics of the ima
ginary of travels, with its Odyssean matrix, and also with that of contemporary
Hellenistic reality.8
5 The division of the Homeric poems in twenty-four books was carried out by their Alexandrian
editors.
6 Morrison (2007) 271 and 271 n. 2, 3, 4, emphasises this, giving examples of first-person state-
ments, judgements, and comments on the narrated events. Sometimes the narrator addresses
the characters or the audience.
7 Brioso Sánchez (2003) 19: “Nadie duda de la importancia del tema amoroso en Apolonio de
Rodas, pero, como saben muy bien los conocedores de la poesía helenística, el amor es entre
otros un ingrediente essencial en la poesía de esta época, y en Las Argonáuticas es evidente
su combinación con muy diversos elementos. Precisamente una de las grandes cualidades
de esta obra es el admirable equilibrio con que se conjugan todos ellos” (No one doubts the
importance of the love theme in Apollonius of Rhodes, but, as those who know the Greek
poetry of the time are aware, love is, among others, a major theme, and its combination with
a variety of other topics is evident. One of the great qualities of this work is precisely the
admirable balance of their combination).
8 As Alvar (2008) 90 stresses, the continuity of fantasy and reality, which propels both the
exploration of the world by the boldest Alexandrians, who seek to sail as far as the ends of
the earth, and another kind of exploration, which may have fed the former: the narrative
of fantastic travels. See also André-Baslez (1993) 43 sqq. This context, as the authors stress
fostered the development of Geography as a science (“La cartographie a fait, durant toute
l’époque hellénistique, d’immenses progrès et l’on peut dire que la géographie est née au
Medea: Apollonius of Rhodes 23
Apollonius chose an ancient myth, a myth which, from very early times,
generated countless lost narratives, of which there were still some scarce ex-
tant fragments that might have reached our poet.9 The Odyssey includes a brief
testimony to its relative antiquity, in the words of Circe, one of the characters
who belong to the family constellation of the descendants of the Sun, a sor-
cerer, just like her niece Medea. She warns Odysseus about the perils that he
must face during his travels. One of those is the Symplegades, the moving rocks
that clash against each other, crushing ships and sailors:10
One seafaring ship alone has passed thereby,

that Argo famed of all, on her voyage from Aeetes.
The seductiveness of the journey in search of the Golden Fleece and the role
of the young barbarian princess, who, with her magic powers and her passion
for Jason, helped the Argonaut and was thus forced to leave her motherland as
a result of betraying her family, are present in the multiplicity of post-Homeric
poetic compositions.11 As regards the poems that have reached us, we can es-
tablish that they were used by Apollonius as his sources, since he pays them
homage in his poem.
Besides the tragedians, Pindar too is visibly present in Hellenistic epic. In
his Pythian 4, written in honour of Arcesilaus of Cyrene, who won the chariot
race, Pindar resorts to the myth of the Argonauts and their journey in search
of the Golden Fleece, giving pride of place to Medea. The narrative begins with
forebodings, by a Medea inspired by the figure of Circe, concerning the future
colonization of Libya by a lineage that ultimately goes back to Zeus and Io
(Pythian 4. 9–31). To go back to the beginning of the expedition, Pindar uses a
typical resource of epic poetry – the rhetorical question.12 From then on, the
action is set in Iolcos, with a reference to the oracle and the role of Pelias,
the preparations of the expedition and the formation of the group, followed by
the perils they had to face, such as the Symplegades (207 sqq.).
Musée d’Alexandrie”, 47 [Cartography underwent enormous progress during the whole

of the Hellenistic era, and one may say that geography was born at the Museum of
Alexandria]).
9 Hunter (1989) 15–6.
10 Od. 12. 69–70.
11 Hunter (1989) 15. On the mythological tradition before Euripides, see Finglass’ chapter,
above.
12 Suárez de la Torre (1988) 177 n.14: “se inicia la narración more homerico, con una inter-
rogación (a la Musa o simplemente retórica) cuya respuesta es el próprio contenido del
relato” (the narration begins more homerico, with a question [addressed to the Muse or
simply rhetorical] the answer to which is the content of the narrative itself).
24 Fialho
The first two books of Apollonius’ Argonautica address the preparations for
the journey, the selection of the leader, and their maritime adventure to arrive
in Colchis, where the Argonauts face terrible perils at sea and land in differ-
ent parts where danger, passion, and prophecy await them. The description of
those lands, their customs and aitia, and the local hydrography is based on the
author’s knowledge of the Pinakes catalogue of cults, rivers, and springs, which
was compiled by Callimachus and belonged to the Archives of the Library of
Alexandria.
Now that they have arrived in Colchis, the narrator leaves the Argonauts
aside, though still prudently hidden, since they do not know how they will be
received in this land, and addresses the divine spheres, where three goddesses
plot on how they might assist Jason: they decide to ask Eros to cause an over-
powering passion in Medea, the maiden, so that she will put her magic powers
at the service of the Greek warrior.
From now on, the power of Eros leads the action, and, in the prologue of
Book 3 (1–5), the narrator vehemently addresses the following invocation to
Erato, the Muse:13
Come now, Erato, stand beside me and relate to me how it was that Jason
brought the fleece from Colchis to Iolkos through the power of Medea’s
love. I invoke you because you also have been allotted a share of Kypris’
power, and young girls, not yet mated, are bewitched by the cares you
bring; for this reason a lovely (eperaton) name has been attached to you.
This wordplay based on the sound of the Muse’s name – Erato – and eros, her
relationship with Aphrodite, which makes her a participant in the process of
enchanting young maidens (ἀδμῆτας δὲ τεοῖς μεληδήμασι θέλγεις παρθενικάς,
3. 4–5), is connected, through the verb θέλγω, to a whole tradition of eros as
seductive or enchanting power.14
The epic motif of the council of the gods, the great, noisy assembly in
Olympus presided over by an omnipotent Zeus, is converted by Apollonius
into a peculiar scene, inspired by female daily life, where the signs of New
Comedy become perceptible, anticipating scenes of the future bourgeois com-
edy. The poet depicts Homer’s Ὀλύμπια δώματα: a complex of palatial buildings
where two goddesses – Hera and Athena – whom tradition normally depicts
as not seeing eye to eye, visit Aphrodite to discuss what is now their common
cause, namely, Jason. The three goddesses, whom the original circumstances
13 Cf. Hunter (1989) 26. Apollonius’ translation is borrowed from Hunter (1993).
14 Albis (1996) 68 sqq.
behind the Trojan war had made enemies, are thus gathered together for a
meeting. The dialogue (3.11–110) is marked by a certain daily-life triviality, in
line with the situations in which it occurs. Hera and Athena find the beautiful,
cold Aphrodite leisurely grooming her hair (a favourite Alexandrian theme).
Hephaestus, her husband, is gone about his business and as for her unmanage-
able son Eros, the goddess does not know his whereabouts.
Hera and Athena seek to obtain Eros’ services through Aphrodite, so that
passion may be stirred up in the heart of Medea, the πολυφάρμακος (cf. 3. 27),15
overcome by love’s arrows. Just like poor Phaedra in Hippolytus, she is to be
the human instrument through which the goddesses’ designs are to be fulfilled
(here in the form not of punishment but rather of success for the enterprise),
even at the cost of Medea’s grief.
As a frivolous self-centered beauty, Aphrodite is unable to deal adequately
with her maternal relationship with a spoilt boy accustomed to his mother’s
feeble authority which leaves him free to pursue his whims – an unruly, dis-
obedient, roguish, cruel boy, as spoilt, ill-bred children can be. This is how
Apollonius introduces Eros, the goddess’ son.
This early episode illustrates how the connections between Eros and Tychē
are developed and consolidated in the Hellenistic imagination: Tyche occu-
pies the space of autonomy that Eros, the whimsical boy, gains in the action,
while amusing himself by unpredictably manipulating the bonds of affection
between humans. We are now quite far from the overbearing Aphrodite found
in the Homeric poems or from Hesiod’s cosmogonic Eros, who takes prece-
dence over Aphrodite, or the Eros of the philosophers, or the cosmic Eros (cf.
e.g. Euripides, Hippolytus 433 sqq.; Sophocles, Trachiniae 497 sqq.; Antigone
781–805), or even the concatenation of both, Eros and Himeros, the goddess’s
companion and her right hand man – which is amply documented in archaic
poetry16 and, to some extent, echoed in Antigone.
Pindar (Pythian 4. 212 sqq.) designed a somewhat different version: descend-
ing from Olympus, Cypris brings a magic wheel with a bird bound to it, and
teaches Jason how to use it to seduce Medea. This was a known magic practice
and thus Jason bewitches the sorcerer maiden so that she was overwhelmingly
stricken with love (καιομέναν, 219) for him, betrayed her parents and, with her
magic powers, gave him help. Pindar does not mention Jason’s passion – he
15 This expressive epithet is the same used by Homer to designate Circe (cf. Odyssey 10. 276).
16 As an example, see Alcman fr. 59 PMG; Ibycus, frs. 285, 286 PMG. Fialho (2009) 257–9;
id. ibid. 263 sqq. Calame (1992) 15 notes the points of coincidence, identified by
Apollonius’ commentators, between Eros in Alcman and in Hellenistic epic: the same
madness and arbitrariness with which he strikes his victims and interferes with their fate.
26 Fialho
merely tells how, after completing his enterprise, he takes the young woman
with him, with her consent, using a short prolepsis to mention the princess’
magic practices in Iolcus (Pythian 4. 250).17
Aphrodite and Eros are thus dissociated in Apollonius, with the child be-
coming autonomous in his insolent rebelliousness and the goddess losing
control over him. She doubts that she will be able to persuade him, as she con-
fesses to the other two goddesses who visit her (3. 91 sqq.), and resorts to the
typical method of a mother who is no longer able to control her bad-mannered
offspring – she bribes him with valuable toys (3. 131 sqq.) – when she eventually
finds her son playing dice (a favourite Anacreontic and Anacreontea theme)
with Ganymede, whom he is cheating. The die of Medea’s fate is thus cast with
the young woman being unaware of it. Eros is quite pleased both with the
present her mother has promised him and the challenge of the task he is plan-
ning to ruthlessly carry out.
As for Jason, he manages to persuade the Argonauts, who are convening
in their hidden ship, that the most convenient step to take would be to visit
Aeetes palace accompanied by Phrixus’ sons, to disclose his intentions and try
to reach a peaceful solution. Just as Athena in the Odyssey (7. 14 sqq.) caused a
great fog to descend upon Odysseus so that her protégé might cross the city of
the Phaeacians and get to Alcinous’ palace under its protection, so Hera wraps
Jason in a thick mist, to ensure he arrives safely at king Aeetes’ palace. Both
heroes, Odysseus and Jason, stop to marvel at the works and decorations pro-
duced by Hephaestus as a homage to Alcinous and Aeetes. Besides mentioning
their architectural refinement, Apollonius also describes the four fountains,
forged by Hephaestus (pouring forth wine, milk, perfumed oil, and warm and
cold water, 3. 223–7), which involve the reader in an atmosphere similar to that
of magic realism.
Exceptionally, Medea is detained at home by the goddess – just as Nausicaa
leaves at dawn, so does Medea go outside of the city daily, to the temple of
Hecate, where she is one of the priestesses (3. 250–2). When she sees the for-
eigner, Medea cries aloud, while her maids steal off like a whirlwind (3. 253
sqq.). Her cry reaches her sister Chalciope, who is the mother of Phrixus’ sons.
Aeetes and the queen are the last to appear.
This scene is clearly inspired by Odyssey 6.117 sqq., albeit with some dif-
ferences: in Homer it is the maids who cry aloud when the ball falls into the
water, and Odysseus awakens at the noise. The maids then run away, just like in
Apollonius, leaving Nausicaa and Ulysses face to face. Odysseus then addresses
17 For a comparison between Jason’s profile in Pindar and Apollonius, see Köhnken (2000)
55–68.
his ingenious discourse to Nausicaa (6. 149 sqq.). In Apollonius, however, the
function of Medea’s cry is to attract Chalciope and their parents while scaring
the maids away. Chalciope is the one to speak, delighted to see her sons. Soon
after, Jason meets Aeetes. And what about Medea? It seems that she suddenly
turns into a background character, withdrawn in her young maiden’s silence,
soon to be shaken by a turmoil of new, bitter-sweet sensations.
The tumultuous exchange of words that follows, the violence implicit in
Aeetes’ challenges to Jason do not immediately involve Medea. The action
plan for her is quite different, invisible to the eyes of those present though no
less marked by agitation and violence. Eros arrives, unseen, descending from
Olympus, ready for his mission. His entrance in the palace is described by the
narrator as a disturbing element, like the gadfly (οἶστρος, 276) that rises against
the heifers in the meadows. The educated reader cannot but be reminded of
the myth of Io (in both cases the gadfly is sent by Hera, in Io for reasons of ven-
geance, in Medea to carry out a plan), given its connections with Egyptian soil.
The god strings his bow and, using all his strength, shoots a well-aimed
arrow that pierces Medea’s heart. Eros leaves, laughing cruelly, aware of the
consequences of the wound that his arrow had inflicted on the poor victim
(3. 285–6). Passion bursts out in Medea’s heart like a flame that consumes her
inside. The simile and the description of the symptoms of her nascent passion
employ motifs reminiscent of the tradition of erotic poetry in Archaic Greece:
the heart of the lyrical I in Sappho’s poetry is similarly consumed by passion
and desire (fr. 48 Voigt). Medea’s bitter-sweet sensation (3. 290) materialises
the γλυκύπιρος eros that strikes Sappho (130 Voigt). As for Jason, no arrows were
aimed at him. In point of fact, in 3. 523 sqq., Argos talks dispassionately about
the existence of Medea, an expert in magic plants and potions, as a priestess of
Hecate who can be instigated, through the intervention of Aphrodite, to help
the Argonauts; she is therefore a mere instrument.
As Jason prepares to meet Medea, Hera pours beauty and graces upon
him, like Athena had done for Odysseus when he met Nausicaa after his bath.
Only later, when the Argonaut notices the tears that dim Medea’s eyes when
they meet by the temple of Hecate, where the princess provides him with the
means to accomplish his task, withholding the passion that possesses her, is
he stricken by love, “the destroyer” (οὖλος ῎Ερως, 3. 1078). This meeting of the
young couple, alone, among nature, by the temple of the fearsome goddess –
she swept along by passion, wordless, fainting (3. 960 sqq.), showing the same
symptoms as those described in Sappho’s famous fragment (fr. 31 Voigt); he,
anxious about the trials that await him and about Medea’s help, and enam-
oured, both of them handsome and graceful, as if rooted to the ground like
oaks or tall fir-trees, as the narrator describes them through a beautiful simile
28 Fialho
(3. 967 sqq.) – constitutes one of the highlights of the epic poem, with its ad-
ditional tragic innuendoes.
Does the proportional unbalance of mutual feelings represent a compro-
mise vis-à-vis the tradition of Euripidean tragedy? In all probability, it does.
And the same is true regarding the prolepsis behind the epithet ‘the destroyer’.
The events in Euripides’ tragedy are also evoked by the scene where Medea
nostalgically leaves her home and her dear ones behind to run towards the ship
that is preparing to set sail, and asks to be taken with them, reminding Jason
of his promises (which seemed to have been forgotten); he raises her into the
ship, giving her his right hand as a sign of commitment. Handshaking with the
right hand as a sign of sealed promises is abundantly mentioned by the protag-
onist in Medea to indicate commitments undertaken and broken. Jason speaks
about how Theseus was saved by Ariadne, a barbarian woman. However, this
example is ambiguous, even if Jason eventually pledges to make Medea his
legitimate wife when they arrive in Hellas (3. 1120 sqq.). Shortly afterwards, as
was mentioned above, he seems to be ready to go and leave her behind.
The reader sees how Medea’s solitary inner drama grows in intensity: irre-
sistibly attracted to Jason, fearing for her life, eager to help him accomplish the
tasks imposed on him by her father, Aeetes, by using her expertise in magic,
but nevertheless impotent to cure herself of this passion. On the other hand,
she is fearful and disgusted at the idea of betraying her own father. All this
anxiety, depicted in accordance with tradition, causes Medea to wish that she
had never seen Jason set foot on the land of Colchis (3. 459–70; cf. 3. 771 sqq.).
The novelty of her overwhelming feelings, uncomfortable yet pleasant, high-
lights the frailty and the naive character of the young maiden, fascinated by the
newly-arrived foreigner, which somehow echoes Nausicaa’s much less intense
fascination for Ulysses. However, this inclination of the soul will haunt Medea
and become even more extreme, hindering her from sleep, and guiding her be-
haviour and her actions. As a priestess of Hecate, the bewitched witch nearly
yields to the temptation of procuring, in her casket, some φάρμακα with which
to put an end to her life (3. 802 sqq.). Morrison (2007) 285 stresses the “narra-
torial sympathy for the pathetic situation of his characters”, together with the
expressive similarity between this passage in Apollonius and Bacchylides 16.
30, on Deianira.
Torn between her desperate affliction and her wish to save Jason, she gets
ready and orders her chariot to be prepared, intending to leave the city with
her maids, like Nausicaa. Here Apollonius uses a simile to compare Medea to
Artemis (3. 876 sqq.), as in Homer. She takes another charm with her: the herb
of Prometheus, with which she intends to protect Jason’s life. Night is contras
ted with dawn, Medea’s fresh youthfulness with her proximity to Hecate, the
terrible goddess of magic, her night dream and the despair she feels at the un-
bearable weight of her passion with her steady resolve and her determination,
which are crucial for the success of the Argonauts’ enterprise. She then heads
towards her celebrated meeting with Jason.
Before that, the reader witnesses the passionate folly that made the young
woman leave her room clad in her bedroom robe, seeking a confidante, hes-
itating and stealing back, in a beautifully drawn scene: the whole of Nature
rests under Sleep’s shadow and tutelary silence; only Medea fails to fall asleep
(3. 744 sqq.). The meeting between the two sisters during the night is to dictate
the fate of this text in Virgil’s epic, in the dialogue between Dido and Anna. As
Hunter (1989) 27–8 remarks, “the vocabulary in which A. describes Medea’s
mental and physical suffering can almost all be paralleled from the frag-
ments of Alcman, Ibycus, Anacreon, Archilochus and Sappho, as well as from
Alexandrian epigram. These shorter poetic forms, however, lacked the scope
that epic narrative offered for exploring the development of a passion through
action, gesture, smile and speech; it was here that A. created a portrait which
profoundly influenced the Greek and Roman poets who came after him”.
However, the depth of a tradition of erotic lyricism developed in the action
is particularly indebted to tragedy, notably Euripidean tragedy, as mentioned
above. Apollonius took special care to leave room in his work and character
construction for the events to come in Medea, particularly in Euripides, which
are known to the reader as passion, treason, broken vows, and the foreign
Colchian woman’s ability to exact her dreadful vengeance.18
The narrator addresses a bitter apostrophe to Eros (4. 445–9), the causer of
suffering, of the perturbations of the soul and of the calamities of life, he who
led the young woman, who had only recently parted with her home and her
family in tears and in solitude, to cruelly slay her brother Apsyrtus so as to be
able to indulge her passion for Jason and flee to Hellas with the Golden Fleece:
Reckless Eros, great curse, greatly loathed by men, from you come dead-
ly strifes and grieving and troubles, and countless other pains on top of
these swirl up. Rear up, divine spirit, against my enemies’ children as you
were when you threw hateful folly into Medea’s heart.
18 As concerns the infanticide theme, the reference is clearly to Euripides. Notwithstanding
the possibility that Neophron’s tragedy preceded Euripides’, introducing the motif (see
Finglass’s chapter above, pp. 15, 16, 18), it is Euripides’ genius that persists as being the
most-performed tragedian in the 4th century (see Finglass [forthcoming 1]), which re-
sulted in his powerful reception.
30 Fialho
The reader is again confronted with the gloomy face of boundless passion
that seizes Medea, that bewitches her and makes her use her magic to enable
the free course of her passion, an ἄτης πῆμα δυσίμερον (4. 4) that leads the
narrator to hesitate, in his invocation of the Muse (most probably Erato) at
the beginning of the final Book, as to how to define the whirling crescendo of
Medea’s deadly use of her magic, in parallel with the whirlwind that sweeps
her inner self, as if bewitched by Eros. As a consequence, the narrator refuses
to describe the propitiatory ritual practiced by the young woman, who already
knew that Aeetes had found out about the situation, and that Apsyrtus and
their countrymen were preparing to chase them, when the Argonauts call at
Paphlagonia, next to a place propitious to the goddess (4. 249–50).19
As the Argonauts approach Greece, Medea’s dark side becomes more appar-
ent, developing in parallel with the intensity of her passion for Jason. When
the island of Crete is in sight – which may be read as an arrival at Hellas’
‘portico’ – beneath the fragile countenance of the young woman who covers
her face with a veil, her nature as a sorcerer, grows to frightening proportions
(4. 1665 sqq.): thrice she invokes the dreadful ‘Keres, devourers of the spirit’
(Κῆρας θυμοβόρους), the bitches of Hades (this feminine suggests Hecate’s). As
if possessed by an evil spirit, she cast such a sombre, powerful glance at Talos,
the giant, that he died and fell, with a great noise, into the sea, leaving the way
clear for the Argonauts to resume their journey.
The young woman thus arrives in Hellas, passion having unrooted her from
her barbarian land and made her submit to the power of enchanting Eros,20
willing to put her powers at the service of her lover – Jason. As was noted
above, a certain unbalance is perceptible in their respective feelings for each
other, and the reader, equipped with the knowledge of the myth’s tradition
and the poetic treasures inherited from old Greece, is able to read between the
lines of the sub-text, as Apollonius intended him/her to, through the narrative
strategies implemented in the text.
This powerful facet of Medea’s character went down in history, and, when
associated with that of tragic Medea, it often becomes further accentuated as
the sombre, vengeful sorcerer in the betrayed woman and mother, who none-
theless has the ability to generate an autonomous fate for herself, as can be
seen in Ovid,21 who particularly underscores the demiurgic side of Medea,
which is especially echoed in contemporary productions.
19 Morrison (2007) 283 notes the similarity between this attitude and that of Pindar’s narra-
tor, which he illustrates with Nemean 5. 14–6 or Olympian 1. 52.
20 Hunter (1993) 59 sqq.
21 Metamorphoses 7. See Suárez de la Torre (2006) 117–34.
chapter 3
Versions of Medea in Classical Latin

Andrés Pociña and Aurora López
1 Medea in the Fragmentary Plays of Latin Tragedians1
A little over thirty years ago, in a work that sought to define in only a few pages
the fundamental aspects that can be used to characterise Latin tragedy (Pociña
1986), when discussing the most popular themes among Roman playwrights,
the author mentioned as key elements their preference for the Trojan saga,
their inclination for horrific subjects, and their tendency towards melodrama;
as regards the frequency of their choice of plots that could be described as
horrific, or cruel, if you prefer, we should note the repeated presence, from
the beginnings of Latin tragedy, of developments on such themes as Tereus,
Atreus, Thyestes, and, alongside these, also the Medea theme, on which the au
thor wrote: “el tema de Medea se repite en Enio, Acio, Ovidio, Lucano, Séneca y
Curiacio Materno […], y el Medus de Pacuvio, único caso conocido en la trage
dia tanto griega como latina de dramatización de la leyenda del hijo de Medea
y Egeo”2 (“the theme of Medea is repeated in Ennius, Accius, Ovid, Lucan,
Seneca and Curiatius Maternus […], and in Pacuvius’ Medus, the only known
case of a dramatisation of the legend of Medea and Aegeus’ son in both Greek
and Latin tragedy”).
The legend of Medea, about which there is no data that might led us to
suppose that it was approached by either the first Latin playwright, Livius
Andronicus, or his next and closest follower, Gnaeus Naevius, was the subject
of at least one drama by each of the members of the great triad of writers who,
from the late 3rd century till the beginning of the 1st century AD, fathered trag
edy in Rome: Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius, and Lucius Accius. There is
a huge bibliography on their drama versions of the subject in hand, i.e., the
different fundamental moments in Medea’s existence, which means that only
2 Pociña (1986) 34. The existence of general studies on the presence of Medea in archaic Latin
tragedians is therefore not surprising; two examples are Dondoni (1958) and Arcellaschi
(1990), a comprehensive study which has become a classic.

32 Pociña and López
a limited number of specific aspects that might be significant for the general
purpose of this book can be discussed here; that is, we shall be approaching
our theme from the point of view of the ancient hypotexts for the Medea re
writings in Portuguese.
According to the theory supported by most researchers, albeit not all, each
of the Latin tragedians took up a different aspect of the Medea legend: in his
Medea, or Medea exul, Quintus Ennius (239–169 BC) deals with the same sub
ject as the Greek tragedy that served as his model, Euripides’ Medea: the vicis
situdes of the protagonist’s life in her relationship with Jason, during her life
in Corinth, culminating in the Argonaut’s plans to leave Medea, which ulti
mately leads to her murdering their two children. In his play Medus, Marcus
Pacuvius (c. 220–c. 139 BC), Ennius’ successor in the cultivation of tragedy and
a nephew of his in real life, presented a lesser known event in the life of our
heroine: many years after fleeing from Corinth, having returned to Colchis,
where she had spent her childhood, Medea meets Medus, the son she had
had by Aegeus, king of Athens; not knowing who he was, for the young man
had hid his identity, our heroine nearly killed him. And last, Lucius Accius
(170–c. 86 BC), the third of the three major tragedians, also dealt with the le
gend of Medea, although he focused on the initial stage of the saga, i.e., the
episode recounted principally in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica (4. 303–
81): Jason and Medea’s flight from Colchis, taking the Golden Fleece with
them.
But let us look at some specific aspects of interest in the versions of each
of the three playwrights. In the case of Quintus Ennius, an issue that has per
sisted for a long time, and has not yet been unanimously resolved, has to do
with the possibility that this author may have written two tragedies on our
heroine, a Medea and a Medea exul. This possibility is based on Otto Ribbeck’s
classic Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Ribbeck 1897: 49–57), in which
sixteen fragments of a tragedy that may have been based on Euripides’ Medea
are presented under the title Medea exul, followed by a single fragment of
the version simply titled Medea; the belief in the existence of these two trag
edies, explained in detail by Ribbeck himself in his monumental work Die rö-
mische Tragödie (Ribbeck 1897: 157) and supported almost one century later by
H. D. Jocelyn in his edition of Ennius’ tragedies (Jocelyn 1967: 113–23), is based
on the fact that Hyginus (Fabulae 25, 26) mentions both a Medea exul (the mis
adventures of the heroine in Corinth) and a Medea (Medea’s life in Athens
up to her flight to Colchis). However, Ettore Paratore (1957: 143; 2005: 152) and
William Beare (1964: 59–60) believe that Ennius wrote only one tragedy about
the Colchian heroine, titled Medea exul. In 1990, André Arcellaschi wrote per
tinently about this long-debated issue:
Versions of Medea in Classical Latin 33
Sans prétendre avoir résolu toutes les énigmes que pose encore la Médée
d’Ennius, il semble plus satisfaisant de nous arrêter définitivemente à
l’hypothèse d’une oeuvre unique, d’une Médée à Corinthe, que les gram
mairiens tardifs ont appelée Medea Exul, pour la différencier surtout de
celle d’Accius, Medea siue Argonautae
Arcellaschi 1990: 58; 2002: 368
(Without claiming to have solved all the enigmas still posed by Ennius’
Medea, it seems more satisfactory to consider definitively the hypo
thesis of a single work, a Medea in Corinth, which the late grammarians
called Medea Exul to differentiate it especially from Accius’ Medea siue
Argonautae).
Believing that there is in fact but one Medea by Quintus Ennius, for a variety of
reasons and following the guidelines laid by Paratore, Beare, Arcellaschi, and
others, despite the different opinions that still exist on the subject,3 our first
Roman Medea, of which about forty verses, some incomplete, can now be read,
and most of them compared with the corresponding passages in Euripides’
Medea, provided its Roman audience, in the early days of the historical de
velopment of tragedy in Rome, with a play quite similar to the one that had
been performed in Athens some two centuries earlier. The Euripidean influ
ence on Quintus Ennius’ Medea is indisputable, although this should not be in
terpreted, as it sometimes is, as a criticism for a supposed lack of originality, a
somewhat misunderstood concept. Therefore, after the tragedies about Medea
authored by Euripides, Quintus Ennius, and Seneca, we have three dramatisa
tions of events of which our heroine is the protagonist, and which are undeni
ably interconnected.
As for Marcus Pacuvius’ strange tragedy, Medus,4 about which we lack in
formation regarding its possible Greek or Roman antecedents, Antonino De
Rosalia’s opinion is useful: “Pacuvio conosceva molto bene, inoltre, la produzi
one tragica alessandrina, e questo spiega l’impossibilità di trovare un modello
certo per tanti suoi drammi e in particolare per il Medus, in cui i critici, con
largo accordo, hanno visto l’opera sua più originale” (De Rosalia 1989: 126)
(“Pacuvio was also quite familiar with Alexandrian tragedy production, and
this explains why it is impossible to establish a correct model for many of his
plays, especially for Medus, which critics generally agree to describe as his most
3 See, for example, Dumont and François-Garelli (1998) 108.

4 Cf., besides other general studies on Latin tragedy, more specific works by Della Casa (1974);
Nosarti (1995); Pociña (2004), etc.
original work”). Only a limited number of ancient sources5 deal with Medea’s
son, Medus, although the most complete and the closest text to Pacuvius’ trag
edy is certainly Hyginus’ Fabula 27; the hypothesis that our playwright could
have been the primary source for the mythographer’s text is indeed enter
tained, although the possibility of both of them having drunk from the same
source, that is, from a Greek tragedy whose title is unknown, cannot be ruled
out. According to Hyginus, this is the subject matter of Medus:
Medus, son of Medea and Aegeus king of Athens, was stranded in the
coast of Colchis by a storm while seeking his mother, and pretended to be
Hippotes, son of Creon. Perses, son of the sun-god and brother of Aeetes,
fearing an oracle which warned him to dread the vengeance of Aeetes’
descendants, imprisoned Medus. The land was seized by famine; Medea
came and pretended to be a priestess of Diana able to expiate the dearth.
Hearing that Perses was holding Hippotes, Creon’s son, she thought that
he had come to avenge the wrong done to Creon by her, and told Perses it
was Medus (without knowing this was true) sent by Medea to kill Perses.
Could she therefore kill him? Medus, when led out to the tender mercies
of Medea, was recognised by her; she asked to converse with him, gave
him a sword, and told him to avenge his grandfather. Medus kills Perses,
obtains the kingdom, and names it Media.
Fewer than forty lines from Pacuvius’ Medus remain; scattered across twenty-
five fragments, they are not all complete.6 It is impossible to find rewritings of
what may have been one of the most curious and original Latin tragedies writ
ten in the 2nd century BC.
As mentioned above, when we come to the third great Latin tragedian,
Lucius Accius, we find the Medea theme, again, as the subject of one of his
works. However, he addresses a section of the myth that his predecessors,
Ennius and Pacuvius, had not touched upon, and which chronologically pre
cedes the part of the story treated by the two playwrights, who describe the
adversities faced by Medea and Jason upon their flight from Colchis by sea,
taking the Golden Fleece with them; at the request of king Aeetes, Medea’s
father, some Colchians, sent by the heroine’s brother, Apsyrtus, follow in their
pursuit. When the fugitives are sieged at the mouth of the Istro, Medea advises
the Argonauts to entrust the Golden Fleece to Diana, until the Scythian or the
Thracian kings decide what should happen to them. Jason does not agree, in
5 Studied in detail by Della Casa (1974) passim, and also by D’Anna (1967) 23–4.
6 Ribbeck (1897) 118–23; D’Anna (1967) 119–25; Artigas (2009) 157–61.
view of which Medea suggests that she could bring her brother Apsyrtus to
them, so that Jason might kill him, thus leaving the Colchians without a leader.
So, with the promise that she will help him retrieve the fleece, Medea tricks
her brother into meeting her in the temple of Diana, where Jason kills him and
then purifies himself.
The extant lines and fragments from Accius’ eventful and adventurous trag
edy are few.7 The beginning is strongly reminiscent of a passage from Cicero’s
De natura deorum (2. 89), especially the account of the arrival of the Argo in
Colchis, observed from the shore by a shepherd who had never seen a ship
before. Curiously, this fragment inspired a similar passage in El vellocino de
oro (The Golden Fleece) by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega (1562–1635),
whose source will have been the passage of Cicero, which Vega must have
read (Pociña [2002] 406–10). By contrast, only a small number of authors have
passed on fragments of Accius’ Medea, which, apart for Cicero’s random at
tention, has aroused the interest only of grammarians and was never given
attention by authors like Varro, Quintilian, or Gellius, who recall other trag
edies by the same author (Pociña [1984] 49). Accius’ Medea, therefore, seem
to be a work that was neither widely disseminated nor widely read or stud
ied. Obviously, this does not mean that, after Cicero, it was only used by some
grammarians: Antonino De Rosalia, for example, has identified echoes of this
Medea in Seneca’s tragedies (De Rosalia [1981] 338–40).
Thus a good part of Medea’s diversified and astounding experiences is the
subject of three tragedies, with different plots, by the three great Latin authors,
Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius. To these, new dramatic treatments of the theme,
not always completed, by such authors as Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, and Curiatius
Maternus, continued to be added in the following ages, showing how Medea
was as popular in Roman drama as she had been in the Greek world, where it
had inspired an important number of tragedies and, also, of parodic comedies.8
Naturally, considering that these Republican tragedies had already ceased
to exist as complete works before the fall of the Roman Empire, it need not
be explained why it is not possible to find echoes of them, at least directly, in
modern drama.
7 Ribbeck (1897) 216–20; Pociña (1984) 155–60, (2002) 397–410; Dangel (1996) 202–6.
8 See Finglass, above, pp. 14–20; Melero (1996) 57–68, (2002) 328; Wright (forthcoming).
2 A Special Passion for Medea: Ovid the Poet
In his seminal book Médée dans le théâtre latin d’Ennius à Sénèque (Arcellaschi
1990), André Arcellaschi carries out an extensive analysis of the subject of
Medea’s presence in the works of Ovid, since no Latin poet before or after him,
evinces the same wide and continued interest in the character of our heroine.
Ovid covered all the episodes of the Medea legend, especially in three of his
works.9 Consequently, the topic of Medea in Ovid has been the subject of
countless studies, and we must limit ourselves to mentioning some details that
mainly concern the possible influence of the Ovidian texts on the literary re
writes, especially in drama, of the modern and contemporary period.
The first work by Ovid that focused mainly on our protagonist was his
tragedy Medea, written when the author was young10 and of which, unfortu
nately, only two lines are now known; preserved by Quintilian and Seneca the
Rhetorician (Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, p. 20), they were no doubt
spoken by the protagonist. The consequences of such scarce information are
summed up by Arcellaschi (1990) 253:
Le plus souvent, en effet, on se contente, respectueusement, de rappeler

qu’ Ovide a écrit une tragédie; suit un renvoi à une note où l’on précise
qu’il s’agissait d’une Médée et qu’elle est perdue. Plus rarement, on en
cite un vers; exceptionnellement deux. Le commentaire qui les accom
pagne alors tend surtout à souligner l’influence écrasante d’Euripide;
l’oeuvre d’Ovide ne serait qu’un remodelage grossier de sa Médée. Aussi
on s’ingénie à minimiser la chose et l’on tente de trouver des motifs qui
excusent Ovide: il ne s’agit que “d’un essai scolaire”, “d’une oeuvre de bon
helléniste, de brillant écolier”!
(Most often, in fact, people are respectfully happy to recall that Ovid
wrote a tragedy; then they add a reference to a note specifying that it
was a Medea and that it is now lost. More rarely, a line is quoted; or, ex
ceptionally, two. The commentary that accompanies these tends to em
phasize most especially the overwhelming influence of Euripides; Ovid’s
work would, in their opinion, be nothing but a gross remodeling of his
Medea. They do their best to minimise this and try to find reasons to ex
cuse Ovid: it is just a “school essay”, “the work of a good Hellenist, of a
brilliant scholar”!)
9 Arcellaschi (1990) 235, 231–312; Hinds (1993).

10 Paratore (1957) 225; Nikolaidis (1985) 383–7; Pociña (1999) 41–51; Pociña (2014) 195–201, etc.
While we do agree with Arcellaschi’s criticism of the scarce attention dedi

cated by researchers to Ovid’s Medea, we must acknowledge that the compo
sition of this tragedy was an absolute exception, and seems to have been the
poet’s response to some sort of juvenile challenge, a desire to write a higher-
flying work than the ones he used to produce at the beginning of his writing
career, i.e., his leuis elegiac poetry: we must recall his illustrative reflections
in that beautiful poem in which he faces the personifications of Tragedy and
Elegy, in Amores 3. 1,11 and especially his reply to the tragic goddess, asking her
to grant him a little more time to continue to dedicate himself to love poetry:
Exiguum uati concede, Tragoedia, tempus: / tu labor aeternus, quod petit illa,
breve est (3. 1. 67–8). However, young Ovid’s Medea should not have become an
insignificant tragedy: before criticizing it simply for being the work of a young
writer (a negative judgement that affected also Amores and Heroides) or be
cause they consider it to be a clumsy rewrite of Euripides’ Medea (an extremely
shallow judgment based on a comparison that concerns the only two extant
lines), our scholars should pay more attention to the good judgment of two re
liable Romans, who could judge Ovid’s play directly and who praised it, in the
same places and in connection with the other great tragedy of Augustus’ times,
L. Varius Rufus’ Thyestes: that is, Quintilian (10. 1. 98) and Tacitus (Dial. 12).12
Just as little can be known about Ovid’s Medea, it is also hard to speculate
about its possible role in future rewritings of the Medea theme for the stage,
namely as regards the protagonist’s life in Corinth. The work was surely lost
early on, but considering that a serious study of the classical tradition and its
survival in modern and contemporary times cannot exclude the unknown, un
documented history of many lost works, one should ask, for example, what, if
any, might the impact of Ovid’s play have been on Seneca’s Medea, particularly
11 Cf. Mazzoli (1999) 137–51; López (2004) 125–37.

12 Cf. Arcellaschi (1999) 253: “C’est ainsi que Quintilien ne dissimule pas son admiration:
‘Quant à la Médée d’Ovide, nous dit-il, elle me semble montrer tout ce dont cet homme
aurait été capable s’il avait mieux aimé maîtriser son talent plutôt que de s’abandonner
nonchalamment à lui’” (And thus Quintilian does not conceal his admiration: “As for
Ovid’s Medea, he writes, it seems to me that it displays everything this man would have
been capable of doing had he chosen to master his talent rather than just nonchalantly
surrender to it”); Pociña (2014) 199: “Recordaré que la tragedia de Ovidio aparece elo
giosamente recordada, en los mismos lugares y en relación con el Thyestes de Vario, en
Quintiliano (10. 1. 98) y en Tácito (Dial. 12); por eso, a pesar de ser obra de juventud y
de resultar marginal en la producción de su autor, probablemente no fuera una tragedia
tan defectuosa como algunas veces se afirma sin mucho fundamento” (Note that Ovid’s
tragedy is mentioned in quite flattering terms, in the same places and in connection with
Vario’s Thyestes, in Quintilian (10. 1. 98) and in Tacitus (Dial. 12); That is why, despite being
a work written during the author’s youth and a somewhat marginal one within his pro
duction, it probably was not as defective a tragedy as it is sometimes said to be, without
foundation).
regarding those aspects in which this tragedy is quite distinct from Euripides’
own Medea.13
If, as seems quite probable, Ovid’s lost Medea featured the protagonist’s tri
als and tribulations both in Corinth, an aspect in which it would coincide with
Euripides’ tragedy, and in Rome, where it would coincide with the part of the
heroine’s life addressed by Quintus Ennius, it becomes obvious that the great
interest, or, we might say, the great passion, that the Princess of Colchis arose
in Ovid led him to develop a complete and detailed view of the whole Medea
legend in two other works of his, written in very different literary forms and at
very different times: Heroides, poem XII, and Metamorphoses 7. 1–424.
The letter that Medea sends to Jason in Heroides XII is composed accord
ing to the literary genre to which it belongs, the elegy (Barchiesi [2001] 33),
although, as is usual, the text combines different genres (elegy, epic, tragedy),
also a key mark found in the section of Metamorphoses VII that deals with
Medea (Álvarez Morán – Iglesias Montiel 2002). At an unspecified time upon
being abandoned by Jason, Medea, who had not yet murdered Creusa and
her father Creon, recalls her passion for her husband, which was why she was
compelled to help him overcome all the risks he had had to face to retrieve
the Golden Fleece. With the terrible events in the conclusion of this part (the
murder of Creusa and Creon, and especially of her own children) having not
yet occurred, Medea, whose love for Jason remains constant, becomes a sup
pliant and proposes an agreement (191–4), demanding most of all that Jason be
faithful to her, for the sake of the gods, for her merits, for their children, for all
that he owes her. This passage emphasises the profoundly human side of her
feminine sensitivity, which Seneca, like Ovid, also portrays in his Medea 478–
82 (Martina [2002] 607). But in her heart, she knows that this will be nothing
more than a supplication, a desire, and she is set on consummating her own
revenge immediately, led by anger (quo feret ira, sequar, 211), and even knowing
that she may repent it, she is aware of the enormity of her intent: nescio quid
certe mens mea magis agit (213). The image of this elegiac, passionate Medea, a
woman who is in love and who defends her love and the marital fidelity she be
lieves she deserves, evokes a fundamental aspect of the protagonist of Seneca’s
Medea (Martina 2002).
Years later, Ovid, again, not yet satisfied with his tragic and elegiac ap
proach to this woman who moves him so much, seeks a rather flimsy pretext
to dedicate practically the whole first half of Book VII of the Metamorphoses
to her, making Medea the central character of an epic composition; here the
poet from Sulmo recounts, with precise details, Jason’s conquest of the Golden
13 See Charlier (1954); Jacobi (1988); Martina (2002).

Fleece, which would have indeed been impossible without Medea’s collabora
tion (1–158); her performance as a magician to rejuvenate Jason’s father, old
king Aeson (159–296); her opposite performance in the case of old Pelias (297–
349); her flight to Corinth (350–97); and finally her escape to Athens, where she
marries King Aegeus (398–424). Here, in the last of Ovid’s versions, we find a
different Medea, the terrible, almost omnipotent magician, endowed with “la
personalidad de heroína de epopeya y de protagonista de tragedia” (“the per
sonality of both an epic heroine and the protagonist of a tragedy”), as Álvarez
Morán and Iglesias Montiel (2002) 445 wrote.
The three perspectives, the elegiac, the epic, and the tragic, found in Ovid’s
vision of Medea in Heroides XII and Metamorphoses 7. 1–424, had a major influ
ence on subsequent dramatic rewritings. This influence is fortunately still per
ceptible and verifiable today in its nearest heiress, Seneca’s Medea, although
we will never know the extent of the influence of Ovid’s lost Medea on this
tragedy. However, we must not think that the survival of that comprehensive
image of Medea, with its many rich existential details and complex psychologi
cal treatment, ended with Seneca’s tragedy. We must indeed take into consid
eration the enormous dissemination of Ovid’s Heroides from medieval times
and the early days of the Renaissance, with versions produced in the vulgar
languages of the Iberian Peninsula as well as in some territories of Romania.
The title of this Latin text was in fact very similar to the titles of later works by
king Alfonso X the Wise and Juan Rodríguez del Padrón in Spain, or Garcia de
Resende in Portugal;14 the wide dissemination of the Metamorphoses was no
doubt a fundamental element for the completion of the wide spectrum of an
cient Roman influences on the production of new, literary or generally artistic,
visions of Medea.
3 Seneca’s Medea
The Medea rewritings for the stage that have emerged abundantly in the last
centuries, and especially during the 20th century,15 were based on the two
great ancient tragedies that have reached us in their complete versions, and
which served as their fundamental hypotexts: Euripides’ Greek Medea and
Seneca’s Latin Medea. These texts were differently activated by the new play
wrights: in some cases, writers resorted to one of them, in other cases there was
14 Cf. Impey (1980); Saquero Suárez-Somonte and González Rolán (1984); Garrido (1992);
Guimarães Neves (2013); etc.
15 Mimoso-Ruiz (1983) 209–18; Rubino (2000) 227–32.
an articulation of both, and in others still the contributions of each of these

two classical tragedies were combined with those of other texts, of different
origins, from the classical literature of Greece and Rome to previous modern
rewrites of the Medea theme. This requires from current research on the sur
vival of the old hypotexts that it analyses and problematises the new versions
with rigour, from a comparatist perspective, so as to identify their sources of
inspiration and thus arrive at reliable conclusions on what, in each specific
case, is a product of that survival or, on the contrary, is a result of innovation
(cf. López-Pociña 2002).
No comparative analysis has yet been carried out on the influence of
Euripides and Seneca’s tragedies upon the plays about Medea written in recent
decades; this research would certainly afford us a deeper knowledge of the
meaning that they still hold for the theater and audiences of our time. This is il
lustrated by the opinion of today’s greatest Spanish actress, Nuria Espert (born
in Hospitalet, 1935), who performed numerous different versions of Medea
throughout her career, from the age of 19 to the age of 67, when I had inter
viewed her on the occasion of the staging of Euripides’ Medea in a translation
by Ramón Irigoyen and under the direction of Michael Cacoyannis (López-
Pociña [2002 bis] 1229–47). Asked about whether she preferred the Euripidean
or the Senecan text, she recalled a version of Medea by playwright and director
Juan German Schroeder (1918–1997), a rewrite based on the two tragic classics,
and offered the following answer:
La versión de Schroeder tenía los mejores momentos de ambos drama

turgos. Tenía mucho más Eurípides que Séneca, pero tenía de Séneca el
momento de los conjuros, que era extraordinariamente brillante, y tenía
la primera aparición de Medea, que daba la primera información, como
en Séneca, y eso era muy bonito para el personaje. Yo creo que todo el
final (hace mucho que no he leído la Medea de Séneca) de nuestra Medea,
que era más humana, era de Séneca también. […] Así que esta versión de
Schroeder, que era en hendecasílabos bellos que fluían perfectamente,
resultaba muy emotiva y muy muy teatral. Yo la he representado, excepto
esta vez con Cacoyannis, a lo largo de mis cinco o seis montajes anteri
ores de Medea.
Sin embargo, ya cuando dirigí a Irene Papas, cuando los Juegos
Olímpicos de Barcelona, me parecía que esta mezcla de Eurípides y de
Séneca en la boca de una actriz griega, de una trágica griega, no iba bien,
y que era mejor volver a los inicios, y creo que ella lo agradeció también.
Y ahora con Cacoyannis le hablé de la versión de Schroeder, pero me dijo:
yo me sentiré más cómodo con la versión que conozco desde toda mi
vida y que prácticamente me la sé de memoria, aunque jamás la haya di

rigido. Y estoy muy contenta, porque si no, finalmente hubiera sido una
más, y esta es diferente también porque tengo un texto muy distinto
entre las manos, que tiene una belleza extraordinaria, y una fuerza, un
poder, y una inmensa actualidad.
(Schroeder’s version included the best moments of both playwrights.

Much more Euripides than Seneca, but it had Seneca’s spells, which was
extraordinarily brilliant, and it had Medea’s first appearance, conveying
the first information, as in Seneca, and that was so nice for the character. I
believe that the whole final part [I have not read Seneca’s Medea for quite
some time] of our Medea, who was more human, was also Seneca. […] So
this version by Schroeder, which was written in beautiful, perfectly flow
ing hendecasyllables, was very emotional and laden with theatricality. I
have performed it, except for this time with Cacoyannis, during my five or
six previous Medea stagings.
However, when I directed Irene Papas on the occasion of the Barcelona
Olympics, I thought that this mixture of Euripides and Seneca in the
mouth of a Greek actress, of a Greek tragedy performer, did not work, and
that it was better to return to the beginnings, and I think she was thankful
for it as well. And now with Cacoyannis I talked to him about Schroeder’s
version, but he said: I will feel more comfortable with the version I have
known my whole life and which I almost know by heart, even though I
have never directed it. And I am very happy, because if it had been other
wise, the play would have been just another play, and this one is different
also because I have a very different text in my hands, a text of extraordi
nary beauty, a strong, powerful, text that clearly speaks to the present.)
Although a comparative analysis would have no place here, it may be useful to

acknowledge again that, in spite of dealing basically with the same subject –
Medea’s vicissitudes in Corinth, when Jason decides to abandon her and marry
king Creon’s daughter – the Greek and the Latin versions are profoundly dif
ferent. With the help of Martina (2002) 589–92, we shall mention only the
most striking differences: 1. Euripides begins his tragedy with a soliloquy by
the Nurse, followed by a dialogue between her and the Tutor; in Seneca, Medea
is immediately on stage, followed by the Chorus. 2. The dialogue between
Medea and Jason, Eur. 446–626, is different from Sen. 578. 3. Medea’s meeting
with Aegeus is only in Eur. 663–758. 4. The whole scene devoted to Medea’s
magic preparation is exclusively Senecan 670–842. 5. In the Euripidean epi
logue Medea appears in a winged chariot with her dead children; in Seneca
she kills her children on the stage; 6. In Euripides the chorus of Corinthian
women condemns Medea’s actions, although sympathetic towards the plight
of the abandoned heroine; in Seneca, a male chorus is totally hostile to Medea;
7. None of the lyric passages of Seneca’s Medea echoes a significant motif of
the Euripidean choruses; 8. The impressive mythological material and the ex
tensive geographical knowledge that feed Seneca’s choruses are not based on
Euripides’ tragedy; 9. Specific, smaller differences, such as the different names
of Creon’s daughter in the two tragedies, Glauce in Euripides, and Creusa in
Seneca, speak of the different traditions behind both authors. 10. There are dif
ferent general approaches of a cultural, social, and political nature.
In short, multiple aspects, some remarkably important, make these trage
dies very different. However, the most crucial element when it comes to choos
ing one of the two for a rewrite is their fundamental difference as regards the
psychological construction of the protagonist, Medea, though also of Jason and
the choruses. Differently from her Euripidean counterpart, Seneca’s Medea is
psychologically portrayed, with much impact on us readers/spectators, as hav
ing reached a climatic stage of anger, as Giuseppe Gilberto Biondi (1984) em
phasises. He describes the absence of Medea’s development throughout the
tragedy, since from the very beginning of the play she is dominated by anger
and by a thirst for revenge, subject to an excess of constant passion that lasts
to the end of the play:
L’aver iniziato la tragedia con la protagonista già al colmo dell’ira e già

psicologicamente compiuta (anche se a livello si diceva solo potenzia
le: la Medea sarà l’evoluzione di questo carattere dalla potenza all’atto)
significa non solo aver congestionato al massimo l’azione tragica in fun
zione del pathos […] significa soprattutto aver strutturato la tragedia su
specifiche basi formali che a loro volta tradiscono specifiche forme cul
turali (25).
(The fact that the tragedy begins with a protagonist that is psychologi
cally resolved and has already reached a climax of anger [although at a
level that may be described as merely potential: Medea will be about the
character’s development from potentiality to actuality] means not only
that the tragic action was maximally congested in terms of the pathos […]
but especially that the tragedy was structured on specific formal bases
that, in turn, betray the presence of culturally specific forms).
Medea’s threat, made during a dialogue with the Nurse, in line 171 Medea /
Fiam, that signals that it has already been fulfilled in line 910 (Medea nunc sum)
after the murder of Creusa and her father Creon, thus identifying the curse be
hind her name with all her tragic actions, completely fills her life.16 Medea’s ira
determines her behaviour from the beginning to the end: it is duplicated in her
own personality, and becomes the logical sustenance for her furor, leading to
the abominable double crime, nefas, with which the play comes to its climax.17
She is, in short, a figure driven by passion, or more precisely, by particularly
intense passions: dolor, ira, ultio combined, in Seneca’s Medea though not in
Euripides’, with an intense unrequited amor.18
In his tragedy, Seneca conveys an innovative image of Medea and of Jason
too; as Antonio Martina says: “También el Jasón de Séneca se diferencia del
Jasón de Eurípides. En Eurípides Jasón es un hombre mezquino. Solo sabe ser
ambicioso y egoísta, oportunista e hipócrita. Él suscita nuestro desprecio cu
ando hipócritamente afirma que ama a sus propios hijos. En Séneca Jasón es
más humano y más sincero en su debilidad: justifica su comportamiento en
la voluntad de resistirse a la venganza de Acasto y de evitar la ira de Creonte”
(Martina [2002] 593, cf. Maurach 1966) (“Seneca’s Jason is also different from
Euripides’ Jason. In Euripides, Jason is a mean man. He can only be ambitious
and selfish, opportunistic and hypocritical. He causes our contempt when he
hypocritically claims that he loves his own children. In Seneca, Jason is more
human and sincerer in his weakness: he justifies his behaviour with the will to
resist Acasto’s revenge and to avoid Creon’s anger”).
As for the choruses, the difference between Euripides’ female chorus, whose
elements are ready to understand Medea in the face of the injustices of which
she is a victim, although not prepared to excuse her revenge, and Seneca’s male
chorus, always opposing her positions and her actions, has been the object of
very detailed works, and we will not be dealing with it in this chapter.19
Seneca’s tragedy Medea was disseminated and survived in European drama
in general,20 in Renaissance drama, in the English Elizabethan drama, espe
cially in the works of Shakespeare, and in French theater.21 All of this has been
thoroughly studied. However, there are many aspects yet to be investigated,
and this book addresses some of those aspects in what concerns drama in
Portuguese.
16 Traina (1979); Segal (1982); Petrone (1988); Galimberti Biffino (2002), etc.
17 Mazzoli (2002); Dupont (1995) 55–90.
18 Pociña (2001, 2002).
19 López (2002).
20 Lefèvre (1978); López-Pociña (2011) 299–300.
21 Paratore (1973).
4 Medea in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica
This chapter could not be brought to a conclusion without at least a refer

ence to an imperial Latin work of the last decades of the first century AD, the
Argonautica, by Gaius Valerius Flaccus, an epic poem about the journey of
Jason and his companions in search of the Golden Fleece. Its interest for us lies
in the fact that its second half presents a curious image of Medea, an image
that, despite coming after the multiple and varied Medeas that classical Latin
literature had known in its extensive development up to the time, is indeed
truly original.22
The figure of Medea created by Valerius Flaccus has not really attracted the
attention of philological researchers,23 with only a few detailed studies having
been produced, and of these, a good part dealing with topics like her eternal
comparison either to Virgil’s Dido, an omnipresent model in late epic produc
tion, or to the Medea of Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, a character ap
proached very differently from the Latin poet’s.
Studies on Valerius Flaccus have acquired a new impetus and raised re
newed interest; however, a detailed analysis of this last vital contribution to
Medea’s profile in Latin literature is still lacking. Yet given the generally scarce
dissemination of this epic poem,24 this Latin Argonautica has failed to occupy
an influential position in the Portuguese and Spanish rewritings of Medea’s
story.
22 See Ehlers (1971); Scaffai (1986); River Torres-Murciano (2011) 8–89.
23 López (2002).
24 Zissos (2006); Torres-Murciano (2011) 42–7.
chapter 4
Os encantos de Medeia by António José da Silva:

Comedy Version of a Tragic Theme (18th Century)
Os Encantos de Medeia (Medea’s Charms) is an acclaimed example from the

Portuguese theatrical production of the 18th century.1 This is a time when,
under the influence of the French and Spanish theatres, the Portuguese the-
atrical scene had reformed and gained an enormous vitality, and in which
António José da Silva, dubbed ‘the Jew’, appears as a reference name.2 Epic,
tragic, comedy and Romanesque elements influence the innovative character
of this rewriting, and establish it as a divergent production of the tradition on
which it stands – Greco-Latin and neoclassical literature3 – and as a source for
future treatments of the theme.
2 António José da Silva (Rio de Janeiro 1705- Lisbon 1739), coming from a Jewish family perse-
cuted by the Inquisition – of which he himself was a victim – was a lawyer in Lisbon. Dubbed
“The Jew”, he developed a dramatic career of great success; he was the author of ‘operas’, a
set of eight comedy pieces with a strong musical element, at Italian taste and with great
popularity at the time. In some of them, social criticism is noticeable, in addition to the
objective of amusing. He was not indifferent to the courtyards of Lisbon, where his produc-
tions, destined for puppet theatre and characterized by a great scenic apparatus, received
tremendous applause. In several predominate mythological subjects, of Greco-Latin inspira-
tion (Esopaida ou Vida de Esopo (Aesopaida or Life of Aesopus) – 1734, Anfitrião ou Júpiter e
Alcmena (Amphitruo or Juppiter and Alcmena) – 1736, Precipício de Faetonte (Phaeton’s
Precipice) – 1738. This is also the case with Os Encantos de Medeia (Medea’s Charms), pre-
sented at the Teatro do Bairro Alto in Lisbon in the spring of 1735. On his dramatic produc-
tion see Stegagno Picchio (1969) 185–95; Rebello (1991) 47–50. The 20th and 21st centuries in
Portugal still had an impact on the representation of Os Encantos de Medeia; see below.
3 It is mainly in the versions of the Spanish 17th century, of Félix Lope de Vega (1562–1635),
Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681) and Francisco de Rojas (1607–1660), which are based
on the comedy elements that mark the style of Antonio José da Silva’s version. Barata (1991)
112 refers to the great popularity in Portugal of Rojas’s play, although he limits to some aspects
the correspondence between the two authors: the falseness of Jason, the love and the magic
arts of Medea, the fury of the king and Creusa’s romantic enthusiasm. By contrast (Barata
(1991) 114–8) it is in the comedies of Calderón (Los Tres Mayores Prodigios / The Three Biggest
Prodigies) and Lope de Vega (Vellocino de Oro / Golden Fleece) that he observes greater con-
fluences with António José da Silva.

46 Silva
It is important to read the play’s argument to see the contextualization given

to the traditional theme and to perceive a first mixture of classical elements,
conventional in different genres, that intervene in its construction.4 Some of
the myth’s essential features are preserved such as the hero’s identity: Jason,
prince of Thessaly, takes command of the Argos ship on the way to Colchis, to
recover the golden fleece. Among those accompanying him is Theseus, prince
of Athens, whom the ancient tradition already associated with Medea. And
soon António José da Silva puts us before the adventurers’ landing at Colchis,
in what is the first phase of the myth. Thus Jason takes the role of the travel-
ing hero, who sails with his companions towards unknown worlds, subject to
hazards in which his valor will be tested; this process obeys an epic pattern.
But now a second stage is announced in the adventure, “the king is deceived”;
that is, the ruler of Colchis, in the barbarian’s role, is subject to the wiles of the
Greek, a well-known motif of epic, but also of tragedy.5
Included in the context of the adventure in distant lands lies, within an
ancient tradition, the theme of love. The development of this episode var-
ies, from the knowledge of a local princess who, in love with the hero, betrays
her close ones to facilitate his success (as in the case of Ariadne in relation
to Theseus travelling to Crete, or Medea to Jason); or the favorable interven-
tion of a princess with the local authority to ensure the hero’s reception, as
happens with Nausicaa, bringing Odysseus, as a castaway, to the kingdom of
Phaeacians (Odyssey 5); or even the reencounter of a passionate couple sepa-
rated by destiny long ago, such as Menelaus and Helen exiled in Egypt (ac-
cording to Euripides in his Helen). The emotional relationship between the
hero and this feminine element helps the traveler’s success and salvation, and
promotes a rich and diverse web of adventure. In the Portuguese text,6 this mo-
tive becomes particularly sensitive as it is doubled: “Princess Medea, the King’s
daughter and Creusa, his niece, fell in love with Jason.” Therefore Jason experi-
ences, as in the traditional version of the myth of Medea, two loves, but now in
the same environment of Colchis. In this context of the adventure, Medea does
not come to Greece;7 it is Creusa – coinciding in the name with the Princess of
4 Quotations are made by Obras completas (1958) edition.

5 Previous references are of course the epic Odysseus, protagonist of the Odyssey, and hero
polyméchanos, and, in tragedy, Theoclymenus, the pharaoh in Euripides’ Helen, and Thoas,
the barbarian sovereign of Iphigenia in Tauris, by the same tragedian.
6 Barata (1991) 121 highlights that love, as central theme, remains a strong convention in
Baroque comedy.
7 In the ancient Greek tragedy, only Sophocles seems to have been interested in this first pe-
riod of Medea’s life still in Colchis, in two lost plays: Women of Colchis, which described the
capture of the golden fleece; and Women of Scythia, in which Medea killed her own brother,
Apsyrtus, to delay the pursuit of the Colchians. On the various details of the myth of Medea
and its use in Greek tragedy in general, see Aélion I (1983) 289–92 and Wright (forthcoming).
Os encantos de Medeia by António José da Silva 47
Corinth in the versions of Euripides and Seneca – who becomes a young girl of
Colchis, to dispute there with the king’s daughter the hand and the love of the
hero. Medea, on her part, does not experience the foreigner’s grievances living
in a xenophobic Greece; soon her drama stops being social and becomes exclu-
sively personal and romantic. Instead of the rejected wife and mother, she be-
comes the maiden who quarrels with a rival, on equal terms, the seduction of a
lover. But if it is she, by virtue of the incantations in which she is expert, who is
the decisive collaborator in the adventure’s success, the power of her magic is
not strong enough to avoid the hero’s passion towards Creusa. It is the jealousy
caused by this amorous confrontation, in addition to the ingratitude of which
she feels a victim, that triggers the vengeful fury of Medea. She commits her-
self, using magic, to avoid the infatuated couple’s departure and the fulfillment
of their love, but without success. She is, at last, pursued by the angry king of
Colchis her father whom she had betrayed without remorse.
At the end, which in this version will be a happy one, the barbarian king
allows the marriage of Jason and Creusa to be realized in happiness and har-
mony. From the prison to which she is condemned, by treason, Medea escapes
in the air, thanks to her incantations.
1 The Argonaut and His Companions
Let’s begin by the characters, giving priority to the hero, his personal mark and
relationships: first and foremost with his companions, who follow him under
his command, then with the barbarian enemy, and, finally, with the ladies who
stimulate his love-yearnings. The paradigmatic travelers of the Greek tradition
are well known – Odysseus, Heracles, Jason, Bellerophon, Perseus – as also are
the endless journeys they took. The hero who leads the adventure is ingenious,
insightful, determined and resilient in the face of the dangers that threaten him
at every moment. Endowed with courage, commitment, physical strength, or
shielded by divine inspiration, the hero faces, with superhuman superiority, the
most risky and extraordinary situations. He is responsible for the conduct and
survival of his companions; it is incumbent upon him to find for each ordeal an
exit, so he possesses an inexhaustible inventive capacity. That is why salvation is
guaranteed to him, despite the endless adversities that he must first overcome.
These are the conventional contours of an extensive journey, in time and space,
full of risks, inhabited by ghosts, and often utopian in its objectives.8
From genre to genre, throughout the centuries, Greek literature maintained
an interest for this type of adventure: from epic poetry, where the Odyssey
8 On the conventional episodes in this type of adventures account, see Crane (1987) 11–37.
48 Silva
established to it a first narrative pattern; then in lyric poetry, especially the

Sicilian poet Stesichorus,9 then in theater, where the travelers lent themselves
to serve as protagonists of tragedy and comedy; later in the novel, which re-
sumed the traditional adventure narrative and persisted in surrounding the
hero with companions, who help him, and with enemies who create him dif-
ficulties. But by gradually changing the traces of the young man as a hero and
reinforcing his emotion and sentimentality, this process has transferred to the
friends who accompany him and to the lovers who welcome him the function
of protecting him and protect their survival or return.
In Os encantos de Medeia, the opening focuses on the hero and his compan-
ions; from the Argo, in Colchis, Jason, Theseus, and Sacatrapo disembark, as
well as other anonymous soldiers. Jason is given the word to exhort the men
he leads. Like any epic hero or commander in a tragic combat scene,10 Jason
values the determination of his fleet and announces the arrival at Colchis,
his adventure’s destination (7–8). In addition to the objectives, the tonality is
clearly epic: the epithets (“happy brave argonauts”) indicate it, as do the men-
tion of the adverse forces that the gods move (“breaking the crystal of the false
clay, despite the violence of Neptune, outraged and haughty”) and the appeal’s
auspicious tone (“and if he had wished the fortune which with happy progress
would conquer this rich spoil to the immortal glory of the Greek offspring!”).
More expressive still is the reason for the aria that the hero chants, transferring
from the specific moment to the plane of the superior principles that must
lead to the hero’s intrepid adventure (8):
Do not move us in this adventure

Nor the Golden Fleece
Nor from Colchis the wealth;
Be only your destiny
The greed of value,
In a chest that ignites
For gaining eternal fame
Winning is the greatest good.
9 For travelling heroes in Stesichorus see S. Carvalho (2018).

10 In the case of the monarchs who lead their men against Troy in the Iliad; or, in tragedy,
that of Eteocles and the speech he gives to his men at the opening of Seven against Thebes
by Aeschylus. In any case the aim is to encourage discipline and determination in the
subordinates.
Aretē, timē and nikē, fundamental values of the heroes of choice, are evident
in Jason’s words in this opening, at the level of Achilles, Odysseus or the brave
Eteocles. The seduction of gold is repudiated as ambition and serves as an in-
centive to courage, fame and victory.
Regarding the hero, he is put to the test by the first barrier that he must face
in unknown terrain. It is Telemon, the general of Colchis, who asks him his
identity and intentions. In this first encounter, Jason shows the responsibility
of a chief; it is he who answers and who finds the most appropriate version
for the circumstance; because he could not confess the true purposes which
he had just proclaimed as he set his feet on the ground, he must hide himself
in the lie (9): “Tell your King that my coming to this port was casual, by the
impulse of a great tempest and storm”. The lie is, for the time being, a sign
of merit, as Theseus notes (9): “Sir, you have done well to cover up the rea-
son for our coming.” With this observation, the public is called to notice the
companions who follow him: first Theseus, the prince of Athens, solidary in
his purposes, discreet and sober in words. The comrade-in-arms is incarnated
in him, the true philos, who shares with the hero affinities of character and
principles, and who performs with scruple his decisions. Patroclus’ relation-
ship with Achilles, or Pylades with Orestes, would serve as inspiring examples
of this Theseus. That is why the contrast with the second companion, the ser-
vant Sacatrapo, blabbermouth and nosy, in the showy role of the anti-hero is
striking (see below).
With the following scene, which takes place in the throne room, the hero’s
second determining facet is discovered: in a first encounter with Medea, pres-
ent in the foreigner’s official reception, Jason takes on the role of the passion-
ate gentleman, who displays great gallantry and easily infatuates the girl (12). A
scene inspired by the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes is taken up, where
the hero’s reception in the Colchian court also unleashes the role of the pas-
sionate conqueror. To António José this scene opens a gap in the soldier’s soul,
which is where one looks for the romantic weakness of a Don Juan. From gal-
lant, Jason changes to corny, because of the simultaneous effect of several pas-
sions. Creusa is also in the throne’s room, sharing the hero’s warm welcome.
And it is not with a slight hint that Jason greets her, and then confesses to
himself (13): “Lady, in the sight of so much sun, it was strength that the rays
would blind me. You even excell Medea’s beauty”. But despite giving him these
weaknesses, the playwright does not remove the heroic prerogatives of his
Jason. When asked again about his intentions, now by the monarch himself,
the adventurer insists on the previous version; but certainly excited by the suc-
cess of his lies, as by the magnificence of the scenario in which the question
is placed this time – at the feet of the King – the invention comes to him in a
50 Silva
more detailed fashion; before reassuring the occasional character of the expe-
dition and the storm that had brought them to Colchis, Jason added: “As you do
not ignore, Sir, the wars between the kings of Crete and Corinth, to gain fame
and to exercise in arms, I went with this army to rescue the King of Corinth,
both because of the obligation of kinship, and because fortune is showing itself
to be adverse to him.” It is not surprising, therefore, that instead of a sobering
comment of approval, as before that of Theseus, it is now the exuberance of
Sacatrapo to greet him with boldness: “See, as he lies so gracefully, at the face
of a King!” The dismantling of the superiority of the hero is begun, which will
be accentuated in the successive situations that he will experience.
Subsequently he comes to boldly tread the sacred ground of the female
chambers in search of Medea. He comes to declare his love to her bluntly. The
oscillation in which we had seen him among the charms of princess Medea
and Creusa leaves us no illusions about the sincerity of his intentions. As a true
seducer, Jason advances and backs off in the declaration of his affections; first
he is bold, ordering the nurse (19): “Madam, I would like you to let princess
Medea know that Jason comes to surrender at her feet and kiss her hands”;
and again courageous facing Medea’s own adherence to his love, all the more
so as to the feeling the princess adds the power of incantations and decisive
support for the conquest of the golden fleece (21): “If you promise to recipro-
cate with the same love, I am sure that you will be happy, for you will see that
for your respect I can change mountains’ places (…) and I can even make you
lord of the famous Fleece, for whose conquest in vain so much military strife
has been contested”. With the enthusiastic collaboration of Medea, the hero’s
strength suffers a setback: first, because the credential that justifies Medea’s
generosity – the Argonaut’s passion – is false; then because his arete is worth-
less, where only the sorceress’s magic can give them victory. Like his tragic an-
cestor (see Euripides, Medea 476–98), the Portuguese Jason is a weak one who
only wins thanks to Medea. Sacatrapo, with the rawness of his comments, does
not leave us any illusions (21): “As you speak to him about Fleeces, there he is
as gentle as a lamb.”
The Euripidean Jason is, in a way, a hypocrite, who shows the face of devo-
tion amid a commitment to hide his true intentions; he affirms loyalty to the in-
terests of Medea and their children, having in mind a connection with Creusa,
from which he expects well-being, promotion and social prestige (Euripides,
Medea 455–64, 544–67). Love does not, however, enter into the motives with
which he justifies the new link. Although less sophisticated, the Jason of our
‘opera’ is also false and cynical. Therefore, after the declarations of love and
fidelity to Medea, he does not hesitate to open the game: if any feeling is felt
for Medea, it is fear of her determination and threats. From her he only wants
access to the golden fleece, to throw himself in the arms of Creusa (22). More
than his confessions, the servant’s conclusions are explicit when he translates
the situation (24): “Sir, in two words: to love Medea by ceremony, until you win
the Fleece, and to conquer in any case Creusa’s Fleece”.
It is time for the feat. Jason, suitably fitted with the magic ring, Medea’s gift,
advances to the forest where the fleece is hidden, guarded by a tremendous
dragon. The classic inspiration for this episode is made clear in the blocking
(35): “Jason will leave the room on Pegasus, which will have wings and then
will enter the garden”.11 It is in the famous winged horse rider, the Perseus of
the myth, by which the Portuguese Jason is inspired: both have a female ally,
the goddess Athena in the case of Perseus, Medea in Jason’s case, and both use
a magic element to counteract the superiority of a mythical enemy. With the
shield, Perseus could petrify the terrible Gorgon Medusa, just as Jason subjects
the enemy to his sword, “first blinding him with the lights of the ring’s chryso-
lite”. With a decisive and brief strike, our Jason annihilates his adversary, to
receive afterwards the applause of the protective lady and, through her, of all
nature in celebration; plants, trees, and flowers do not spare him ovations, im-
provising a scene of triumph. Having thus reached the climax of heroic action,
Jason will now have to wage another equally risky fight: one that divides him
between the extreme and threatening love of Medea and his burning passion
for Creusa. And this is the struggle where there will be neither ally nor protec-
tive magic.
Only the lie will lead the hero’s footsteps. And for now, before a Medea who
is herself triumphant, nothing remains for Jason but to make insistent prom-
ises of love and to engage in solemn commitments (41): “Live rested, Medea, for
I will not miss my word”. But in dialogue with Theseus, the truth of his feelings
comes out. This dramatic process, which gives the Argonaut an opportunity
to confess and comment on his innermost emotions, does not belong to the
epic hero; it became characteristic of the dramatic character and, through it,
of the late novel protagonist. This is the tone we perceive in the dialogue of
supportive comrades in arms who comment on the extraordinary victory that,
without more violence or bloodshed, came to them. The generous ‘goddess’
who performed the miracle is called Medea, and if she did it, it was for love,12
11 This moment of dramatic audacity – so conformable to the spectacular tastes of the
author – does not fail to suggest equivalent attempts rehearsed by Euripides. They be-
came famous his flying heroes, like Perseus or Bellerophon. On the caricature made by
Aristophanes of this type of Euripidian scenes, see Silva (1997) 156–68.
12 In Euripides it is Medea herself who strikes the dragon (476–82).
52 Silva
as both of them acknowledge. But Jason goes even further, confessing: not even
the magic was enough to calm his cowardly heart.
If, in the struggle, Jason’s success depended entirely on the woman who
loved him, escape and salvation depended on his companion and ally. Jason is
unable to see the opportunity of a good decision, which recommends a quick
and prudent departure; he lets himself be ensnared in delays of gratitude and
love, justified before Theseus with false sentiments, when within himself he
recognizes (44): “Thus I intend to cover up that through Creusa I hold myself.”
Passion and common sense, incompatible by nature, never fitted in the same
heart.
If, for military issues, good advice comes from Theseus, for love cases the
authority belongs to the faithful servant. The intervention of the nosy servant,
who skillfully sponsors the master’s loves, is a well-known motif of ancient
comedy. The wisdom that Theseus recommended to his friend is replaced, in
the case of this other counselor, by the stimulus to excesses: Creusa, who repre-
sents love and risk at the same time, is already informed by him of his master’s
passion. To this the servant is singing the dazzling beauty of the maid, and
adding the spark of love that was denounced by a treacherous tear shed by
the beauty. With this testimony, the author restored some breath to Jason and
made him dream of his own paradox: the fleece, already secure in his posses-
sion by the gift of Medea, and Creusa for his wife, the one he would want to
place on the throne of Thessaly.
Jason was approaching the beach, and escaping with Creusa, when Medea
follows and spies them. The revenge of the traitor is settled. What weapons
does the vengeful Medea have? Enchantments, which she does not spare in
the pursuit of the man she loved and at this point hates. Medea uses all kinds
of expedients, moving mountains and valleys, and resorting to an old trump
card, the seductive siren song (85). The allusion to the well-known danger of
the sea brings the explicit fusion of the new hero with old Odysseus, expressed
by Theseus’ insight: “You will be another Ulysses.” The persecution is joined to
Medea’s opposition, this time with King Aetas’ weapons (72). The fight is fierce,
the resistance determined. If Jason can do nothing against Medea’s magic, he is
also powerless against Colchis’ army. In a final shout, the poor hero recognizes
defeat (75): “Our army is broken and ruined! What shall we do, Theseus?”
Whereas in Euripides the intervention of a deus ex machina, the only au-
thority capable of ending the impasse with success, would now follow, the
Portuguese author, with irony, gives the barbarian the supreme discretion of
adventure. It is through the work of Aetas that everything ends in happiness
and justice. To the couple in love, Jason and Creusa, the king of Colchis grants
the consummation of their love. What Jason cannot obtain by the strength of
his arm, is given to him by the king he has just betrayed: the woman he loves
first and the object of his exploits, the gold fleece, are passed to him as a wed-
ding present. The annihilation of its heroic side still results in the annulment
of the return; Jason will stay in Colchis, as submissive lover of Creusa and sub-
ject of the King. Composed of a mixture of epic hero, of comedy’s young man
in love, and novel’s protagonist, António José’s Jason suggests his Argonaut an-
cestor, but descends from the pedestal of the model hero to bring to the set of
the play some humor.
2 The Barbarian
2.1 The King of Colchis

The main opposition to the hero comes from the ‘barbarian’, which is divided
between the figures of authority – the sovereign and General Telemon – and
the story’s feminine element, the princesses Medea and Creusa. First, let us
consider the character of the barbarian king, whom Euripides brought to the
scene as the enemy of the traveling hero, whose territory promises extreme
danger to all those that arrive there. The first trace of the dramatic barbarian
is therefore ferocity, brutal and bloody action, which opposes the civility and
values that the Greek represents. By fate, the barbarian has something that
the hero will have to conquer or rescue: the desired object of a superior ad-
venture, or the person of an exile whose salvation is the core of the warrior
mission. To achieve his objectives, the hero needs to use all his resources; more
than strength or courage, it is above all imagination and deceit that decide the
success of the campaign. With the help of his companions and the loyalty or
love of some heroine, a plot is set that brings him victory over the barbarian.
When, in the face of the fugitives, he makes use of force and almost achieves
his attempts, it is generally the superior will of some god to bring an interrup-
tion to the imminent confrontation. It is within this framework that the two
paradigmatic barbarians of Euripides’ dramas are portrayed, Theoclymenus,
the Egyptian king of Helen, and Thoas, the king of the Taurians, in Iphigenia
in Tauris.13
King Aetas, in Os encantos de Medeia, takes from these models some sug-
gestions. Even if he is careful watching over the entrance of strangers into his
country, he is, unlike his predecessors in tragedy, a hospitable king. Through
his representative, General Telemon, the welcome given to the newcomers
is inquiring but friendly. The justifications invented by the Argonaut are
13 On this model of ‘romanesque plays’ by Euripides, see Wright (2005).
54 Silva
accepted without suspicion and the first meeting is sealed with a friendly hug
(9). The tone is therefore of naive credulity before the wiles of the Greek. In the
throne room, the principles of hospitality gain even a greater visibility, under
a type of official welcome protocol. A note of the barbarian’s traditional psy-
chology adds now to this picture: mistrust, which nevertheless does not over-
come natural credulity. Aetas even asks Medea for help; is she not an expert
on spells and magic arts, besides being his daughter? (11): “Medea, see if you
can find this foreigner’s intentions, for my heart is troubled with some confu-
sion”. The King’s trust was badly applied, as time will show. The justifications
for the journey – some military exercises which a storm interrupted, resulting
in an unexpected expedition to Colchis – do not deserve any doubt. Therefore,
instead of the risks of death, this barbarian gives the strangers the benefits of
philia.
And yet something makes his heart restless, which is reasonable. Because a
simple investigation of his guest’s justifications would be enough to legitimize
his suspicions. After all, if no storm has occurred, what hidden purposes would
justify such an unexpected coming? Aetas’ reasoning goes on: who is lord of so
great a treasure as the golden fleece, what better justification can he find for
such a mystery?
It is not, however, by the loyalty of his own people, especially his daugh-
ter, that he can gain security. Contrary to the usual context, the Portuguese
‘opera’s’ barbarian does not let himself be deceived by the cleverness of the
enemy. He is himself the author of a skillful strategy that will give him vic-
tory. Aware of the power of the eternal rule ‘divide to conquer’, as well as the
no less sacred ambition of a servant for tips and promises of freedom, Aetas
bets on Sacatrapo to reveal to him the enemy’s treason (49): “Tell me if you
are a soldier; I might let you stay in my kingdom”; (49) “Now, my Sacatrapo,
your fortune is in your mouth today, for if you tell me what I want to ask you,
I will give you an income with which you can live joyfully.” And his strategy is
good, because the servant’s ambition confesses everything to him. The truth
is now clear in his eyes. Although right and dignity of suffering belong to him,
when the moment of inevitable wrath arrives, it is not marked by the brutality
of an uncivilized barbarian, but rather the legitimate reaction of an offended
authority.
This same superiority prevails before those who think they have deceived
him. When in the presence of Jason and Medea once more, the king of Colchis
can quietly fake naiveté with the result that others deem him a victim, yet even
then he goes on being the commander of their wills. From Jason, Aetas de-
mands that he disarm the men he commands, because – according to him –
they cause “robberies and disturbances” (57). Therefore, how ridiculous is it of
Jason, when, after agreeing, he comments to himself (57): “Here, it is necessary

to dissimulate”. The reversal of a conventional pattern, which leaves the bar-
barian as the author of the deception, and the Greek, convinced of his insight,
assures the scene of a subtle grace. Not even Medea, by virtue of incantations,
unveils her deceitful intention of her father, who asks her about the foreigner’s
aim. The passionate sorceress hardly knows that for her the charms were mute;
that they did not warn her about her father’s knowledge of the enemy’s inten-
tions and his daughter’s complicity.
Thus, when the hour of victory comes, Aetas demands that the princess’s
betrayal receive exemplary punishment (90): “Since Medea, unworthy daugh-
ter, treacherous infidel, conspired against me, delivering to Jason the Fleece,
she will die locked in a tower, for she offended me more than Jason”. Also the
punishment of imprisonment follows the mythical model inspired by other
punishments with which monarchs have condemned their betraying daugh-
ters or reprehensible passions’ protagonists. Although justice is done, every-
thing harmonizes in the sense of the invariable happy end. From Jason, Aetas
takes submission and gratitude; and Medea, if she escapes from the prison by
her magic, does not escape punishment, for she sees lost love and solidarity
around her (91): “I will wander desperately in the region of the air, since on
earth I do not have any help.” With these words of exile, Medea throws the last
crown of victory at the feet of the King.
2.2 Medea and Her Feminine Circle

Medea, the main heroine in the tragedies that tell her drama as a woman and
a mother, plays here the role of the Princess of Colchis and Jason’s passionate
lover. Converting tragedy into comedy when Medea is the subject requires pro-
found changes in the portrayal of the heroine. But if filicide, important in the
myth’s version that Euripides established for posterity, would be incompatible
with humor, it is no less evident that the Medea of the comic opera has a com-
mon identity with her prototype.
The context around the princess is different from the one that surrounded
the betrayed woman, about to be exiled from Corinth. Medea is now a maiden,
safe in her father’s palace, present at court ceremonies, and in love with a slen-
der young man, heir to the court of Thessaly, gallant and conquering. Everything
points to the theme of love: not the infuriated passion of an abandoned woman,
but the first fires of an enthusiasm. At his side are two women, whose cross paths,
within the traditional scheme, go with the fate of the heroine. One is Creusa, the
young rival for Medea’s love for Jason; the other is Arpia, the old nurse.
As soon as the Argonaut greeted her, Medea already surrendered to him
(12): “I cannot take my eyes off him!”. This confession would be promising of a
56 Silva
passionate romance, if there was not already a threat in the air: because if to
Medea Jason directs greetings of circumstance, to Creusa he gives the prize of
a greater beauty and seduction.
Because Medea’s soul does not lack the traditional explosive force, priority
is given to her in the confession of the love that dominates her. “Madness and
rapture” are the appropriate terms for describing her feeling. From Jason, she
demands a full retribution; if she cannot have it she prefers death. Even if death
here means the youthful exaggeration of one who experiences a first love, it is
undeniable that the maiden tends to extreme commitments. The presence of
the Nurse, who always guarantees solidarity and understanding, sharply con-
trasts with Medea’s personality. In the face of the passionate idealism of the
princess, the Nurse urges an immediate intervention by the sorceress. Why
wait for the possibility of a failure, if Medea has the magic arts? Medea can
control or get what she wants because she has mastered magic,14 even if, for
the time being, she sighs with love and keeps a discreet attitude, waiting to see
the direction of her destiny.
Nurses, who with their experience and old age, accompany the passions of
the ladies, when confronted with their enigmatic silence, fear the devastating
consequences. Therefore, they often assume the risks of revelation before the
beloved, with the laudable, if often disastrous, intention of satisfying the most
secret desires of the young ladies. From this old pattern, Arpia also reproduces
the attitudes and behaviors. It is the Nurse who first hears the Argonaut’s state-
ment, which praises the plan for a promising marriage between the two, which
anticipates her joining the proposal. Then Medea, who is listening hidden, ap-
pears to confess to the pretender. Under the Nurse’s watchful protection, the
meeting progresses with the exchange of promises: all favours that she can
carry on Medea’s behalf and a fidelity made of interests on Jason’s. Bold in fa-
vors, Medea is also extreme in threats; with the barbarous spirit that character-
izes the people to which she belongs, the princess shares the natural distrust
of foreigners, which, according to her, applies not to the political doubts of a
sovereign but to the suspicions of a passionate heart. In the exalted accents of
an aria, which like the old monody gives voice to emotion, Medea can shout
in a simulation of amorous ‘fury’ (21): “Do not deceive me, nor my ardor, sacri-
legious, profane, that whoever gives you so many riches, will give you death, if
14 The power of magic, which Euripides does not value much in his version of Medea, is
strong in the Hellenistic and Roman poets (see Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 3.
528–33, 744–1145, 4. 50–65, 109–82; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7. 1–452). In these poems, Medea
forces the nature and the monsters at her will, and she truly becomes a sorceress. It is
therefore in these later sources that António José da Silva draws inspiration for this trait
of his heroine.
you break faith”. In addition to identifying an eternal Medea, the threatening

force of this chant also serves to diminish the hero’s masculine power, based
on lies and inner weakness. Medea’s extremes on which she commits herself to
support her beloved are also her own, even if that implies betraying her close
ones. The father, and monarch, is the first victim of the princess’s passionate
obsession; if she shows love for Jason, it is also to give him the possession of the
golden fleece, which means to harm the king of Colchis, in that treasure which
is a symbol of his power and of the kingdom he rules.
But Jason is not alone in the fear that feeds Medea’s fury. Everyone who
crosses her recognizes them. So Sacatrapo, with that crude frankness that char-
acterizes him, when he transmits the loves and fears of the master to Creusa
(26): “I know that he wishes to be your husband, and does not declare himself
as he is afraid of Medea, because she says that she will kill him if he is incon-
stant to her; that the woman is a devil in the flesh, for even when she caresses,
she has such a bad face that she scratches rather than caresses”. Such fears are
contagious to the Argonaut’s young lady, since she knows her cousin’s power,
feelings and ways.
These become the strings that condition Medea’s action in the play. In the
support that she gives to the conquest of the fleece, the princess plays with
love, because it is proof of this feeling that she invests everything in this cam-
paign. But she also intervenes with her arts, in the form of a magic ring, which
has multiple abilities: that of allowing entrance into an enclosure, that of neu-
tralizing a supernatural enemy, and of saving the victorious hero from any dan-
ger (32). Because the exploration of the fantasy, transposed to this spectacular
scene, is in character with the dramatic tastes of António José da Silva and the
theater of his time, its effects provide, at the climactic moment of the heroic
act, wonders of magic and theater. Medea mobilizes nature in the applause of
the beloved, the conqueror of the gold fleece. Plants, trees, and flowers, like
the mountain nymphs, unite in greeting the warrior. In unison with those in
love, the echoes repeat their glory, in a sonorous and praiseworthy aria (38–9).15
15 The solidarity of the echo with the suffering of the protagonists of tragic stories produced
unforgettable pictures in the Greek myth and scene, in particular the one that resonated
in the famous Euripidean Andromeda. Besides applauding “the most beautiful of the trag-
edies of Euripides” (see Aristophanes, Frogs 53 and the respective scholium), this play
captivated the attention of contemporary critics, especially Aristophanes, who parodied
it in Thesmophoriazusae 1056–97; see Silva (1997) 142–53. Abandoned to loneliness and
threatened with death, the princess of Ethiopia received a single sign of sympathy for her
laments: the distant voice of the nymph Echo, who by far repeated them. There is cer-
tainly a confluence between Euripides and António José, which may not mean the direct
reuse of a model, but only the recognition of the effect of a particular theatrical process.
58 Silva
Medea sings accompanied by the repetition of her voice (38): “Say the
voracious – voracious fire, which burns in my heart love – love, when it is in-
flamed by Jason – flame, in pure and gentle burn – burn”.
After this supreme moment of passion and success follows in Medea the dis-
enchantment and unleashing of all her anger. This other melancholic Medea,
pierced by suspicion, finds, as always, in the Nurse a never denied fidelity. As
in Euripides, the old servant pays attention to her concerns and worries about
her. She speaks with the voice of experience, trying to silence Medea’s anguish
with a universally weighty argument (52): “There will be mistrust, because
love when young is trusted and suspicious when it is old.” She is prudent, and
establishes a counterpoint with Medea’s agitation, because Aetes’ daughter is
young and excessive by nature in her passions. In the Portuguese case, Arpia is
still a backlight for Creusa, who listens with secret euphoria to Medea’s fearful
confessions about Jason’s infidelity. The heroine is accompanied, therefore, by
two confidants this time, one in the position of loyal counselor and another in
the dubious position of listener and rival. In the opera, the contradictions stir
the feminine world around Medea, because it is a competition for the heart
of a young man. This is the ultimate cause of so much agitation of feelings,
the insecurity of the masculine dispositions, in particular of soldiers, eternal
seducers of ladies and destroyers of hearts.
If any cooling in Jason’s courtship had already shaken Medea’s security, what
to say of his feelings when the betrayal becomes evident? By a simple confu-
sion of Sacatrapo – who, in the darkness of the night, thinks he sees Creusa
when it is Medea that he faces –, so, the daughter of Aetas mistakenly receives
the message of love that was destined for her cousin. As with the king, now
also with the princess Sacatrapo denounces the master’s lies with a cloudless
limpidity. Medea knows the whole truth and breaks in fury, first against the
servant, until she reaches the main target of her wrath, Jason himself.
A major suffering awaits Medea. After the suspicions of Jason’s coldness and
involuntary denunciation of the servant, it was necessary for her to witness the
romantic encounter of the traitors and, hidden, to listen from the Argonaut’s
own mouth all his false intentions. The time for revenge has come, which now
has the traitor as direct target. Medea does not spare him accusations, threats,
and censures, and also spells.
Medea’s hesitations are well known when it comes to executing revenge
(Euripides, Medea 1021–80). Euripides makes her the afflicted mother, who os-
cillates between killing her children as a supreme blow against a traitorous
father, or conforming to the loss of everything that is the reason of her life. This
famous moment of insecurity is also found in the Portuguese Medea. It is not
as extreme as the Greek heroine, because it is not about filicide, but that does
not make it less powerful. The young Medea in love hesitates in the revenge,
because saving the lover is a thought that also crosses her mind, even given her
eagerness for vengeance. But her retreat is short, because the voice of reprisal
speaks louder (88): “But why do I tire myself in doing good for an ungrateful
one, if that increases trophies to his triumph? Waves, winds, furies and seas,
revenge for once the insults of Medea and the tyrannies of Jason”. Although
faithful to the traits of her ancestor, the new Medea does not disturb the grace-
ful tone of the Portuguese opera; especially because of her charms one can
take scenic effects and respite, and because her rages have no other reach than
a lost lover.
3 Sacatrapo, the Servant
But converting the tragic theme of Medea into a graceful opera finds in the
servant Sacatrapo a decisive collaborator. The playwright himself announces it
through Jason (14): “This servant is gracious and I bring him to my amusement
and to spend good humour”. This is also a figure that, like the hero, Jason, con-
stitutes a puzzle of traditional elements and effects. According to references of
the epic, Sacatrapo is a companion of the adventurous hero, participant in a
difficult campaign, who contrasts, in the context of the Portuguese play, with
Theseus, Jason’s right arm. What is aristocratic and sensible in the prince of
Athens, contrasts with Sacatrapo’s exuberant and burlesque personality. In this
contrast there is also a justification for the different alignment given to each
of the two philoi: Theseus is supportive and loyal to the hero, agreeing with
his projects and attitudes, sensible adviser in difficulties and dangers, a kind
of shadow of him; Sacatrapo is above all the antithesis, the voice of the hu-
morist, the commentator of the ridiculous or the painless interpreter of each
situation, the whistleblower of his master’s weaknesses, or even the antihero,
the counterpoint of the heroic experiences of the paradigmatic adventurers.
If we think, on the other hand, of his status as servant, we find in Greco-Latin
comedy endless models for that skillful and ironic servant, permanent com-
panion of the young man in love, master of a living imagination in solving all
problems and a sure winner of all plots. This is the king of Plautus’ theatre,
after successive rehearsals of the character from a phase that ascends to the
comedy’s pre-literary times. Finally, Sacatrapo also receives comedy traits from
the theatre of his time, from Italian, French and Spanish comedy, especially as
a hero’s negative replica. With all these recognizable processes in its identity
and behaviour, Sacatrapo is a happy and decisive creation in the final tone of
Os Encantos de Medeia.
60 Silva
Sacatrapo’s presentation is caused by himself, in a stroke of intrusive bold-

ness that sets the tone for the model. At the moment of treading on unknown
land and facing the barbarians who inhabit it, at the hour of difficult decisions
for the head of an adventurous expedition, Sacatrapo gives advice that no one
asked, opposing to Theseus’ laconism the blatant verbiage of the comic slave.
For this reason, he incites a comment from Jason, which is the first mark of his
personality (9): “I would be surprised, Sacatrapo, if you were silent for a long
time”.16 Because the game of words is part of the same chatter, the questioned
advances with the first of many puns to which the events inspire him,17 which
involves the relation between the name he uses and the ready language that
characterizes him (9): “At least, Sir, I do not need ‘sacatrapo’ to take my speech
off the hook”.18 Using the traditional resource of the ‘speaking name’, the ser-
vant comments on the fairness and opportunity of his name, characteristic
of a bellicose adventurer and an uncontrolled chatterbox. And by feeling this
assonance between the name and the reality of existence, he even proposes
himself to change his name when the experience invites him to it; of Sacatrapo
in rod, to carry well to the bottom the blessings of abundance (15): “Once we
have lodging at the palace, I wish no longer to be Sacatrapo, but rather a rod, so
that I could properly carry the belly’s gibbet”.
Sacatrapo repeats, in the traveling slave’s role, a well-known function of
an ancient slave pattern.19 Because he finds himself involved in an adventure
which objectives he does not know, this type of slave martyrs the boss with
questions; this process, functions as part of an informative prologue, in addi-
tion to being highly dramatic. In accordance with the cliché of the chatterbox,
Sacatrapo “pulls out of the box” of Theseus the answer to all the questions
16 Jason repeats identical comments about the apparent chatter of the servant; see 37: “Do
not push him much, otherwise he will never shut up.”
17 The servant highlights everything he witnesses with puns; some examples are sugges-
tive: the use of a proverb to comment on the adventure of the golden fleece in which he
participates (10): “God help us that we do not come to get wool and we get sheared”; or
to Latin to justify the name and personality of the barbarian king, Aetas (13): “This king
Aetas is already quite old: he is the Aetas, Aetatis”; or to a double meaning (37): “My mas-
ter is that it does not fit his skin; (…) that the ram, getting caught out of here, does not
change the skin”; and finally the onomatopoeia, which allows a ram to speak Latin (45):
“I asked him (by chance) of ego, mei, mihi the accusative of the singular. Behold that he
answers straight: me”! On the jocular effect of the servant’s language, see Barata (1991) 124.
18 In the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa by Cândido de Figueiredo, s.v., you can see
“Sacatrapo – instrument with which the wad is removed from the firearms, chicanery to
achieve something”.
19 This conventional episode of the ‘traveling slave’ is well represented by Xanthias in Frogs,
and Carion in Pluto by Aristophanes. See Silva (2007) 192–5.
necessary to the understanding of an old story (10–1): “What the devil is this
of the Golden Fleece?”; “Lord, Theseus, a ram with golden skin?!”; “This must
be Devil’s skin! For this is it necessary to come with so many weapons?”; “And
how big is this ram?”; “And when the ram is caught, is the campaign finished?”
Thus, without breaking psychological rigor, it provides the technical informa-
tion that requires a moment of openness.
In addition to his big mouth, our servant is also light-handed, which does
not detract from the ancestral ‘virtues’ of his predecessors. Immediately in the
presentation and reception ceremony, in the throne room of Colchis, Sacatrapo
has his opportunity to present credentials. Like his master, he too bows in rev-
erence before the sovereign. But if Jason conceals the true intentions of carry-
ing away the greater treasure of Colchis, the golden fleece, the servant is direct
in parallel objectives; more modest in intentions, he feels satisfied with the
regal ring, which he praises and covets; then, he steals it and dares to comment
(14): “I only accept it because it’s a gift from you. Famous stone! Ah, Sir, is this
diamond fine or false?” Like Jason, Sacatrapo will also face powerful enemies,
at his level: in the palace there is an Arpia, the old servant, whose name is as
talkative as that of her rival.
As soon as the servant’s curriculum was exposed, the opportunities arose to
confirm his merits. After attacking the royal ring in the throne room, a starving
Sacatrapo vents against the pantry’s treasures. But a treasure is not found with-
out suffering, as the whole adventure makes evident. Not knowing the ways
that lead to the kitchen, Sacatrapo falls on the ground where a vigilant monster
named Arpia watches over the lady chamber’s privacy. Whoever sacrilegiously
treads the sacred floor of the female chambers loses their toes, unless they
have arguments to appease the beast, like a ring, for example, to silence an
Arpia.20 With lucidity more practical than heroic, Sacatrapo easily recognizes
this (17): “For the rings are gone, and the toes remain”; to which the competitor
responds with consummate cunning and profound irony: “Know that I’ll take
it for compassion, as I don’t like blood shedding.”
If Sacatrapo anticipates the hero in the quest for the treasure, he also ad-
vances him in the experience of the magic power. A maid also assists his pre-
tentions; she has no youth or beauty to offer because she is old and Arpia,21 but
she is master of spells. It was her, like a Chiron, who passed on to Medea the
20 Barata (1991) 130 emphasizes the rings play as a way of articulating Jason, the hero, with
his negative, Sacatrapo: “To the ring Medea gives to Jason, which he uses to enchant the
mermaids, such as Ulysses, oppose the long lazzi around the rings that Sacatrapo loses,
recovers, to lose again in favour of the interested and self-interested Arpia”.
21 On the nature of an Arpia, the text leaves no doubts (18): “I know well that the name of
Arpia is in style nowadays, because some are arpias in the face and others in the nails”.
62 Silva
recipe of magic (32)! She only lacks the passion to encourage her to put her arts
at the service of the hero Sacatrapo; to her, the servant is a competitor whom
she does not let prosper because she wants him submissive to her interests
and sources. To the kindly request of Sacatrapo – “do some little magic, gallant
thing” (33) –, Arpia does not surrender and generously responds: “To please
you, there goes a magic, an exquisite one. For the art of charms and trinkets,
that with this slap your head jumps out of your body”. From Arpia’s general
character stands out the certainty that she functions as the caricature of the
cooperating maiden, who, out of love, commits herself to the young adven-
turer’s wishes.
Being the hero’s negative, the servant does not fail to fulfill the duties that
the traditional solidarity with the passionate master imposed on him: those of
a mediator in his love affairs. Sacatrapo performs this mission with efficiency
and grace. It is he who takes to Creusa Jason’s love confessions (25) and clari-
fies the meaning of the attentions falsely rendered to Medea. And so that the
contrast with the hero may also be striking in this respect, Sacatrapo does
not spare the comparison by making sure of Creusa’s retribution (27): “What
the devil has this Jason, that everyone wants him? (…) I’m the only one who
doesn’t find anyone who really wants me! Because, of course, the devil is not
as ugly as they see it, because I, thank God, I am quite a smart, handsome guy,
blubber-lipped, with male nails. I walk with short steps, and finally as a whole
I’m composed by a lot of parts, and yet there is not a lost soul that falls in love
with me”.
He comes later, in addition to the embassy, to bring the good news to his
master. He insists on the readiness with which he has disengaged himself from
the task (45); he spares no details in the beauty of the maiden, who, with bril-
liance, almost liquidated him with the usual heroine glow of the love romance:
“Every eye was a firefly, each face a carbuncle that walked in the hands of the
anatomist of beauty. Each hair was a thunderbolt, each eyelash a comet, and a
cornet each nose”;22 he confirms that he transmitted, without omissions, the
love message; he notes, in the maiden’s reaction, the signs of correspondence
(46). But concerning the desired conclusion – Creusa’s explicit confession –,
the servant takes refuge in reticence, in delays, in uncertainties, because after
all in what he has gathered there is neither clarity nor security.
22 This description of Creusa, insistent on elements of fire and light, is nevertheless sugges-
tive of the traditional fate of the young princess of Corinth, victim of Medea’s sources: the
flaming up, as a human torch, surrounded by flames of hatred and jealousy (Euripides,
Medea 1156–77, Seneca, Medea, 836–9).
To consummate the complexity of this comic character, António José grants

him space for his own odyssey. Alongside the prince of Thessaly, conqueror of
the fleece of Colchis, the pursuing slave of the shitting-gold-donkey emerges.
As before the hero, now also the anti-hero can present to the barbarian mon-
arch a series of exploits that design his personality of exception (49): “I have
served, Sir, in the campaign since the age of five. I was in all the positions, I was
standing, I was on my knees, I was prone, I was on the back, I was crawling and,
if the need was big, I crouched”. The time to test such a brilliant experience
comes from the hand of the conniving maid, Arpia, who is also the antidote
to the generous Medea; because the proposal she offers to the hero follows
these terms (65): “You know that if you pay, I will give you a better campaign
than that of the Golden Fleece!”. In exchange for a recent gift from the king,
the royal ring, the old woman reveals an anti-heroic campaign as a caricature
of Jason: a hidden subterranean stable where the shitting-gold-donkey is hid-
ing. This treasure is also guarded by a watchful monster, an ant, though it is
more harmless than a dragon. But to prevent the foreseeable risks in heroic
campaigns, the anti-hero receives from the ally a cover, which has the gift of
making him invisible and protecting him against all the unforeseen circum-
stances. Dumber than the donkey with which he dreams, Sacatrapo, so skillful
and realistic when it comes to his master’s interests, is, in his own case, an
easy prey to the abilities of an Arpia, who has already shown herself to be an
weighty opponent. Evaded by greed, and once again by competition with a
true hero, Sacatrapo confesses, at the moment of departure (67): “Oh, donkey
of my heart, if you shit gold, you will not be a donkey, you will be the true
father of the Fleece. This time I’ll have a better luck than Jason”. The parody
of the hero, and also of the myth, has the promised outcome. In seeking the
target of his valor, Sacatrapo finds nothing but the wreckage of Jason’s forces,
in turn decimated by the fury of the barbarian king. And because the magi-
cal cape is nothing but an old cloak, inherited from some distant grandmother,
the miracle of invisibility does not work. Like Jason, Sacatrapo also falls into
the clutches of the barbarian, hero and anti-hero together in a common
destiny.
For the parallel to continue to the end, if Jason still has to face Medea’s re-
venge, whom he eluded in love, Sacatrapo must also face the wrath of Arpia,
when he seeks to betray her in the affections of his heart, the treasure arks. All
that Sacatrapo misses is a king of justice who will save him and reward him,
in spite of everything; as from Arpia, the slave receives only crowns instead
of rings, submission to the weight of an ark instead of the ceremonies of vic-
tory, surrendering to a harsh female authority, instead of the gentle caress of a
maiden’s hand.
64 Silva
With all this set of elements, stemming from the various traditions to which
time was imprinting new traits, António José da Silva made his version of
Medea. Without abandoning the wealth of the models, he did not deceive the
public expectation of his time – by a miracle of perennial classical tones, but
no less by merit of a genuine theatre man.
chapter 5
In Search of Lost Identity: Jean Anouilh’s Medea

1 Medea in the Context of Jean Anouilh’s Work1
Médée, one of Jean Anouilh’s Nouvelles Pièces Noires, was written in 1946.
Published in the following year, it premièred in Hamburg in 1948, under the di-
rection of Robert Michel. In France, its production only took place a few years
later, in 1953, at the Théâtre de l’Atelier, under the direction of André Barsacq,
with set design and wardrobe by André Baskt.2 Notwithstanding its singularity,
Anouilh’s version of the Medea myth was significantly less successful than his
Antigone. Several aspects have been pointed to an attempt to explain why the
play about the Colchian princess failed to attract as much interest as Antigone;
amongst these, the question of timing may provide the best explanation, as the
connection with contemporary events is less perceptible in Medea.
2 The Human Trajectory of a Personality
The list of characters preceding the text is a clear indicator of the author’s pref-
erence for classically inspired minimalism. There are three main characters –
Medea, Jason, and Creon – and three other characters that can be placed on
a secondary plane – the Nurse, the Boy, and the Guards. This is followed by a
few simple stage directions meant to enlighten the audience on the author’s
innovative choices in terms of setting. Being familiar with his better-known
play in the classical tradition, Antigone, Anouilh’s readers and spectators
will undoubtedly notice his change of approach in the opening of the text
2 Lasso de la Vega (2002) 900-1 has undertaken the study of a vast number of versions of
Medea, both preceding and coeval with Anouilh’s play, representing a tradition of rewriting,
to examine their possible interactions. He concludes that Euripides, Seneca, and Corneille
are the most distinctive influences on the French author’s version. The main focus of this
essay lies on the aspects connecting Anouilh’s play with the two above-mentioned classical
authors.

66 Silva
on the Theban heroine. In the case of Medea, the author makes no interven-
tion in the Prologue, nor is there an individual identification of the charac-
ters, apparently because the playwright believes that his audience does not
need detailed information on the myth and its agents. This silence could be
interpreted in more than one way. There may have been a tacit understand-
ing that the audience was by then more familiar with this kind of theme, or
perhaps the Medea theme was thought to be so familiar that it dispenses with
any kind of additional information.3 The initial blocking instructions are the
following:
En scène, au lever du rideau, Médée et la Nourrice accroupies par terre

devant une roulotte.
Des musiques, des chants vagues au loin.
(On the stage, when the curtain rises, Medea and the Nurse squatting on
the ground in front of a wagon.
In the distance, music and vague songs).
The restrained wording of the details of setting and posture symbolically ex-
presses the fundamental framework for the action. The two women on stage,
Medea and the Nurse, share close emotional and cultural ties. Their posture,
“squatting”, represents the humiliating circumstances in which they find
themselves as strangers in the city of Corinth, where they have just arrived.
But mostly the wagon is meant to be understood as a neutral shelter – neither
the palace of their past, nor the house that Greco-Latin tradition affords
them in Greece; it is rather a modest shelter, precarious and wandering, the
sign of their statelessness.4 Thus, the stage directions and description convey
those aspects that Anouilh, acknowledging tradition, intends to highlight as
the starting point for his rewriting of Medea: her barbarian origins, and, as
expected, her violent personality. And yet the author does not portray this ag-
gressiveness as a constant or as something inherent in her non-Greek nature,
because this opening scene also shows that violence is most of all a “latent”
3 Nine years had passed since the première of Anouilh’s Antigone, and new productions in
the same Greco-Latin tradition had meanwhile sprung up throughout France. See Hardwick,
Morais, Silva (2017) 51–4.
4 To Lasso de la Vega (2002) 902, this choice of mise-en-scène is indicative of Anouilh’s por-
trayal of errant Medea as a gipsy, and he remarks that José Bergamín (a famous Spanish poet,
prose writer, and playwright) had been inspired by the same idea in his own adaptation,
Medea, la encantadora (Medea, the Enchantress). Hélia Correia is equally aware of this kind
of detail, and makes (see below, pp. 164–7, 177) a similar choice, even if in different terms:
in Medea’s house, in Corinth, an hierarchy is established between the bedroom, a space of
conjugal intimacy, and the kitchen, a kind of domestic agora.
In Search of Lost Identity 67
feature of Medea’s character – she who, besides a barbarian, is also a woman,

and thus fragile; circumstances will determine the relative weight of these two
contradictory traits in her mind.
Another life goes on, off-stage, in distant sounds of song and music: presum-
ably a local festivity, which provides yet another source of displacement5 for
the women, who are outside the confines of the city,6 excluded and estranged
from that collective experience. Saying that “There may be a festival among
them” (9) is yet another way to emphasize their alien condition, their uncer-
tainty about what is going on, making it obvious that they do not share the
happiness and the sense of belonging conveyed through the music. It is no
coincidence that Medea repeatedly voices her “hate” for the music that she
hears coming from Corinth (“je hais leurs fêtes. Je hais leur joie” / I hate their
festivities. I hate their joy, 10). Her natural incompatibility with the Greek soil
she now stands on is understandable, but the way she expresses that tension
is compelling – the note of hate in her voice, typical of a soul which has al-
ways been traditionally viewed as excessive. Two worlds in opposition, on and
off-stage, provide the starting point for the experience of the creatures that
inhabit those worlds.
Adopting the traditional view of the relationship between the Nurse and
Medea,7 Anouilh, like Seneca, opens the play with a dialogue between the two
women, in the prologue, with two distinct moments, separated by the Boy’s in-
tervention: the first part of the dialogue centers on a past believed to be under
threat, and is charged with the foreboding that something strange and painful
is about to happen; in the second part they talk about the imminent future,
after the certainty of rupture has been confirmed by this messenger.
Besides the two dichotomies previously pointed out – of settings, first,
and of dramatic structure, in the dialogue that follows – a third one splits
Medea’s state of mind. In her first dialogue with the Nurse, focused on past
memories, she frequently exclaims “shut up” (10, 11, 12), in an attempt to avoid
woes that would incite feelings of hate and vengeance. Medea listens more
than she speaks, and the little she says consists of appeals to silence and re-
straint. To recall the joys and sorrows of the past is indeed useless, because the
5 The theme of the festive sounds reaching Medea’s ears comes from Seneca (Medea 116–7),
but what in the Latin drama was interpreted by Medea as a sign of emotional rupture is more
deeply felt as cultural estrangement in Anouilh’s play.
6 The local inhabitants’ motives for the confinement of the two women and their wagon to a
trailer-park outside the town are mean or downright insulting: “they were afraid we would
steal their chickens during the night”, says Medea (13). Later (28) this collective hostility is
reinforced in the decadent portrayal of the two foreign women, with their rocky wagon and
old mare, at whom the children throw stones, showing their rejection.
7 See below, pp. 68, 74.
68 Silva
Nurse already knows them, as do we all who know the history of Medea’s past.
Nevertheless, convention dictates this revision of the stages of the myth.
The Nurse, an old woman from Colchis, like her mistress, whom she has
cared for since her childhood,8 is a voice from the past; as such, she sup-
ports Jason’s wife with her affection, making her feel less lonely. Reinforcing
the presence of Colchis on stage, the Nurse highlights the contrast between
Greek and barbarian; the barbarian world is represented not by one, but by
two voices, the voices of two women of different age and status, each with
her own personal perspective on that world – which is thereby more clearly
perceived and thus more complete. The terms of endearment with which the
Nurse addresses her lady show her long-term affection (“petite” (little one), 10,
“ma chatte” (my kitten), 12). Responding to the “chez eux” (at their home) that
referred to the festivities they overhear, she speaks of “chez nous” (at home)
(9–10, 13), recollecting Colchian social life and Medea’s origins. Anouilh pro-
vides more details about the festivities in the kingdom of Aeëtes, which on
stage are a mere remembrance – but which had been intensely enjoyed by the
two women – than about the celebrations that are made real by the distant
sounds. The description includes precise details of that past life in barbarian
lands. While in Corinth the feast may consist of music and chants, in Colchis
violence lies at the heart of the festivities (10):
Les filles se mettent des fleurs dans les cheveux et les garçons se peignent
la figure en rouge avec leur sang et, au petit matin, après les premiers sa
crifices, on commence les combats. Qu’ils sont beaux les gars de Colchide
quand ils se battent! (…)
8 Some of the ancient Nurses have become famous, such as, for example, Orestes’ Nurse in
Aeschylus’ Choephoroe as well as those which Euripides gave his Medea and Phaedra (Medea
and Hippolytus). Despite adjustments made according to each poet’s preferences or their
different contexts, the tragic Nurse incorporates a set of traditional traits. She tends to be an
elderly woman, long employed by the family. That is the reason why she is knowledgeable
about her masters and mistresses’ lives, with details connecting the past and the future. Her
voice on stage comments, firmly and assuredly, on more things than would be expected from
a mere servant. Within the family, she is closest to her mistress, albeit their relationship may
be not exempt from conflict; since they are both women, they understand each other; how-
ever, there is also a degree of latent animosity and competition, as creatures whom life has
treated with diverse levels of generosity. On the characterization of this theatrical type, see
Silva (2005a) 167–93; Silva (2005b) 123–5. In Anouilh’s plays Antigone and Medea, the Nurses
follow a similar pattern, each one showing loving care towards “her little girl”. In the present
play, however, the Nurse’s Colchian origin, like Medea’s, is underlined, which is relevant for
the closeness of the two women and for the function assigned to the old woman as “the voice
of memory”.
(The girls put flowers in their hair and the boys paint their faces in red
with their blood and in the early morning, after the first sacrifices, the
fights begin. How handsome Colchian lads are when they fight!)
Après, ils domptent les bêtes sauvages tout le jour. Et le soir on allumait
des grands feux devant le palais de ton père, de grands feux jaunes avec
des herbes qui sentaient fort. Tu l’as oublié, toi, petite, l’odeur des herbes
de chez nous?
(And then they tamed the wild beasts all day. And in the evening great
fires were lit before your father’s palace, great yellow fires with herbs with
their strong smell. Have you forgotten it, little one, the smell of the herbs
back home?)
The barbarian world featured fierce rituals and strong smells, and the celebra-
tions reflected the ways of its participants, with bloody displays. Reminded of
what they had left behind, the old woman is led to ask the questions that will
eventually trigger the revelation of the other side of Medea’s personality (11):
Why had they left? Why had they travelled such a long way? Unable to keep
silent, Medea shouts out her answer. The same Medea who, moments earlier,
had repressed her natural instincts now lets them loose upon being reminded
of Jason. With him comes the memory of the list of crimes she had committed,
a short list that seems rather like a nod to tradition (11): “On est parties parce
que j’aimais Jason, parce que j’avais volé pour lui mon père, parce que j’avais
tué mon frère pour lui!” (We left because I loved Jason, because I had stolen
from my own father for him, because I had killed my own brother for him!).
Her violent, unbridled passion had brought about the loss of social status; long
gone was her old palace, with its walls of gold, the palace that identified her as
the princess of Colchis (11), surrounded by luxurious parks and ample grounds,
where as a young princess she had once ridden her horse. Long gone is her rich
wardrobe full of dresses that her maids would bring for her to pick and choose
according to her whim9 (13–4) – “tu étais la maîtresse et la fille du roi et rien
n’était trop beau pour toi” (You were the mistress and the king’s daughter, and
nothing was too beautiful for you, 14). Now that all that splendor is gone, all
that is left is two women squatting on the floor like two beggars (11) – a heavy
price to pay for an irrational passion that had destroyed family ties, status,
9 The capriciousness of the Colchian princess and her taste for fancy clothes inevitably recalls
Euripides’ description of the daily life of Creusa, Creon’s daughter (Euripides, Medea 946–50,
959–68, 1156–62), which emphasizes the similarity between both of Jason’s lovers.
70 Silva
and the comfort and luxury that they provided. A string of qualifiers draws an
impressionistic picture of the stateless condition (14): “Chassées, battues, mé-
prisées, sans pays, sans maison”;10 (Hunted, beaten, despised, stateless, home-
less); to which Medea adds a touch of hope, a flimsy and soon to be shattered
hope (14), “… mais pas seule” (but not alone).
The suspicions of the two women, whether voiced or simply felt, are the
signs of what, though unexpected, is not truly surprising news: the realization
that Medea’s lingering hope in Jason is unfounded. At first, when hearing the
music, the Nurse suggests that Jason will probably be at the party, dancing with
the local girls, a member of the community, and hence, estranged from the
foreign woman (12). Then, feeling her advanced years, the old servant becomes
aware of the fact that her death will leave her young mistress alone, since she
cannot count on Jason’s support (15). Finally, Medea herself has a sense of fore-
boding, feeling the approaching day as a sort of menace. In full contrast with
the excitement of the people enjoying the celebrations – maybe Jason too –
her heart is torn and an odd sensation takes complete hold of her. Considering
her later filicidal actions, her choice of imminent birth as the metaphor for her
pain and anguish is particularly significant (16). The Nurse, whose experienced
hands had helped Medea overcome her labor pains, cannot help her now, and
the messenger arrives with the most terrible confirmation of her fears. Medea
feels “weak”, like she felt then, showing how her naturally virile character
clashes with the typically female pains of motherhood. Underlying this speech
is Medea’s famous statement on the condition of women, in Euripides’ play,
according to which she would rather stand three times in battle than give birth
once (250–1).
3 The Treason
Rather than causing a first direct confrontation between Medea and Jason,
as in Euripides, Anouilh prefers to interpose a messenger between them – a
Boy sent by Jason to deliver the news of the Argonaut’s imminent engagement
to the king’s daughter. While the tension between the couple is temporarily
abated, Medea’s anger increases. She receives the Boy with shouts, her sense
of foreboding exacerbated by his telling presence. Her previous feelings of
weakness, which the memory of childbirth had rekindled – there was, after
all, something feminine, something fragile and subdued, in her passionate
nature – are replaced with rage. She tries to find multiple explanations for the
presence of the messenger – maybe the Argonaut had suffered an accident,
10 Cf. Seneca, Medea 20–1.

leaving him hurt, possibly on the verge of death? Could he have been taken
prisoner for infringing the local laws?, 1711 – until, finally, she voices what, deep
down, she knows to be the real motive for his absence: the celebration over-
heard in the town “is in his honour”. Besides cultural estrangement, there is
now an explicit emotional break with Jason.
And thus the feared news is confirmed. Medea sticks to the laconic expres-
sions she resorts to when she wants to hide her feelings, or her fears, and her
“tais-toi” (shut up) previously addressed to the Nurse is now replaced by a
“dis vite” (say it quickly) meant to encourage the herald of her doom (18–9).12
She even manages a smile, encouraging the Boy to utter his difficult message,
which he does with truly aggressive simplicity:
Il épouse Créuse, la fille de Créon. C’est demain matin la noce.
(He is going to marry Creusa, Creon’s daughter. The wedding is tomorrow

morning.)
11 This possibility is hinted at in the information conveyed by the Boy, according to
whom Jason is “in Creon’s palace” (17). Expressed by Medea through a single word –
“Emprisonné?” (Imprisoned?), 18 –, the doubt becomes paradoxical. The Argonaut is in
fact “imprisoned” in the palace, though not because he has infringed any rules, but rather
a prisoner of hypothetical affections and interests.
12 Dramatically, Medea treats the Boy as a seruus currens (18–9), whose conventional traits
are known. The urgency of his task justifies the hasty entrance of the character (a slave
or a parasite), fleeing from danger, which in comedy is merely imaginary. His nimbleness,
which explains the term currens, is quite spectacular on stage, being also quite empha-
sized in the text. Besides danger, the seruus currens is impelled to hurry by the nature of
his mission; his arrival generally represents the outcome of an embassy which was com-
mitted to him, or a testimony of a fact that has occurred far away and is important for the
development of the action; for a number of possible reasons, he shares the identity of a
Messenger. And, lastly, there must be a recipient to whom the seruus currens delivers the
news and whom he warns of the coming danger.
Anouilh’s Medea gives the Boy some of these conventional elements: he is red in the
face from running; he takes some time before he conveys the news, which makes Medea
insist that he must do it quickly; she promises him that he will be able to go and join
the festivities once he has accomplished his mission. Duckworth (1971) 106–7, 225, identi-
fies 13 seruus currens scenes in Latin comedy, which attests to the common nature of the
episode. Incidentally, Duckworth analyzes the different outcomes of the same process as
used by the two Latin comediographers; Plautus explores the surprise effect, since, as a
rule, the audience does not know the content of the information that is going to be dis-
closed; Terence plays with irony, because the clarification provided by the slave is known
to the spectators. In this respect, Anouilh is closer to Terence. His dramatically inspired
play employs a resource that is, in general, more typical of comedy. However, in Orestes,
Euripides gives the Phrygian a similar characterization.
72 Silva
4 Vengeance
4.1 The Plan

After all Medea’s fears and forebodings are confirmed by the messenger, the
dialogue between her and the Nurse continues, now with a threatening tone as
the mistress dismisses the Boy with these premonitory words (19): “Et quand tu
seras vieux, rappelle-toi que c’est toi qui es venu dire à Médée” (And when you
are old, remember that it was you who broke the news to Medea).
A first sign of change is patent in the way the Nurse now addresses the one
she begins to perceive as a different Medea: “Mon aigle fière, mon petit vautour”
(My proud eagle, my little vulture) (20, 27), “ma louve” (my she-wolf) (22, 27)
describe “her little girl” as a potential wild beast whom she has known for ever.13
Other signs speak of the deep change in both the now abandoned woman and
her surrounding context. Medea refuses the Nurse’s shows of affection, her old
emotional dependence now gone. Recollecting her childbirth experience es-
tablishes, by way of contrast, a link with the ‘weak’ side of her personality. The
product that Medea has just delivered does not require the skillful intervention
of a midwife; it was born by itself, spontaneously. It did not burst forth from
her body but rather from her soul: it is called “Hate” and has come to mobilize
all of her energies and affections (20–1). Her own attitude on stage changes ac-
cordingly. The woman who has been “squatting” now stands up prompted by
that genuine energy that characterizes traditional barbarian Medea; she now
listens to a different Melody, not the party’s, to which she is alien, but that of
Hate, of which she is now the protagonist (25): “Haine! Haine ! (…) Tu me laves
et je rennais !” (Hate! Hate! […] You wash me and I am reborn). Having been
abandoned gives her back her old personality (26): “Je suis Médée, toute seule,
abandonnée devant cette roulotte; au bord de cette mer étrangère, chassée,
bannie, haie, mais rien n’est trop pour moi!” (I am Medea, all alone, abandoned
in front of this wagon; by this foreign sea, hunted, banished, hated, but nothing
is too much for me!). This metamorphosis caused by the emotional shock of a
message that served to confirm Medea’s worst suspicions enables Anouilh to
add modulations to Medea’s characterization. It is as if one would not be able
to recognize her at first, debilitated as she was under the guise of morbid sub-
missiveness, and then saw her awaken and embrace her traditional fierceness,
which had been dormant.
This is the time Medea is granted to give vent to her feelings; as happens in
Euripides, before Jason, her, and our, attention is focused on the whole course
13 Medea herself recognizes how she keeps no secrets from her Nurse. This closeness can
even represent a danger (30): “Tu en sais trop, tu en dis trop” (You know too much, you say
too much).
of her love story. Treason, which is also a point of arrival, stimulates her reflec-
tion on the path that led up to it. We are now back in Colchis not to revisit
a young princess surrounded by honors and luxury but rather in search of a
woman who gave herself up unconditionally to the fire of passion.
In the French version, this confession expresses a different understanding
of the relationship between the barbarian woman and the Greek hero as ex-
perienced by Medea. The admiration she felt for an adventurer whom she was
eager to help accomplish his mission – the conquest of the Golden Fleece – or
the curiosity and excitement about a whole world that opens up beyond the
Colchian borders, or simply a taste for adventure feeding the imagination of a
young girl, all these plausible explanations for Medea’s surrender give way to a
single argument: Medea’s sexual obsession for the Argonaut. Theirs had been
a very physical relationship, translated in Medea’s fascination for the touch
of his strong hands and the smells that bespoke his male presence; and it had
been too instinctive to cause any shame or humiliation in the woman who now
analyzes it as a thing of the past. It had been but an act of female yielding to
and subservience before the appealing presence of a male. The way how this
passion meddled with the behavior of the one her Nurse calls “aigle, vautour,
louve” (eagle, vulture, she-wolf) is quite evident. The wild animal had yielded
with submissive passivity, forever waiting for her lover from the morning hours
when he left till he came back in the evening (21–2), ready to satisfy all his
desires, even if it meant betraying her family circle. There is absolutely no sign
of rationality in this chain of behavior; she had merely bought Jason’s pres-
ence by means of utter self-annulment. Affection was probably absent from
their relationship, which was fed by passion alone. In Medea’s recollection, the
Argonaut had imprinted a very masculine mark upon the woman who threw
herself at his feet; he had used her, and no emotion at all remained from their
interaction. Both genders confronted each other in their deepest natures: fe-
male weakness, which the body itself exhibits, and the muscular vitality of the
male. Medea gave everything, Jason seized it, giving nothing in exchange. What
is left of this obliging complicity, which only those who love can understand,
is shame and the sensation of a disease; the very excesses that characterize the
descendant of the Sun did not exempt her from the humiliation to which her
female nature exposed her; on the contrary, they contributed to an extreme ex-
perience of subjection, she being “more woman than any other”. Having been
abandoned, she now feels more liberated, as if redeemed of all her weaknesses,
and this makes her glad. It is as if she had been bewitched for a long time and
is now finally free from it.
This release from her subjection finally brings back the genuine, violent
Medea announced by the Nurse’s vocatives. Anouilh substitutes this return to
the past for a dialogue between Medea and Jason. Medea is still alone, as she
74 Silva
has always been in this relationship, the only difference being that Jason used
to come and go, with the same indifference, attracted by nothing but sexual
routine. Now he will not be coming back. Medea does not shout anymore, she
claims to be calm, her composure more dreadful than her former anger. It is
the cold rationality of one who has recovered her identity. This return to her in-
most self provides her also with control over events; the initiative is no longer
theirs, it is hers now. Jason had been efficient in putting down genuine Medea,
who is back now that he is gone.
The threat of imminent exile emphasizes the meaning of Medea’s wagon
and her marginality. But Medea will never leave on her own; the “nous” (we)
(“où irons-nous”, “il y aura toujours un pays pour nous” (where shall we go;
there will always be a country for us, 25)) includes the Nurse, whose role in this
play seems to include that of a shadow.14 The grandeur of Euripides’ solitary
heroine is thus readjusted. In the same laconic style of the whole play – where
single, isolated words are repeated and gain the readers’ or the audience’s
attention – by means of a single word (25), “Après” (Afterwards), Anouilh sug-
gests that a plan is being devised in Medea’s mind. Between the crime and the
enforcement of the sentence of exile there is only a limited time, that ‘single
day’, to return to the Euripidean version. In this case, the meaning of the word
remains an enigma for all, even for the Nurse who, in the French play, lacks
the astuteness of her Greek counterpart, with all the Euripidean Nurse’s fears
concerning the worst consequences of her lady’s anger, including its impact on
her children. Past and present are connected; Medea claims to be prepared to
commit new crimes, setting herself as a priority: if her past murders were com-
mitted for Jason’s benefit, her future ones will benefit herself; or, in a different
proportion, if blood had to be shed for her to follow Jason, their divorce will be
accomplished through the same means, i.e. bloodshed.15 But who her targets
will be remains an open question.
The fact that the abandoned woman wishes her rival’s wedding to take place
as soon as possible (the word “vite” [quickly] is again repeated, 27) hints at the
possibility that Creusa may be the target of Medea’s next crime, which will
also shake the Corinthian king’s palace. The Nurse tries to exert a pacifying
influence, like Ismene vis-à-vis Antigone, with their affective closeness, even
14 This identification between the Nurse and her mistress, with the former as a daimon of
the latter, is used quite exuberantly in Hélia Correia’s Perdição (Perdition); see Hardwick,
Morais, Silva (2017) 273–4. In Anouilh, however, Medea’s Nurse is able to release herself
from this alliance and survives the catastrophe that befalls the other characters. Her final
words reinstate the mediocre return to common daily life, signaling the coexistence of
those two radically different worlds.
15 Cf. Seneca, Medea 53–5.
if they are not relatives. When Medea insists that it is urgent to take measures,
the Nurse responds by delaying the action, stressing their situation of fragil-
ity and forlornness as women and foreigners confronted with the city’s male
authority; she fears the anger of Creon, the tyrant, on whose tolerance their
chances of survival solely depend;16 she mentions the charming things in life,
the taste of simple things, a ray of sunlight; a warm plate of soup, a few coins
earned, a comforting hot drink at bedtime (29). Like Oedipus’ daughters before
them, the two women are also separated by the contradiction of these two life
concepts – one woman committed to violent revenge, the other praising the
simple beauty of a peaceful daily life. This is an adequate context to define a
hero’s nature as opposed to the averageness of a common creature. Not that
Medea is a hero by nature, but, faced with the circumstances, she has to be-
come one (29): “Moi aussi, hier, j’aurais voulu vivre, mais ce n’est plus de vivre
ou de mourir maintenant qu’il s’agit”17 (Yesterday, I too would have wished to
live, but now the question is not one of living or dying anymore). A resolute
“moi” (cf. 28) is what is left from a whole life project; having lost her moth-
erland and her family, with the relationship that had brought her to Corinth
now over, her only reason for living is encapsulated into a word and a tiny uni-
verse: “Moi”. Prompted by the rupture, the passive, Medea’s torpid generosity
towards Jason is replaced with her retraction into a purely selfish individual-
ism; from now on she lives exclusively for herself and inside herself, with only
one thought in her mind: revenge.
One necessarily wonders about Medea’s motives for deciding that she must
carry on committing crimes. Hélia Correia tries to answer this question by
seeking the right word to name Medea’s conflicting sentiments. As for Anouilh,
16 The notion of collective hatred towards them in Corinth – they would have been lynched
by the populace were it not for the protection of Creon’s authority (28) – is echoed, in a
similar tone, in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura. In the Portuguese text, the words “Todos em
Corinto” (All in Corinth, see below, p. 177) expresses an animosity, mainly created by Jason
as an excuse to portray himself as a victim of the foreign woman, who has become an
obstacle to his plans.
17 In an attempt to belittle the happiness that, for common creatures, seems to stem from
the simplicity of the small pleasures of life, Medea confronts the Nurse – confronting her
own self, i.e., the Medea of the past; the new-born heroine addresses her companion of
exile, describing the other face of existence, the inescapable alternative to all things good
fortune may provide humanity with (30): “Tu m’en as trop dit avec ta carcasse, et ta goutte,
et ton soleil sur ta viande pourrie … À ta vaisselle, vieille, à ton balai, à tes épluchures, avec
les autres de ta race. Le jeu que nous jouons n’est pas pour vous” (You have said too much
to me with your carcass, and your gout, and your sun on your rotten meat … Mind your
dishes, old woman, your broom, your peelings, with the others of your race. The game we
play is not for you).
76 Silva
he is not exactly concerned with the orthoépeia, or “the correctness of words”,

that defines impulses or gestures, but he nonetheless does explore the reasons
behind them. The Nurse who “knows all and tells all” is able to explain that
‘Love’ is not the issue since Medea has long fallen out of love with Jason. Not
even sexual instinct has survived in their now cold relationship (30): “On tue
pour un homme qui vous prend encore, pas pour un homme qu’on laisse sortir
la nuit de son lit” (We kill for a man who still captivates you, not for a man
whom we let go from our bed in the night). We might justly ask with Hélia
Correia:18 What name should be given to the feeling that stirs Medea: Is it jeal-
ousy? Or is it madness?
As a whole, this Prologue responds adequately to what is required from it:
it sums up the critical aspects of a past that can elucidate not only the pres-
ent moment but also the future; it sketches a portrait of the protagonist, with
her conflicts and her excesses; and it anticipates new motives the author will
provide for the crimes that all who know the Euripidean version of Medea are
expecting.
4.2 Medea’s Agon Before Her Eternal Antagonists: Creon and Jason
After her will, her motives, and her targets have been defined, Anouilh places
Medea before her two enemies in two long agones inspired by classical tra-
dition. The first is Corinth, the enemy’s culture, represented by Creon; his
goal – to expel Medea – and his reasons – his fear of Medea’s magic skills and
violence – are the conventional ones. Then comes Jason, to explain and clarify
the much-feared break before its traditional consequences come to happen.
These two confrontations correspond to the most substantial part of Anouilh’s
rewrite.19
In general, Anouilh’s Creon does not differ much from his traditional
Euripidean model. His goal is to get rid of Medea for fear of what a woman
who has committed murder in the past may be prepared to do to harm the
city and, especially, his daughter, who is soon to be married to Jason (34; cf.
Euripides, Medea 282–3). His intervention is possibly more innovative; he ad-
dresses Medea using moderate words, finding protection behind peremptory
commands – Medea is given one hour to pack her belongings and leave (34;
cf. Euripides, Medea 271–6) – and then the king becomes visibly more laconic
18 See below, p. 181.

19 On the importance of these agones, Lasso de la Vega (2002) 903 writes: “It is not by chance,
but rather on purpose, voluntarily, that the characters, more than acting, discuss the in-
evitable misfortunes of their respective lives. There is only dialogue strictu sensu in the
whole play, no ‘triangular scenes’”.
after he has listened to Medea’s arguments; but when it comes to defending

Jason and the rights of the man and the Greek, his speech becomes more lively
and his attitude more combative. On the other hand, the goals of both antago-
nists are wider and include overtones that originate in conventional traits but
certainly go beyond them.
When Medea asks the king to be allowed to attend the wedding and to be
given an opportunity to converse with Jason’s future wife so as to acquaint her
with the best way to deal with her husband (34),20 Creon is horrified, and says
that exposing his daughter to such a dangerous company is exactly one of his
worst fears. Medea does not use this sort of female argument, despite the fact
that it is indeed compatible with the way how, in Euripides, the barbarian prin-
cess sees her ‘female condition’. As can be expected, the real reason behind
Creon’s refusal is in his quality as man and father, his duty to protect his home
and his daughter from her rival’s singular concern.
Anouilh brings new personal elements to Medea; the idea of returning to
Colchis, with Jason (cf. Seneca, Medea 197), emphasizes her exile, of which her
lover was also a part. Her story includes the fact that her errant life, which
seems on the verge of being reenacted by order of the Corinthian king, must be
shared with her eternal partner, as if ‘Medea-Jason’s story’ could not do with-
out any of its protagonists. They would not be parted even if Jason were to stay
and be king of Corinth while Medea again wandered aimlessly, with one or two
seas interposed between them. Medea may be exiled, but never crushed (38–
9). Actually, the Argonaut is her accomplice and if exile penalizes her for the
crimes she has committed, it surely must include him as well (39; cf. Seneca,
Medea 273–6). Jason’s will seems to be irrelevant in Medea’s appeal to the king.
His return to his old-time lover does not necessarily involve his decision, but
can be determined by the king’s command; from this point of view, Medea’s
connection with the Argonaut becomes rather like a ‘habit’ she cannot get out
of than a genuine affective link that she wishes to restore.
However, the predominant tone in this agon as Anouilh designed it is most-
ly political. Medea confronts the king as an equal; she does not adopt the same
supplicant stance of her Greek and Latin models.21 Now it is the princess of
20 Medea’s strange proposal seems to reflect the weakness which Euripides’ heroine identi-
fied with the female position within marriage. Women’s duty to immerse themselves into
an alien world, trying to divine their husbands’ wishes for the sake of marital harmony is
mirrored in the willingness of Anouilh’s protagonist to inform her unexperienced rival of
those requirements (Euripides, Medea 238–40).
21 39; cf. Euripides, Medea 324–6; Seneca, Medea 246–8.
78 Silva
Colchis who challenges the Corinthian sovereign22 regarding the exercise of

power when the fate of a guest or an enemy is at issue. She asks the king of
Corinth and father of the bride in the eve of the nuptials to give her Jason back;
Creon’s reasons for refusing to do it are political (33): “Jason est mon hôte, fils
d’un roi qui fut mon ami et il est libre de ses actes” (Jason is my guest, the son
of a king who was a friend of mine and he is free to act as he chooses). This
answer, which defines the dialogue plan, is what probably leads Medea to re-
spond with similar arguments. First, having been condemned to exile, Medea
challenges the king’s authority by disobeying his orders. In the face of this, the
king might easily have given Medea over to Pelias’ children, who claim for le-
gitimate retribution for Medea’s crime (34). But he does not do it, for a number
of different reasons: first and foremost because he had given his word to Jason,
his guest, who had made a plea for Medea (35–6, 38; cf. Seneca, Medea 184–5);
second, because with the end of his reign drawing near, after years of much
violence, he does not wish to shed any more blood; remorse for the atrocities
he had committed advises him to redeem himself by showing some generosity
towards new victims.
Medea disagrees with the king’s attitude, which is quite the opposite of
what, in comparison with the exercise of power among the barbarians, she
believes a king’s authority should be (35): “Tu fais bien légèrement ton mé-
tier de roi, Créon! J’ai eu le temps d’apprendre au palais de mon père que ce
n’est pas ainsi qu’on gouverne. Fais-moi tuer tout de suite” (You do your kingly
job rather lightly, Creon! In my father’s palace, I have had the opportunity of
learning that that is not the way one should govern. Have me killed right now).
Barbarian power is free from humaneness and hesitation, coexisting comfort-
ably with violence. Thus, her life, because it brings danger to those around her,
should certainly not be spared. Medea’s death would indeed be in everyone’s
interest – her own, the king’s, Jason’s – but it would take an extremely firm will
to carry it out. With this idea of annihilation, a different ending from Euripides’
now begins to take form. Instead of flight and separation, which the descen-
dant of the Sun is allowed, riding her godly grandfather’s chariot,23 the French
protagonist demands to be killed. In her view, this would be the most adequate
ending, which the king’s authority should duly ensure. Medea does not fear to
22 The challenging concept that, because she is herself the daughter of a king, Medea has
the power to confront another king is present in Seneca, in a dialogue between the Nurse
and the protagonist (Medea 168).
23
Pulquério (1995) 11 analyses Anouilh’s approach to the divine element present in Euripides.
In her dialogue with the Nurse (22), Medea does indeed mention her traditional divine
ancestry. The reason is that her role in the French play mostly makes sense on the basis of
her identity as a ‘woman’.
submit herself to her enemies, and exposes their weakness and their inability
to take action against her.
Medea shows some similarities to Antigone, notably in her bold, self-as-
sured challenge of power (36). She does not affirm her strong opinion, which
is radically different from the king’s, in the name of any specific values, but she
does position herself as an equal, and therefore, as a worthy adversary (36):
“Créon, tu es vieux. Tu es roi depuis longtemps. (…) Je suis Médée. (…) Je suis
de ta race. De la race de ceux qui jugent et qui décident, sans revenir après et
sans remords. Tu n’agis pas en roi, Créon” (Creon, you are old. You have been
king for a long time. […] I am Medea. I belong to the same race as you. The
race of those who judge and who decide, without later going back and with no
remorse. You don’t act like a king, Creon). Despite the similarity of their stand-
ing, they are extremely different: the barbarian, wild, self-willed woman, in the
prime of her vitality, and the Greek king, trapped in the commitment he had
made, an old man afflicted with remorse.
Notwithstanding his weakness, or even his humaneness, Creon is still able
to deliver a tough speech which shows that he is still a matching enemy for
Medea (40). Creon’s arguments in defense of Jason bespeak his personality as
a man and as a Greek citizen. The king exonerates the Argonaut from all ac-
cusations, shifting the entire blame onto Medea; without her and her excesses
Jason would be free from any accusations. As a result, the male is granted vic-
tory over the female. In addition, in Creon’s view, Jason also boasts another
advantage: “il est de chez nous” (he is one of ours), giving the Greek a victory
over the barbarians. To conclude, he repeats the expulsion order, now based
on the sole argument that Greeks and non-Greeks are incompatible: “Retourne
vers ton Caucase, trouve un homme parmi ta race, un barbare comme toi; et
laisse-nous sous ce ciel de raison, au bord de cette mer égale, qui n’a que faire
de ta passion désordonnée et de tes cris” (Go back to your Caucasus, find a
man among your own race, a barbarian like you; and leave us alone under this
sky of reason, by this equal sea, which have nothing to do with your disorderly
passion and your shouting).
Creon’s known tolerance in giving Medea some more hours is not enough
to spare him from Medea’s criticism after she has left. The differences she
had mentioned – between her extreme way of handling her enemies and the
Corinthian king’s weak, remorseful attitude – prepare her first steps towards
revenge. And then, unannounced, Jason comes before her,24 and a second, al-
most excessively long agōn begins.
24
He himself explains his presence (44) saying that he had followed Creon and his retinue
from a distance; now that the king has left, Jason wishes to speak to Medea in private.
80 Silva
Creon had just given the aggrieved woman an opportunity for revenge, to
which Jason adds more motives, or justifications. The Argonaut shares with
the Corinthian king the same feeling for Medea, i.e., fear (45), since he knows
her violent, impulsive nature better than anybody. At first there seems to be a
degree of tenderness in their exchange – after all, the couple had shared years
of their lives. Jason does not bring arguments or excuses: he behaves submis-
sively, like one who is prepared to be held accountable; Medea “va doucement
à lui” (meets him with sweetness) (45), using words of tranquil love, not in
a whirlwind of fleeting passion but rather with longing for a past that has
brought face to face two people who have now grown old; now is the time to
recreate, or, in terms of the play’s structure, to develop, in the voice of those
involved, past experiences which had been mentioned in the prologue, in the
conversation between the Colchian princess and her Nurse.
A fit caption to underpin the starting-point of their relationship would be
“a world without Jason” or “a world without Medea”, as if a new, blank canvas
were needed to free the Argonaut and the barbarian woman from the chains
that tie them together.25 From that first moment, Medea recalls the immediate
fascination that the mere sight of Jason brought to her, and the adventure she
was willing to embark on; without her help, Jason would not have been able
to conquer the dragon who kept the Golden Fleece, and another ‘world’, an
“easy” world, would have begun (46). But that was not fate’s choice and so they
must be forever bound to each other (46): “Mais ce monde comprend Jason
et Médée” (But this world comprises Jason and Medea). This is the unlucky
framework against which their feelings and reactions must be explained and
understood.
The development of Jason and Medea’s relationship must be analyzed from
a flash-back perspective; after the present circumstances have been identi-
fied, their determining causes are to be found in the past. The present rests
on two pillars: the protection that Jason is determined to grant Medea, and
his decision to be married again. Unlike his Euripidean counterpart, a self-
centered, cynical Jason who used other people’s interests as an excuse to hide
his own, Anouilh’s character has genuine integrity. He tries to make sure that
Creon guarantees Medea’s safety for understandably humane reasons: Medea
had been his wife for many years and he had really loved her.26 As for his new
25 This utopian desire to delete a lifetime and start all over again is a topic frequently devel-
oped by Hélia Correia; see below, p. 182, and Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 278. Lasso de
la Vega (2002) 905 identifies it as a topos that can be found in several of Anouilh’s works
(Jézabel, La sauvage, Le voyageur sans bagage, Roméo et Jeannette).
26
Unlike Hélia Correia’s Jason (see below, pp. 171–81), who also had to qualify his feelings
for Medea, Anouilh’s Argonaut does not shy away from the word ‘love’ (“parce que je t’ai
marriage, his reasons are different from those that might motivate the suitor of
the Corinthian princess: his interest in what she represented for his full inte-
gration into a Greek city or even for his access to power, as in Euripides; or the
romantic facet of a man who tends to succumb to female charms.27 Anouilh
chooses to identify the motives for the couple’s breakup within themselves,
with no outside interferences; from the viewpoint of the spouse who leaves,
the reasons lie exclusively in Medea (“c’est toi”, 48).
This “c’est toi” becomes a motto for a second issue in this tentative explana-
tion of what is happening before our eyes.28 The way each of the members
of the couple views this justification is the basis for their separation, a sepa-
ration that becomes obviously necessary or inevitable. Medea’s perspective
depends mainly on the way she feels towards Jason; as she sees it, time and
physical decrepitude, added to the resentments caused by a lifetime of crime
and violence – “la rancune et le temps” (rancor and time), 48 – are the main
reasons why he seeks younger, purer lovers, based on sexual attraction, as al-
ways (49): “Tu iras boire dans d’autres yeux, sucer la vie sur d’autres bouches,
prendre ton petit plaisir d’homme où tu pourras” (You will drink from other
eyes, suck life on other mouths, take your little pleasure as a man where you
can). According to Medea’s perception of Jason, because he is a man, he cannot
resist his senses, the urge of his hands which feel the need to touch and chan-
nel the irresistible impulse of passion;29 for her, love is a relentless struggle
between reason and senses in which the latter are necessarily victorious. But
Jason feels differently about it; he is now a tired older man who simply seeks
‘forgetfulness’ in parting with Medea and in his alliance with Creusa. It is as if
his love experience with Medea has left him depleted and incapable of making
a new beginning (50): “Ce n’est pas seulement toi que je hais, c’est l’amour!” (It
is not only you that I hate – it’s love).
Another pause and another look clarify Medea’s future path: while Jason
seeks peace (53) in a new alliance, the repudiated woman has no choice but
aimée” [because I have loved you], 47). His Portuguese counterpart was unable to find
a better word than “gratidão” (gratitude) to justify his complicitous relationship with
Medeia.
27 This is the facet most deeply explored by Hélia Correia; see below, p. 166.
28 Anouilh punctuates the successive stages of this dialogue by means of pauses and looks
exchanged between the couple and described in stage directions: “Un temps. Ils sont l’un
en face de l’autre. Ils se regardent” (A pause. They are one in front of the other. They look
at each other) (48); “Un temps, ils se regardent encore” (A pause. They look at each other
again) (50).
29 Medea’s memory of her first encounters with Jason, where she felt an irresistible passion
after experiencing the touch of his strong lover’s hands, is here extensively developed, fo-
cusing on the hands as an instrument of masculine instinct in a love relationship (49–50).
82 Silva
to flee. Faced with a new odyssey of exile, she recalls her long list of crimes.
Colchis, the crossing of the Hellespont, Lemnos, Thessaly, the traditional
mythical journey, which is now impossible for her to make in the opposite di-
rection (cf. Seneca, Medea 450–9). In all these stages of her journey, in all the
ports she called at and all the crimes she committed, Medea had left a trail
of hatred and thirst for revenge, and consequently, she cannot go back. But
besides these reasons, a different constraint deters her from repeating her jour-
ney: would it make sense to replicate on her own a path that had been planned
for two? And so Medea confronts Jason with the same challenge she had posed
to Creon’s authority: for the sake of security, and now also for the sake of peace,
the woman who jeopardizes these public goods must be eliminated – and this
takes courage; being abandoned was a first step in that direction, and therefore
not much else is needed to annihilate her. Again, Medea demands to be put
to death, thereby consolidating an idea of extinction that is gradually taking
shape in her suicidal mind.
Beneath the ‘soundness’ that Medea believes had been the hallmark of their
common path, and which had been broken in Corinth, Jason shows that their
separation was not conditional upon the figure of Creusa as a rival. Well before
that, weariness had begun to wear off their passion; other women’s charms at-
tracted Jason’s attention, while Medea, in her more extreme fashion, engaged
in an adulterous encounter as a form of retribution. But she put an end to this
adultery in the same way that she had solved all problems interposing between
her and her ‘conquest’ of Jason: she did not hesitate to resort to crime one more
time and she gave her lover away to Jason, exchanging the pure, genuine love
of a shepherd for the growing coldness of the Argonaut (55). In matters of love,
and treason, Medea responded instinctively, “stuck” as she felt to Jason, “like a
fly”, or faithful like a “dog” (56).
Jason takes Medea’s instinctual reactions to a more human level of affection.
They discuss the best word to define the feelings that now separate them,30 as
a consequence of their common journey so full of hazards and setbacks. Jason
suggests “pity” as his determining feeling, but Medea dismisses it intolerantly;
“disdain” might better express the collective reaction towards her as a unique,
and therefore isolated and misunderstood woman (57–8) who nevertheless
does not give up her pride and strength of character. Marked by her mythic
fate, Medea turns this contempt into vigor and a reason to play, and further
enjoy, her destined role (58): “Plus nous serons à te juger, à te haïr, mieux cela
30
Orthoépeia as a means to define feelings is surely one of the topics which Hélia Correia
imports from Anouilh and which becomes clearly prominent in her work; see below,
p. 162.
sera, n’est-ce pas? Plus le cercle s’élargira autour de toi, plus tu seras seule, plus
tu auras mal pour mieux haïr toi aussi, plus cela sera bon” (The more we judge
you, the more we hate you, the better for you, is that not the truth? The bigger
the circle around you, the more you will be alone, the more you hurt in order
to better hate, the better for you).31
Jason’s portrayal of Medea is based on pity – and he insists on it as if he were
genuinely exposing her; this is how he reads her and perhaps how Anouilh
himself reconfigures his protagonist (59): “J’ai pitié de toi, Médée, qui ne con-
nais que toi, qui ne peux donner que pour prendre, j’ai pitié de toi attachée
pour toujours à toi-même, entourée d’un monde vu par toi …” (I pity you,
Medea, you who knows nothing else but yourself, who gives only to take, I pity
you, forever bound to yourself, surrounded by a world as seen by you …). She
is depicted as an egocentric creature, the exact opposite of the woman who
could boast the highest level of generosity in her readiness to accommodate
Jason’s wishes. Thus, acknowledging his legitimate pity, Medea praises her-
self not for the services she has rendered him, but for her evil deeds, glaringly
identifying herself as a new Pandora paradigm (61): “J’ai menti, j’ai triché, j’ai
volé, je suis sale” (I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen, I am dirty); “Je suis
ton malheur, Jason, ton ulcère, tes croûtes” (I am your misfortune, Jason, your
ulcer, your crusts); “Je suis l’orgueil, l’égoïsme, la crapulerie, le vice, le crime. Je
pue!” (I am pride, egoism, roguery, vice, crime. I stink!); “Tout ce qui est noir et
laid sur la terre, c’est moi qui l’ai reçu en dépôt” (Of all that is black and ugly on
earth I am the depository).
Jason is also given an opportunity to confess, so that Anouilh may portray
his hero in exclusively personal terms. The French Argonaut is nothing like
his traditional, especially Euripidean, counterpart: he is not presented as an
inconsequent adventurer, an opportunistic man, a traitor. As if taking stock of
his inescapable traditional role as a traitor, Anouilh’s Jason submits to it, while
reserving the right to explain himself (62): “Je ne peux rien empêcher. Tout
juste jouer le rôle qui m’est dévolu, depuis toujours. Mais ce que je peux, c’est
tout dire, une fois” (I cannot help it at all. All I can do is play the role that has
always been my role. But what I can do is to tell it all, once). His long speech de-
fines him in terms of the couple’s parallel course. The path Jason has travelled
alongside Medea was not just a rough and eventful journey of exile – it was
also a sentimental journey, with clearly defined stages. First there was ‘love’, the
31 This pleasure in martyrdom, which does not accept commiseration, tolerance, or pity, is
a topic which Hélia Correia, perhaps inspired by Anouilh, develops in her Antigone (see,
Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 280). Hating them would be to concede that they might be
right, to acknowledge their role as victims.
84 Silva
love that a man feels for a woman, where gender plays its part and sex imposes
its rules. Here, Jason was able to awaken Medea’s female yearnings. However,
on Jason’s part, physical attraction was enhanced with affection, a sentiment
not corresponded, or even adequately understood by Medea (63): “Je t’ai donné
plus qu’un amour d’homme – peut-être sans que tu l’aies su. Je me suis perdu
en toi comme un petit garçon dans la femme qui l’a mis au monde. Tu as été
longtemps ma patrie, ma lumière, tu as été l’air que je respirais, l’eau qu’il fal-
lait boire pour vivre et le pain de tous les jours” (I gave you more than a man’s
love – maybe without you even knowing it. I lost myself in you as a little boy
loses himself in the woman who gave birth to him. For a long time, you were
my motherland, my light, you were the air I breathed, the water one must drink
in order to live, and my daily bread). In this Jason one may glimpse the adven-
turous, not yet mature adolescent, between childhood and the prime of life,
who seeks the comfort of a mother’s affection in his female companion.
Then came his adult ambitions; he shared his desires for conquest with
his male companions, and a measure of self-centeredness prevailed. The
hero’s male self occupied center stage and Medea was pushed into the back-
ground until their egotistic wills confronted each other (62): “Je t’ai d’abord
aimée comme toi, Médée: à travers moi” (I first loved you like you do, Medea:
through me).
And, unsuspectedly, the time came when Jason began to feel a genuine fa-
therly love for Medea, who nestled in his arms. It was as if, having reached
adulthood, he now felt no longer dependent on motherly protection and was
himself able to afford protection (64): “Le jeune homme Jason était mort. J’étais
ton père et ta mère” (Young man Jason was dead. I was your father and your
mother). With the disappearance of the young man, sexual attraction became
less of a priority, giving way to mature, sensible affection; additionally, as Jason’s
maturity replaced his youthful vigor, his adventure companions lost their cap-
tain. During these years, rather than lovers, Jason and Medea were more like
brother and sister, ready to confront the world as equals, with no hierarchies or
differences. And then nature claimed its rights and their companionship came
to an end; she felt like a woman, he felt like a man, and weariness settled into
their relationship. Each of them sought new partners to compensate for their
lost connection. Their occasional sexual encounters were like an addiction,
which, instead of satisfying them, made them feel ashamed (“honteux de nos
corps encore complices”, 67 [ashamed of our still complicit bodies]). The time
for rupture and hatred had come. Emotional disruption followed physical in-
compatibility. For Jason, the time when Medea attracted him for her vigor, her
marginality, her adventurous mind, was gone; he now needed peace and tran-
quility instead, two things that the barbarian woman could not provide. Now
that the non-conformist vigor of youth had passed, Jason wished for nothing
else but to share the monotony and the disenchantment of those who he for-
merly saw as enemies; the time came when routine became his last pleasure.
That was a conquest Jason was prepared to experiment, not in the company
of his old partner, but rather without her (72): “Ce geste j’aurais voulu le faire
avec toi, Médée. J’aurais tout donné pour que nous devenions deux vieux l’un
à côté de l’autre, dans un monde apaisé. C’est toi qui ne l’as pas voulu” (This
gesture I would like to make it with you, Medea. I would have given anything
for us to grow old together, in a peaceful world. It was you who chose not to).
What makes them so radically different and incompatible is simply their na-
ture, rather than ambition, lack of love, or weariness. Jason’s place is in the
‘world without Medea’, in the world of commonness and anonymity; he is like
Creon, not like Aeëtes’ daughter. His marriage to Creusa is just a door giving
him access to that different world. As for Medea, like Anouilh’s Antigone, she is
naturally incompatible with the cosmos, in its masculine or feminine element.
She is the exception.32
4.3 The Execution

In a play where agonistic reflection is given considerable space, the action ends
rather quickly. Tradition imposes its rules: first of all, Medea attacks her rival by
means of the poisoned gifts she sends her, which are carried by Medea’s own
children. However, the long rhesis of Euripides’ protagonist, where, as a mother,
she hesitates as to whether or not to kill her children, has a rather different
tenor in Anouilh: confirming Jason’s description of Medea as the egoist, self-
centered woman focused only on her own separate world, her long monologue
addresses the pleasure of revenge. The barbarian woman prepares to spend a
night of love with Evil, her relationship with revenge exaltingly experienced as
a sexual act. Just like Zeus, who, in order to achieve the utter satisfaction of his
desires with Amphitryon’s wife, Alcmene, decided to spend a long night with
her, so does Medea expect the night to provide her a macabre dialogue with
the wild beasts and the occult, maleficent forces of nature.
Anouilh chose an unusual ending, as far as tradition goes, but one which is
gradually and meticulously prepared as the play unfolds. The assassin, whom
everybody loathes and hunts, continues to spread death around her. In order
32 Pulquério (1995) 12 notes that this unusual behavior can indeed be found in Anouilh’s
characters who tend not to submit to the rules of society that common mortals generally
abide by. This type of characters divides Humanity into two contradictory groups: those
who rebel and break convention, and those who submit and adopt routine as a life rule.
This dichotomy posited by Anouilh as concerns the type of sociability of each human
creature is clearly materialized in this agon by Jason and Medea.
86 Silva
to exact her revenge, Medea prepares a fulgurant conclusion. Not the sinister
Euripidean ending, where she is rescued by the miraculous Sun’s chariot; in
Anouilh’s play a wagon in flames carries a family that must disappear off the
face of the earth. To her children, who are sacrificed along with their mother,
she does not say much, her words not enough to reflect her repugnance at her
own filicidal act; in Pulquério’s words (1995) 13, it becomes simply “mais fran-
co, mais linear” (more honest, more linear). Her whole attention is focused
on hate and revenge, i.e., on Jason, to whom she hands down something else
besides his sons’ dead bodies – the terrible doubt as to who Medea really was.
A fierce woman who could not recover her peace and joy? A misunderstood
woman who was not given an opportunity to love?
To the doubts she bequeaths Jason, Medea seems to oppose her own cer-
tainties: putting an end to so much pain means returning “to the world without
Jason” (88):
Ils sont morts, Jason! Ils sont morts égorgés tous les deux, et avant que tu
aies pu faire un pas, ce même fer va me frapper. Désormais j’ai recouvré
mon sceptre, mon frère, mon père et la toison du bélier d’or est rendue à
la Colquide: j’ai retrouvé ma patrie et la virginité que tu m’avais ravies! Je
suis Médée, enfin, pour toujours !
(They’re dead, Jason! They are both dead, their throats cut, and before
you can take a step, that same iron will strike me. Now I have recovered
my scepter, my brother, my father, and the fleece of the golden ram is
returned to Colchis: I have found my lost fatherland and the virginity you
had taken from me! I am Medea, at last, forever!)
chapter 6
The Reception of Medea in the 20th

and 21st Centuries
Rosanna Lauriola
[Chorus] Ascolta donna e fatti assennata! Non a te, ma ai figliuoli tuoi

devi pensare! […] Per l’amore che tieni a questi figli Medea, ti devi sacri-
ficare! […] Che da madre degna e non da donna orgogliosa devi pensare.
[…]
[Medea] E io zitta me dovrebbe stare per lo bene de li figlioli … che ricat-
to infame!
[Chorus] Listen to us and be wise! You must not think about yourself, you
must think of your children! […] For the sake of love, the love you feel for
these children, you must give yourself up! […] For you must think and act
as a dignified mother, not as a proud woman.
[…]
[Medea] And I should keep silent for the good of my children … This is
blackmail! What despicable blackmail!
Franca Rame, Medea, 68, 701
∵
The initial exchange of words between an imagery group of women – an ap-
parent counterpart of the dramatic chorus – and the onstage woman, who is
the main and sole character of Franca Rame’s Medea (1977),2 by way of allusion
1 Page numbers and quotations are from Rame (1989). All translations into English from any
language other than English are my own. As for Rame’s piece, it is among the few Italian ad-
aptations and productions of Euripides’ Medea that enjoy an international reputation, and
certainly one of the even fewer adaptations that have been translated into other languages
and are available on commercial video (for English translations, see also Hood [1981], and
Hanna [1991]). On Rame’s play, see, also, below n. 2.
2 Rame’s Medea is a part of Tutto casa, letto e chiesa (All Home, Bed and Church), a set of
monologues written and performed in the vernacular of contemporary Rome by Rame, and
all dealing with women suffering from some form of exploitation by men. Before performing

88 Lauriola
well encapsulates the quintessential motif that has come to define, and to
stigmatize, both Euripides’ Medea and almost all of her subsequent reincar-
nations in the diversified fields of art:3 ‘unmaternal motherhood’. Medea, the
best-known mythical mother, is in fact the iconic child-murdering mother.4
Ironically, if not oxymoronically, it is the act of killing her children which
has made her the perhaps most famous mother ever. To be fair, according to
the stereotypical view, she is an infanticide5 who is a jealous avenger, i.e., a
scorned and betrayed wife who kills her innocent sons in retribution against
her husband Jason for his faithlessness. Such an oversimplifying reason – a
betrayed wife’s jealousy – which should account for such a ‘beyond-any-belief’
action – a mother’s infanticide – has mostly become what Medea stands for,
at least in the standard imagination. Not surprisingly she has soon come to
share the same ‘destiny’ of Oedipus by becoming a Complex’s titular figure: the
situation in which a mother harbors death wishes to her child(ren), usually as
a revenge against the spouse, is referred to as ‘the Medea Complex’.6 Such is
‘Medea for all’.
the piece Medea, the actress addressed the audience directly, through a ‘cautionary’ prologue
where she focused on Medea’s reaction to Jason’ betrayal as being far different from that of
contemporary women. Medea does not fall apart in depression, Rame specified; she plans a
revenge by killing the children she bore to Jason. The actress thus warned the audience to
take that action metaphorically: it is a gesture of rebellion against the patriarchal exploita-
tion of women who are expected to keep quiet and, within the “cage and yoke” of marriage,
to think of themselves as mothers rather than as women. For a further analysis see Cavallaro
(2010); Lauriola (2015) 412–4. On the social expectation about motherhood, see below, 108.
3 A broader discussion of Euripides’ Medea reception in diversified fields of art (from literature
to figurative arts, from music to stage and cinema) can be found in Lauriola (2015) 377–442.
4 It is possible that the infanticide motif was introduced by Euripides: see Finglass, above, p. 16,
and Mastronarde (2002) 52–3; there are other versions of the story, in one of which Medea’s
children were killed by the Corinthians for revenge (for details, see Finglass, above, pp. 14–5,
and Gantz (1993) 340–73). A few modern re-elaborations prove to prefer this other version
in the attempt to overcome the uneasiness of having a mother infanticide: on this issue, see
below, 109. The oxymoron ‘unmaternal motherhood’, which vividly expresses the iconic es-
sence of Medea, well reflects the society’s common judgment of women who kill as being
especially deviant and ‘unnatural’. “The woman who kills is exactly what she is supposed not
to be. Her act is deemed not only unnatural but impossible in a real woman; so she is ‘un-
womaned’ by her violence and seen as the classic aberration, exiled from her community and
her gender”: Jones (1991) XI. On this topic, see, also, below, 108 and n. 77, and above Finglass,
p. 16.
5 Filicide should be a more accurate term to use in this case, as Medea’s children were not
exactly infants. I will use however the word infanticide, in its double sense to indicate the
act of killing itself and the perpetrator, since it is the more commonly used with reference to
Medea.
6 See Stern (1948); Tyminski (2014). Sometimes this complex is also referred to as ‘Medea
Syndrome’, see, e.g., Foster (2007) 84.
The Reception of Medea in the 20th and 21st Centuries 89
Is it so? Is it as simple as phrases “like Medea” or “modern-day Medea”, which

the media repeatedly and promptly use any time they comment on the cases of
mothers killing their child, would allow anyone to think?7
Actually, it is not, not least since Euripides’ Medea is not just a mother who
kills her children, nor does she do so simply out of revenge.8 Medea is a far
more complex figure and, perhaps, the continuing fascination which she has
been exerting since the 5th century BC lies in her untamable and elusive com-
plexity as it surfaces in the portrayal that Euripides has masterfully created in
the play named after her. In this play Medea is ‘what is left’ of a woman who
not simply, according to the social expectations of the time, has completely
entrusted herself to her husband with self-denying devotion; but she has done
this in a country, Greece, which was not hers own, and where, consequently,
there was nobody on whom she could rely in case of a marriage’s termination.9
Adhering to a well-established social convention of such a patriarchal society
as the ancient one, Medea has in fact looked at her husband as being “every-
thing” to her (Eur., Medea 228), acknowledging the women’s complete depen-
dence on their ‘master’, i.e., their spouse (232–4a),10 in terms of life’s resources
7 The examples would be infinite: see, e.g., Jones (2003); Moroco (2003). It might be interest-
ing to highlight that non by chance a 2006 seminal North American study on newspaper
coverage of maternal infanticide is entitled Medea in the Media (Barnett [2006]), which
is an evidence of how ‘typically’ Euripides’ Medea has become an icon called forth in the
media every time a mother murders her child. As for the phrase ‘modern-day Medea’, it
has been used by the media to label an American recent case of maternal infanticide
which has caused a widespread reaction of interest and debate in the entire nation, the
case of Susan Smith in 1994: see, e.g., Jones (2003) 71–87. Another ‘sensational’ case for
which the media have drawn parallel with Susan Smith and, in consequence, the ancient
Medea, occurred in 2003: the Andrea Yates case (on which, see below, n. 85): see, e.g.,
Jones (2003) 101–29; Hyman (2004).
8 The same apply to any case of a mother killing her child(ren): spousal revenge appears to
be one of the possible motivations, but, in reality, a more complex set of factors is usually
detected behind such an action. For a concise analysis of the literature with an abundant
indication of further bibliography, see, e.g., Barnett (2006) esp. 411–4; Friedman-Resnick
(2007). As for Medea’s jealousy as a motivation (I would say an ostensible one) for her ac-
tion, it is true that the laconic conclusion of her first speech on stage (Eur., Medea 214–66)
sounds as a glacial foreshadowing for she talks of women’s ‘homicidal mind’ when they
are hurt in love (262–6). But it is also a very generic reference which does not necessarily
imply the children as victim, considering that later, after the dialogue with Creon, Medea
voices, yes, her ‘homicidal mind’, but explicitly with Creon, Glauce/Creusa, and Jason as
target (374–6).
9 In case of divorce, the woman could return to her family, along with the dowry (see, e.g.,
Renshaw [2008] 160).
10 Ancient Greek women were always under the rule or guardianship of a male, the kyrios
(lit., “master, lord”): her father in his lifetime, her brothers (or nearest male family relative)
90 Lauriola
and of life’s quality (234b–46). As such, her condition is an ordinary one, un-
fortunate as it is, as she herself recognizes (230–1). What indeed makes her
womanly ordinary status ‘extraordinary’ (in the worst sense of the word) is
her foreign condition and subsequent isolation in the country where she lives.
For the sake of Jason’s love Medea left behind her family and her country.
Furthermore, according to the most known version of the story, she even killed
her brother only to help Jason, who, in return, made her his wife. And once
in Greece, she continued to engage in questionable actions, still only to favor
Jason’s ambitions.11 Now in Corinth, the set of Euripides’ play, Jason is given the
chance to fulfill his ambitions without Medea’s help, and Medea is promptly
left alone, abandoned and banished. She has no mother, no brother, no father,
no home and community to go for shelter from such an adversity (Eur., Medea
251–7). She must provide for herself and for her children as they too are ban-
ished with her, at least at first (271–3). This Medea is a woman, that is to say,
true to her own words, the most miserable being (230–1), and she is a wife
betrayed, abused (255, 603), and deserted in a foreign country. She is thus a so-
called ‘other’, with all the issues this condition implies. And there is even more,
which contributes both to her extraordinary status and to her complexity: she
is a gender-aware woman, i.e., an acute observer of women’s state. By using her
own personal situation as starting point, Medea proves to be a woman who
dares to speak out against the women’s social vulnerability and subjugation
to the quietly accepted male norms.12 Women too – she indirectly claims –
indeed have an intellectual faculty (230); they, too, are thus capable of inde-
pendent judgment, which, on the contrary, is standardly denied to them. This
self – and gendered-awareness and independence of judgment, along with a
consequent lack of the expected resignation to her fate as a woman, contribute
to her otherness: she is not like all the other women, for she transgresses the
social expectations. Her otherness is a feature determined not only by her dif-
ferent ethnic origin; it also originated from her daring act of stepping over the
gender’s boundaries and invading the male territory.13 This woman’s bordering
after the father’s death, and her husband: see, e.g., Harrison (1968) 1–60. In other words, in
her lifetime a woman just passed from a kyrial authority to another: see, e.g., Sophocles,
Tereus fr. 583+P.Oxy 5131 Radt (for this new papyrus see Finglass [2016b]).
11 Besides betraying her father and country, as she herself admits (Eur., Medea 483, 502–3),
Medea conspired to have the daughters of Pelias, Jason’s uncle, kill him (486–8, 504), as
Pelias had refused to give up the throne in favor of Jason.
12 Silence was one of the societal primary expectations from a woman: see, e.g., Sophocles,
Ajax 293 with Finglass (2011) ad loc.; Aristoteles, Politics 1. 1260. 23a–33, Lauriola (2012).
13 Such a woman who does not restrain herself from violating the social expectations of
silence, passivity and invisibility, is perceived as being so different from her fellow women
(or from the male idea of women) that she cannot any more be classified as a woman, with
on a male space centers around what identifies both women in general in an-
cient times, and Medea in particular in antiquity and beyond: motherhood.
They say that we live a safe life at home,

While they go to battle with their spear.
How foolish they are! I would three times
Stand in battle holding my shield, rather than give birth one.
Eur., Medea 247–51
To stand for the women’s right pertaining to the central role that the ancient
society grants to them, i.e., the mother’s role, to have what in a patriarchal cul-
ture is by definition a woman’s task be adequately recognized, i.e., childbirth,
Medea appropriates what in that same culture is by definition a man’s task, i.e.,
war.14 She focuses on the hardship of motherhood, a clear sign of how being a
mother is something she would not easily dismiss as her final action has caused
many to think.15 Her maternal feelings indeed surface more clearly toward the
end, where, after pretending to reconcile with Jason, Medea calls the children
on the stage and lovely addresses them (Eur., Medea 896–970): she weeps at
the sight of them (899–903); she reaches out to their hand and fills their tender
checks with her tears (905); she sheds abundant tears thinking about them
(923, 925; cf. also 1005), and gives way to pity (930–1). Medea is overcome by her
maternal love, paradoxical though it may sound. The tears signal that she expe-
riences the children as object of love rather than as means of her revenge plan.
man being the only other type she can be compared. This transgressive woman turns into
a man-like woman: see, e.g., Aeschylus, Agamemnon 10, 351–2; Sophocles, Antigone 480–5
(cf. with 248, also 60–2). With reference to this, the Japanese stage production Medea by
the director Yukio Ninagawa (premiered in Tokyo, 1978) should be mentioned. Using the
convention of the Japanese traditional theatre, Kabuki, Ninagawa makes it possible to see
the transformation of Medea from a passive woman to a transgressive ‘man-like’ one for,
as soon as Medea becomes committed to revenge, the actor performing her role removes
the female costume, reveals a masculine body and takes on what is thought to be reserved
for man: revenge, murder and action. See Smethurst (2000; 2002); Lauriola (2015) 418–20.
14 “Go to the house and busy yourself with your own tasks”, Hector says to Andromache,
“[…] but the men must see to the fighting …” (Iliad 6. 481–5).
15 Although at 251b what is literally implied is the hardship, and, possibly, the difficulty, of
giving birth itself, the fact that Medea does show concerns for her children’s future (see,
e.g., 513–5, 1061), and struggles desperately with her maternal feelings before making the
final resolve (1021–80; I shall return to this topic later) would let us think that the initial
reference to the hardship of childbirth implies a reference to the hardship of what is a
consequence of giving birth: becoming a parent, precisely a mother, which is something
more than just a biological status. On the complex construction of motherhood in this
Euripidean play, see Given (2009).
92 Lauriola
They are valuable to her and worthy of being saved. Medea is aware of these
feelings which erupt in the famous monologue preceding the terrible deci-
sion (1021–80): had her tears and maternal feelings had not been sincere, there
would be no point to the monologue. The inner struggle, to which this mono-
logue testifies, is another signal of the complexity of this (in)famous mother,
to say the least. If in Euripides’ play there is someone who easily dismisses
Medea’s motherhood, this is Jason, a ‘perfect’ representative of the patriarchal
norms. In his callous self-defense (Eur., Medea 524–75), while claiming that his
new marriage is for the benefit of ‘his’ present children,16 as producing them
brothers of royal rank would improve their social status (559–64), Jason arro-
gantly asks, “What need have you, woman, of children?” and continues, “But it
profits me to benefit the living one with those to come.” (565–7a). Jason’s words
betray not only the mere self-interest nature of his decision to engage in a new
marriage; they also mirror the then contemporary male conception of women
and children as mere instruments for assuring to men the stability and pres-
ervation of a (male-centered) household, which was central to the social and
political structures of the Greek world. Women do not have need of children;
they must only bear them. Should there be another way for men to procreate,
the female race could vanish (573–4)!
Medea’s motherhood does not matter in the eyes of Jason. Yet she is the cul-
prit given that she is seen, and judged, as the one for whom motherhood does
not matter. This is in fact the Medea of the common imagination, which keeps
surfacing in almost any reception of Euripides’ play.
Starting from the 19th century a certain awareness of the multifacetedness
of Medea character is identifiable both in many new versions and adaptations
of the ancient tragedy and in related scholarship. Scholars have so far been at-
tempting ‘to classify’ the new works according to the multiple persons Medea
comprises: the ‘proto-feminist’ woman, the abandoned wife, the witch, the in-
fanticide (whether out of revenge or out of excessive love!),17 the outsider /
(ethnic) other, the oppressed colonized, and more.18 Each work of reception
16 Jason egoistically refers to the children using the first-person singular possessive adjective
‘my’ (e.g., 550) rather than ‘our’.
17 Regarding to the ‘excess of love’-motif, a (paradoxical) cause of infanticide, see below,
pp. 96 with n. 38; 97–104.
18 Macintosh (2000) 1–31, and Foley (2012) 190–228 have indeed structured their broad dis-
cussion on the reception history of this tragedy through different paragraphs, each of
which clusters works dealing with a specific feature of Medea’s multifarious character.
Macintosh, for instance, accordingly labels each paragraph with titles like: ‘Medea the
Witch’, ‘Medea the Infanticide’, ‘Medea the Abandoned Wife’, ‘Medea the Proto-Feminist’,
‘Medea the Outsider’. Similar is the articulation of Foley’s discussion, although she con-
fines her analysis to the American stage, where, as she specifies (2012: 193), the otherness-
theme is actually the one that defines, since the beginning, “the central trend in Medea’s
has in turn privileged one or more features over others, anchoring them to each
own historical period in a way that could resonate with thoughts, situations,
and issues of the receiving society. The realization of Medea’s multifarious es-
sence has however been often coupled with a certain uneasiness, for Medea
appears to be all of those persons and not one of them exclusively, proving to
resist to any one definitive interpretation. Nonetheless, the infanticide mother
remains the one specific thematic concern that has universally prevailed, over-
shadowing, in a way, all the other aspects, whether blatantly or not.19 It is this
specific, ineluctable feature that makes Euripides’ Medea as much a disturb-
ing character as an intriguing one in any re-elaboration. Works of reception
have indeed attempted both to settle on how disturbing this feature is and to
determine whether other interpretations that would ‘redeem’ Medea are pos-
sible. Both kinds of attempts suggest anyway a certain degree of gender bias: a
paternal infanticide is less disturbing and thus more ‘redeemable’,20 a mater-
nal one remains an unthinkable crime, something “contrary to all the Dictates
of Humanity and Motherhood”.21 As Hall observes,22 in comparison to some
other domestic crimes, the psychoanalytical and sociological bibliography per-
taining to maternal infanticide is quite small, which reflects the horror and
repulsion that it arouses. What all of this suggests is the deeply rooted, and
common, gender-based thought that a mother is supposed to be guided by
‘natural’ feminine instincts which makes her willing to annihilate herself and
place her own needs second to those of her children (and husband).23
This specific gender bias has affected the reception history of Euripides’
play. This is in part proved by the fact that, for a long while beyond antiquity,
the literary representation of Medea basically centered both on her association
American reception”, alongside her ‘acting like a man’. Appreciable though it is, the struc-
ture of Macintosh’s and Foley’s discussion with the inevitable overlapping among the
‘clusters’ reflects how we strain to fully grasp such a complex character in her original
version and in her varied re-incarnations.
19 In particular Corti (1998) insists on this trait. Her analysis in fact, which includes a variety
of 20th-century ‘Medeas’ (e.g., pp. 178–220), almost exclusively highlights the theme of
child-murder, with an attention to a dynamic link between this prevailing theme and the
specific concerns of particular texts.
20 I return to this topic with more details: see below, p. 109 and n. 85.
21 From the ‘Preface’ of Charles Gildon, Phaeton, or The Fatal Divorce (London 1698) as
quoted by Macintosh (2000) 10. Accordingly, perhaps following a variant of the myth (on
which, also below, pp. 103–5), in his own version Gildon have Medea’s children killed by
the Corinthians, a modification particularly central to Christa Wolf’s adaptation (see,
below, pp. 103–5). On Gildon’s reworking of Medea’s story, see Hall (2000) esp. 52–7;
Heavey (2009) 3–16.
22 Hall (2010) 16.
23 I shall talk more about this stereotypical thought in the following pages.
94 Lauriola
with ‘dark’ witchcraft and on her sadistically vengeful nature, which gestures
toward a one-dimensional characterization of Medea as bad, and of Jason
as good.24 The disturbing maternal infanticide-issue is almost avoided like a
taboo. Regarding to this a major evidence is the reluctance that particularly
Euripides’ Medea had to face in one of the European countries best known for
its solid theatrical tradition, in a time, i.e., the 18th century, when Greek drama
re-emerged under the influence of its success in music and opera: England.25
Medea is here found profoundly unsuited to the contemporary sentiment and
concept of femininity, on account of the central thematic concern that has
stigmatized forever Medea, i.e., the deliberate act of infanticide. The need to
refigure precisely this feature in order to possibly make conceivable the uncon-
ceivable leads the playwrights to subject Medea to an extreme ‘plastic surgery’26
by ‘sharply cutting’ what has made this figure forever disturbing and problem-
atic, i.e. her ‘unmaternal’ motherhood. Euripides’ Medea thus undergoes a
‘sanitizing’ process27 that, while making her fit for the cultural and ideological
imperatives of the time, would reduce her complex character, as well as the
complexity of her action, to meet those same imperatives dictated by a male-
oriented culture. This process starts with the most successful 18th-century
British adaptation by Richard Glover (Medea: A Tragedy, 1767).28 Symptomatic
of the contemporary (male-oriented) ideology is the expedient by which the
problem posed by Medea is cut out: a plea of insanity. Acting under the influ-
ence of ‘temporary phrenzy’ would prove the innocence of a mother who kills
her children. The phrase ‘temporary phrenzy’ indeed occurred in real, contem-
porary cases of child-murdering mothers. In court it was introduced as evi-
dence of the mother’s state of mind to determine the degree of intent in the
24 Certainly this has happened in the wake of Seneca’s portrayal. The few revivals of Medea’s
myth during the Middle Age, and the ‘resurrection’ of some special attention to this
Euripidean tragedy in the early Renaissance were mostly mediated through Seneca: see
Purkiss (2005) 32–48. On the preference for Seneca over Euripides in the early Renaissance
Europe see Macintosh (2000) 7–8.
25 Hall (2000) 49–74. For an overview of the re-elaborations in music and opera, see Lauriola
(2015) 409–14.
26 I borrow the phrase from Hall (2000), on which some of the above analysis is based as
well.
27 Some traces of what I defined above as ‘sanitizing trend’ can also be found in some works
of figurative art of the medieval and early modern ages when representations of the scene
of the marriage of Medea and Jason through the oath became very common and, ironi-
cally, they were taken as a symbol of ideal marriage. The scene often appeared in love
tokens and marriage gift like the Florentine cassoni (“marriage chest”): see Kepetzis (2010)
80–93.
28 On Glover, see Caiazza (1989) 34–8; Hall (2000) 53–5; Haevey (2009) esp. 16–9.
killing, and thus the degree of guilt.29 A mother would never kill her children in
a sane state of mind, nor would Medea. Maternal love remains unchallenged.
Glover takes this sanitizing process to the extreme as his Medea even became
a model for the 18th-century matron.30
The plea of insanity allows an insight into the law for which Medea has been
serving as a template for the legal representation and judgment of ‘convention-
al’ feminine conduct in the role of wife and mother, which adds to the recep-
tion history of this figure in the last two centuries. In this perspective, mention
should be made of the Infanticide Act in 1938, which testifies to a construction
of a legal category from socially created expectations of women essentially as
care-givers for babies. A mother who kills her children must thus be mentally
insane, “an isolated and biologically determined phenomenon, an unfortunate
product of woman’s ‘nature’”.31 It still remains a matter of gender-biased social
constructions, as also proved by the fact that, in modern times, in case of ma-
ternal infanticide/filicide both police and psychiatrists are quicker to diagnose
mental illness than they are in the case of male filicide.32
The gender-bias undertone of the sanitizing process which Euripides’ play
has so far experienced in its modern reception is at times re-enforced by the
specific religious orientation of the receiving society. This is, for instance, the
case of some 20th-century Brazilian re-elaborations of Medea play, which ‘fix’
the problem of the infanticide mother by ‘Christianizing’, in a way, the end:
Medea must die; she will kill herself as a form of self-punishment which would
signify repentance and would thus grant her some kind of redemption.33 This
is in particular the case of Caso Especial-Medéia (Special Case-Medea), a TV
adaptation by the Brazilian scriptwriter and political activist Oduvaldo Viana
Filho’s, broadcasted on Brazilian television in 1973; and the case of Gota d’água
(Drop of Water), a theatrical adaptation by Chico Buarque and Paulo Pontes,
29 Jackson (1996) 120–3, 142–3.

30 This sanitizing trend continues also in 19th-century England. The Victorians were inter-
ested in what Euripides’ Medea could say to them especially about divorce (which passed
in 1857) and the condition of the abandoned women, thus avoiding to deal with the prob-
lem posed by the brutality of Medea’s infanticide. Only with the rise of the movement
for women’s suffrage was Euripides’ Medea allowed to be performed in translation rather
than in its sanitized adaptation: Hall (2000) 71.
31 Showalter (1987) 58. See also Hall (2010) esp. 22; Phillips (2010).
32 Hall (2010) 16 (with further bibliography in n. 9).
33 This can already be found in the Renaissance English academic John Studley, known as a
translator of Seneca’s tragedies. In his 1566 translation of Seneca’s Medea, in accordance
with his Christianized world-view, he changed the ending of the play to prevent the de-
parture of the revenger without penalty: see Macintosh (2000) 10.
96 Lauriola
written in 1975 and still now staged regularly.34 In the first, in the sphere of the
Christian matrix, which is profoundly important in Brazilian culture, not only
does Medea sacrifice herself in repentance, but also the children, whom she
poisoned, are miraculously saved and taken into the custody of their father. In
Gota d’água, too, in accordance to the same religious spirit, Medea (here called
Joanna) cannot be allowed to remain alive, as it “would not be in line with the
great ‘feeling of maternity’ that exists in Brazil”.35 She becomes a mater dolo-
rosa who must die to atone for her crime, which – by way of innovation – also
includes the abandonment of her first husband for a much younger man, i.e.,
Jasão (= Jason). Such a scandalous thing, which also reflects a sexist and preju-
diced culture, would meet the audience’s implicit request for some form of
punishment for Medea. She dies beside her children in the hope of some kind
of happiness in the afterlife: her final words in consoling her children in fact
suggest the existence of a paradise after death.
Still within the sanitizing response to the unbearable, iconic feature of
Medea, i.e., her being a child-murdering mother, a considerable number of
writers have built on, and exploited, what has been often dismissed in analyz-
ing the Euripidean character, i.e., a basic trait of humanness36 along with her
deep grief and concerns for her children’s condition and fate. In the related
new versions of Medea’s story, the infanticide no longer stems from her desire
for passionate revenge, nor from mental illness or insanity. It rather becomes a
necessity37 dictated by the circumstances of which both Medea and her chil-
dren are victims. Aware as she is of those circumstances’ effects on her chil-
dren’s lives, infanticide becomes her last resort through her desire to prevent
her children from meeting with a worse fate in the future. Paradoxical as that
might sound, her act of infanticide becomes a necessary act of love, a form of
altruism as she believes death to be in her children’s best interest.38
34 On this play and other Brazilian re-makings of Euripides’ Medea see Coelho (2013) 359–80.
I shall later discuss about other aspects of the Brazilian reception of the tragedy, with a par-
ticular attention to Gota d’água: see below, 105–6. See also below (Luísa Buarque), 105–6.
35 Coelho (2013) 369 with n. 37.
36 March (1990) 38.
37 The role of Medea repelled many actresses precisely because of her infanticide; but things
changed once the horror of that same act was diluted by presenting it as necessary for
the sake of the children themselves (see below, nn. 38, 39). The actress Adelaide Ristori
accepted the role of Medea of Legouvé’s version (see below, n. 42) in 1856, while she had
turned down an earlier offer in 1814, on the grounds that Legouvé “had discovered a way
to make the killing of the children appear both just and necessary”: see Macintosh (2000)
15 with n. 24.
38 Psychologists call it “altruistic filicide”, which refers to when a mother kills in the belief
she is saving her child(ren)from a fate worse than death: see, e.g., Friedman-Resnick
(2007) 137 with n. 11; Arkins (2010) 191.
[MEDEA] What hopes have they, what hopes?

If here they stay with their sire,
That sire so base and infamous,
What shall their lot be then?
The children of this latest bed
Will scorn them, do despite to them
And to their mother, that wild thing
From distant Colchis’ strand!
Their lot will be to serve as slaves;
Or else their anger, corroding their hearts
Deep and ever deeper,
Will make them bitter, hard,
Until they grow to hate themselves.
[…] What have they
To live for, then?
F. Grillparzer, Medea Act V39
These words are emblematic of the necessary and ‘altruistic’ connotation grant-
ed to Medea’s act starting with Franz Grillparzer’s homonymous play, Medea,
early in the 19th century.40 Fostered by important socio-political factors of the
time, including the growing support for the emancipation of women,41 this
change of focus on Medea as both a mother who is a victim of circumstance,
and as a suffering, abandoned wife whose maternal love is not under discus-
sion, rather than as agent of revenge, continues to characterize re-elaborations
of Euripides’ Medea well up until the 20th century,42 often overlapping such
39 My translation of Grillparzer’s work is based on Miller (1913–14).

40 Grillparzer’ Medea, the third play of the trilogy Das Goldene Vließ, published in 1820, re-
tells, with innovations, the whole story of the ‘Golden Fleece’, with a focus on Medea,
who is sympathetically presented throughout the sequence of events that almost inevi-
tably led her to the crime, a sequence that is meant to redeem her from responsibility.
Although part of a trilogy, Medea was best known and performed as a separate play, in
German and elsewhere. See further Lauriola (2015) 391–3; Caiazza (1989) 58–76; Flashar
(1991) 77–8; Corti (1998) 134–7; Macintosh (2000) 12–4. The concerns for the children’s
future expressed in the passage mentioned above stem from the Euripidean Medea’s con-
cerns. Indeed, in Euripides’ play, Jason’s claim that his new marriage serves to provide his
sons with a better status (559–60) is weak for he himself doubts that Creon will let the
children stay (941). Moreover there is no proof that the stepmother will care for them; on
the contrary, entrusting children to the care of a spouse who was not the real parent was
commonly discouraged (cf. Eur., Alcestis 309–10; Corti [1992] 65).
41 See, e.g., Macintosh (2000) 14–5; also above, p. 95 with n. 29.
42 Grillparzer sets these trends of presenting Medea for the following two decades, and
the first most important 19th-century adaptation which exploited them is the French
98 Lauriola
an important thematic concern as Medea’s ethnic otherness,43 which, in turn,

marks the emergence of issues of racism and colonialism in the reception his-
tory of this figure. The concern with Medea’s ethnicity, which adds to the ne-
cessity of her infanticide, actually becomes dominant in Europe, in particular,
starting from early 20th century when, with the rise of Nazism, racial issues are
paramount.44
In his play Medea, first staged in Berlin in 1926, the North German novelist
and dramatist Hans Henny Jahnn makes the racial concerns overt by intro-
ducing the issue of skin color: his Medea is a black woman and her children
are mulatto. They are rejected precisely because of their skin color.45 Jahnn’s
Medea recalls Seneca’s more closely in her brutal revenge. But as far as the
motif which central to Medea’s story, i.e., the infanticide, is concerned, her
brutality is transcended, and the killing is dictated by her wish to spare her
children from racial injustice, both present and future. Anxieties about racial
identity, alongside a patent critique of colonialism, also lie behind the re-elab-
oration of Euripides’ play by the French playwright Henri Lenormand, signifi-
cantly entitled Asie (Asia), published in 1931. Written in prose, the rewriting is
almost radical as the story is completely set in modern time, and the characters’
names and places are also modern. Colchis becomes an Asian-Indochinese
state under the French government; Greece is thus France and symbolizes the
colonizer Europe. Jason (Mounsier De Mezzana) is an ambitious French colo-
nizer, and Medea is an Indochinese princess (Katha) who, conspiring against
playwright Ernest Legouvé’s Medea, on which see Macintosh (2000) 15–7; Lauriola (2015)
393; also, above, n. 37.
43 The issue of Medea’s ethnic ‘otherness’ is certainly to be traced back to Euripides’ play
where it is Jason who, in particular, voices such a concern by ascribing the woman’s un-
thinkable act of killing her children to her non-Greek birth: “No Greek woman,” – he
claims – “would ever have dared to do this” (Eur., Medea 1329–40; cf. also Jason’s claim
at 535–41.) Medea’s otherness is not only an ethnic matter; as Foley puts it (2012: 193),
Medea’s is a ‘multidimensional’ otherness: see, below, 106. Undoubtedly the different eth-
nicity of this character has been a stimulus to exploiting the play in ways that issues of
(ethnic) identity, along with related issues of racism etc., can be explored. One emblem-
atic case is represented by African American adaptations of Medea’s play as discussed by
Wetmore (2003) 132–204. See also below n. 51.
44 Grillparzer had already proposed the otherness-feature in a way that resonated with con-
temporary racial stereotypes of the Jew, “the essential Other for German speaking lands”:
Corti (1998) 128. See also Macintosh (2000) 19; Bartel (2010); Lauriola (2015) 392–3. On the
insistence on racial conflict in the Medeas of 1930s see Corti (1998) 196–7.
45 On Jahnn’s adaptation, see Vedrenne (1986), 99–100; Caiazza (1989) 98–101; Macintosh
(2000) 21. With reference to the skin-issue, see also Wetmore (2003) 144–5. Jahnn’s rework-
ing of the story also explores homoeroticism: for an analysis which highlights this feature,
see Corti (1998) 181–3.
her own father, helped the Frenchman to subjugate, and so colonize, her peo-
ple. Colonialism and related abuse of the colonized are an important thematic
thread strictly associated with the racial issue. The theme of the infanticide is
re-shaped to address both racial and colonial concerns through a motif that
appears here for the first time and symbolizes the abusive intrusion of the
colonizers. This new motif is the technology, i.e., the machine-culture through
which colonizers claim to ‘civilize’ ‘primitive’ and ‘wild’ societies. In Asie the
children of the French Jason and the Indochinese princess, who were left for
a while in the care of missionaries, are portrayed as being already assimilated
to the ‘civilized’ European culture, which contributes toward alienating them
from their mother. Medea-Katha feels thus compelled to protect her children
not only by sparing them the pains of racial discrimination: because of their
skin color, they become the object of ridicule at school, once they transfer to
France. Medea-Katha also wishes to spare them from becoming the slaves of
an imperialist and industrialized society. Giving death to them is in their best
interest: for this Medea is in fact to give them peace and freedom.46
46 On Lenormand’s Asie see Belli (1969) 161–71; Caiazza (1989) 101–3; Macintosh (2000) 21.
The contrast between the civilized / industrialized Western World and primitive / wild
East, featured in Lenormand’s Asie, by thus putting into the foreground colonial and ra-
cial concerns, is originally refigured in terms of an antithesis between conservative primi-
tivism and subversive progressivism within the western world itself in the adaptation of
Medea by the American poet John Robinson Jeffers, in 1935, in his poem Solstice. Set in a
ranch close to the Rocky Mountains, this American Medea rebels against her husband’s
decision to turn the ranch into a modern tourist center. Deprived of her children and
banished from the ranch, she turns her rage against the machines symbolizing corrupting
technology and progressivism, and kills her children to save them from becoming slaves
to the modern, technological comforts that are destroying the world. Later, in 1946, Jeffers
wrote also a tragedy entitled Medea, which is closer to the ancient model than his poem
Solstice, but in agreement with Solstice’s critique of the Western Word’s progressivism,
Jeffers’ Medea turns into a polemical comment on the degeneration of Western / American
society, with a focus on the atomic bomb and the U.S. involvement in the Second World
War: Richardson 2005. As far the infanticide issue is concerned, once again it gestures
toward being a ‘mercy’ action: Jeffers’ Medea may be seen in fact as “a dramatization of
parental revulsion in the face of the routine procedures that regularly turn ordinary chil-
dren into producers, consumers, and defenders of American culture”: Corti (1998) 203. On
Jeffer’s Medea, see also Foley (2012) 207–10. Medea’s story has become a metaphor for the
contrast between technological/progressive, and capitalistic world – regularly identified
with the Western, so-called First World – and primitive/poor countries – usually identi-
fied with the Eastern, but not Japan, and the underdeveloped countries, including Latin
America. Such are the case of the well-known movie Medea (1970) by the Italian avant
garde director and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini (on which, see below, p. 102 with n. 57), and
of some Brazilian adaptations, starting from the ’70s: see below, pp. 105–6.
100 Lauriola
The necessity of infanticide, its turning into a quasi-act of compassion

which the mother performs under the pressure of racial discrimination, often
re-appears in 20th-century versions of the story, above all on the American
stage where, starting from the late 1970s, the American feminist and civil rights
movements provoke a rash of new Medeas, in particular of black/mulatto
Medeas.47 These versions, of which one of the most acclaimed is the musical
Marie Christine by Michael John LaChiusa (1999),48 tend to locate the tragedy
of Medea in the impossibility of assimilation to a white, male-dominant, and
unjust society: here the various black Medeas can but only walk on a bleak
route to isolation or death, with their children often being killed less out of
revenge than because they would face a humiliating life as mulatto bastards.
It should not come as a surprise that racial discrimination, combined with
the question of gender, characterizes several, if not all, 20th-century re-adap-
tations of Euripides’ tragedy in South Africa.49 In particular Medea becomes
the symbol of the oppressed by the apartheid system, and thus victims of ra-
cial exclusion. This condition, subsequent to the ‘otherness’ of Medea, is once
again central to the ‘necessary’ and ‘altruistic’ connotation of infanticide. A
milestone in this kind of re-working is the play Demea by the South African
poet Guy Butler. Written in the early sixties, because of its attack on official
government policy it could not be performed until 1990.50 The story is set in
the late 1820s in the Eastern Cape; it centers on the marriage between a local
princess and a British officer, Jonas (= Jason), who, after turning into a trader,
is ready to abandon his black wife, Demea (= Medea), to subscribe to Kroon
(= Creon)’s policy of racial purity and, subsequently, to marry his daughter.
The play is an exploration of the pressures that colonial mixed marriages were
undergoing. Those pressures are such that eventually infanticide is a ‘neces-
sity’. As Demea reveals in a monologue, she has sent her children to their death
‘to save’ them from suffering by sparing them the racial oppression and the
humiliation of racial prejudice as determined by the ideologies of apartheid.51
47 Besides Wetmore quoted above (n. 43), see Foley (2012) 210–5.
48 It premiered in 1999 at the Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beautmont Teatre in New York, and
was designed for the African American opera and music star Audra McDonald: Foley
(2012) 213–5. See also Lauriola (2015) 413–4.
49 There are valuable studies on the reception of Classics in South Africa by Betine van Zyl
Smit (2007a, 2007b, 2007c).
50 The need of a multiracial cast and the plot’s focus on a love relationship between mem-
bers of different racial groups prevented this play from being performed at the time: see
Macintosh (2000) 27–8. On Butler’s play, see also Wertheim (1995–1996).
51 Another ‘mercy killing’, with the purpose of sparing the children from growing up in a
world that will reject them for their skin color, i.e., for their race, is the infanticide commit-
ted by another African Medea, in the homonymous play, African Medea, by the American
The oxymoronic motif of maternal infanticide stemming from Medea-

mother’s love and care – which, while reflecting the often disregarded com-
plexity itself of Medea’s motherhood, accounts for the ‘sanitizing’ approaches
to the ineludible trait of this tragic woman – is of paramount importance in
another remaking of Euripides’ play which is also concerned with racism in the
wake of the emphasis more and more given to Medea’s ‘ethnic other’. It is the
novel Beloved by the American playwright and poet Toni Morrison, published
in 1987. It is the story of a black-slave woman, Sethe, based on the true story of
an escaped slave, Margaret Garner (1855). Garner was named ‘Modern Medea’
in the contemporary press. She killed her daughter and committed this crime
with a specific intention: to prevent the girl from being returned to slavery,
once she, the ‘Modern Medea’, had been reached by the slave-catchers.52 Slave
of a man, referred to as ‘school-master’, Sethe reacts to the dehumanizing rac-
ist practices of her master (a Jason who might be perceived as the institution
of slavery) by escaping with her own children. Once she is captured again, she
attempts to save her children from the cruelty of slavery and racism by killing
them. “She cannot protect them from slavery. And so she protects them from
the white patriarchal order in the only way she can. She takes their lives before
they are turned over to him”.53 Sethe succeeds in killing only the baby girl, the
Beloved. Hers is an act of love; she cannot stand to expose her daughter to suf-
fering that she herself could not bear to endure. Through death Sethe means
writer and English professor James Manguson in 1968: for an extensive analysis, see
Wetmore (2003) 149–63. It is partly a mercy killing in that Manguson’s Medea decides to
kill her children also because Jason’s ‘white’ blood runs in their veins as well. The children
are part white; they partly belong to the European, colonizer people whom Medea has
been driven to hate: Wetmore (2003) 156. This hate and the subsequent act of Manguson’s
Medea are consistent with a peculiar “nervous condition” which can be found in colo-
nized people, and which is a “direct product of the colonial situation”. Colonial subjects
would tend to develop some mental disorder, including homicidal urges, because of the
psychological stress of having one’s own identity questioned and annihilated by colonial-
ism: see Fanon (1963; the quotation is on p. 309). Among others, Pasolini’s Medea insists
on the loss of identity both throughout the movie and in a particular scene, when Medea
landed in Greece: see Lauriola (2015) esp. 424.
52 See Weisenburger (1998). The name ‘Modern Medea’ was given by the painter, Thomas
Satterwhite Noble, who portrayed the episode eleven years later (1861). The painting rep-
resents the woman confronting the slave-catchers over the bodies of two of her children,
while the other two sons are clinging to her skirt and begging to be spared. The painter
adapted the traditional Medea to his portrayal of Garner by simultaneously representing
the killing of the sons and their appealing for mercy to the mother. On Morrison’s novel
and a comparative analysis with Euripides’ Medea, see Corti (1992); Haley (1995); Emmett
(2010). The above analysis draws on these studies.
53 Cornell (1991) 194.
102 Lauriola
to give her daughter a freedom that she herself could not enjoy. By giving death
to the one to whom she has given birth, Sethe reclaims control at least over
her child’s destiny. The ghost of her dead baby girl soon starts haunting her.
This haunting ghost is indeed the issue “of an overwhelming grief commen-
surate with her mother’s bondless love”.54 The absence of a real counterpart of
Jason, i.e., of a spouse to spite, more than elsewhere reveals here, in Beloved,
the motherly love component in the act of killing.55
Apparently, while accounting for her concerns about the ‘alien’ status of her
children,56 which, subsequently, often foregrounds the mercy-killing-motif,
the ‘otherness’ of Medea has soon turned her into an emblem of the clash
between two polar opposite civilizations, with all that each of them implies.
Colchis, the ‘barbarian’ country, and Greece, the civilized one par excellence,
are respectively replaced by Non-Western and Western civilizations, where
‘Non-Western’ stands for the rest of the world, which is prejudicially consid-
ered primitive and inferior to the White-Western culture, i.e., the colonial/im-
perialist, capitalist and industrialized First World that arrogates to itself the
mission to civilize all the others.57 Against this background, Medea becomes
the symbol of any ‘exploited other’, in particular one ‘who fights back’,58 which
adds to her diversity, and contributes to defining her as a wild rebel. Jason, in
turn, becomes the symbol of the exploitative and progressive First World, and
of the violent and repressive politics of the Western colonizers. Rather than
54 Corti (1992) 70.

55 Among others, the motif of ‘altruistic filicide’ can be identified in the Irish version of
the tragedy, By the Bog of Cats … (1998) by Martina Carr: Hester Swane, the abandoned
Medea, a traveller, and thus an outsider in Irish society, eventually kills her daughter to
prevent her from being in a world without her mother who has decided to commit sui-
cide. This ending might also reflect what was happening in contemporary Ireland, that
is, the frequent death of children at the hands of suicidal parents: McDonald (2005) 130.
On Carr’s play, see also Arkins (2010) 190–2; O’Brien/Fey Fellow (2012). Another Irish 20th-
century most acclaimed adaptation of Euripides’ play is Euripides’ Medea: A New Version
(1991) by Brendan Kennelly. This remake mainly deals with “the exploitation of women
by men, Ireland by England, […]” (MacDonald [1997] 304), thus exploring the feministic
motif of oppression and exploitation of the woman-other with a political shading in ref-
erence to colonialism. On this work, see McDonald (1997) 304–12; Arkins (2010) 189–90;
Lauriola (2015) 401–2.
56 As observed earlier, these concerns are already implied in Euripides: see, above, n. 40.
57 As hinted at above (n. 46), a reading of Euripides’ Medea as an emblem of the clash
between Western and Eastern Culture, Progress/Technology and Primitivism, First
and Third Worlds, Colonized and Colonizer especially informs one of the most world-
renowned cinematic rendition of this play, Pasolini’s Medea. From the structure to the
meanings, this movie highlights the cultural and political polarity of the world as a whole.
See further Fusillo (1996) 127–79; Kvistad (2010); Shapiro (2013); Lauriola (2015) 422–6.
58 McDonald (1997) 302.
being the fulfillment of his heroic destiny, Jason’s journey to Colchis becomes
a parable that denounces the “ethical bankruptcy of cultural imperialism”.59
His arrival in Colchis is indeed seen as an invasion, and his overall story thus
comes to being reinterpreted as the quintessential “myth of colonization”.60
This is the case of Heiner Müller’s remaking of Medea’s tragedy, Medeamaterial
(1982). The East German dramatist’s adaptation of Medea story is articulated
into three parts, of which Medeamaterial is the central one, the part that can
be traced back to Euripides. It mostly consists of a monologue by Medea, al-
though at the beginning and at the end there are bits of dialogue with Jason
and the Nurse. The other two sections are Despoiled Shore and Landscape with
Argonauts (1982).61 Medeamaterial represents a critical response to the author-
ity of the ‘White’ and his colonizer culture, and functions as an empowerment
of the colonized. Medea’s crime is in fact a reaction to the violence of colo-
nialism personified by Jason, rather than a reaction to her rejected love; it is a
form of political rebellion against the oppressor colonizer, the white ‘Western’
conqueror who has taken Medea along as his ally, but also as his slave, and
corrupts wherever he goes with his version of civilization. More broadly the
play conveys a critique of the author’s ‘own West’, i.e., of the Federal Republic
of Germany in particular, and of Western Capitalism, along with its industrial-
ized society, in general. Medeamaterial expresses the human rejection of such
a society, which begins with colonization and is doomed to self-destruction.
Medea’s real enemies are the prosperity, comforts and consumerism –
symbolized by Creon’s “trough” –62 which allure her children. They will inevi-
tably love her affluent oppressors more than herself. The only way to avoid this
and rebel to the allure of Western capitalism is to kill them.63
Medea as vehicle of the critique of Western capitalism, more precisely of
European/Western politics and, again, ‘civilized’ society, is the core of another
20th-century East German writer’s remaking: Medea. Stimmen (Medea.Voices),
59 I borrow the expression from Kvistad (2010) 227. Although the scholar has used that label
specifically with reference to Pasolini’s interpretation, it well fits any adaptation that em-
phasizes post-colonial issues.
60 Corti (1998) 217.
61 Müller has been inspired by Medea’s story more than once. In 1974 he wrote Medeaspiedel
(Medea play): see Macintosh (2000) 25–6. As to the trilogy mentioned above, and in
particular Medeamaterial, see McDonald (1992); Rogowiski (1993); Corti (1998) 216–20;
Campbell (2008).
62 About this metaphor see Corti (1998) 217.
63 In Müller the progress/industrialization motif intertwines with environmental concerns:
see, e.g., Corti (1998) 217–8.
104 Lauriola
by Christa Wolf, published in 1996.64 Differently from Müller, in Wolf the in-
fanticide issue is central. Similarly to Müller, the political-cultural criticism
goes beyond the feud between the two Germanies: it is not (or not simply) an
implicit polemical discourse of an East German on the shortcomings of the
Federal Republic, and, subsequently, of the reunited Germany.65 More mark-
edly than in Müller, both Germanies in fact stand for the whole Western world,
presented by Wolf as a corrupt community which lies to itself and connives
with its corrupted rulers in the cover-up of their crimes, by fabricating stories
and rumors to discredit their opponents and keep hold of power. Wolf’s Medea
is the scapegoat-voice of such a community; the realization and awareness of
this community’s flaws makes her an other and outsider to an extreme degree:
there is no real place for her to feel at home, either at Colchis (East Germany)
or in Corinth (West Germany). Both have hypocritically defamed her by ascrib-
ing to her crimes that the rulers, and conniving community, committed. This
Medea is completely innocent; the infanticide issue is thus central here in a
different way from almost elsewhere else. Its straight rejection is not dictated
by a sanitizing intent; it rather gestures toward the innocent victimhood char-
acterizing Wolf’s Medea.66 In her version, once Medea receives the order to
leave Corinth, she entrusts her children to the priestesses of Hera’s temple; but
soon they are taken by the Corinthian mob and put to death. Wolf’s Medea is
also innocent of the other murders traditionally ascribed to her, i.e., the killing
both of her brother Apsyrtos and of the princess of Corinth, new bride of Jason.
In Wolf’s version Apsyrtos is ritually murdered at the command of their father
to allow him to maintain the political power. As for the princess of Corinth, she
commits suicide, since she is unable to bear the memory of what happened to
her older sister. Not differently from Apsyrtos in Colchis, the first daughter of
Corinth’s royal couple was ‘ritually’ sacrificed in secret as a result of a plot to
64 The English title mentioned above is my translation from the original German title. It
seems closer to the original as it also reflects the essential trait characterizing this re-
working more than the title under which Wolf’s novel has been published in English, that
is, Medea: A New Retelling. On this adaptation, see Schiavoni (1998); Hochgeschurz (1998);
Rubino (2000) 84–123; Carrière (2012) 125–40. True to the title, the novel consists of a plu-
rality of ‘voices’, i.e., characters, including Medea, who, through monologues, ‘voice’ their
own ‘version’ of the story by thus expressing their own different view of Medea.
65 Although the contrast between Colchis and Corinth can be seen as a metaphor for the
contrast between the ‘two’ Germanies, with an implied partisan view that East Germany
(Colchis) – i.e., the land of the author – was better than West Germany (Corinth), true to
the words of Wolf herself, this would be a reductive interpretation: see Schiavoni (1998)
42–3.
66 Wolf explicitly chose to follow the different mythical tradition, as far as the infanticide is
concerned: see above, n. 4.
assure the king (Creon) the continuation of his dominance in a power-struggle

with his own queen.67 This is the secret of civilized Corinth, which proves to be
not so different from the ‘barbarian’ and ‘primitive’ Colchis. This is the secret
that Medea is guilty to have discovered. She thus must pay, and must be pre-
vented from saying the truth. Lastly, Wolf’s Medea flees Colchis not because of
a blind passion for Jason. Leaving with Jason for Greece was for this Medea the
only way to escape from the corruption of her father’s politics. Wolf’s Medea
is partially autobiographical, for she reflects the experience and feelings of the
author after the end of the East German regime, with the fall of the Berlin wall.
Her rehabilitation of Medea might be seen as a plea for exculpation of both
East Germans and the author herself.68 At the same time her Medea stands
for the injustices that women suffered at the hands of the manipulative male
power, which needs to keep women in an inferior, subordinate state of silence.69
In the 20th century and later, an appropriation and adaptation of Medea’
story in part similar to Müller’s and Wolf’s re-workings, i.e., as a vehicle of cri-
tique of the capitalist world (the Western ‘white’ First World), occurs in anoth-
er, and completely different, corner of the world, precisely in Brazil. Although
most of the re-elaborations by Brazilian authors reflect a postcolonial ap-
proach, as they treat the myth as a story about otherness and foreignness,70
one in particular aligns itself with the political discourse against capitalism,
the new invader. It is Gota d’Água (Drop of Water, 1975) by Buarque and Pontes,
mentioned above with reference to infanticide. According to the authors’ pref-
ace to the 1975 edition of their play, their first preoccupation was to discuss the
relationship between Brazilian society and capitalism, within the context of
the economic boom and growing concentration of wealth – at the expense of
the working class – which followed the decolonizing process. They completely
re-wrote Medea’s story in a way to provide, between the lines, a Marxist analysis
of the socio-political situation of their country, and to thus denounce the un-
merciful and predatory capitalistic miracle occurring in Brazil in the seventies.
Corinth becomes a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, a lower class residential complex
whose owner is Creon, a capitalistic bourgeois who has become rich by build-
ing speculations and usury. Medea turns into Joana who is a worker, a woman
67 Wolf’s interpretation is based on her strong belief in the existence of an early matriar-
chal system where men usurped power from women and preserved it through crimes: see
Hochgeschurz (1998) 10–1.
68 Mention should be made of the fact that it was revealed that she collaborated for a short
time with the East German secret police, against the unification of Germany.
69 For a feminist reading of Wolf’s novel see van Zyl Smit (2002) 115–7.
70 For characteristics of this Brazilian remaking of Euripides’ play see above, 96 and n. 34.
The following discussion draws on Croce (2006) and on Coelho (see, above, n. 34).
106 Lauriola
of the people: she has abandoned her wealthy first husband to live with Jasão,
a samba composer much younger than her. For years Joana has economically
supported Jasão and taught him everything she knew about music. Once Jasão
becomes famous for the samba entitled Gota d’água, he leaves Joana for the
rich Alma, daughter of Creon. The chorus is the lower class community living
in the same residential complex, and kept in perpetual servicing of their debts
by Creon. The community’s relationship with Joana is ambiguous as they even-
tually let themselves be manipulated by Creon when he has to confront their
protest: he demagogically cancels their debts. Aegeus turns into Egeu, Joana’s
godfather, who represents the small Brazilian bourgeois which aims at reach-
ing a solidarity among its members to rebel to the capitalistic power. All the
essential parts of Brazilian society are thus represented through this radical
transformation of the main characters. This reconfiguration allows the author
to turn the postcolonial dichotomy of colonized/colonizer into an exploitation
relationship between poor and rich. In this relationship, Joana completely suc-
cumbs to the power of the capitalistic Creon, to Jasão, and to the community
itself. Her attempt to eliminate her enemies, Creon and Alma, fails, and she
ends up poisoning herself and her children.
The overall character of Medea is so multifarious that it eludes any rigid
categorization, except for the ineludible child-killing mother one. The same
multifacetedness applies in particular to one of her lately much exploited
traits, her otherness. Hers is a multidimensional otherness to the point that,
as just remarked in particular in Gota d’água, Medea’s otherness acquires a so-
cio-economic nuance by becoming the symbol of the exploited ‘poor/working
class’-other. A striking and incisive epitome of Medea’s multivalent otherness
is conveyed by the very first words that she utters in the Brazilian composer
and multimedia artist Jocy de Oliveira’s reworking, the 2006 opera Kseni – a es-
trangeira (Kseni – The Foreigner): “Transgressive … Immigrant … Barbarous …
Terrorist … Woman …”71 In this way, Kseni-Medea identifies herself, standing
and fighting for the right to be different, such an identification and fight that
might apply to her overall otherness.72
In a time, like ours, in which diversity has been, and is, in the spotlight,
Medea’s otherness and connected theme of marginalization could be re-adapt-
ed to voice issues pertaining to sexual identity / sexual diversity. This is the
case in The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, a lesbian-themed adaptation
by the Chicana feminist writer Cherríe Moraga. Written and, at first, confined
to staged readings in 1995, this controversial play was performed in a mainline
71 The quotation is from Coelho (2013) 374.

72 The name ‘Kseni’ indeed traced back to the ancient Greek xenos, meaning also ‘foreigner’.
theatre (the Magic Theatre in San Francisco) only five years later, in 2000.73 The
story takes place in a hypothetical future, in a newly formed post-revolutionary
country, a grim borderland located between the United States and a Mexican-
influenced nation; it is a place specifically reserved for queers. Medea is exiled
to this place, together with her lover Luna and the son she had with her first,
oppressive and older husband Jasón. Medea has been expelled from her com-
munity after she left her husband for her lesbian lover, i.e., because of her sex-
ual diversity. Jasón remarries, but her new young wife turns out to be barren.
He thus claims custody of Medea’s son. But Medea is worried about her son
growing into a man like his father, i.e., a man who perfectly fits the patriarchal,
homophobic world of her homeland, a man who considers women ‘things’ and
‘creatures to be controlled’. Hence this Medea too re-enacts her ‘traditional’
crimes: she kills her son with poisonous herbs to ‘save’ him from indoctrina-
tion into machismo and misogyny. For this crime, she is confined in a psychiat-
ric hospital until she is ‘liberated’ by her lover Luna, who brings her poisonous
herbs, and by the ghost of her son, who leads her to the world of dead. The play
clearly is a critique of male-dominated and homophobic attitudes that refuses
to recognize sexual diversity by representing female homosexuality as a tragi-
cally doomed condition.74
Long though it may be, this overview is far from doing justice both to the
original Medea and to her re-incarnations in the 20th- and 21st-century new
literary ‘versions’.75 This unavoidable shortcoming is not merely quantitative,
as the multifarious complexity of Medea-character constitutes a challenge for
a possibly full account in such a small space. What can be safely said by way of
conclusion is what has been more than once surfacing throughout the discus-
sion: despite her multifaceted-slippery essence, one specific facet has proved
to be both the most engrained one in historical memory and ‘the one’ respon-
sible for the commonly repulsive reaction of the audiences, i.e., her being an
infanticide mother. Still, the issue of motherhood keeps being the pivot of
73 About Moraga’s play, see Eschen (2006) 103–6; Straile-Costa (2010); Carrière (2012) 97–109;
Foley (2012) 215–7.
74 An engagement in the sexual diversity- / queer culture-matter also characterizes Medea.
The Musical by the American playwright John Fisher, a farce at first produced at the
University of California, Berkeley, in 1994, when Fisher was a graduate student. In the
mid ’90s it moved to San Francisco, where it ran for 15 months (with a revival in 2005);
later in 2000 it was produced in Seattle. With Fisher himself being one of the characters,
precisely the ‘Auteur’ (i.e., theater director), it is meant to be a serious commentary on
contemporary gay issues. On this play, see Brown (2004) 293; Foley (2004) 108–10; Lauriola
(2015) 413–4.
75 For other versions see Corti (1998); Macintosh (2000); Foley (2012); Lauriola (2015); Hall,
Macintosh, Taplin (2000).
108 Lauriola
most recent versions of Medea’s myth. A further example is From Medea by the
Italian singer and writer Grazia Verasani, premiered at the Teatro Colosseo in
Rome, in 2002. Within thirty short acts, it tells the story of four women who,
convicted of murdering their own children, are serving a term of imprisonment.
These women are presented as colpevoli innocenti (innocent guilty), a striking
oxymoron that well renders the complexity behind the action of Medea and of
women to whom social expectations have always been asking to nullify their
person and their dignity for the sake of motherhood. The latter thus appears to
be a weapon of the male/patriarchal-oriented culture that confines feminin-
ity to being mothers. Like the ancient Medea the four women are victims of a
system that exasperates them to the point that, to rebel and free themselves,
they become guilty of monstrous actions. Their stories reveal the often over-
looked complexity of murderer-mothers by delving into the social and cultural
environment of contemporary mothers, posing challenging questions about
motherhood, social pressure, and the hidden guilt of such a tragic event as the
maternal infanticide.76 Theirs are stories that, like the ancient Medea’s story,
cause the audiences of any period to experience bipolar reactions, vacillating
between pity and blame, empathy and disbelief. Nevertheless, the scales com-
monly tip in favor of a feeling of horror and repulsion: the action of a mother
who kills her children continues to be seen as an unthinkable violation of an
inherent natural law, and it calls into question the essential notion that women
endowed with an innate nurturing maternal instinct.77 Whether the motif is
re-proposed in a radical feministic perspective as the “ultimate act of self-
empowerment”, or as a critique of the perennial androcentric view, in that a
woman who hurts herself to hurt the man who has abandoned her is “a male
idea of a feminist act”,78 whether it might be made ‘more understandable’, from
the oppressed and marginalized mothers’ viewpoint, as a mercy-altruistic kill-
ing, Euripides’ Medea is doomed to be tied to any child-murdering mother
and vice versa.79 The child-murdering mother has in fact continued to imprint
Medea’s picture on our mind to such a point that it has been taken to the very
extreme: in the genetics of the beetle Tribolium her name is indeed used to
76 See Bernocco (2013). Verasani’s piece recently inspired the movie Maternity Blues, by the
Italian director Fabrizio Cattani, released in 2011: see Uffreduzzi (2012).
77 Motherhood is expected to come ‘naturally’, and women’s mothering work is generally
taken for granted as it is considered ‘natural’ (see First [1994]). Studies have shown that it
is not so. For a concise review of the problem see Barnett (2006) esp. 411–4.
78 Both quotations actually belong to Fisher’s Medea. The Musical (see, above, n. 74); I bor-
row them from Foley (2004) 109.
79 See, e.g., Moroco (2003); Hyman (2004).
describe a gene responsible for arresting the development of some embryos

i.e., for provoking their abortion.80 That is to say, by way of metaphor: Medea is
the ne plus ultra of ‘unmaternal’ /’unnatural’ mother as she kills the ‘children’
before they are even born. Medea is such an abomination.
Again, is it so? The dilemma remains and keeps hunting us. Certainly as in
the past so in the present time it is a gender-biased dilemma, for the common
feeling has always been that there is something more shocking and forbidden
about maternal violence than paternal infanticide.
He killed his children, so where

is Hercules’ electric chair?81
This question asked by the chorus of women in Tony Harrison’s opera Medea:
A Sex-Opera (1985)82 sets the record straight. Standing for a universally valid
“powerful indictment of traditional male representations of the female”,83
Harrison’s reworking of Medea’s story fairly contrasts Medea with Heracles, a
father who has killed his children, and, yet, his reputation is one of a hero: he
can get off unpunished, while Medea, who in this version is even wrongly ac-
cused of infanticide for her children are killed at the hands of the Corinthians,84
is inexorably electrocuted. Once again, such is her stain as murderer-mother.
This discrepancy between Medea and Heracles in evoking outrage, in prompt-
ly casting a verdict of guilty, and in calling for a death penalty, is indeed one
that regularly occurs today as well.85
80 See Hurst (2010). The scholar has also observed that, in this case, MEDEA well works as
acronym for ‘Maternal-Effect Dominant for Embryonic Arrest’ (2010: 300).
81 Harrison (1985) 437.
82 The English poet Tony Harrison is the author of the libretto which he wrote for the
operatic work on Medea that the New York Metropolitan Opera had commissioned to
the American composer Jacob Druckman in late 1980s. Druckman died in 1996 without
completing the opera (only the overture and one scene were completed). Harrison de-
cided however to publish his complete libretto. On Harrison’s work, see McDonald (1992)
115–25.
83 McDonald (1992) 115; Lauriola (2015) 413.
84 About this variant of the myth, see, above, n. 4.
85 Infanticide becomes especially newsworthy if the perpetrator is the child’s mother; see,
e.g., Coward (1997); Douglas, Michaels (2004). Gamiz (2002), for instance, comparing the
press coverage devoted to the case of one of the 21st-century American infanticide moth-
er, Andrea Yates (Houston, 2001: see, above, n. 7), to coverage devoted to Adair Garcia
(Los Angeles, 2002), noted that while in the first four week of Yates trial, more than one
thousand articles were published about her case, fewer than one hundred were written
about Garcia in the same amount of time.
110 Lauriola
Whether Euripides intended to call our attention specifically to this, too, or

not, the different ways in which his Medea’s reception has unfolded do call for
our attention to such universal and recurring human experience that cannot
be coincidental.
part 2
Portuguese Versions of Medea in
the 20th and 21st Centuries
∵
chapter 7
Medea as an Aesthetic and Ethical Space in

Fiama’s Work
Ália Rodrigues
We1 are all women. Who humiliates me

Humiliates you all.2
Hélia Correia, Desmesura. Lisboa (2006) 36
∵
Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão (1938–2007), a remarkable Portuguese writer,3 began
her career in the late 1950s in poetry, but she also wrote plays,4 essays, novels
and translated several works into Portuguese, mainly German and American
thinkers such as Novalis, Tchekhov, Bertold Brecht, Antonin Artaud, and John
Updike, among others.
The play that concerns us here, entitled Eu vi o Epidauro (I Saw the
Epidaurus), was first published in 1985, while the second text, Fiama’s first
novel Sob o Olhar de Medea (Under the Gaze of Medea), was released more
than a decade later (1998). Both works explore the myth of Medea from differ-
ent angles: while the play shows Medea as the Euripidean dramatic character,
“the classical woman who killed her own children”5 as well as the icon of femi-
nine otherness, the novel explores the shamanic power of Medea’s gaze from
an ethical point of view.
1 The first version of this article was published in Portuguese, “Medeia sob o olhar de Fiama”
(Biblos n.s. [2008] 411–28). This English version is a translation of the original Portuguese, but
several changes have been made to the original.
2 “Somos todas mulheres./Quem me humilhar/A vós humilha!”.
3 Fiama received several prizes, among them: Adolfo Casais Monteiro Prize, 1957, Theatre
Revelation Prize, 1961; Portuguese Pen Club Prize (Poetry), 1985; Portuguese Writers
Association’s Poetry Prize twice (1996 and 2000).
4 Fiama had an intense theatrical experience: she did an internship in the Teatro Experimental
do Porto (1964) and she also founded the theater group Hoje (Today, 1974).
5 Brandão (1976) 121.

114 Rodrigues
1 The Play Eu vi o Epidauro (I Saw the Epidaurus)
1.1 Medea as an Aesthetic Space in the History of Theatre

Eugénia Vasques defined the theater of Fiama as a “theater of voices”,6 an elo-
quent expression that summarizes the polyphonic textuality of Fiama drama-
turgy: the play Eu vi o Epidauro can be understood as a revisionist text of the
history of the theatre as traditional characters, places, and topoi are ubiquitous
throughout the play, as Compère’s (a theatre director) words reveal: “The show
is going to start. Or rather, it will start and restart the theater, ancient and mod-
ern. Life will start, the life of the theater! The time and the place” (73).7
All characters of the cast are explicit references to famous stages of the
Western history of theater: Epidaurus, the Greek city where the oldest the-
ater is located; Bayreuth, a small German city where the theater of Richard
Wagner is located; Stratford-on-Avon, birthplace of Shakespeare and home to
the Shakespeare Memorial Theater. These places are personified by the Angels
characters: “spirits that populate the sacred places of the Theater” (128).8
Judging by this cast, Fiama considers Euripides, Shakespeare, and Wagner as
the main references that marked the history of European dramaturgy. Along
with their authors, the characters of their own masterpieces are also explored
throughout the play: Medea and Jason, Romeo and Juliet, and the Nordic
mythical figures Brünhild and Siegfried which are also the main characters
of the Wagnerian tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring des Nibelungen,
1848–1874).
Despite the high number of characters, the cast only has seven actors:
Compère or the theatre director, three actors and three actresses which rep-
resent the history of theatre: Jason/Medea, Romeo S./Juliet, Siegfried B./
6 The well-known Portuguese Theatre director Luis Miguel Cintra recognizes that Fiama’s plays
are a challenge for any theatre director: “It is a very personal and most interesting theatrical
writing, but the plays are so elaborate and sophisticated that have intimidated filmmakers.”
(“É uma escrita teatral muito pessoal e das mais interessantes, mas são peças tão elaboradas e
sofisticadas que têm intimidado encenadores.”) Fiama herself confirms that she writes pref-
erentially for a “chamber theater” (“Teatro de Câmara”) (Diário de Notícias 2007.01.21).
7 “Compère: Vai começar o espectáculo. Ou antes, vai começar e recomeçar o teatro, antigo e
moderno. Vai começar a vida a vida do teatro! O tempo e o lugar.” I am following this edition:
Brandão, Fiama H. P. (1990), Eu vi o Epidauro, in Teatro-Teatro. Lisboa: Fenda.
8 “Espíritos que povoam os lugares sagrados do Teatro”.
Medea as an Aesthetic and Ethical Space in Fiama ’ s Work 115
Brünhild, Irina9 from Tchekhov’s The Three Sisters, among others.10 However,
only one set of these would explain all the others: Jason/Medea in Epidaurus,
which is represented by the Angel. All these female characters become Medea
and, consequently, they also continue to reproduce the same tense Euripidean
dualism women vs men and the rest,11 as Fiama’s Medea stated:
Medea – I, from the beginning, I was summoned here! And now I know
that there are only four plays in the world: Euripides, Shakespeare, the
other by Pirandello,12 and Tchekhov! Each of them wrote always the same
and the only one.” (129)13
Thus, Juliet, Marta Ayala, and Irina are just eloquent variations of the
Euripidean model:
After the shooting, the actress dies, the character remains. But which
character? The one, the eternal, that has already changed so much, in the
theater of the West, so many imitations has changed with others … (72)14
These imitations, however, focus on one aspect of the version of the myth crys-
tallized in Euripides, glimpsing in Medea the betrayed woman in continual
9 Three Sisters is a four-act drama by Anton Tchekhov whose main characters are Olga,
Maria, and Irina.
10 The Portuguese Eduarda Dionísio, in her play Before the Night Comes (Antes que a noite
venha, 1992, see below), presents a similar cast: Juliet, Antigone, Medea, and Inês de
Castro, Galician noblewoman lover of King Peter I of Portugal who was posthumously
recognised as his wife. Cf. Ferreira (1999).
11 In the staging of this play by Mónica Calle (2000), the criticism emphasises the physical
and psychological violence throughout the play: “A disturbing “peep show”, where women
are attacked by men in a crescendo of violence that the spectator may feel tempted to
look away.” (“Um “peep show” perturbador, onde as mulheres são agredidas pelos ho-
mens num crescendo de violência de que o espectador se pode sentir tentado a desviar o
olhar.”), in Gomes, Kathleen, “Peep show with Greek tragedy”, in Público, 16.06.2000: 30).
12 This is a reference to Pirandello’s first novel, L’Esclusa (The Excluded), which tells the
story of Marta Ajala, a housewife who was unjustly expelled from home and betrayed
by all men in her life. At the end, even if she became autonomous, she was never able to
recover her identity in society again.
13 “Medea – Eu, desde o início que estava convocada para aqui! E hoje sei que só há quatro
peças de teatro no mundo: a de Eurípides, de Shakespeare, a outra de Pirandello e a de
Tchekhov! Cada um deles escreveu sempre a mesma e a única” (129).
14 “Depois do tiro, morre a actriz, fica a personagem. Mas qual personagem? Essa, a eterna,
já tanto se modificou, no teatro do Ocidente, já tantas réplicas trocou com outras …” (72).
116 Rodrigues
emancipation, who attempts, at all costs, to refute the male discourse in order
to become an autonomous voice in society:
Matrix – Oh, since I was born, you, my husband, allow me this, you forbid me
that. Enough for me. If she is a daughter of the Martyr, she was influenced
by the model. Women mold women. She said well that, from generation to
generation, in Europe, a great myth, of man covers women (…). (102)15
Medea – Do you want to know? That I was abandoned by Jason. (128)16
In the traditional version of the classic myth, Medea’s main opponents are
mostly male figures: Jason, Esson, Pellias, Creon, and Aegeus.
However, although the idea of Medea as a female victim is consistent and
almost exclusively explored throughout the play, one can still find references
to the classic woman that kills her own children:
Juliet (to Medea) – I was able to see you myself. When you came down
from the amphitheater with bloody hands. (82)
1st Sister – And to think that there was a classic woman who killed her
children … (121)17
Unhappy, Medea claims new actions, a different destiny for her character,
since the ‘classic’ one condemned her forever:
Medea – I want to know, I want to know if I’ll ever be the example of a

less loaded, more nuanced action. An action of a bourgeoisie in crisis of
modern consciousness.
No director of this comedy, and of the others (…) has, nevertheless, the
right to drag me eternally through moral misery (…) (91)18
15 “Matrix – Oh, desde que eu nasci, tu, meu marido, me permites isto, me proíbes aquilo.
Chega, comigo. Se for filha da Mártir, sofreu a influência do modelo. As mulheres moldam
as mulheres. Ela disse bem, que de geração em geração, na Europa, um grande mito de
homem cobre as mulheres (…)” (102).
16 “Medea – Querem saber? Que fui abandonada por Jasão” (128).
17 “Julieta (para Medea) – Eu, a ti ainda te cheguei a ver. Quando descias do anfiteatro com
as mãos ensanguentadas” (82). “1ª Irmã – E pensar que houve uma mulher clássica que
matou os filhos …” (121).
18 “Medeia – Eu quero saber, quero saber se alguma vez serei o exemplo de uma acção com
tintas menos carregadas, mais matizada. Uma acçãozinha de uma burguesa em crise de
This is just one example of the numerous references to the Brechtian

Verfremdungseffekt (“estrangement” or “distancing effect”),19 a break and re-
fusal of the Aristotelian scenic illusion, that had a strong influence on Fiama’s
dramaturgy who also translated several works of Brecht into Portuguese. In
this process, the actor questions the actions of the character that s/he is play-
ing, not only to prevent the illusion effect, but also to include the audience in
the drama itself, which, according to Brecht, seeks a specific purpose: “for a
single purpose to show the world in such a way in order to make it shapable”.20
1.2 The Structure of Eu vi o Epidauro

In the first part of the play, Medea is present in five scenes and in the first
two of the second part. Medea’s interlocutors are her own theatre historical
‘doubles’, the Shakespearean Juliet and the Wagnerian Brünhild as well as
their male partners (also opponents in some cases), Jason, Romeo or Siegfried.
Apart from these, the character Medea does not interact with any other set of
personages of the play, that is, the Angels, the Greyhounds or the Three Sisters
of Tchekhov. Brechtian aesthetics flows throughout the play in, and by influ-
encing its technique, it also emphasizes and reinforces its main idea: how the
female condition is explored throughout the history of the theatre and how
Euripidean Medea shaped and determined the Western imaginary towards
women:
Greyhound 4 – The characters were people.

Greyhound 1 – But they are not, they are models.
Greyhound 4 – But they will be. People follow the models. (127)21
Jason E. – You already know that we can have a life at all times. Now, this
is to be all simultaneous, or this spreads through various lives and exis-
tences. (…)
Romeo A. – And the lives and the existences, who they belong to?
Julieta – To everyone, to those who make public, to those who act as ac-
tors sometimes, to those who are characters!
consciência moderna” (91); “Nenhum encenador desta comédia, e das outras (…) tem,
mesmo assim, o direito de me arrastar eternamente pela miséria moral (…)” (91).
19 Here is a list of some of the Brecht’s Portuguese translations: Schriften zum Theater: über
eine nicht-aristotelische Dramatik (Estudos sobre o Teatro, 1975?, Portugália), Furcht und
Elend des dritten Reiches (O terror e a miséria no Terceiro Reich: 24 cenas, 1984, Portugália)
as well as other plays (see Hörster, 1985 and Cortez, 1996).
20 Brecht (1975) 138–9. Translated by Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão.
21 “Galgo 4 – As personagens eram pessoas./Galgo 1 – Mas não são, são modelos./Galgo 4 –
Mas serão. As pessoas seguem os modelos” (127).
118 Rodrigues
Romeo A. – How would they, men, know what they will be if it were not
because of us? And all the great figures, who breathe on paper, above on
paper, through the books, through the scenarios …? (84)22
The use of this distancing technique also enables the reader to identify which
aspect of the classical myth continued to be relevant: Medea represents the
archetype that flows in the main female characters of the Western theatre.
“After all, life is longer than the oeuvre”, said Fiama in an interview about the
launch of the her main poetry work: Obra Breve (Brief Works).23 The same
applies to the Bretchian reception of Medea in Fiama’s play Eu vi o Epidauro
(I Saw the Epidaurus), the life of these characters crystallized in the Western
imagination becoming autonomous from their own authors, beyond time,
beyond the text itself: “They have had their own history for many centuries.
Each presupposes the other. There is no one else who can be alive for so many
days, if not them. Still alive, yesterday, today” (75).24
By presenting mostly meta-discussions and self-reflexive dialogues as if “The
past is always simultaneous” (84), “Epidaurus” in I Saw the Epidaurus. About the
Theatre is thus a narrative on how the classical plays become the centripetal
point of the history of theatre25. That said, all later female characters are a
variation of Medea which justifies the structure of the entire play and also the
reception of the myth of Medea in Fiama:
22 “Jasão E. – Já sabes que podemos ter uma vida em todos os tempos. Ora, isto é para ser
tudo simultâneo, ou espalha-se por várias vidas e existências (…).
Romeu A. – E as vidas e as existências, de quem são?
Julieta – De toda a gente, dos que fazem público, dos que fazem de actores às vezes, dos
que são personagens!
Romeu A. – Como é que eles, homens, haviam de saber o que hão-de ser, se não fôssemos
nós? E todas as grandes figuras, que respiram no papel, em cima do papel, através dos
livros, através dos cenários …?” (84).
23 Marques (1991) 6.
24 “Têm há muitos séculos uma história própria. Cada um pressupõe o outro. Não há mais
ninguém, que possa estar vivo tantos dias, senão esses. Vivos ainda, ontem, hoje.” (75).
Regarding this idea, Roland Barthes (1980) 31 also mentioned: “Who was Sancho Panza?
Who was Sganarelo? They live, though. They are eternal, because – as germens alive –
they had the fortune to find a fantasy that knew how to feed and create, that made them
live for Eternity.”
25 As the Epidaurus Angel says: “People pass in places. There is a procession of people pa-
rading through tragedies and comedies. They want to see Epidaurus, whether tourists or
not” (“Anjo do Epidauro: As pessoas passam nos lugares. Há um cortejo de gente a desfilar
por dentro de tragédias e das comédias. Querem ver o Epidauro, quer sejam turistas, quer
não”, 74).
Compère – (…)
Bayreuth Angel – No, the place is not this one.
Epidaurus Angel – It was in Colchis. (73)26
2 The Novel Sob o olhar de Medeia (Under the Gaze of Medea)
2.1 Medea’s Gaze as an Ethical Engagement with Reality

The novel Sob o olhar de Medeia (Under the Gaze of Medea) narrates Marta’s
childhood, growth, and education during which she learns classical myths
from her school teacher. The novel is narrated as a long recollection of her
childhood which is only possible because Marta learnt classical myths at an
early stage in her life and, for this reason, she is now able to accurately describe
the ‘imprecise’ reality once lived:
Maritime images are close, but still unnamed. Only the classical myths
will later name the images and the metamorphoses. (13)27
The initiation to the ‘light’ began in the childhood, during which she learnt
civic virtues and human affections, while she was able to find the time to dedi-
cate herself to the “tasks of nature”: from 3 to 4 years she took care of the sheep,
from 6 to 10, she watched over the rabbits and an abandoned bird.
However, this path of light did not go without an initiation to evil which
is embodied by the child of the housekeeper, Lazarus, whose name seems to
predict his own condemnation.28 However, the initiation to evil is the only way
to know the Light: “Very early, the gnosis of light and darkness was for her the
configuration of the world.” (16).29
The first exile of the Light occurred when the mother took her, as a child,
to a room far from her, a wise departure as she would later acknowledge: “To
protect her daughter from the innate suffering, which occupies, along with
joy, half of our life, [the mother] expelled her from Paradise, teaching her
26 “Compère: Vai começar o espectáculo. (…). Anjo de Bayreuth: Não, o lugar não é este. Anjo
do Epidauro: Era na Cólchida” (73).
27 “As imagens marítimas estão perto, mas ainda sem nome. Só os mitos clássicos, mais
tarde, vão dar o nome às imagens e às metamorfoses” (13).
28 “Names of men mark their conduct as dramatic roles” (“Digamos que os nomes dos ho-
mens lhes marcam as condutas, como papéis dramáticos”, 166).
29 “Muito cedo, a gnose da luz e das trevas foi para ela o modo de configuração do mundo”.
120 Rodrigues
the pain”30 (124). As Marta grew up, she was in permanent readjustment be-
tween the experience of reality and that ‘initial’ time that the classical myths
symbolise. Learning classic myths at an early age allowed Marta to access the
knowledge of the archetype that embodies human actions, as if each beha
viour corresponded to an archetypical conduct that repeats again and again
in various times:
The reality, in the face of myths, would be an exile, because these are its
[reality] models, as the personal childhood relived, being identical to the
childhood of the world and of the peoples, showed it to her. (170)31
The myth of Medea had a strong influence on her education and, especially, on
her perception of reality and also Art:
In reading, in class, she had heard, in the penetrating voice of the teacher,
something she could never again forget, in wonder. To overcome Talos,
the bronze giant, Medea gazes at his eyes in enraged ecstasy, and trans-
mits images of death to him, which lost him. Surprised and frightened,
Martha never forgot the revelation of this power again. She thinks, seated
in the refuge of the isolated stone bench, that the gaze is powerful, which
receives and transmits the world seen.32 (67–8)
30 “Para proteger a filha no inato sofrimento, que ocupa, com a alegria, metade da nossa
vida, expulsara-a do Paraíso, ensinando-lhe a dor”.
31 “Toda a realidade, face aos mitos, seria um exílio, porque são estes os seus modelos, como
a infância pessoal revivida, idêntica à infância do mundo e dos povos, lhe mostrara” (170).
32 “Na leitura, na aula, ouvira, na voz penetrante do professor, algo que não pôde nunca
mais esquecer, maravilhada. Para vencer Talos, o gigante de bronze, Medea fita os olhos
dele com o seu olhar, em enfurecido êxtase, e transmite-lhe imagens da morte, que o
perderam. Surpreendida e atemorizada, Marta nunca mais esqueceu a revelação deste
poder. Pensa, sentada no refúgio do banco de pedra isolado, que o olhar é poderoso, que
recebe e transmite o mundo visto” (67–8). Robert Graves (32004) 616 presents three ver-
sions of the death of the giant Talos, which takes place when the Argonauts arrive to
Crete, the most represented episode in the art. In most versions, Medea is responsible for
the death of the giant, with the exception of the second version presented by Apollodorus
(1.9.26), which attributes the death to Pelias (Apollod. 1 [141] 9. 26). In the most well-
known version, Medea deceived the monster with sweet words, promising him immor-
tality if he drank a magic potion which was, in fact, a sleeping pill that made him fall
asleep. In this version, while the monster slept, she kills him by striking the only vein that
ran through his body (Apollod. 1 [141] 9. 26). In another version which is here presented,
Talos, bewitched by the eyes of Medea, stumbled and injuring his only vein, eventually
died of the intense bleeding. Soph. Frr. 160–1 TrGFr. Already in the second version of
Later on, without ever forgetting Medea, he thinks that this is the defini-
tion of Art, by releasing images of life and death, the only ones possible
on Earth.33 (68)
This is the Pasolini’s Medea: the sorceress, a priestess of Hecate and a chthonic
semi-goddess. According to this passage, Marta learnt from Medea a very specific
emotion: the gaze and how this can transform reality. Tiago, a childhood friend,
once said to Marta that her life in the future would be influenced by her tendency
to transform reality into a metaphor or an image: “you are avid, you create sym-
bols and transformations, which are an ethical search” (109).34 For instance, when
her grandmother died, Marta would rather remember her as a bird; or when the
adventure of the Argonauts was narrated to her, she interpreted the gold as
the image of the sun, as the Argonauts myth was the fundamental search of
the origin of the sun (109).
Marta made this solar adventure her own project: “(…) I would rather live
like the classics. Which? The Sailors of the Golden Fleece”35 (103). Her personal
project emerged by the end of adolescence and consisted in the search for the
salvation of people/countries which were victims of injustice and also going
through reforms of political systems.
The archetypes transmitted by the Medea’s narrative would determine
Marta’s actions. However, Martha was afraid of this mimetic thought because
she did not want to be led by metaphors, but by acts, as she wanted to remain
“active and pragmatic” throughout her adulthood. Later, Martha reinvented
the beginning of Genesis in the light of the revealing power of the images: “In
the beginning was the image and the image became body” (99).36
Apollodorus, Pelias threw an arrow at his heel and killed him, since the only vein he had
from neck to ankle. The Dioscuri are also often associated with the death of the giant, but
only in the iconographic tradition, not in any literary source.
33 “Mais tarde, sem jamais esquecer Medeia, pensa que é essa a definição de Arte, ao lançar
imagens de vida e de morte, as únicas possíveis na Terra.”
34 “(…) és ávida, crias símbolos e transformações, que são uma procura ética.” (109).
35 “(…) antes viver como os clássicos. Quais? Os marinheiros do Velo de Ouro” (103).
36 “Marta glanced at them, as if she could avoid the metamorphosis of those dead in
images … She knew from continuous experience that the power of images is often the
reverse of Creation in Genesis: in the beginning was the image and the image became a
body.” (“Marta olhou-os de relance, como se assim pudesse evitar a metamorfose daqueles
mortos em imagens […] Sabia, por continuada experiência, que o poder das imagens é
muitas vezes inverso do da Criação, no Génese: ao princípio era a imagem e a imagem se
fez corpo”, 99).
122 Rodrigues
What are exactly these “images”? The concept of the image consists of
the Marta’s personal reading of each experience and her own interpretation
is deeply influenced by the classical myths. Thus, Martha’s interpretation of
her memories would become more lucid, depending on her knowledge of the
myths which would increase accuracy of her judgement and perception about
herself, as her primary teacher once revealed to her:
You will be creative, multiply similarities, imitate with new memory, ever
more faithful, says the master. (112)37
Thus, for Marta, the notion of art based in Medea would consist in “casting im-
ages of life and death”, the two extremes that the human being knows: while
the former allows humans to infinitely transform reality, the latter poses a limit
to creation. This was the main revelation of Medea’s gaze to Marta.
37 “Poderás antes ser criadora, multiplicar as semelhanças, imitar com nova memória, sem-
pre mais fiel, diz o mestre” (112).
chapter 8
A Portuguese Medea: Eduarda Dionísio, Antes que a

noite venha (Before the Night Comes)
Antes1 que a noite venha, by the Portuguese author Eduarda Dionísio,2 is a set of
four monologues on the theme of love and death, spoken by four famous heroines:
Antigone and Medea, from classical Antiquity, Juliet, and the Portuguese
Castro3 from the Middle Ages, who are all part of a European tradition eternal-
ized by its expansion into the world. Dionísio chose to trivialize the essential
traits of these famous myths, adapting them to a recognizable Portuguese set-
ting in Lisbon, which the conventional pair formed by the sailor and the pros-
titute could be seen to represent. The author explains her assumptions in the
2 Eduarda Dionísio, a Portuguese secondary school teacher, has maintained a constant rela-
tionship with professional and university theatre groups in the city of Lisbon, and has also
developed interesting activities in the fields of art (participating in joint exhibitions 1965,
1968) and literature (as a writer and critic). She co-founded the Contra-Regra theatre group.
A well-known author of various fictional works between 1972 and 1993, she has made brief
incursions into drama. Perhaps because she was associated with both textual production
and the stage experience, Eduarda Dionísio expresses herself with much vehemence about
the multi-dimensional experience of spectacle, where words are but one among many other
equally important materials.
Antes que a noite venha was conceived as a response to the challenge raised by actor
Adriano Luz, whose project included the creation of a spectacle with four actresses from his
circle of friends: Luísa Cruz, Rita Blanco, Maria João Luís, and Márcia Breia. The result was
performed in 1992 in the Bairro Alto Theatre with the support of the Cornucópia company.
Written for a particular mise-en-scène and for the above-mentioned particular actresses,
Antes que a noite venha did not aim to be a theatrical text but rather a text for the theatre (12).
See Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 285–304.
3 Inês de Castro is the Portuguese contribution to the list of famous heroines, protagonists of
episodes of love and death. From Galicia, this lady of the Castilian court came to Portugal in
the entourage of Dona Constança, who was betrothed to the heir of the Portuguese throne,
the future Don Pedro I (14th century). However, between Pedro and Inês there developed
an incontrollable love, which, for political reasons, led to her assassination upon the orders
of Don Afonso IV, the reigning monarch. This episode from Portuguese history, with its ro-
mantic potential, has been converted into a veritable national ‘myth’, which has given rise to
many artistic and literary versions, including the tragedy A Castro by António Ferreira (1587)
and another tragedy in five acts, A nova Castro (The New Castro), by the Neoclassicist João
Baptista Gomes Júnior (late 18th century).

124 Silva
following words (1992) 10–1: “Porque é que Julieta, Antígona, a Castro, Medeia,
saídas quase em directo das suas tragédias mais ou menos antigas, não have-
riam de passar por aqui, pelo menos com a banalidade que lhes deu a contínua
passagem de boca em boca, de cabeça em cabeça, de coração em coração?
(…) Porque é que o amor e a morte de uma mulher sem nome hão-de ser dife-
rentes, como isso do amor e da morte dos monstros sagrados que a literatura
foi reduzindo a frases?” (Why would Juliet, Antigone, Castro, Medea, stepping
almost directly out of their more or less ancient tragedies, not stop by, at least
with the banality afforded by their continuous passage from mouth to mouth,
from heart to heart? […] Why should the love and death of a nameless woman
be different, like that thing about the love and death of sacred monsters which
literature has gradually reduced to sentences?).
This approach may have implied a different cultural context, but it still kept
close to the stories it was based upon;4 on the question of structure, however,
there is a much wider difference. The new text does not follow the conventions
of dramatic writing. It consists of a succession of monologues which might not
fall under the label of theatre were it not for the identity of the voices, all of
which belong to the tragic tradition.
In the volume dedicated to the reception of Antigone, included in this
collection,5 I analysed the influence of Malago author María Zambrano and
of her text La Tumba de Antigona (Antigone’s Tomb) on Eduarda Dionísio.
The change of protagonist from Antigone to Medea did not entail a change of
structural model. Dionísio sticks to a similar pattern of successive monologues
addressed to several interlocutors, through which the course of a life and its
emotional entanglements can be reconstructed.
1 Medea’s Monologues
Thus in Antes que a noite venha, Medea speaks three monologues: Fala a Jasão
(Speech to Jason), Fala a si própria (Speech to Herself), Fala ao público (Speech
to the Audience). The very choice of interlocutor, in the first two cases, shows
that the storyline is essentially a conflict between two people, in which the
remaining traditional players fade into the background. With the final address
to the public, Medea’s story is immortalized, raised to a different level, mak-
ing the personal universal. Notwithstanding this, whoever her interlocutor is,
4 Euripides’s version of Medea is E. Dionísio’s main classical reference, as I shall seek to prove
with several references to specific passages of the Greek Medea.
5 See Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 90–109.
A Portuguese Medea: Eduarda Dionísio 125
Medea expresses her feelings in each monologue; she and her life journey are
the focus, which means that in this new approach to the story of the Colchian
princess the emphasis is laid on the female experience of a betrayed love that
unleashes an extreme revenge. Central traditional figures, such as Creon, are
absent. If he is mentioned at all, it is mostly in his quality as king, and as such
he represents his daughter’s prominent position as the object of Jason’s am-
bitious designs; on the other hand, as a “pai e rei poderoso” (a father and a
powerful king), he is held responsible for the loneliness that Medea has been
condemned to endure, and as such, he becomes a target for her anger. In
her turn, the young woman who is now her rival deserves no more than an
anonymous “she”; deprived of a personality, she is regarded as a mere alter-
native among Jason’s interests and goals. Even the role of Medea’s children –
who, according to convention, will serve as a means of revenge – is continually
postponed and sidelined in relation to the main theme of excessive love and
betrayal. Such absences, as well as other brief references to nameless figures,
underline the fact that the text dynamics is almost entirely centered on a cou-
ple’s relationship, witnessed in memories and in the children it produced, and
revealing an oikos that is falling apart.
In Euripides’ version, the two agones between Jason and Medea are defining
moments.6 The asymmetry of these confrontations is well known: in the first of
them, Jason is confronted with Medea’s outspoken, unrelenting rage, express-
ing her rejection of the traitor. To her outburst of hatred caused by his ingrati-
tude and betrayal in the face of a love so generously given, Jason responds by
invoking altruistic motivations, which mask his ambition, both genuine and
vain. Her explosion of rage is followed by the subtle and cynical preparation
of retaliation. With simulated meekness and words of repentance, Medea pre-
pares deception; and Jason, unconscious of the true nature of his years-long
companion, believes in her compliance, and unwittingly collaborates in her
revenge. Euripides thereby endows his protagonist with the arts of an actress,
one who feigns in order to persuade each one of her interlocutors, namely
Creon and Jason. The Portuguese author substitutes straightforwardness and
the power of words for feigning, as if the absence of Medea’s interlocutors
(who are only virtual), would allow her to avoid that effort of theatricality.
6 The importance of language effects in the Euripidean play led Boedeker (1991) 97 to describe
it as a “tragedy of discourse”. On this, see also McClure (1999) 373–94, who stresses Medea’s
“blame speech”; the heroine’s oaths, threats, censures, and insults (e.g. 465–74, 488) are also
present in the speeches of Eduarda Dionísio’s protagonist. This type of language does not
correspond to the Greek model of how a wife should address her husband, but it obviously
befits Medea’s passionate soul.
126 Silva
This central passage in Euripides’ play, in which the poison of words rather
than that of drugs is used by Medea to overcome enemy resistance, was not
without influence on contemporary rewritings of this theme. For example, on
Anouilh’s creation, Lasso de la Vega suggests:7 “In its structure, the play is sup-
ported by two central dialogues, one between Medea and Creon, her declared
enemy, and another between Medea and Jason; this second dialogue occupies
almost half of the play, in length, and lies at its very core”.
These monologues convey a vivid description of a life journey – from a re-
membered past, on to a present of rejection, anticipating a future charged with
revenge – as if the protagonist’s words were being matched by genuine live action.
The verb tenses accentuate this diachrony in each of the speeches. Treachery,
the driver of all reactions – which is congruent with the choice of beginning in
medias res – is expressed in present tenses, signaling each one of Jason’s false
gestures: “falas” (you speak), “saúdas” (you salute), “fazes” (you do), “és” (you are),
“dizes” (you say), “mentes” (you lie), “disfarças” (you hide) – all variants of a sort
of captatio of goodwill with a repeatedly outspoken aim voiced in the future
tense: “serás rei” (you shall be king), “serás déspota” (you will be a despot).
This is followed by a flashback, recalling a past that is over, but puzzling
in light of present feelings. The present and past perfect tenses highlight the
differences in their commitment to each other – the doubts of one, and the de-
termination of the other of the young couple: “me tenhas amado” (you [may]
have loved me), “amei-te” (I did love you), “larguei terras” (I left my lands)
“matei” (I killed) “entreguei” (I gave), “foste” (you were). Before its actual fulfill-
ment, revenge is being planned – “ela há-de morrer” (she will die), “morrerão”
(they will die) – expressed in threatening future tenses aimed at her enemies.
But other utterances – “enterro um punhal” (I bury a dagger), “beijo” (I kiss)
“abraço” (I embrace), “a morte que lhes dou” (the death I grant them) – bring
to the present the future death of the children. Given the compactness of the
text, verbal tenses produce the dynamic effect of an imaginary action.
Adopting a monologic model within the set of interventions that make
up Antes que a noite venha8 – which, as suggested earlier, is inspired by María
Zambrano – the Portuguese author gives voice to the unconventional personality
traits of Euripides’ Medea. In a society where women were relegated to a silent
background – a diagnosis of female condition presented by Euripides’ Medea her-
self – the lucidity and strong personality of Aeetes’ daughter explain her disregard
of convention. As suggested by S. Barlow,9 Medea is not only aware of the injustice
7 I I (2002) 903.

8 See above p. 124
9 (1989) 160.
and inequality that women endure, “she is capable of analysing the behaviour of
others and she can diagnose how they will act in reaction to her own calculated
movements”. Such lucidity and will to rebel account for her ability to avoid ste-
reotypes and manipulate them in the brutal and outspoken way that befits her
excessive personality. But those same qualities explain the reflections which, in
Dionísio’s play, constitute the only means of presenting her history.
1.1 Speech to Jason

Speech to Jason focuses on key aspects of the development of the couple’s re-
lationship: the description of the hero, their encounter, their coming together,
followed by the breach, and the triggering of revenge. This is the longest of
the three monologues,10 because it summarizes the story’s preceding events. It
bears the recognizable biting tone of Euripides’ Medea.
Detesto a tua voz azeda

quando a oiço riscando o silêncio fundo do palácio.
(I hate your acrid voice

when I hear it across the deep silence of the palace.)
The account begins in medias res and the conflict is presented as language con-
flict, with traditional Euripidean wordplay and incapacity for genuine com-
munication between the figures being two prevalent elements. More than
authenticity or our understanding of the matter, what first strikes us negatively
is dissonance, which resonates in the verbalization of the story on stage. Only
10 In Euripides’ prologue, the Nurse recalls the events that occurred before the critical pres-
ent moment in Medea’s home, in Corinth, a role taken on by the Corinthian princess
herself in the Portuguese version. This transposition causes a change of tone, which
becomes more intimate, more personal, as well as more violent, intensifying the deser
ted woman’s explosion of anger. What the old Nurse described as the signs of her lady’s
fury caused by the breach of a commitment that had been spontaneously made by the
couple – “Medea – poor unfortunate lady! – cries out in outrage, and invokes the oaths he
swore, the handclasps, the supreme pledge” (Euripides, Medea 20–2) – can now be heard
live. Flory (1978) 69–74 gives some thought to this question of the pledge between Jason
and Medea being sealed with a handclasp. Easterling (1977) 180–1, in her turn, uses this
topic as a way to emphasize that Euripides was indeterminate about the legal bonds be-
tween the couple, thus arguing that theirs was not a formal link, but rather an emotional
commitment; the rupture can therefore be seen as a true emotional betrayal. In the Greek
tragedy, the Nurse’s speech is followed by the entrance of an enraged Medea, confirming
the Nurse’s words. The first monologue of Dionísio’s play covers the aspects which in the
original play are recounted by Medea and the Nurse.
128 Silva
then does the fakeness of what is being said become apparent, at the same
time as Jason’s portrayal begins.
Falas com fingidas felicidades a quem te cruza.
(You speak with fake felicities to those you meet.)
The Argonaut’s major personality trait is superficiality, a tendency to avoid

strong, sound emotional connections with those around him. Once family
ties are broken, Jason favors loose, conventional ties, and avoids solid relation-
ships. Consequently, what he says may be pleasant to the ear, but it is false. This
assumption is soon elaborated upon:11
Saúdas sem vergonha o sol, e todos,

como amigos recentes,
inseguro da tua mórbida decisão.
Com esforço fazes
como se tudo já te pertencesse na cidade.
(Unashamedly you greet the sun, and all,

like recent friends,
unsure of your morbid choice.
With effort you behave
as if everything in the city was already yours.)
Jason comes out as the wandering hero, who knows no homeland and always
tends to be the stranger. There is a certain insolence about him that stems from
this emotional detachment and from constantly facing the unknown. Stateless,
optimist, daring, a conqueror – he unashamedly pretends to feel philia, wher-
ever he finds himself; the sun is the symbol of his boundless universe. In truth,
however, his aims are inconsistent and fleeting; he acts “as if”, and as far as his
affections are concerned, his life is a complete sham. His friends are recent and
he appears to be unfettered by family or any other kind of emotional ties.
11 Williamson (1990) 24 argues that, for Euripides’ Medea, Jason’s detachment from his
philoi is the main justification for her revenge. In the agon where the couple confront
each other, the betrayed woman’s first accusation is precisely this lack of respect for the
philia (Euripides, Medea 470). Later on – (1990) 25 – Williamson views Medea’s accusa-
tions as the expression of the famous norm applied to the philia: “love thy friends and
hate thy enemies” (cf., e.g., Euripides, Medea 809).
As she completes this brief sketch, accentuating Jason’s instability and root-
lessness, Medea moves on to the major phase of the Argonaut’s life – his meet-
ing with Aeetes’ daughter.
És hoje o pior dos homens

que mulher alguma
alguma vez concebeu
nestes países medonhos
para onde em má hora
corpo e alma
me transportei.
(Now you are the worst of men

whom any woman
has ever conceived
in these dreadful countries
whither at an unlucky hour
I transported myself
body and soul)
After this portrayal of Jason as the worst of men, the focus is laid on his re-
lationships with the opposite sex, particularly with Medea. Jason belongs to
a category of men that might perhaps be acceptable among men, but which
women find utterly unacceptable. Feelings, and the consistency of those feel-
ings, separate the male and the female worlds. Thessaly and Corinth, those
dreadful countries, imply rootlessness, but whereas for Jason, the man with no
home city, the universe is his world, Medea suffers tremendously from being
stranded in an alien land. Women don’t deal well with this kind of limbo of
feelings, and the Colchian princess is once again the paradigm of the woman
who, out of love, is led to accept an unnatural situation: she willingly exiled
herself, body and soul, in an unconscious and reckless gesture.
The confessional tone of the text is heightened as Medea recalls Jason’s
dreams – the enticing promises that he did not keep:
Serás rei, dizes, e poderoso

pela mão daquela por quem com alarde me trocaste.
Serás déspota do corpo dela
como qualquer homem é déspota do corpo da mulher
que só lhe serve para fazer fortuna e descendência,
130 Silva
mais alta ou mais baixa,

conforme a sorte, o ano, o dia, o mês.12
(You shall be king, you say, and powerful

by the hand of her for whom you have exchanged me.
You will be a despot of her body
as any man is a despot of a woman’s body
which serves him only to make a fortune and secure his progeny,
higher or lower,
depending on luck, year, day, and month.)
Considering the cultural distance between Euripides’ tragedy and the speech-
es of this Portuguese Medea, the way in which the defining traits of the female
condition are rendered in the second text deserves attention. Of all those as-
pects condemned by Euripides’ Medea in her rhesis (230–51) as the signs of
subservience that fifth-century Athenian society imposes on women – the
necessity of a dowry to buy a husband, home reclusion, the dependence on
a husband, the impossibility of putting an end to a marriage that has lost its
meaning – the only one singled out in the contemporary speech is that which
is supported by physis, ‘nature’, rather than by nomos, ‘custom’, or ‘convention’:
the male power over the female body (see Euripides, Medea 233–4). Stripped
of affection, that entitlement preserves its usefulness, in E. Dionísio’s choice of
words, which allude to the advantages of a profitable marriage and the higher
goal of guaranteeing progeny.
Jason’s plan is typically masculine, set primarily on access to power, which
in his view justifies everything, even treachery. His aim is the fusion with a new
genos, the lineage of the royal house of Corinth. Driven by mere self-interest,
he shows no feelings for his new bride (as he possibly did not towards Medea,
in Colchis). To hide this, he exaggerates his feelings for his new bride, a heavy
blow for the Colchian woman and an illusion for Creusa. All his personal re-
lationships are motivated by this kind of ambition. Jason, as a man, does not
conceive the relationship between a man and a woman as needing affection
or intimacy; it is reduced to the exercise of a purely physical tyranny, with the
very pragmatic aims of reaping the immediate benefits of a fortune and, in a
12 The motives exposed by Medea for the marriage betrayal are denied in advance in
Euripides’ play, by Jason himself (Euripides, Medea 555–7): “Not for those reasons that so
hurt you did I leave, not because I was tired of you, not because I was drawn by desire for
another woman, or because I was set on begetting many children”.
near future, those that result from the begetting of children. It is impersonal,
mechanical and occasional.
The female part in this story is altogether different.
Talvez me tenhas amado.

Eu amei-te certamente.
Larguei terras, pais.
Matei irmão.13
(You may have loved me.

I certainly did love you.
I left my lands, my parents.
I killed my brother.)
Strong, concise words describe Medea’s love and the excesses she is by nature
driven into. The sharp contrast between the two protagonists of the Colchis
episode is clearly expressed with “Talvez” (You may) and “certamente” (cer-
tainly) – she doubts his feelings, while hers are true. Neither the Golden Fleece
nor the princess’s part in the adventure are mentioned, and this omission of
the myth’s details universalizes the story. This is about a woman who relin-
quishes all for a stranger who has captivated her. Like the traditional Medea
(Euripides, Medea 509–18) this one also acts against philia, as she abandons
and/or kills her own children14. Her magic is also absent, which accentuates
the humanity of the reasons and the strength of the feelings involved.
Everything changed in Corinth, including Jason:
Não passas de um exilado inconformado

com o pouco poder que te coube na partilha.
Mentes.
Disfarças com inventadas razões
os desejos impuros que te corrompem e consomem.
Aquela que te ofereceram é filha de rei.
Foste construindo a sangue frio
à revelia da vida que te entreguei
13 See Euripides, Medea 31–4, 166–7.

14 Williamson argues (1990) 24–5 that Jason’s desertion of his philoi seems to pass on to
Medea herself. To protect her escape and her overwhelming passion, Aeetes’ daughter
is willing to sever her closest philia ties. Therefore, their relationship is based on these
multiple ruptures.
132 Silva
o bom senso que nenhum peso tem.

No outro prato da balança está
num pequeno monte de pó
o ouro do meu amor intenso.
Foste tudo para mim.
Hoje és um outro.
(You are nothing but an exile dissatisfied

with the little power that was your inherited share.
You lie.
You hide behind made-up reasons
the impure desires that corrupt and consume you.
The one you have been offered is a king’s daughter.
You gradually built up cold bloodedly
notwithstanding the life I gave to you
your weightless common sense.
Cast onto the other pan of the scales is
inside a small heap of dust
the gold of my intense love.
You were everything to me.
Today you are another.)
In Corinth, Jason is more of an alien than in Colchis. In his homeland he feels

like an exile, more so than Medea herself, because his world is the world of
power, the throne, a goal he failed to achieve. Maybe it is in Greece, where
Medea can be of no help, that Jason’s great adventure is supposed to unfold
and fail. On his own, Jason’s weapons are, as usual, false words and guile. To
achieve his designs, the meanest of ambitions, with none of the excellence
expected of an heroic figure, he will once again use a woman. Of this woman’s
character and emotions, we know nothing. Her feelings are not mentioned, so
that all that matters is the consequences of her involvement. She was a passive
offering, in which her will had no part. Her only identity trait is summarized in
a sentence – “é filha de rei” (she is a king’s daughter). Her existence is merely
circumstantial. She was, in her status, the bait for the Argonaut’s ambition. She
became the empty counterweight of Medea’s love, cast onto the other pan and
unbalancing the scales.
Jason’s conscious, coldblooded choice has once again turned feelings into
dust, gold dust, the only prize he intends to conquer. The emotional void that
his actions betray is matched by the intensity of Medea’s passion. After the
rupture, for which she holds Jason solely responsible, everything changed. In
this case, the foreign woman’s exile is sentimental, in a story of love and death.
Como rocha, como onda do mar,

escuto os conselhos desses conciliadores de profissão,
enviados das terras e das casas,
onde nunca ninguém soube o que fosse paixão.
Tenho o corpo prisioneiro do gelo
em que este lago de lágrimas se vai tornando.
Não posso despregar os olhos do chão.15
A minha mente roda
presa à lança que a espeta.
De nada valeu afinal
a bárbara coragem com que traí os meus e a ti me dei.
(Like a rock, like a sea wave,

I listen to the advices of those professional conciliators,
envoys from the lands and the homes
where no one ever knew what passion might be.
My body is prisoner of the ice
which this pool of tears is becoming.
I cannot lift my eyes from the ground.
My mind swirls
stuck to the spear that pierces it.
In the end to no avail was
the barbarian courage with which I betrayed my own and gave myself
to you.)
Her immediate response is personal, physical, rooted in the past and in her
deepest identity. An obstinate silence, in full contrast with Jason’s false and fee-
ble words, expresses her reticent and strong personality. The rock and sea land-
scape metaphor is in tune with Medea’s character, the barbarian from across
the sea. No one around her understands the silence and the reticence that turn
into her a paradigm of passion. Among those “conciliadores de profissão” (pro-
fessional conciliators) are the Nurse, the chorus women, Aegeus, or even Creon,
all of whom, following tradition, try to persuade her with words of compliance.
Medea’s initial reaction is visual, she offers herself to the imprudent eyes of
those who surround her without perceiving her strength – the Argonaut, first
of all. Rigid, tearful, eyes fixed on the ground, as if in an obstinate breach with
15 These words echo the Euripidean passage where the Nurse describes the physical reac-
tion of her mistress, in an explosion of suffering (Medea 24–8): “She lies fasting, yielding
her body to grief. She wastes her days in tears ever since she learnt that she was wronged
by her husband, never lifting her eyes nor raising her face from the ground”.
134 Silva
the world, Medea feels bound by a painful obsession which hurts her mind,
her reasoning, more than her soul. Being emotionally betrayed or exposed to
Corinthian xenophobia is not as prominent as the notion of emptiness – an
emptiness that had rendered useless her escape from Colchis or the crimes she
had committed, leaving her exposed to the utmost annulment, that which, as
previously pointed out, is the most alien to female nature.
Medea looks back on her life’s journey, away from her homeland:
Homem, filhos, casa, pais

nada do que tive e fui
é já parte deste mundo.
(Man, children, home, parents

nothing I had and was
now belongs to this world.)
Her normal self – Medea is not, in this text, the radical or heroic personality
that many have seen in her, but rather the paradigm of women and their yearn-
ings – is shaken, and the lover becomes a brutal and unfamiliar creature.
In this abnormal state of mind, the thought of her children takes hold of her:
Antes me queria ver, no fio da morte, em campo de batalha que não

vencesse
do que ser aquela a quem coube parir estes dois filhos16
desonrados e banidos
na voragem que te arrasta.
Se não queres que te pertençam a ti
também não me hão-de pertencer a mim.
Cães danados serão
errando por esses caminhos,
mordidos na alma que se abate neles
por tua mão de ferro e tua vontade de corvo.17
16 This is a paraphrase of the famous verses of Euripides’ Medea, in the protagonist’s speech
on the woes of the female condition (250–1): “I would rather stand three times in battle
than give birth once”.
17 This first mention of her sons by the Portuguese Medea seems to illustrate the detach-
ment that the Nurse had noticed in her mistress in Euripides’ play (Euripides, Medea 36):
“She feels hatred for her children. She feels no joy, when she looks at them”. The turmoil of
feelings inside her stifles the mother’s love for her children – who, at first, seem more like
pawns in a game played by conflicting parents than the object of true affection.
(I would rather find myself, at the edge of death, in a defeated battlefield

than be the one whose lot was to give birth to these two sons
dishonored and banished
into the vortex that sucks you in.
If you do not wish them to belong to you
neither shall they then belong to me.
Mad dogs they shall become
wandering about these roads,
bitten in the soul that crushes inside them
led by your iron hand and by your raven’s will.)
As with Euripides’ Medea (Medea 250–1), what this woman recalls from mother-
hood is a type of suffering that no manly battle can compare with. Because of
Jason, those sons that were the fruit of love and the source of so many dreams
were now destroyed, heirs to the exile to which their parents had condemned
them. Complaints are now gradually replaced by threats, especially the one she
knows will hurt him the most; Medea’s words do not so much imply death in the
infernal shadows as death in life; let exile and the dishonor of his offspring be the
worst of punishments for a father who is guilty of violence and ambition.
As her love is transformed in equally violent hatred, Medea’s feelings burst
into fierce words. Her whole nature rebels, in a physiological and visceral reac-
tion. This is a long scene, like the depths of her state of mind.
É nojo de ti
o que me inunda.
Vejo-te acomodado nesse outro leito quente
onde todas as noites ela te esperará
e onde hás-de refazer os gestos que aprendemos, eu contigo e tu comigo,
os dois.18
(Loathing of you
is what overwhelms me.
I see you settled in that other warm bed
where she will await you every night
and where you will be repeating the gestures we have learned, I from
you, you from [me],
both.)
18 With these words, Eduarda Dionísio specifies what the chorus of Corinthian women an-
nounces in general terms, in Euripides’ play (204–6): “Hear her bitter cries, her woeful
lament caused by that traitor of her marriage bed.”
136 Silva
More than ‘hatred’, the word that best expresses the nausea caused by Jason
on the woman who had once loved him is ‘disgust’, or ‘loathing’. This nausea
becomes a symptom of jealousy, when the memory of their former shared in-
timacy is profaned by its repetition with another woman. Her motivation rises
and incurs consequences.
É um nojo tão intenso

que não sei onde o vazar.
Entorna-se no silêncio que sobe do coração à boca
em palavras
como fétidos alimentos que estômago algum pode tragar.
Fel bebido a tragos, vinagre sugado da esponja
na hora da morte que me libertará.
Assim abrevio a vida odiosa que me ofereces.19
(My disgust is so intense

that I do not know where to leak it.
It spills into the silence that goes up from the heart to the mouth
in words
like fetid food that no stomach can take.
Gale taken in gulps, vinegar sucked from the sponge
at the hour of the death that will free me.
Thus I cut short this hateful life you give to me.)
Once more, Medea speaks words of death, of lethal poisoning. But in this case
there are no filters or poisons engendered by the cunning hand of a sorceress;
this time the soul of an offended and deserted woman seems to segregate bit-
ter potions whose effect is as powerful as any other potion. And Medea is the
first victim of this interior alchemy.
Reminded of that “outro leito quente” (other warm bed) where Jason repli-
cates the happy bygone days, the betrayed woman views her bed as the cause
of her greatest suffering. In so doing, she seems to legitimize Jason’s accusa-
tion, in Euripides, towards women in general (569–73): “You women always
think that the world is yours as long as your marriage bed is safe; but as soon
as this bed is deserted, you feel nothing but hatred for the best and most
handsome of lovers”. This reference from the Greek version inspired Eduarda
Dionísio to emphasize jealousy as the driving force of her character; for the
Portuguese Medea, the memory of their meetings as lovers, in full contrast
19 The idea of liberating suicide is also not alien to Euripides’ protagonist; cf. 40, 96–7, 145–7,
226–7.
with the present situation, after she was replaced by a rival, causes deep bit-
terness, a feeling that Euripides’ Medea, more sensitive to her condition as an
exile in a hostile polis, does not show to the same extent.20
Fico imóvel nesse leito que foi nosso.

Abruptamente, brutamente
o pudeste esquecer
fazendo-te selvagem.
(I lie motionless on that bed which used to be ours.

Abruptly, brutally
you were able to forget it
making yourself wild.)
With this unexpected but by no means less radical emotional breach, Medea
perceives the hero’s true brutality, which now takes the place of his old glamor,
and her passive feelings of disgust are replaced by a proactive need for revenge.
A minha vontade de vingança vai subindo da imobilidade,

águia mal ferida.
(My thirst for revenge gradually raises up from immobility,

a severely wounded eagle.)
At first paralyzed by the shock caused by the betrayal, Medea gradually re-
awakens – not to love, which had already led to crime – but to seek revenge; a
revenge that, in a strong character like hers, is bound to be devastating.
Rangem nos ares faíscas de venenos,

lanço sobre quem chega o olhar de uma leoa parida.21
(In the air creak lightnings of poisons,

on those who come near I cast the look of a lioness who has just given
birth.)
20 Boedeker (1991) 95 speaks for the commentators of Euripides’ Medea who assert that:
“When we look at her own words, in contrast to what others (the Nurse, the chorus, Creon,
Jason) say about her situation, we find little reference to jealousy and even less to love
gone wrong”. But the words of the Portuguese Medea show a rather different emphasis.
21 This comes from a comment made by the Nurse in Euripides’ Medea (187–9): “She glares
fiercely upon her servants, like a lioness with cubs, if they come near, or speak to her”.
138 Silva
Finding it difficult, once more, to put her anger into words, whether they be
words of hate or of recrimination, Medea’s reaction is fierce – it does not follow
reason, it springs from her inner self, like a beast, all her strength concentrated
on her eyes and fangs. But under that image of the feline ready to jump on its
prey there is something of the sorceress Medea who deals with poisons and of
the woman who carries a painful memory of giving birth – two inescapable
topics in the tradition of the Colchian princess.
1.2 Speech to Herself

The second monologue is about Medea herself, as if erasing Jason in order to
allow the drama to fully identify with the word “saudade”, expressing not only
longing, but also regret.
É uma saudade muito grande que alastra

por cima da raiva que mantenho
sem já conseguir fazê-la crescer como queria.
Não mais serei aquela que já fui.
(A very deep longing spreads

over the anger that I harbor
unable to make it grow as I would have wished.
No more will I be the one who I once was).
In spite of her break with the past, her longing seems to surpass her anger. At
first, those vague, general memories have a soothing effect, reminding her of
those two immensely different phases of her life, the past and the future. Her
longing is expressed in the palpable image of the “mar que deixei” (the sea that
I left), the distant and inaccessible homeland, and in the loss of her personal
ties, “quando tinha pai e mãe” (when I had a father and a mother). All that is
left is the disgusting shame resulting from the failure of what had looked like a
seductive and natural life plan.
O corpo que ele já não quer,

os filhos paridos nas dores feridas,
a coragem que eu soube ter.
(The body he no longer desires,

the children born in wounded pains,
the courage I was able to amass.)
The courage that had found expression in Medea’s ability to kill and to be-
tray in the name of her love is now completely focused on revenge. The “azul
líquido” (liquid blue) of the immense sea that reminded her of her youthful
days is transformed by the bitterness of revenge into “verde líquido que do
fundo sobe e faz morrer” (the green liquid that rises from the bottom and
makes you die). This interplay of colors, turning clear water into veritable poi-
son, turns the past into a weapon of the future.
Sei bem esse verde junto às rochas

quando o antigo mar era muito transparente.
(I know well that green by the rocks

when the ancient sea was remarkably transparent.)
She now talks of poison:
Ela se há-de envenenar sem saber (…)

ela há-de morrer.
(She will poison herself without knowing it […]

she shall die.)
As in Euripides, her rival will be the first victim of a now inevitable revenge.
But that would not be enough for such a profound hatred.
E morrerão pai e rei poderoso numa só morte, (…)22

E morrerão todos os que me puseram numa solidão de velha mulher
que não sou ainda. (…)
Vermelho o sangue que há-de haver.
Os meus filhos o farão correr.
(And the father and the powerful king shall die one death, […]
And all shall die who have led me to the solitude of an old woman
which I am not yet. […]
Red the blood that shall be drawn.
By my children’s hands.)
22 See Euripides, Medea 163–4.

140 Silva
Creon will also die, and, with the king of Corinth, so will the city of so many
of Medea’s enemies. With this crucial episode, her longing for Colchis seems
to fade away, to be replaced by another longing, now for a second phase of her
life, which is also over. In between her outbursts of aggressiveness and revenge,
Medea is nevertheless still a passionate lover.
Guardarei para mim

o contentamento grande que houve nesta casa
quando ele me trouxe de longe
e eu o quis.
(I shall keep to myself

the great contentment in this house
when he brought me in from afar
and I desired him.)
1.3 Speech to the Audience

The final monologue is addressed “ao público” (to the audience), now that her
interlocutors in the successive stages of her life are no more. To those who
listen, either on the other side of the stage or on the book pages, she reveals
herself as the filicide. The famous monologue, in Euripides, of a mother’s ago-
nizing dilemma – to kill or not to kill her loving children (1019–80) – displays its
true nature: a list of the reasons that can lead a woman to kill her own children.
It begins with an emphasis on innocence.
Chegaram as crianças. Vêm contentes.

Ofereceram o presente envenenado
sem qualquer engano nas palavras que tinham para dizer.
(The children are back. They are happy.

They have delivered the poisoned gift
no mistakes at all in the words they were supposed to say.)
In line with tradition, the children are unaware of the crime they committed.
Their hands delivered the presents which, with their threatening charm, will
cause death. The deception is all the more true because their actions are com-
pletely innocent. For the first time, sincere words are spoken – without losing
their elusive nature.
The children of the forsaken wife are the means through which the new
bride is denied the blessings of motherhood. Rather than reject the laughter
that so tormented her as a sign of scorn and insensitiveness for the Colchian
exile, Medea is now intent on eliminating all the proofs or fruits of a rival love.
Ela não será mãe, nem amante, nem madrasta.23
(She shall not be a mother, nor a lover, nor a stepmother.)
Furthermore, the full story of a broken family is embodied in these children.
Vejo o olhar do pai nos olhos dos filhos que brincam à porta de casa (…)
Vejo a vergonha da mãe abandonada
nas corridas que eles dão.
(I see the father’s look in the eyes of the children who play by the door […]
I see the shame of the abandoned mother
in their racing games.)
In their gesture of naivety and innocence, children are expected to open the
future. In a story of failure and ruin, the only future in sight is one of extinction.
Acabadas estão as suaves manhãs e as doces noites

no leito que escolheu,
o de maior poder e de maior riqueza.
Ele não terá coroa, nem louros, nem felicidade, nem amor
que não tenha sido o meu.
(The soft mornings and the sweet nights are over

in the bed that he chose,
the more powerful one, the wealthier.
He will not have a crown, laurels, neither happiness nor love
other than what mine has been).
After the death of his bride, Jason is killed alive, forced to endure the frustra-
tion of everything he had dreamed about.
One final blow was missing, the one with which Euripides immortalized
Medea’s experience as a woman.
23 See Euripides, Medea 805.

142 Silva
Enterro um punhal no centro exacto,

no peito de cada criança
enquanto as beijo e abraço.
Eram meus filhos.
(I stick a dagger into the exact center,

into the chest of each child
while I kiss them and embrace them.
They were my sons.)
Such a radical gesture has given rise to many interpretations. Was it caused by
hatred, a rash gesture of a disturbed mind? Or rather the measured planned
act of a jealous wife? Could she have killed her children out of love, wishing to
protect them from an uncertain future? Dionísio’s Medea has her own reasons,
which, because they were mostly personal, might be seen as mean. She lacks
the ‘heroic’ soul’s pleasure in victory that we find in Euripides’ play (Medea
765–6), whose heroine rejoices in her enemy’s defeat. Her reasons are per-
sonal, emotional – she wished to crush her rival’s dreams and to protect her
children, whom she now sees as her exclusive property:24
A morte que lhes dou pertence-me a mim.

Mato o maior amor que tive,
eu que lhes dei o viver.
(The death I give them belongs to me.

I kill the greatest love I have ever had,
I who gave them life.)
Her words seem to betray no more than the pleasure of deciding what to do
with what she considers hers, a feeling of “numa quase alegria de nascer” (an
almost-joy of being born). This final blow puts an end to Medea’s human jour-
ney. She is now bound for that other side of her remote past, as one link in the
chain of Helios’ descendants.
24
One might interpret the Portuguese heroine’s words and attitude in the light of
Williamson’s words (1990) 26 on her model, Euripides’ Medea: “One reading of this new
style is that it gives Medea heroic dignity, and adds weight to her as a spokesman for the
rights of women”. Dionísio’s version may be less forceful, but her Medea does assert the
merit of emotions, the defining trait of female nature, and in so doing, she upholds the
supremacy of women over men.
Seguro as rédeas do carro do sol.

A terra está toda por baixo de mim,
espalmada entre mares azuis que conheci.
(I hold the reigns of the sun’s chariot.

The earth is all beneath me,
flattened between blue seas that I have known.)
In that miraculous flight that takes her away from earth and raises her above
humans,25 the Sun’s granddaughter gradually loses the features induced by a
life journey that had made her fierce while she was a mere mortal. She looks
back with pleasure on the outcome of her revenge on the traitor. And she finds
an altruistic explanation for her filicide which she could not feel before, when
she was chained to the earth. She can now proclaim:
Salvei-os do mundo podre onde o pai queria com traição dar-lhes

poder e riqueza.
(I have rescued them from the rotten world where their father wished
through treason to give them
power and riches.)
And finally be redeemed.
Cada vez mais longe

muito perto do sol
começo a matar a minha saudade.
(Farther and farther away

very close to the sun
I begin to assuage my longing.)
25 This final image has drawn many interpretations. The ‘sun’s chariot’ is obviously a magical
means of escape that can be linked to Medea’s mixed human and divine ancestry, but also
to a regulatory order of the universe that escapes human control. Bordaux (1996) 173 sug-
gests that this chariot escape is also an image for yet another exile to which the Colchian
princess has been condemned: suspended in the air, she is like a landless person in search
of a destiny that, in this critic’s view, is turned into a paradox, neither revenge, nor failure.
chapter 9
Hélia Correia’s A de Cólquida (The Woman from

Colchis)
Celebrating1 their long years of companionship, Hélia Correia dedicated to

Jaime Rocha on his birthday four short poetic prose texts that represent a very
personal re-reading of classical culture and of some of its major myths in
volving women as central characters. Gathered under the title of Apodera-te de
mim (2002) (Take Possession of Me), the texts, which show a profound know
ledge of the Greek world, are hermeneutical exercises in which Hélia Correia is
deeply engaged, and they establish a dialogue between mutually interrogating
and mutually illuminating epochs and characters.
We have had the opportunity of discussing two of those texts before:
the proem, Em Knossos (In Knossos),2 which reflects on the development
of Hellenic culture, from the Minoan civilization to Athenian classicism, in
which the acknowledgement of women as cultural beings had an extremely
relevant dimension; and Penthesiléa,3 which deals with the big questions of
time, memory and the adequate language in which to express myth, even in
its most forbidden facets. This time we will focus on the figure of Medea, the
protagonist of A de Cólquida.
As in the two previous texts, in the case of this Medea women’s issues
become the core of the interpretation of the myth, in line with the author’s
preferences.4 The text is short and differs from the major Euripidean guide-
lines, while incorporating other topics within the myth that were also keen to
antiquity. As a matter of fact, Medea’s Colchian adventures, her passion for the
Argonaut and her coming to Greece, all aspects which in Euripides function
2 Hörster, Silva (2014) 421–32.
3 Hörster, Silva (2015) 169–92.
4 This preference is acknowledged in all of the plays that the author has dedicated to classi-
cal tradition: Perdição. Exercício sobre Antígona (1991) (Perdition. An Exercise on Antigone),
Rancor. Exercício sobre Helena (2000) (Rancour. An Exercise on Helen) and Desmesura.
Exercício com Medeia (2006) (Excess. An Exercise with Medea).

Hélia Correia ’ s A de Cólquida ( The Woman From Colchis ) 145
mostly as a background to the central action, were given a variety of literary

solutions in archaic and hellenistic epics, in the lyric and in Greek tragedy
around Euripides’ time.5
The attraction that the Colchian woman’s character holds for Hélia Correia,
which is manifested for the first time in this text, was to be developed some
years later in a drama version called Desmesura. Exercício com Medeia (2006).6
This first narrative may thus be considered a sort of counterpoint of both the
Euripidean version and Hélia Correia’s later approach to the myth.
1 “Não conheci Medeia, a pensativa” (I Did Not Know Medea,

the Pensive One)
An important reading protocol is immediately established in the incipit: not

only does Hélia Correia emphasize the personal relationship between the first-
person female narrator and her character7 – “Não conheci Medeia” (9) (I did
not know Medea) – but she also characterizes her by means of a single trait,
not of a social or physical nature, but rather psychological and intellectual:
“Medeia, a pensativa” (9) (Medea, the pensive one). Two important motifs are
thus synthetically introduced: (a) the foreignness of the figure vis-à-vis the
narrator, which might be read as a metonymy of what is impenetrable in the
human soul,8 and in particular, in women’s soul; and (b) the enhancement of
the reflexive component in a female character.9 Hélia Correia thus continues
5 On this, see above Finglass, pp. 11–20.

6 See below Silva, pp. 158–83.
7 The narrator explicitly acknowledges her female identity: “Muitas foram as vezes em que
estive deitada sobre as lajes” (9) (Many were the times when I laid on the slabs). [TN: Since
in the Portuguese language gender is as a rule expressed in adjectives, the original sentence
includes a participle, “deitada” (laid), with a feminine ending – a]. Although we obviously
do not wish to mistake the narrator for the author’s autobiographical self – despite the fact
that this specific narrator bears idiosyncratic similarities to Hélia Correia – we believe that
this narrative choice does provide a climate of dialogue, seeking a deeper understanding
between two beings who have the advantage of sharing the experience and the status of
women.
8 The unfathomable depth of the human soul and the behaviors it dictates are approached in
Desmesura from an essentially philological perspective. In each version of the same story it
is the use of the right word that defines its ever-renewed interpretation. About Medea and
her motives, a number of words are weighed against each other and discussed by those who
witness her excesses: Love? Jealousy? Whim? See below pp. 180–1.
9 The predominance afforded to women’s thinking skills has Euripidean echoes; among the
plays written by the Athenian playwright on the issue of ‘misogyny’, it certainly conjures
146 Hörster and Silva
to develop a topic that she has insistently explored: re-establishing women as

thinking beings who have the ability to understand and to create.10
In an attempt to cover the distance in time and space between herself and
her object, the narrator engages in an exercise in meditation, surrounding her-
self with the adequate ambience for their meeting: the roughness of the cold
stones, the mysterious exhalations commonly associated with Medea’s magic
practices, seeking also to conjure up a northern place, in accordance with the
origins of the barbarian woman. Those same elements further suggest the
Delphian environment as a starting point for the literary investigation into
the Colchian princess: “muitas foram as vezes em que estive deitada sobre
as lajes, na estação em que os vapores das fendas são propícios ao viajar da
mente” (9) (many were the times when I laid on the slabs during the season
where the vapors exhaling from the cracks propitiate the wanderings of the
mind). Behind the references to ‘slabs’ and ‘vapors’ lies the implied figure of
a Pythoness who, like Medea, converses with the transcendent. Therefore,
although the text is focused on a barbarian woman, this mysterious being is
examined from the vantage point of the Greek world, in an oracular space
where it opens to the unrevealed. The search for the other involves the identity
of the narrator itself. Flight, the trope used to signify the propinquity of the
two characters – “Muitas vezes tomei voo para norte, a procurá-la” (10) (I have
often flown northwards in search of her) – can be read as an exercise of the
imagination inherent to literary creation. This would therefore be a metapo-
etic reference.
The movement described leads to a world identified by the narrator as being
the barbarian woman’s world: a primeval nature painted not in Mediterranean
blue, but in dark green-colored tints, with an intense paroxysmal dryness ca-
pable of sending shivers down one’s spine. In her mental flight, the narrator
retrieves the traditional coordinates that signal the frontiers between the civi-
lized West and the yet unexplored East. Deeds that required Jason’s heroism
are simply there at the narrator’s disposal through a sleight of hand which the
Delphian ambience helps to encourage: “Subia o mar de púrpura, onde as ilhas
ainda flutuam ao sabor da própria raiva” (9) (I flew over the purple sea where
the islands still float with the wind of anger). This brief reference is sugges-
tive of the Symplegades, the floating rocks which randomly crashed together,
up the famous statement by Melanippe (in the tragedy Melanippe Wise fr. 482 Collard and
Cropp), which was paraphrased by Aristophanes in Lysistrata 1124: “I am a woman but I’m
not lacking in talent”. Perhaps those were the opening words in the Euripidean heroine’s
famous speech, with which she began her own defence as a victim of Poseidon’s passion,
as well as the defence of the twin children she had had by him.
10 See Hörster, Silva (2014) 427–8.
hindering ships from sailing between different worlds (Eur., Med. 1–2).11 After
this obstacle is overcome, the unknown continues to pose perils that are pos-
sibly even more threatening, expressed in the Greek imagination as sacrifices
by means of which the barbarians would slaughter any approaching foreigners
(9): “Depois, roçava aqueles desfiladeiros por cujos flancos jorra o sangue vivo”12
(Then I would graze against those gorges down whose flanks red, living blood
runs).
A sketch of the barbarian world is first presented through the landscape,
with abundant references to ‘terra’ (land/earth),13 which, according to the later
Aristotelian concept of ecosystem, is projected on the nature of its inhabitants.
This passage, syntactically structured on the basis of syndetic coordination,
generates a hierarchy that develops from the outside to the inside, highlighting
the links between the landscape and people and feelings (9). The aesthetic and
ethical values that collectively distinguish a true civilization do not correspond
to this strictly individual level (9): “Tudo aquilo que entendemos por beleza
e por princípios de civilidade era desconhecido nessa Cólquida” (All that we
understand as beauty and civility principles was unheard of in that Colchian
land). Insofar as rituals always generate a community, magic is what seems,
to some extent, to fill that void. However, the barbarian rite does not provide
relief, as it would in an organized society – it rather induces fear.
11 The reference to the Symplegades in the Nurse’s opening monologue in Euripides (Medea
1–2) is poetically expanded by the Chorus later in the play (210–2, 431–3, 1263–4). In
Odyssey 12. 59–72, Circe explains how Odysseus, like Jason, was the only man who had
been able to surmount the rocky obstacle which Homer called the ‘Errants’. The islands
are mentioned again, though with different names and having a different nature in
Simonides, fr. 546 PMG, Pindar, Pythian 4. 208–9 (who calls them ‘Erratic’). The Homeric
poems themselves attest that the Argonauts myth is even older than that of Odysseus;
in fact, in the passage from Odyssey quoted above, Odysseus explains that the Argo had
already passed between the ‘Errant Rocks’. On the similarity of the adventures of both
heroes in this place, see García Gual (2002) 30.
12 This motif is exuberantly treated by Euripides in his Iphigenia in Tauris. And in his play
about Medea, Anouilh has a Colchian Nurse accompanying her lady in her Corinthian
exile, thus providing the spectator with an image of the barbarian land. In his picture, the
elements that characterize this different geographical and cultural environment are, as in
Hélia Correia, blood sacrifices, which provide an occasion for collective celebration, and
the herbs with their indelible smell as a true ex libris of those faraway places. See above
p. 146.
13 In fact, the destination of Jason’s mythic adventure is “Ea”, a word that meant “Earth”,
that is, an unnamed, enigmatic country which may globally represent a destination that
is mysterious and dangerous, because indefinite and unknown. Only later was the vague
“Ea” identified as Colchis, a land situated on the edge of the known world, by the Black
Sea.
The barbarian landscape is still peopled with monsters, as if a civilizational

hero, like Heracles or Theseus, whose deeds included the elimination of the
horrendous creatures that assailed the world, had not yet arrived there (9):
“Ervas amargas referviam em buracos e aqueles monstros do início das idades,
que os nossos deuses já petrificaram e tornaram rochedos habitáveis, aguar-
dam, em prisões muito precárias, um alimento humano que os acalme”. (Bitter
herbs were boiling in holes, and those monsters from the beginning of ages
whom our gods have petrified and turned into inhabitable rocks, await, in very
precarious prisons, for human flesh to appease them). As we penetrate an ar-
chaeological age, we enter also a matriarchal world where there appears to be
no men and where women exist in a double condition: that of human crea-
tures, wrapped in Eastern veils, but also, in contradiction, that of sorceresses
who are able to darken light itself by touching the earth with their steps.14
Magic, which tradition associates with these women,15 had the power to
control even nature. On the other hand, it surrounded them with deep soli-
tude; the absence of the male element in this barbarian environment annuls
the concept of the domestic and, with it, the notion of women’s subservience
to conjugal pressure. Their isolation gives them a strong potential for affirma-
tion, in consonance with their primitive world (9): “Durante o voo, eu avistava
mulheres sós no dealbar das horas, caminhando, sob os véus importados
do oriente. Feiticeiras seriam, pois a luz era sorvida pela sola dos seus pés e
14 García Gual (2002) 34 notes the relationship between Helios, the Sun, and Hecate, the
goddess of darkness in those faraway lands of Colchis. For some scholars (Wilamowitz,
Kérenyi, apud García Gual), the Argonauts’ destination is the world beyond; in fact, in
mythology, Helios’ wife is called Perse (“Destruction/Havoc”), a kind of ‘nickname’ for
Hecate, the goddess of darkness and nocturnal magic, therefore connected with the
moon and the dead. Thus Hélia Correia enhances the ability that the woman inhabitants
of the country of the Sun possess of simultaneously being mediators of darkness and
Hecate. Euripides (Medea 395–8) already mentions Hecate as the goddess who sponsors
Medea’s witchcraft. At the beginning of Desmesura, Hélia Correia also dedicates a hymn
to the goddess of darkness, evoking female values and their intercourse with the manipu-
lative obscurity of magic; see below, pp. 159–60.
15 In Greek tradition, Medea and her aunt Circe were the two most famous sorceresses.
They were very knowledgeable about potions, and were wise and inclined to passion.
If Circe had the power to transform men into animals and to then give them back their
human forms, Medea had a hypnotic power which put to sleep the ever-wakeful dragon
that guarded the golden fleece. On the other hand, the tradition that associates them with
the Cretan women Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Phaedra explains their propensity towards rap-
turous passions. However, the Greeks generally considered concocting potions to be a
female skill. Iriarte (2002) 165 notes that, besides Medea, that skill was also recognized in
Helen (Odyssey 4. 227). Euripides himself (Medea 380) mentions the preparation of drugs
as an art in which women are more competent, and which they hand down from genera-
tion to generation.
elas comunicavam com a noite e o sol desesperava de nascer. A escuridão da

Cólquida brilhava como um carvão no meio de tanta aurora” (While I flew I
saw women alone at the dawning of hours, walking, under their veils imported
from the East. They must be sorcerers, because the light was swallowed up by
the soles of their feet and they could communicate with the night and the sun
rose in much despair. In Colchis, darkness blazed like a live coal in the midst
of so much dawn).
2 “Porém, Medeia não se achava ali” (But Medea was not to be Found
There)
The evocation of the Eastern atmosphere of Colchis ends with a laconic

“Porém, Medeia não se achava ali” (9). In other words, her time there was just
a passing moment in her life. The love story she experienced in the meantime
was, in contrast, a decisive event, and her passing through the Symplegades
signals the impossibility of ever returning to her origins. Love led her to a new
place, Greece, which the narrator introduces with sharp critical distance: in
the “presunçosa terra grega” (presumptuous Greek land), intolerantly proud
of its superior culture, women are condemned to a life of reclusion and efface-
ment. Locked up in palaces, which symbolize power and social status, they
are, princesses included, relegated to the most basic domesticity.16 A chiastic
relationship between Colchis and Greece is thus postulated: in opposition to
the uncivilized roughness of the former, where women reign alone, shared do-
mesticity is what the Hellenic civilization has to offer them.
Coming from a different cultural background, Medea undergoes a metamor-
phosis so undermining of both her identity and her potential that the narrator
herself fears to witness it: “Eu não queria presenciar a domesticidade, correr o
risco de avistar Medeia entre as suas criadas”17 (9) (I did not wish to witness
16 This reference to the fact that even princesses have no way of escaping domesticity and
the isolation of the women’s quarters seems to have a double intention: this condition
not only comprises Greek women but it also extends to barbarian princesses, like Medea,
who may be subject to it. From this perspective, Anouilh too establishes a contrast be-
tween Medea’s position in her distant homeland and the new status Corinth offers her.
In Colchis – as her accompanying Nurse reminds her – Medea was a princess, complete
with all the urban niceties of her rank: she went riding in luxuriant green parks, wore
sophisticated dresses, while still enjoying the gift of freedom to an extent that the Greek
mores did not tolerate. See above, p. 69.
17 However, again taking up the theme of Medea, in Desmesura Hélia Correia emphasizes
exactly the ‘domesticity’ motif, surrounding the protagonist with a female circle of ser-
vant women, both Greek (Melana and Eritra) and foreign (Abar, a Nubian) who interact
her domesticity, to run the risk of seeing Medea among her women servants);
“Eu não tinha coragem para olhar” (10) (I did not have the courage to look).
Passion, however, leads her to yield, to settle into a daily life that belies her
nature; her days as a married woman are spent in idle conversation with her
servants,18 among routine tasks, looking after her children, with her husband
permanently absent.19 The things that had formed part of her identity, like her
with her at different levels: as women, which all of them are, but of different origins, and
therefore, with different status and mind frames; see below p. 162.
18 In the Euripidean tragedy, this female interaction is materialized in the chorus, a group
of Corinthian women who feel in harmony with Medea, of whom they become ‘friends’
(138, 179, 181). In fact, this philia is mostly a form of female solidarity, which in Medea is
explained by the fact that the heroine is a paradigmatic exemplum: what the Corinthian
women in the Greek tragedy bewail is the specific case of adultery and treason that they
witness, rather than, as happens in Desmesura, the traditional neglect of the married
woman. In contrast, the female circle around Jason’s wife in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura is
reconfigured as the image of domestic routine. The kitchen as the preferred scenery for
the action signals exactly that. There, Melana, the Greek slave, who is older and therefore
more prone to abiding by the rules of her condition, is the one who mostly lives her apa-
thetic life with a certain angered subservience. On the other hand, in her new version, the
author creates a second slave, the Nubian Abar, who is a model of the foreign woman who
acquiescently obeys the Greek rules, as a counterpoint to revolted Medea. In Desmesura,
Abar is to a certain extent the projection of this first Medea found in A de Cólquida, in-
troducing a kind of mirror reflection in the rewrite: it is as if in Desmesura Medea, the
powerful barbarian woman, could see herself in that other weak, submissive barbarian
she herself was in Hélia Correia’s previous version.
19 This is impressively similar to the situation of Portuguese women in the recent past. In a
chronicle she wrote for the newspaper O Público, August 3rd 2001 issue, sociologist Maria
Filomena Mónica writes about the situation women found themselves in as recently as
the 1960s: “Eu trabalhava, estudava e frequentava a Academia dos Amadores de Música.
De certa forma, estava em vias de fugir ao meu destino. Outras, a maioria, estavam en-
clausuradas. Mesmo as ricas, tinham de pedir ao marido o dinheiro para a manutenção da
casa. O seu quotidiano limitava-se a comprar naftalina, a verificar se as calças do marido
tinham o vinco bem feito, a garantir que o jantar era de qualidade. Por ser esse o seu dever,
amamentavam os filhos até tarde. Eram elas que se levantavam de noite quando os pim-
polhos, em número crescente, resmungavam. Além de serem obrigadas a aparecer impe-
cavelmente vestidas, quando havia visitas, era suposto manterem conversas espirituosas,
o que, dada a reduzida escala dos seus interesses, lhes era manifestamente impossível.
Finalmente, ao fim de algum tempo, muitos dos maridos estavam sexualmente fartos
delas. Perante a complacência da sociedade, tinham as amantes que lhes apetecesse. À
mulher, cumpria sofrer em silêncio” (2002: 128–9) (I had a job, went to college and was
a member of the ‘Academia dos Amadores de Música’ [Academy of Music Amateurs].
In a certain way, I was about to flee my fate. Others, the majority, were imprisoned. Even
the wealthy women had to ask their husbands for money to pay the household expenses.
Their daily lives included buying naphthalene, checking whether their husband’s trousers
were properly ironed and creased, and making sure dinner was top quality. They extended
breastfeeding for quite a long time because that was supposedly their duty. They were the
knowledge of magic herbs and the freedom to move at liberty, are interdicted
in this new world whose herbs are unknown to her and where her freedom is
completely curtailed. Thus we witness the destruction of Medea’s core traits.20
Paradoxically, however, Medea becomes submissive, compromising her entire
being (10): “No entanto, toda ela estava ali” (All of her was nevertheless there).
Love thus emerges as an imperious force or a cosmic principle even before
it materializes into an object identified by a name. In point of fact, although
the overwhelming power of passion and its consequences have been stressed,
Jason’s name has not been mentioned so far.
Like her model before her, the path of this new Medea is one of rupture
with her family as a precondition for her flight and her satisfaction in love.
However, this brief previous story, which mentions her treason of her father
and her murder of her brother, includes no reference at all to the conquest of
the treasure which traditional Medea used to be proud of having been a part
ones who got up from their bed when their brats, who tended to grow in number, became
agitated in the middle of the night. When they entertained, besides having to be impec-
cably dressed, they were supposed to engage in witty conversation, which, given the small
scale of their interests, was manifestly impossible for them to do. Finally, after some time,
many of their husbands lost all sexual interest in them. Enjoying society’s complaisant
leniency, the men could have as many lovers as they chose. A woman’s duty was to bear all
this in silence). In Filomena Mónica’s (b. 1940) generation there was a significant number
of women who graduated from universities and who became prominent in Portuguese
politics and letters. Among famous women writers are names like Lídia Jorge (a university
Professor, b. 1946), Teolinda Gersão (a university Professor, born 1940); the previous gener-
ation of women writers is headed by Agustina Bessa Luís (born 1922), a kind of Portuguese
Dostoyevsky who unforgivingly dissects the feelings and behaviours of both women and
men, especially those from the northern part of Portugal. Natália Correia (1923–1993), the
iconoclast, was a politician and a poet of that same generation.
20 This attempt to enfeeble Medea, resulting in utter acquiescence, can be paralleled to an
interpretation of the character which, according to Arriaga Flórez (2006) 17–8, had its
origins in Antiquity and sought to acquit Medea from the crimes she is generally accused
of (e.g., Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4. 442, identifies Apsirto, not Medea, as Jason’s
murderer; according to Pausanias 2. 3. 6, the Corinthians are responsible for the death
of Medea’s children, not their mother). This line of interpretation was to culminate in
Christa Wolf’s contemporary novel (1996) Medea. Stimmen (Medea Voices), which recre-
ates Medea’s mythic path from a female standing point. Wolf critically analyses the ex-
treme acts attributed by tradition to the Colchian woman, because they seem to her to
be symptoms of that which Bohmel Fichera (2006) 103 calls “a programmatic misogyny
typical of the patriarchal culture from its origins”. Without divesting her heroine of her
traditional vigor, the justifications that the German author allows her character to voice
seem to somehow ‘weaken’ her as well.
of. This absence divests the Argonaut of his heroic status, and reduces him to
that of a man, a mere object of passion.21
Medea keeps nothing from her past: “Toda ela passara para o amor. Nem
o mais fugidio pensamento escapava para norte, para a Cólquida” (10) (Her
whole being had gone into love. Not even a fleeting thought would escape
northwards to Colchis). But nonetheless this is the time where male presence
in that kingdom, which had hitherto been silenced, is given a form through the
narrator’s imagination; it is represented by “o velho rei tropeçando nas conchas
do areal” (the old king stumbling over the seashells on the sand), age and weak-
ness rendering him incapable of preventing treason or exacting vengeance.
Even though the fugitive, now invested in her wifely status, holds no memories
of her Colchian past, the motherland does not forget her in the vague threat
through which old Aeëtes seems to foresee a future of redress (10): “Matá-la-ia
com a sua própria faca e atirá-la-ia para o mar” (I would stab her dead with her
own knife and throw her into the sea).
3 “Correu voz de que os filhos lhe morreram” (Rumor Had It That Her
Children Had Died)
The death of Medea’s children is present in the most famous versions of the
story. The reasons are different and the causes and dimension of the mother’s
behavior are variously assessed. The motives for the infanticide are explained
at different levels, including the religious, the political, and the social. Fear for
the children’s mortal nature is what drives their mother to bury them in Hera’s
temple, in the illusory hope of redeeming them; some versions highlight the
children’s condition as descendants of a foreign woman, or of a regicide, and
the limitations this represents for their citizenship status – more terrible even
than death itself; other focus on their congenital frailty, which must be solved.
Depending on the motives highlighted, responsibility for the infanticide is laid
either on Medea or on the Corinthians. However, even when Medea’s interfer-
ence in the annihilation of her children is acknowledged, none of the tradi-
tional versions, with the exception of Euripides’, imputes egotistical motives or
21 Anouilh also reduced Medea and Jason’s relationship to a case of sexual obsession. Hurt
by love, the protagonist of the French version acquiesced to subservience as well as to the
long hours of waiting for a lover who was growing colder and more distant as days went
by. The rationality or the vigor of barbarian Medea were replaced by utter subordination
and self-erasure. See above p. 73.
reasons of personal revenge to the mother. And yet, this was exactly the aspect
that became prevalent in the identification of the figure of Medea.
Among this variety of options, the choice of the Portuguese author of A de
Cólquida falls on the issue of the children’s frailty, which is announced even
before birth, in the mother’s womb, and signals a physiological inconformi-
ty of barbarian Medea vis-à-vis the Greek status of wife and mother that she
had embraced as her life choice (10): “Porque Medeia, a funda, a poderosa, en-
fraqueceu com a maternidade”22 (for Medea, the deep, the powerful, became
weaker with maternity). Every decisive step in Medea’s life journey rekindles
the conflict between her origin and the fate to which love seems to have con-
demned her. It happened when her passion first awoke, leading to rupture and
flight, and it happens again at the moment when love culminates in maternity.
Hélia Correia emphasizes this phase of Medea’s experience through expres-
sions that signal her effort to adapt, or even her belief that she had adapted
well to her new life: (10): “… entrou no gineceu como a mais comezinha das
mulheres” (she entered the women’s quarters as the commonest of women);
“A bondade injectou-se-lhe nas veias e ela tinha as crianças na barriga como
qualquer mulher: cosendo, e olhando o fio do horizonte, com um sorriso e as
pálpebras inchadas por uma melancólica alegria” (kindness was injected into
her veins and she carried the babies in her belly like any other woman: sewing
and looking at the thread of the horizon with a smile and her lids swollen with
melancholy joy). Despite her seeming contentment, her traumatic labor brings
to light the conflict between the wild animal she had once been and the tame
being she has become. Instead of happening in the mountains, in harmony
with nature and marked by primal animality, her labour was socialized and
classified as “íntimo” (10) (intimate), taking place in the women’s quarters and
supervised by older women. Medea’s body responds almost unconsciously to
this conflict between physis and nomos by refusing to open up (“não se que-
ria abrir”, 10), devoid of the stimulating presence of nature and almost as if it
were able to foresee the societal threat posed by those new beings vis-à-vis the
homeless and unloved mother that she was.
If Medea’s condition had been for the most part that of a countryless person,
this is the moment where the fact that she has been abandoned by her lover
22 This motif of the supposed debilitating element of maternity is also present in Anouilh.
For Medea, it takes the form of a painful memory, with her Nurse’s sympathetic interven-
tion as a decisive factor to help her overcome its difficulties; in her hour, Medea’s usual
strength failed her and turned her into a helpless being. As if it had become an indelible
trauma, she feels her imminent repudiation by Jason as a new ‘pain of delivery’ which no
one can alleviate. See above p. 70.
and husband Jason strikes her with increasing clarity.23 For the Argonaut, their
relationship had been nothing but a mere sexual encounter, which time had
divested of its initial exuberance and which he would now choose to replace to
his advantage with “pactos matrimoniais com princesas mais jovens, e do sul”
(10) (matrimonial pacts with younger princesses, and from the South). Her lov-
er’s new spousal is like a revelation of Medea’s fate; differently from Euripidean
Medea, for whom separation from Jason meant an absence of social protec-
tion as well as exile, in this contemporary version she is not abandoned as a
heroine, or as a foreigner, but rather as a woman who becomes “comum” (11)
(common), “emparedada” (walled up) like her female companions, and like
them condemned “à sentença do seu sexo” (11) (to the sentence of her sex).
Her reaction to the fact of having been left for another woman, which in the
ancient tragedy is one of anger and vehement protest, is reduced to apathetic
acquiescence in Hélia Correia, being expressed in a succession of different ex-
pressions (11): “… empalidecendo, sentada no seu banco de arenito, submissa
à amizade feminina que noutros tempos tanto desprezara” (… growing pale,
sitting on her sandstone bench, submissive to the female friendship she had so
strongly despised in the past).
Medea’s languishing process extends to her children, made worse even by
her acknowledged inability to look after them. Giving up her sickly children
to the care of the Hera priestesses so that they might be revitalized also rep-
resents a radical expression of surrendering one’s personality; it is as if Medea
had erased her past and the former sorceress had become “a mais crente das
mulheres” (11) (the most faithful of women). The fact that the children had a
barbarian mother and a Greek father is seen as a condition of hybridity that
cannot ensure their vitality,24 that being the reason why they are not properly
taken care of in the temple.
Even the healing power of snakes, as beings of the earth – which Asclepius
chose as his therapeutic symbol – failed at the inability of the children to
23 In Desmesura, Hélia Correia provides an occasion for a meeting between Medea and
Jason to take place. This meeting is imagined by Medea as ‘romantic’ and she exquisitely
prepares for it with seductive sophistication; for the Argonaut, however, the meeting is
just an occasion on which to declare his definitive rupture, now that other marriage plans
feed his dreams and his interests. That is the reason why he prefers to meet in the kitchen,
a kind of domestic agora, instead of in the bedroom, which bespeaks a degree of intimacy
that no longer exists between them.
24 This physical weakness is a metaphor for the more traditional social fragility that the child
of a hybrid couple would face in a Greek city, and especially so in Athens. For Euripides,
this was a living issue in his city’s politics after 451 BC, when Pericles had further demoted
their status by carrying a law that removed the possibility of the offspring of foreign
mothers acquiring Athenian citizenship.
understand it, like the true stateless aliens that they were;25 instead, they felt
that the animals were hunting them. The image of death which came with
the new day signals a condition of destitution and social disqualification. For
the Corinthians the mother, perhaps because she was a foreigner, was the one
to blame for the children’s death. For the narrator, however, as becomes clear
from the expressions “correu voz de que os filhos lhe morreram” (rumor had
it that her children had died), now echoed as “Então correu a voz pela cidade”
(Then rumor went around in the city), this is but a rumor, and the mother may
be guilty of imprudence, or carelessness, but she cannot be accused of a delib-
erate intention to kill.
4 Conclusion
The final moment of the text brings some unexpected developments. Up to

the end, led by the narrator’s imagination, we have followed Medea’s journey
from her origins, with her primeval connection to the green, to the North,26 to
a wild, untamed nature, a Colchis still steeped in the twilight of ages, culmi-
nating in the major step that marked her life: blind obedience to a traditional
female fate, touched by love. By following Jason, she betrayed her own people
and came to an alien Greece, where, yielding to passion, she embraced her
domestic fate of self-annihilation.27
What made Hélia Correia choose to portray this passive, common, trivial-
ized Medea, so utterly devoid of any trace of heroism? The author is clearly
familiar with the different historical variants of the myth. Following the path
25 In fact, Medea’s children seemed to be alien to the feeling of the earth’s power which was
validated in their mother’s native land and was represented by the snakes; neither were
they able to grasp the healing intervention of those beings as practiced in Greece.
26 In Desmesura, Hélia Correia explores the subject of climate more consistently as a factor
of the clash of cultures and identities between Greeks and barbarians. Using Abar, the
Nubian slave, as a counterpoint to Medea, the Colchian, she approaches the difference
in climates and landscapes in more depth, illustrating the contrasts between the woman
from the North and the woman who comes from a South that is more extreme even than
Greece. See below p. 170.
27 This life path is also present in Anouilh’s Medea. In spite of the fact that the character is
still portrayed as violent, in her traditional role as a filicidal woman, the French author
offers a first image of his protagonist as a fragile woman who must depend on the sympa-
thetic support of her old Nurse and who still seems to entertain a vague, inspiriting hope
of a future with Jason. Her seclusion in silence is a shield against the imminence of the
calamitous news that will lead to her terrible metamorphosis, since the definiteness of
their separation is what brings back her ferocity. See above pp. 66–7.
of Euripides – who abandons the versions that exempted Medea from the act
of filicide and makes her responsible for the atrocity of her vengeance – Hélia
Correia has the same design in mind in her sequence of the two different por-
traits of the foreign woman that she produces: A de Cólquida and Desmesura.
The author herself states it quite explicitly (A de Cólquida, 11):
Esta é a história como a recebi. A história de uma mãe nervosa e exausta.

Esta é a história que deixei cair para que se desfaça em mil pedaços e a
grande, a bruxa, seja levantada pela minha versão. Esta Medeia, a doce e
a vencida, dará lugar a outra, uma outra que pensa e concebe a magnífica
vingança.
(This is the story how I received it. The story of a broken down, exhausted
mother. This is the story I let fall so it may break into a thousand pieces
and the great one, the witch, may be raised by my version. This Medea,
the sweet and subdued one, will give way to another, an other who thinks
and plans her magnificent vengeance.)
As can be inferred from these words, Hélia Correia intends to resume the
theme privileging Euripides’ innovative option; and she offers her explicit
judgement on her two competing versions. With the opposition between “dei
xar cair” (let fall) and “levantar” (rise), it becomes clear that she condemns
the first, wishing that it would fall into pieces. What might then be the inten-
tion behind her creation of a week, submissive and conformable Medea? The
narrator’s words express it quite clearly: the text is offered as an exemplum, a
warning against the dangers of women choosing a traditional family life, relin-
quishing their intellectual, creative potential, even if they do it for love’s sake
(11): “Cale-se essa voz e faça-se ouvir esta para que a lição do amor nos seja
horrível”28 (Let that voice be silent and hear this one instead so that the lesson
of love may seem horrible to us). Hélia Correia prefers the murderous ferocity
28 This same rejection of the rules that her female condition imposes is the basis of Hélia
Correia’s version of Antigone (vide Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 265–84). In the play
Perdição. Exercício sobre Antígona, Creon is certainly not the true opponent of Oedipus’
daughter, nor is he the reason that condemns her to death. In this rewrite, the king is
weak, being more open to the concept of saving Antigone from the punishment for her
disobedience rather than ready to condemn her. What does in fact annihilate the young
woman is the image of a woman’s life curriculum she gradually develops. Disappointed
with those around her for their lack of affection and condemned to the disheartening
routine that drains female vitality in marriage, death is the only possible solution for this
Antigone. Her motive for persisting in this early annihilation is nothing but herself and
her frustration as a woman.
of the other woman to this subjection to a dangerous routine. Moreover, as the

author clearly stresses, the intensity of her feelings and the extreme nature
of her reactions give Euripidean Medea a potential for challenge and mystery
that renders her eternal. Nothing about that Medea can be predicted or easily
explained (11): “Tenha o despeito de uma feiticeira dimensão tal que nunca a
compreendam e o arrepio dure uma eternidade” (May the contempt of a witch
have such dimension as she never be understood).
chapter 10
Language, Barbarism, and Civilization:

Hélia Correia’s Desmesura (Excess)
É1 a palavra um senhor poderoso que, com o seu corpo minúsculo e

invisível,
leva a cabo obras dignas de deuses.
Sabe como fazer calar o medo, arredar a dor,
provocar alegria, despertar compaixão.
Górgias, Elogio de Helena 8
(Words are a powerful lord who, with his tiny, invisible body,
accomplishes divine works.
They can mute fear, banish grief,
cause joy, awaken compassion.
Gorgias, Eulogy of Helen 8)
∵
Within Hélia Correia’s2 production on classical themes, privileging great fe-
male figures, after Perdição. Exercício sobre Antígona (1991)3 and Rancor.
Exercício sobre Helena (2000), we now have Desmesura. Exercício com Medeia
(2006).
2 Hélia Correia enjoys a prominent position in contemporary Portuguese literature as a novel-
ist, poet, author of children’s literature, and playwright of works on Classical themes. This
tendency in her choice of subject was less influenced by the coeval Portuguese political
or social context than by Correia’s personal experience as an enthusiast of Greek culture.
Recently, in 2015, the author and her work were awarded the most important prize dedicated
to Portuguese language writers, the Prémio Camões (Camões Prize). See Hardwick, Morais,
Silva (2017) 265.
3 See Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 265–84.

Language, Barbarism, and Civilization 159
Following the general outlines of the Euripidean development of the

myth, the Portuguese author highlights some of the characteristic elements
of Medea’s Corinthian episode: the heroine’s conflict with her lover, who, al-
though indebted to her for her loving dedication and connivance in his Golden
Fleece adventure, now repudiates her because of his interest in a more promis-
ing alliance; the extremely sensitive discordance between her barbarian iden-
tity and the Greek world, where she remains a victim of all the pangs of exile;
and the fear that her self-willed, violent, in a word, excessive (‘desmesurada’)
nature, culminating in the atrocity of filicide, provokes in everyone around her.
1 The Construction of a Female World
As the author had done in Perdição, she entrusts the text’s first words to the
Chorus, anticipating the events and introducing the basic topoi of this con-
temporary approach to the myth. This chant, which is not replicated in other
songs, in contrast with Greek tragedy, where the Chorus songs interrupt the ac-
tion, creating a specific rhythm, is defined as a single composition in the stage
direction that announces it (13): “Nas mudanças de cena ou de ritmo, um coro
entoará os hinos que se seguem” (When scenes, or rhythm, change, a Chorus
will chant the following hymns). Thus, there are two ‘hymns’ in Desmesura:
the first one, “Lamento pelos heróis” (Lament for the heroes) is chanted by a
male chorus and followed by “Hino a Hécate” (Hymn to Hecate), performed
by female voices. These two brief compositions announce the main outlines
of the action that follow, in line with the author’s usual procedure in her plays
inspired by classical themes. The chorus intervention takes the form of a kind
of lyrical agon, including contrasting genders and the corresponding contrast-
ing values. The masculine text deals with heroes’ values, in line with the old
epic tradition, where the myth of the Argonauts, led by Jason, finds its roots.
The female version includes topics inspired by Medea’s magic, as suggested by
the mention of Hecate, the goddess of divination and a manipulator of dark
forces.4 In a text that privileges domesticity, as will be discussed below, this
mention of Hecate, in Segal’s words (1996) 27–8, “suddenly electrifies the verse.
In place of the sheltered, interior space of the house, properly presided over by
4 After Hesiod had identified her as a daughter of Titans as well as a generous provider of bless-
ings (Theogony 411–52), Hecate became a dark goddess, endowed with terrifying evil powers,
in connection with Persephone and the world of the dead. She used to be worshipped at
three-way crossroads, where she is represented in the ambiguity of her three faces, and as-
sociated with witchcraft. Euripides (Medea 395–8) also presents Hecate as the goddess who
sponsors Medea’s charms.
160 Silva
the wife and mother, there emerges the chthonic realm and dark magic of the
fearful goddess”.
The Chorus emphasizes the instability of men, of which Jason is the sole
representative in the play, describing how his irrepressible ambition launches
him into bold projects, far away from the city whose security he neglects. Men
are drawn to danger, to the unknown, which in the Greek world were identified
with maritime routes, in a kind of obsessive frenzy (13):
Ai do homem que deixa

a cidade sem guarda
e responde ao apelo
ardiloso do mar.
Que é a eternidade
mais que uma sombra parda?
Parda sombra o herói
se irá também tornar.
(Woe the man who leaves

the city unguarded
and responds to the cunning
call of the sea.
What is eternity
but a mere grey shadow?
A grey shadow the hero
shall also be.)
However, disillusionment is the only thing that he obtains from this adven-
ture, after having suffered the wounds of battles, or a needless death in faraway
parts “longe da paz / a que sempre quis mal” (far from peace / whom he had
never loved) (14). But this is like a permanent fate of men which no voice, in-
cluding that of a loving mother, can dispel. It is something inherent in the male
condition which finds no applause or understanding among women (14):
Ai do pobre mortal
que nasceu masculino
que do leite da mãe
em vão se alimentou.
Não pôde ela, falando,
impedir-lhe o destino.
Só aos homens ouviu
só à glória escutou.
(Woe the poor mortal

who was born a male
who was fed in vain
with his mother’s milk.
With her words she could not
free him from his fate.
He only heard men
only listened to glory.)
Conversely, when the female dimension is embodied in a figure like Medea, its
nature is represented by Hecate: like the Colchian woman, amidst tempests,
the goddess causes the ruin of mortals (15):
Fazedora
de hecatombes
tombas, Hécate,
os mortais
no desastre,
astro de febre,
no fulgor
dos temporais.
(Maker
of hecatombs
Hecate, you lead
the mortals
into disaster
star of fever
in the fulgor
of storms.)
However, underlying this recreation of Medea’s episode, read as a conflict be-

tween genders that can only lead to ruin, Hélia Correia enhances the effect, the
power and the accuracy of words as catalysts of the different nuances of the
story.5 With this choice, she evokes the relevance of the rhetorical element in
her model, the Euripidean version of the myth. The Greek tragedian gave his
5 Writing on the verbal conflict between Medea and Jason, Williamson (1990) 24 emphasizes
this resource in Euripides’ Medea: “In this scene (…), each protagonist uses language to as-
sault the other, and the scene abounds in allusions to language as instrument and even as
weapon” (and he mentions lines such as 523–5, 546, 585).
162 Silva
heroes and heroines the ability to reflect and to express themselves in conso-
nance with the rhetorical codes then applicable. However, although in their
two agones Jason and Medea prove to be skillful users of rhetorical resources,
contrary to what might be expected, they are not successful when it comes to
persuading their opponent. Might it be because, as Hélia Correia will lead us
to conclude, they lack the precise words to describe the feelings that dominate
them and be used as weapons?
The choice of names is extremely pertinent in Desmesura, notably the
names given to the new, non-conventional characters in this new version of
the myth; in its traditional color-inspired nature, they are a particularly felici-
tous imitation of the old tradition of speaking names extensively explored in
ancient theatre, especially in comedy.6 Given their different social status, the
different tensions opposing masters and female slaves, Greek and barbarian
women, or men and women in general are naturally expressed linguistically,
language being also the tool that provides their solid, stable, and very apt
characterization – as if, in their creation, the author had been primarily guided
by orthoépeia, so deeply praised by the Sophist intellectuals who inspired
much of Euripides’ aesthetic taste.7
Following the tendency that she had set in Perdição and in Rancor, the
Portuguese author reinforces the female circle that surrounds the heroine,
which forms the first nucleus of confrontation and tensions. While she reduces
the number of male agents, leaving out Creon, Aegeus, and the Pedagogue, a
minor character, she expands the female element, including a new circle of
women slaves of contrasting ages, origins and looks: Melana and Éritra, mother
and daughter, who are Greek slaves in the Corinthian court; and Abar, a young
slave imported from Nubia.8
6 See, e.g., Duckworth (reprinted 1971) 345–50.

7 This concept is specifically associated with the name of Protagoras, with Prodicus as a
follower, with his onomáton orthótes motto (cf. Plato, Euthydemus 277e, Phaedrus 267c,
Protagoras 339a, Cratylus 384b, 391 a-c; Aristotle, Rhetoric 1407b, Poetics 1456b 15–8). Prodicus
substituted the practice of differential analysis of the different terms, each in opposition to
the others (diaíresis) for the mostly formal concept of orthoépeia, to guide his disciples in
the precise usage of each word. On this, see Pfeiffer (1968) 32–56; Forbes (1933) 105–12; Segal
(1970) 158–62. As Plebe (1979) 18 notes: “Psychological opportuneness, linguistic coherence,
art of persuasion are therefore the three axes of the aesthetics of the early Sophists, who
could legitimately claim the status of pioneers of aesthetics in Antiquity”.
8 In a way, this circle of women that surround Medea and engage in close interaction with
her provides a picture of their reactions, angers, and sharing of experiences as women; as a
group, they echo the role of the Corinthian women chorus in Euripides’ original. The indi
vidual members of the group embody different nuances not included in the Greek play. These
differences generate individuality, replacing the original solidarity found at the beginning of
As the king’s illegitimate daughter, Éritra is given a new role to perform: she
is a kind of double of Glauce’s, Medea’s famous rival in Jason’s interests. An
equivalent context is to some extent present in Euripides’ Medea, being rep-
resented, by opposition, by the close, solidary figure of the Nurse, who had a
perfect knowledge of the danger that her mistress’ anger could pose,9 in con-
trast to the distant Glauce, Medea’s competitor as concerns Jason’s interests,
although quite vulnerable in her ignorance of the true dimension of the wrath
that had been triggered by her dream of love. Hélia Correia gives Jason’s bride
a different personality; she is still a victim of her own fantasy, although she
is aware of the fact that she is being trapped into falling for the Argonaut, an
attraction which Medea’s fury will destroy through the powers of her lethal
sorcerer’s potions. The only new emphasis lies on the powerful, self-aware se-
ductiveness of the Corinthian princess. Nature gave her the most “belos olhos
verdes” (beautiful green eyes, 29) coupled with the attractive fire of her red
hair. However, her seductiveness is neither an involuntary nor an innocuous
generosity of physis. This other Glauce is well aware of the power of these
weapons and thus she cannot avoid smiling triumphantly when a slave sent
by Medea gives her a most tempting present (29): “Fitou em mim seus belos
olhos verdes (…) e não vi neles pureza nem bondade: vi a dona de um ardil que
triunfou” (She stared at me with those beautiful green eyes […] and in them
I saw neither purity nor kindness: I saw a woman who had been successful in
her cunning). And as an answer to Medea’s anxious question on the immediate
effectiveness of the vengeance she had triggered, the slave adds (29): “Há-de
querer exibir o teu penhor, a bela prova de que te venceu e te neutralizou o
coração” (She will be wanting to exhibit your token, the beautiful evidence that
confirms she has defeated you and neutralized your heart).
The same conspicuous, aggressive competition extends also to Medea’s
closest circle. In Hélia Correia’s version, the sympathetic Nurse of the Hellenic
play is replaced by a slave who is distinctly Greek, and therefore, a potential
enemy of the barbarian princess; however, she is also someone who has en-
dured many hardships, and this has fueled a feeling of revolt in her inmost self
Euripides’ text by a variety of different reactions and feelings. As Segal (1996) 19 rightly em-
phasizes, “As Medea’s revenge crystallizes into the decision to kill the children, she moves
from the sympathy that the Nurse, Paedagogus, and chorus feel for her as a wronged woman
to isolation and moral ambiguity”. Before the filicide becomes the most prominent theme,
in line with tradition, Hélia Correia delves deeper into these cultural divergencies, which
enhances the topic of Medea’s exile in her text. In Desmesura, these differences are rooted
in the variety of cultural backgrounds, signaling the confrontation between the characters’
various origins.
9 On the figure of the Nurse in Euripides’ drama, see Silva (2005) 178–81.
164 Silva
against her strange, foreign mistress, whom she was forced to serve. Living next
to her is her daughter, a slave also, and a bitter example of how masters heart-
lessly abuse and rape the women who live and work in their houses, serving
them.10 The author chose meaningful names for these two characters: Melana,
‘a negra’ (the black woman), and Éritra, ‘a ruiva’ (the redhead).
Other data add to the meaning of these names. In the stage direction that in-
troduces Part I (4), the name of Melana is explained in its most obvious terms,
as being applicable to “uma mulher que ainda não fez quarenta anos, morena”
(a woman not yet in her forties, brunette). Melana’s surroundings are in har-
mony with her character: inside the closed space of a kitchen, “olha para a
porta, como quem espera” (she looks at the door like one who waits); the black
strokes in her portrait include listlessness, apathy, disenchantment. But soon
her mysterious, somber disposition, which hides her soul’s grief behind her si-
lence, withdrawn in an effort to find some consolation for her excessive frustra-
tion, make Melana a kind of mirror image of her mistress, as Nurses in ancient
tragedy usually are. That is exactly what Éritra, mad at her mother for wanting
to check her eagerness, tells her (6): ‘És tal qual ela! Só escuridão. Merecem-se
uma à outra’ (You’re just like her! Only darkness. You do deserve each other).
This darkness is generated by means of silence, the absence of words gaining
added meaning in a play that emphasizes the power of words. Melana seeks a
protective shadow in silence because she fears the possibility of being wound-
ed again; only a powerful stimulus will make her outgrow this gloomy disposi-
tion, as her daughter mercilessly remarks (15): “Ó mãe! Esqueceste por acaso
essa prudência de que tanto te fartas de falar?” (O mother! You have apparently
forgotten the prudence that you so often talk about!).
The difference between Melana and Éritra is easily identifiable – besides
belonging to different generations, there is a permanent contrast in their per-
sonalities and demeanor which the opposite colors signified by their respec-
tive names symbolize, serving as a background to their portrait – and this is
representative of their impressionistic characterization. The same stage direc-
tion where Melana is described in her most obvious traits – which will be later
developed – those of an aged, apathic brunette, contrasts her emphatically
10 This motif is dear to the Portuguese author, being repeatedly present in her female por-
traits, i.e.: the humiliation that renders servile the personal and social life of a woman
who was unlucky enough to be born a slave or without money: cf. Perdição (34), where
the Nurse acknowledges the fact that this is inevitable: “E todas as criadas jovens, uma a
uma, passarão certa noite pelo corpo do senhor. Sem que nisso achem glória ou alegria. É
serviço de escrava, como um outro qualquer” (And all the young female servants will one
night serve the master’s body. And no glory or joy will they find in it. It is part of a slave’s
work, just like any other); cf. also Rancor (101–2).
with “a jovem que entra, de cabelo ruivo, Éritra, com um alguidar cheio de
farinha (…); vem sacudindo-se da chuva e despeja a farinha sobre a mesa” (4)
(the red-haired young woman who comes in, Éritra, with a bowl full of flour
[…]; she shakes off the drips of rain and empties out the bowl onto the table).
Active, coming from outside the house, fresh and nimble, the young woman
that comes in from the penumbra of a rainy day into the shadowy, dimly-lit
room is a ray of sunlight and life within the darkness in which she moves. This
is acknowledged by Jason when he asks: (7): “E Éritra, onde está? Os seus cabe-
los são o único sol que aqui há dentro”11 (And Éritra, where is she? Her hair is
the only sunshine in here). Her red hair is the core symbol of all that composes
this figure.12 Affirming language as the most significant trait of a personality,
bright, extrovert Éritra can assert the principle that (5): “É das ruivas! As ruivas
falam muito” (It’s because I’m a redhead! Redheads are talkative). And she goes
on, thinking about the specific case of Glauce, a redhead herself (6): “Nunca
se cala: faz as perguntas, e responde, e ri-se” (She never stops talking: she
asks questions, and answers them, and then laughs). Discreetly, as if by mere
chance, a physical similarity is gradually established between the two young
women which will eventually identify them as being sisters.
But beneath the dazzling brightness of Éritra’s fiery hair there lies a deep-
er meaning. Her hair is the mark of her identity, which bespeaks a specific
descent and may function as an identifying object.13 The secret that Melana,
11 The same motif is included again in the stage direction (14) that closes Part I: “Continua
a chover, mas da taça onde as ervas do chá estão mergulhadas em água quente sai uma
claridade. A cabeleira de Éritra também brilha” (It is still raining, but a brightness raises
from the bowl where the tea herbs are dipped in hot water. Éritra’s hair also shines).
12 The concentration of fatal beauty in the hair as its irradiation point is modelled upon the
inevitable figure of Helen of Troy. Homer mentions “Helen of the beautiful hair” (Iliad 3.
329) and gives the epithet of eúkomos to both goddesses and mortals (see, e.g., Iliad 1. 36,
2. 689, Odyssey 12. 389). Following the old epic motif, Euripides also portrays a coquette
Helen with her traditional hair; after going back to Sparta when the war is over, and con-
fronted with the misfortune and death that still haunt Greek homes when the heroes
return, Helen makes sure that she only cuts a small end of hair as an offering for her dead
sister Clytemnestra, without damaging its beauty (Orestes 128–9). Hélia Correia adheres
to this tradition in Rancor (43–6), where Helen’s blonde hair represents the protagonist
of a myth that still feeds the fantasy of young people but which was simply lost with the
decadence of old legends; Helen’s new Spartan look includes an Egyptian wig, a token of
her journey in the land of Pharaohs, covering her shaved head. This change in her hair
might mean, more clearly in this case, an accessory that creates another character when
worn on a shaved head.
13 This is also a well-known element of classical tradition to which Aristotle dedicated sev-
eral chapters in his Poetics (1452a 30–1452b 8). Hair is also a critical motif in the reencoun-
ter of long parted siblings, as in the famous recognition of Orestes first in Stesichorus’
Oresteia (see fr. 181a 11–3 in Finglass [2014b]), and then in Aeschylus’ Choephoroe 168–200,
166 Silva
hiding behind her typical prudence, had been keeping on the subject of her
daughter’s paternity is simply shouted and exposed by Éritra’s hair. Abar is a
witness of the revelation (14): “Diz-lhe a verdade. O seu cabelo há muito que
o disse a toda a gente!” (Tell her the truth. Her hair has long told it to every-
body). And soon Jason adds a more precise element to this general disclosure:
the specific identity of a relation (16): “Tão bela como Glauce. E tão parecida
como sua irmã” (As beautiful as Glauce. And as alike as sisters). Éritra’s red hair
had initially fascinated Jason in a sensual, almost unaware, and therefore genu-
ine way. Instinctively, his hand reaches out to the young woman who “evolui
alegremente em torno dele” (moves about him gaily) and, without being aware
of it, “acaba por pôr-lha no cabelo, distraidamente” (he eventually touches her
hair, distractedly). This attraction is reciprocal, as the Argonaut later (35) re-
marks: “Pensarás tu que não te olhava dia após dia? Que eu não via o modo
como a cor do cabelo de repente te descia para o rosto, se eu passava?” (Do you
think that I wasn’t looking at you day after day? That I didn’t notice the way the
color of your hair would tinge your face if I happened to pass by?). And thus,
Hélia Correia doubles and extends the threat against Medea’s feelings and se-
curity into the core of her own privacy, for, prior to looking at distant Glauce
with desire – as well as with interest – Jason had surrendered to the seductive-
ness of Éritra, who was close by and made herself available. That is what he
confesses candidly before the slave that serves him (22): “A culpa é tua. Foi a
cor do teu cabelo o que atiçou o meu desejo pela tua irmã” (This is your fault. It
was the color of your hair that aroused my desire for your sister).
This fascination inspired him to accept Creon’s proposal and substitute
the king’s legitimate daughter, and the heir to the throne, for the bastard (16).
Without having to give up the charm of the hair that both sisters shared, he
furthermore gained social status and political influence, conveniently combin-
ing desire and ambition. In the Portuguese text, the threat against Medea sur-
vives the destruction of Glauce, the promised bride; beyond her death, Éritra
becomes the object of another marriage proposal (35): “Quanto a nós, Éritra, és
agora a única descendente do rei. Ninguém duvida de que o seu sangue corre
em ti, a ruiva cabeleira, esses olhos o confirmam. Passado o luto, ele te per-
filhará. E reinaremos juntos em Corinto” (As for us, Éritra, you are now the
king’s sole descendant. Nobody doubts that his blood runs in your veins, your
red hair, those eyes of yours are proof enough. When his mourning is over, he
229–30, where Electra stresses the color of his hair as an element of similarity between
them that can explain the natural affinity between her brother and herself. In Electra
513–31 Euripides critically echoes this passage by Aeschylus and again confronts Electra
with a golden lock, inviting her to recognize the presence of her much-missed Orestes.
will acknowledge you as his daughter. And we shall reign together in Corinth).
Jason’s personality is reinforced by means of this ability to fall in love, rather
than simply engage in a mere relationship of convenience.14 And the siege be-
comes tighter around Medea, hidden within her own home. “É a cor do sangue”
(It is the color of blood), as Abar describes it (22), that moves before the repu-
diated woman like an inspiration.
Beside her servants, the figure of the mistress is paramount, the foreigner
from Colchis who keeps her distance as regards domestic conviviality.15 In line
with a ranking criterion defined according to each character’s relationship
with language, Medea boasts a widely acknowleged influence, which places
her at a higher level than mere mortals, enjoying the exceptional prerrogative
of one who possesses the gift of magic. She is feared by those around her,16 who
are convinced that the Colchian princess does not need to hear any words to
divine their thoughts; the reservation, or the animosity, of her servants is obvi-
ous to her, even in the absence of words, since, as Éritra understands (4; cf. 9),
“ela consegue ouvir-nos a pensar” (she can hear us think). Before the ambiguity
of her most intimate friends and relations, ultimately including the man she
loves, the father of her children, Medea is able to penetrate the deep thoughts
that generate words, even before they are spoken (18): “Finge nada saber e no
entanto já tudo adivinhou. É bruxa” (She pretends to know nothing and yet she
14 By mentioning names and engaging in psychological exploration, Hélia Correia also de-
velops that which Anouilh had to some extent left unsaid: Jason’s extra-marital affairs.
15 Hélia Correia modulates Euripidean Medea’s ‘theorization’ on the nature of human rela-
tionships, notably as concerns those between Greeks – or citizens from a given country –
and foreign exiles (214–24). In the Greek version, Medea, the Colchian exile, takes care to
address a friendly word to the Corinthian women choreuts as well as to voice her belief
on the subject of their social interaction: the natives should not make decisions based
on prejudice, anticipating reservations or unfriendliness; the resident foreigners should
make an effort to adapt and integrate themselves.
16 The topic of the fear that Medea causes on those around her, which goes back to Euripides,
is developed by Jouan (1996) 87–97. This French scholar argues that some characters in
Euripides’ Medea, such as Aegeus and Jason, are not afraid of her, either because they are
not familiar with Medea’s reactions or because they have not paid them enough atten-
tion. In Jouan’s opinion, Jason (88) “does not pay much attention to her threats, seeing
them merely as a jealous woman’s excesses”. This observation is quite interesting inso-
far as Hélia Correia develops exactly this element of Jason’s character in some detail. In
her play, Jason is thoughtless, he does not respect Medea’s feeling, while simultaneously
combining indifference with a kind of unconscious fear that leads him to avoid meeting
her alone in the intimacy of their bedroom; instead, he prefers to meet in a neutral, com-
mon domestic territory: the kitchen. Another group of characters – such as the Nurse, or
Creon – have a different approach to Medea; because they know how violent her soul can
be, they fear her extreme reactions. In the Portuguese play, also her slaves, who share the
same household as Medea, are afraid of their mistress.
168 Silva
has guessed it all. She is a witch). However, if a vestige of her famous ‘enchant-
ments’ reinforces her ability to hear silence, the personality of the new Medea
as a woman and a barbarian is built on the basis of the language in which she
expresses herself. This is a particularly relevant aspect in Euripidean Medea,
highlighting her exile’s solitary grief, far from home, diligent in her adapta-
tion to an alien nomos which is unknown to her, and nonetheless a victim of
disaffection and repulse in a world where she is truly unwelcome. Expressed
through the ‘language distance’ that affects Medea, the character’s loneliness is
also stressed in Hélia Correia’s play, starting with the heroine’s severance from
everything she had belonged to, which she significantly confesses; before the
imminence of losing her last connection with what makes her a social being –
her alliance with the Argonaut – Medea protests (21): “Aquilo por que eu dei
xei família, e pátria, e língua, e tudo o mais, a vida” (All that for which I left
family, and motherland, and language, and all else, my life), recalling the fatal
passion that had deprived her of the basic conditions for a normal, healthy
existence. She had drawn a curtain of silence over her past, keeping to herself
alone the image of Colchis– “Medeia nunca nos falou da Cólquida” (Medea
never spoke to us about Colchis, 25) – which she decided to hide from the alien
world of Corinth – “a minha história é só a minha história” (my story is my story
alone, 25).17
However, Medea felt a very human need to try and reestablish the pillars of
stability and routine in Greece. She committed herself to organize a new fam-
ily, the basic nucleus of affection-based protection; she sought to adapt to a
new homeland where her presence and her inclusion might be tolerated. But,
as her ultimate weapon – and here resides a new element in Desmesura which
is alien to tradition, though in line with Hélia Correia’s creation – she made an
effort to transplant her own language, a structuring trait of her true identity,
into her new world. To that effect, Medea tried to develop some closeness
17 This topic of the distance that separates the barbarian woman from the Greek commu-
nity with whom she is now forced to interact is especially emphasized by the Portuguese
author, who in this respect seems to have been inspired by Anouilh. In the case of his
French Medea, her displacement is signaled by the fact that she lives outside Corinth;
together with her Nurse, who is also from Colchis, she lives in a wagon in the outskirts of
the city, where they can hear the sounds of popular festivities from a distance; they are
excluded from this conviviality because it is only meant for the locals. These festivities,
which are collective manifestations with a specific cultural nature imagined by Anouilh,
are replaced in Hélia Correia by language and climate as identity traits. In both texts,
however, a prologue establishes this incompatibility as a background for the events that
will follow. See above, p. 66.
with Abar, the Nubian slave, who was also a foreign woman in Greek territory;18
she wished to build a degree of complicity through language by teaching her
Colchian and thus erect a protective barrier between the two of them and the
hostile outside world. But her attempt proved unsuccessful for she did not find
a reflection of her own fiery and self-willed personality in the Nubian slave.
This is the image that prevails in Medea’s portrait, implicitly enhancing the
character’s most relevant characteristic: her expatriate condition. With no
hope of ever being able to succeed in her efforts to teach the Nubian slave, who
is quite a renitent pupil, Medea reacts with fury, which is both a characteristic
of her ‘excessive’ nature and an obvious sign of the hopelessness and displace-
ment that weigh on her more heavily than ever. The following stage direction is
a summary of the arrival of the two women (9): “Medeia atira Abar sobre uma
esteira com uma exclamação enfurecida. Fala-lhe em língua estranha; Abar
responde primeiro na mesma língua, depois começa a falar em grego, obri
gando Medeia a acompanhá-la” (Medea throws Abar onto a mat with a furious
exclamation. She talks to her in a strange language; at first Abar answers in the
same language but then she starts speaking in Greek, forcing Medea to pay at-
tention to her). Fragile and unable to correspond to her mistress’ firmness of
purpose – like Ismene with Antigone when Oedipus’ daughters face the need
to defend their family’s prerogatives – Abar also has the function of, in contrast
with Medea, a mirror that reflects different approaches to the same crisis. The
poor Nubian, a sister to Medea insofar as they share the same condition of
foreign women, does not hesitate to confess her frailty of mind and attitude –
“Senhora, não me obrigues a falar na tua língua. Eu não consigo. Esqueço.
Tenho a cabeça fraca” (My Lady, please do not make me speak your language.
I cannot do it. I forget. My head is weak, 10) – as well as her inability to cor-
respond to the drive that governs each gesture of her companion of exile and
rebellion – “És a única com quem posso falar a língua dos meus pais e da feiti-
ceira, minha tia. É o meu único consolo aqui. Vamos, fala-me em colco. Faz um
esforço” (You are the only one I can talk to in the language of my parents and
my aunt, the sorcerer. This is my sole consolation here. Come on, talk to me
in Colchian. Make an effort). She is nonetheless genuinely sympathetic with
Medea’s intimate pain, only she expresses it differently. Being also committed
18 This idea of having a character who shares a similar experience of exile interact with
Medea – in this case, an entirely new figure, a Nubian slave, who comes from a dif-
ferent cultural environment – also seems to take Anouilh as a model. However, being
more conservative, the French author ascribes this role to the Nurse. In his Médée, the
Colchian identity of the old woman is quite distinctive, with her knowledge of both her
mistress’ past and the customs of their common country. This is a characteristic which the
Euripidean Nurse did not possess. See above, pp. 66–8.
170 Silva
to the search for her lost identity, her weapon is not the power of words, used
in active protest; her more conformist nature advises her to be silent and to
seek refuge under the rays of sunlight that remind her of her ancestors and
where she is able to find consolation (10), abandoning herself to passivity or
maybe even to the eternal asylum that death can generously provide.
A cultural conflict is set between both women, and this makes their original
incompatibility even more complex and more precise. Language and climate
are two equally relevant factors that characterize the differences, and the dis-
tance, between two creatures that come from contrasting horizons. Medea’s
presence did generate a reaction from the Hellenes from the very first mo-
ment; a deep incompatibility between ‘sunny’, Mediterranean Greece and the
woman from the North added a tone of suspicion to the most banal, uncom-
mitted conversations. A seemingly innocuous remark on the weather – “ah,
como chove!…” (oh, how it rains!, 5) – which could be read as a codified way
to express the traditional lack of understanding and suspicion that separates
Greeks and barbarians (5): “Toda a gente em Corinto passa a vida a estranhar
estas chuvas tão intensas. Eu própria me recordo como era tão cheia de sol
esta cidade. E quente! Os Invernos passavam num instante. Desde que ela
chegou, vivemos nisto …”19 (Everybody in Corinth always find these intense
rains so unusual. I can remember quite well how this city used to be so sunny.
And warm! Winters used to be quite short. But this is what we have since she
has arrived …). But the two foreign women are equally incompatible, cold and
warmth signaling an antipodal distance between the Colchian and the Nubian.
As it becomes clear that Abar “morre de chuva e escuridão” (dies of rain and
darkness), like a plant which is sadly transplanted from a warm soil to hostile
weather, so is Medea threatened with an equivalent, albeit contrasting fate
(12): “Mas sob o vosso sol morria eu” (But I would die under your sun).
However, while Medea finds some comfort in hearing her own language
spoken, Abar, who is less sensitive as regards language, accepts, alongside the
different codes she has gradually assimilated, the homeless condition of a
foreign slave; to her mother tongue she has eventually added Greek, or even
Colchian, drifting, both in her words and in her life, at the mercy of an aimless
destiny; within the instability of exile and servitude, for Abar, getting her lan-
guage back is equivalent to closing a circle called life (20). She has lost control
of a weapon which Medea ably manipulates, with visible effects. Beside Abar,
who collapses for lack of warmth, a condition that she cannot control and
which exposes her to hostility and extinction in an alien land, the Colchian
19 See 11, 17.

princess insists in uttering strange words, the affirmation of her origins, which
sound to Greek ears like an uncomfortable reaction, though effective in their
expression of revolt (17): “Para que insistes nisso? … Em falar essa língua com
a núbia! Estás cheia de atitudes antipáticas!” (Why do you insist?… in talk-
ing in that language with the Nubian! You certainly have a most unfriendly
attitude!).
If language differences generate hostility between Greeks and barbar-
ians, more importantly than making her allies in their reaction to the outside
world, the community created between the two women exiles by the knowl-
ege of the Colchian language has the power to unite them, revealing the hid-
den side of their nature, which can only be disclosed by means of the exact
words. Gradually, almost involuntarily, Medea confided to Abar, her sole
true interlocutor, the disciple to whom her own language became accessible,
what she had hidden from all the Greeks around her, i.e., the intimacy of her
Colchian history. That is why the Nubian recounts all of her mistress’s past
crimes (11) and is able to claim the privileged perception of a confidante (27):
“Ah Medeia, eu conheço-te tão bem … Não foi em vão que me ensinaste a
língua em que te iniciaste nos feitiços. As palavras não são senão o espírito
das coisas que nomeiam. Sim, não vi somente o teu país. Eu vi-te a alma tão
negra como tu. De certo modo, há entre nós um esboço de irmandade” (Ah,
Medea, I know you so well … It wasn’t in vain that you taught me the lan-
guage in which you were initiated in witchcraft. Words are but the spirit of the
things they name. Yes, I was able to see not just your country. I saw your soul,
which is as dark as yourself. Somehow, there is an intimation of sisterhood
between us).
Besides this privileged, albeit difficult relationship with Abar, all the other
human networks that Medea gradually develops in Corinth are marked by
disharmony and conflict.20 Within a smaller circle, among women, keeping
to the limits of the daily female routine in the home, Medea seeks to clearly
20 Easterling’s (1977) 179 view of the integration of Euripidean Medea into Corinth may be
useful as a basis for interpreting Hélia Correia’s choices in this respect: “So Euripides with
fine sleight-of-hand contrives to imply that Medea’s status at Corinth is one of some dig-
nity, but without explaining why; later it becomes clear that she has a reputation as a
wise woman, but the picture that is very lightly sketched in (…) is as close to that of a re-
spectable religious authority as to that of an outlandish witch”. This remark fits quite well
with the Portuguese author’s choice insofar as, by virtue of her magician’s powers, her
Medeia is able to command fearful respect. As a woman, however, in her domestic con-
text, she is far from enjoying the same authority. In fact, trying to conquer that authority
is exactly what leads to her tumultuous relationship with the female circle that gravitates
around her.
172 Silva
demarcate her status as mistress of the house and her authority over the women
slaves who serve her. In Hélia Correia’s text, this facet of Medea’s personality is
equally expressed on the basis of the social power of language. Establishing a
social hierarchy entails a process that ultimately rests on wordplay, whose cor-
respondence with reality is precarious. In the social unit of a household where
the identity of each element proves to be dubious or mask-like, words, like
charcoal, compose the clear captions that tell the truth about each figure. That
is exactly the issue discussed in the first dialogue of the play, between the two
slaves, Melana, the mother, and Éritra, the daughter. In the midst of the house-
hold chores that identify them as servants, a reflection emerges on the behavior
befitting their condition. Each reaction, even the most legitimately human –
are not dreams at least a human being’s natural right, as well as a glimpse of
freedom? – is reflected as a deprivation on the status of a servant. For Melana,
raising Éritra is an exercise in combating nature’s spontaneity, according to
a well-advised methodology whereby words and silence are judiciously used.
Repression entails silencing even the most spontaneous remarks, since they
may all hide something dangerous or reckless. Taming is obtained through the
repetition of words that have the power of substituting the dominating power
of the nomos for natural instinct (4): “Éritra – Estás sempre a recordar-me. –
Melana – Que tu és uma escrava? Realmente parece que te esqueces muita vez.
Olha, desta barriga é que nasceste. Uma filha de escrava escrava é” (Éritra – You
keep reminding me. – Melana – That you are a slave? Indeed, you seem to for-
get it too often. Look, you came out of this belly. A slave’s daughter is a slave).
Then, the parent imprints the marks of an identity upon the natural canvas,
integrating each creature in their successive social nuclei, family and commu-
nity. Here too, the linguistic construction of a ‘birth certificate’ competes with
an advantage over the true work of nature. Doubt itself seems to require the
permanent commitment of a convincing rhetoric21 (5):
21 Among the Sophists, the nomos/physis dichotomy has to do with Protagoras and it raises
the famous issue of individuality as the opposite of practices or knowledge accepted by
the whole community. Besides what is empirical and therefore does not require the city’s
deliberation or opinion, there are values, which are situated in the areas of justice, mor-
als, social convention on which human beings decide, not individually but as a group,
and they are expressed through language. Thus, words must scrupulously fit the concepts
they stand for. It is the role of education to disseminate this knowledge, which has the
power to change the instinctual dispositions of each individual, transforming him/her
into a true citizen. This process is carried out through discourse, or, in other words, it is
through language that each person is educated or formed as a full-fledged member of a
given culture. See Dupréel (1948) 22–30; Kerferd (1981) chap. X; Guthrie (1971) chap. IV.
Éritra – E o meu pai?

Melana – Já to disse e repeti.
Éritra – Um escravo trácio que morreu nas minas.
Melana – Exactamente. Um escravo trácio. E então?
Éritra – E como era o seu nome?
Melana – E tu insistes!
Éritra – É que já me contaste tanta história … E em nenhuma delas
acredito.
(Éritra – What about my father?

Melana – I’ve told you more than once.
Éritra – A Thracian slave who died in the mines.
Melana – Exactly. A Thracian slave. What else?
Éritra – And what was his name?
Melana – You’re insistent!
Éritra – You have told so many stories before … and none of them do I
believe.)
Nature itself will undertake to claim its own rights. In the red hair that exuber-
antly screams Éritra’s name, as if physis was making its protesting voice heard
in an agon against nomos, its perpetual opponent. However, under the skin, at
a hidden but equally sensitive level, Medea’s insightful mind senses another
natural scream, which responds to the doubt of one who seeks a conformity
between truth and appearance (12): “Éritra – E poderás dizer-me aquilo que
minha mãe me tem calado? Meu pai quem foi? – Medeia – Que queres que
te responda? O que o teu sangue já adivinhou?” (Éritra – And can you tell
me what my mother has been keeping silence about? Who was my father? –
Medeia – What do you want me to tell you? That which your blood has already
guessed?).
After the genetic chain has been defined comes conduct, gradually molded
by paideia in a long process of correction and repression. To shape the profile
of a slave who is the child of slaves is to make an extreme choice between the
two terms of another famous dichotomy that seems to radically affect the way
people behave within a society: word / action. For slaves, speaking is a weap-
on, a protesting tool that enables them to shake off their shackles, to think
and express themselves as autonomous, free beings, to overcome the coersive
limits of the humiliation which society imposes on them. Because they are
incompatible with the subservience they are expected to show, words are a for-
bidden luxury and silence a quality they must learn in the difficult process of
174 Silva
conforming to an imposed identity. With the passing of time, Melana was able
to assimilate that imposition, keeping to herself, in prudent, discrete silence,
the story of one who became a slave22 (9); with the blood she bequeathed her
daughter, she wished to pass on the secret of how to ‘behave’ like a slave. The
lesson is plain and simple, even if painful and contra naturam (9): “Eu ensinei-
te a temer as palavras. São um luxo a que os Gregos se entregam por prazer
como o vinho e os jogos. Para nós, é como alimentarmos a serpente dentro da
própria boca. Quem espreitar para dentro de uma casa poderá distinguir os
escravos pelo silêncio” (I have taught you to fear words. They are a luxury to
which the Greeks abandon themselves, like wine or the games. For us, it is like
nurturing the serpent inside our own mouth. If you peep into a house, you’ll be
able to identify slaves by their silence).
Excluded from the use of language – which puts them on a par with ob-
jects, or property, in a society where the grandeur of democratic co-habitation
founded on free expression was invented – action is what is expected of slaves,
which, in their case, also carries a stigma of humiliation and servility. Silently
carrying out the household routine tasks is the natural emblem of a slave. To
dream, to speak are forbidden luxuries when a slave’s duty is to knead the
bread dough (4, 13). Only nature has the right to give them back what human
society has prevented them from having (13): “A morte, mais piedosa que tu,
estendendo a mão, compra-me sem moedas. Como todos, mudo por fim de
dona” (Death, more merciful than you, reaches out his hand and buys me with
no coins. Like all the others, I finally change owners).
To be free and the object of an acknowledged timē includes the power to
speak, or rather, to give orders and be obeyed with no hesitations. This is the
way of a society where power speaks through the mouth of those who dwell
in palaces, even if nature seems to inhibit them from it. Glauce is a woman,
young, immature and deprived of authority. But she is a princess, and this
status, which is conferred by the nomos, gives her an active voice, and there-
fore she can impose herself with no reluctance; those she summons come
to her because, after all, (6) “É a princesa. Manda mais do que tu. Mais que
Jasão” (She is the princess. She is more powerful than you. More powerful
than Jason), as Éritra recognizes, to the displeasure of her mother, who is
a mere slave; even being disobeyed, Melana continues to ponder the issue,
using the same line of thinking (6): “Menos que o rei. Se o rei te proibir …”
(Less than the king. If the king forbids you to …). At the bottom of this social
scale are slaves who, if made to break the silence that identifies them, express
22 “Éritra – Quem te escravizou, mãe? – Melana – É história antiga. – Éritra – Que nunca me
contaste” (Éritra – Who made you a slave, mother? – Melana – It’s an old story. – Éritra –
Which you have never told me).
the limits imposed by their slave condition by submissively answering the

questions they are asked (6): “Isso é resposta que uma escrava dê?” (Is that an
answer fit for a slave girl?).
The circumstances in which Medea finds herself are again ambiguous.
Because of her barbarian origins, she is excluded from the hierarchy that gov-
erns the society where she is still considered a stranger, although she has the
vague status of a hero’s wife, ‘the mistress of the house’. But the fragile nature of
this concession, coming from someone who still identifies a foreigner with an
intruder, becomes immediately obvious in this female territory, where Greek
women assert their authority. Medea is compelled to claim the certification of
a status that is reestablished by the word ‘mistress’. In a slave’s mouth, her own
name – Medea – sounds inappropriate, almost insulting, trivializing her prin-
cess rank (12): “Senhora! Assim se trata uma princesa. Esqueces? Julgas tu que,
por me encontrar longe do meu reino, fiquei desprotegida?” (Mistress! That is
how you address a princess. Have you forgotten? Do you think that because I
am far away from my kingdom, I am unprotected?). But contrary to her words,
her barbarian condition only stresses her vulnerability and isolation, both in
Euripides and in Hélia Correia. This protest, made for the sake of stability and
safety, falls apart when all her prerogatives are simply withdrawn as a conse-
quence of Jason’s infidelity. Vilified by her servants (13), Medea loses the title
of ‘mistress’ to which she clung as a drowning person clings to a lifebuoy (18).
The word ‘mistress’ may serve as a means to try and recover a fraction of the
authority she had lost by choosing exile, but it is not enough to soothe Medea’s
sense of solitude and lack of affection. She herself recognizes that the author-
ity of a Mistress must be acknowledged through fear, but friendship is a gift not
compatible with it, and thus it must be excluded (12). Medea painfully learns
this when, after so much grief, she seeks in those who call her ‘mistress’ the
understanding that nature allows among women, but which social hierarchies
do preclude (24):
Medeia – Somos todas mulheres. Quem me humilhar a vós humilha! Não

sofremos nós com as mesmas bebedeiras dos senhores, com a posse bru-
tal e com os partos?
Melana – Nunca tiveste essa conversa. Foste sempre tão arrogante, tão
temível. Perder Jasão tornou-te humilde, foi?
(Medeia – We are all women. Whoever humiliates me humiliates you!

Do we all not endure the same abuse by our drunken masters, the same
brutal possession, and childbirth?
Melana – You never spoke like this. You have always been so arrogant, so
fearsome. Losing Jason has made you humble, right?)
176 Silva
However, as concerns her rights and her feelings, Medea’s most important
agon, according to the old Euripidean tradition, is fought between herself and
Jason, her lover and the father of her sons, who is nonetheless a traitor. Like the
Euripidean Nurse, who ‘scented’ and announced the proximity of a serious cri-
sis, confirmed by Medea’s furious expression, so can the new female servants,
her counterparts in the oikos of the Portuguese heroine, capture the effect of
the tensions that shake a broken household (6): “Éritra – Nesta casa o melhor é
fingir que somos mudos. – Melana – Ora aí tens! De um mudo não resulta de-
sastre algum”23 (Éritra – The best thing to do in this house is to pretend you’re
mute. – Melana – You are right there! No disaster can come from a mute).
2 Medea’s Eternal Conflict with Jason
Jason and Medea’s reencounter happens only in Part II of Correia’s text, after
the protest against the authority of the mistress of the house has been care-
fully designed. The entrance of the Argonaut triggers a number of negative
signs (14): “tem um ar desconfortável, preocupado” (he looks uncomfortable,
concerned), he immediately asks for Medea as if she were the focus of his ob-
session, and he barely notices Éritra’s seduction game, which is rather unchar-
acteristic of him. And thus, the old-time lover approaches the woman he had
once seduced, whom, despite their long parting process, had groomed her hair
and dressed herself up with the same care as if she had been preparing for a
romantic meeting.24 But before the Colchian woman appears before him, per-
forming her now exhausted attempt at seduction, Jason reacts to the presence
of Abar who brings his life’s nightmare to his mind through the most unwel-
come of sounds (14): “Novamente terei de ouvir falar aquela língua que é um
ultraje à Grécia?” (Do I have to hear them again speak that language which is an
insult to Greece?). Closed in on himself and his intimate torments, Jason does
not overcome his traditional hesitant behavior, or perhaps even cowardice.
23 As a whole, these first scenes in which H. Correia describes in detail the current context
of Medea’s life in its two main aspects – her foreign origin and her ambiguous status in
Corinth – echo Anouilh’s two long scenes between Medea and her Nurse. In both cases
the two crises that plague Medea’s life are gradually defined: the cultural one, of which
she is aware, and the personal one, which is imminent: Medea and Jason’s breakup.
24 Again, this detail of the preparation for a love meeting seems to refer back to Anouilh.
In the French author’s play, where Jason and Medea’s physical relationship is the jus-
tification for their rapprochement (see above, pp. 73–4, 81, 84), this episode of the
Portuguese play likewise replicates Medea’s preparation for their love encounters of
former days (Anouilh [1953] 22).
This trait had been clearly demonstrated in the supreme campaign of his life –
without Medea’s help he would not have succeeded in defeating the dragon
that kept his much-desired Golden Fleece – and he never hid it when confron
ted with the fierce will of his companion, who turned his life into a permanent
adventure. His fear of Medea’s anger is so deep that he cannot bring himself to
recognize this. Besides his hero’s qualms, he feels also humiliated as a husband
at the thought of the female power he cannot free himself from. To express
these feelings in words, to ‘confess’ the fear that afflicts him is also something
which this man is simply unable to do. That is why a slave’s fearless exposure
of his weak soul, which she feels free to express after having known him for so
many years, sounds to him like an ‘insult’ (15), despite the fact that it is a mere
acknowledgement of an incontrovertible truth.25
Since Jason is expecting a tremendous agon to take place, he carefully cho-
ses both the setting and the occasion26 that seem to be the most convenient in
view of his self-acknowledged fragility; contrary to the usually intimate nature
of a confrontation between husband and wife during a marriage crisis, Jason
prefers to meet Medea in the kitchen, the open heart of the home,27 and to
have the witnessing presence of the servants, like a weak leader whose success
is dependent on the support of his wife’s female companions, on whose alli-
ance against the Colchian he seems to count (16–7).
The same impotence expressed in Jason’s choice of their meeting place is
also present in his accusations against Medea, which he does not dare to own,
hiding behind the supposedly anonymous voice of ‘everybody in Corinth’,
conveniently shifting to others his own repulse, which is gradually becoming
hate (17–8): “Em Corinto todos se afastaram de mim por tua causa” (In Corinth
25 In Greek tradition, Jason is portrayed as a decadent, depraved hero. From a conqueror and
the leader of a daring enterprise, he gradually became a common, selfish man, focused
on his own material and social well-being, so cowardly and dependent on others for the
management of his daily affairs as he had been in the conquest of the famous treasure.
26 The concept of kairos, the opportuneness that ensures success to a speech in terms of
its timing and the tenor of its arguments, is associated with Protagoras by Diogenes
Laertius (9. 52); the same concept was later adopted by Gorgias. See Plebe (1979) 14–5, 18;
Untersteiner (1967) 18–9.
27 The significance of the setting that frames the events and its relevant contribution to
character design is also mentioned in Euripides; in Medea 141–3, the Nurse explains that
her mistress is in the couple’s bedroom, which is both a setting that corresponds to the
marriage crisis context and a symbol of solitude and intimacy. Segal (1996) 27, on the
other hand, stresses the Euripidean nature of the contrast between “domestic realism”
and “the imaginative reaches of myth”, which introduce the fantastic. In the Portuguese
text, the setting, which includes both the bedroom and the kitchen, entails a rearrange-
ment of the conventional proportion, favoring the domestic, which is also the human or
the personal.
178 Silva
everybody has turned away from me because of you); “todos te culpam pela
chuva que não cessa de cair” (everybody is blaming you for this endless rain).28
In this atypical speech Medea can recognize the faint-hearted hero whom she
had helped in Colchis in the past. Jason is ultimately unable to take advantage
of the servants’ recriminating voices against Medea, exposing his weakness as
a man engulfed by female chattering (19). A victim of a wrong sense of kairos as
a result of his lack of courage, Jason must now face the terrible trial of ‘finding
the right words’ to articulate his feelings and his arguments behind his ‘every-
body in Corinth’ mask – and what is more, in a female space which he does not
master. Medea encourages him to speak, she anticipates questions in order to
obtain the revelations that she seeks. But she too, the magician who is famous
for her ability to listen to other people’s thoughts, fails; caught unawares by the
news of Jason’s betrothal to Glauce, she finds herself at a loss for words.
This silence, which is a retreat upon her own self and a denial of a last con-
descendence, brings an upsurge in Medea’s wrath and violence. Jason guesses
it intuitively and he tries to hide behind endless arguments (19–20); but he
goes even further: in a terrified gesture, the traitor asks Abar to speak Colchian,
so that the sweetness of Medea’s mother tongue might mitigate his ruthless
confession. But Medea accuses him bluntly (20):29 “Cobarde. Não te escondas
atrás dela. Já te não servem as palavras gregas, tens medo de as sujar com a
pestilência de um coração traidor?” (You, coward. Do not try to hide yourself
behind her. Are Greek words not good for you anymore; are you afraid to defile
them with the pestilence of your traitor’s heart?). Jason advances new argu-
ments inspired by his model’s; from explanation, he goes on to lying, claim-
ing that their children’s interests are his sole concern (20; see Medea 549–50,
562–4), and that the alliance between himself and Glauce is nothing but a
mere agreement (21). But, like Euripides’ Jason, the only response he obtains is
the aggressiveness of a relentless opponent (21–2): “Não fales dos meus filhos!
Não os uses como argumento para o teu desejo de te deitares com Glauce! Não
transformes o instinto animal numa estratégia!” (Don’t you dare speak of my
28 Euripides’ Jason avails himself of other arguments, in a somewhat parallel scene: the
generalized animosity against the Colchian, which is mostly grounded on her status as
a foreigner, is explained by Jason as a result of Medea’s manifest aggressiveness towards
the king, who responds with irritation (Euripides, Medea 453–8). This more ‘political’ tone
of the Greek tragedy is less developed in Hélia Correia, who chooses to favor the cultural
nuances of the topic.
29 On Medea’s censuring, or even insulting tone, see below, note 32. Conversely, from his
perspective, Jason tries to use a more conciliatory tone, and goes so far as allowing the use
of a foreign language, which had been so distasteful to him on other occasions. The same
difference in tones can also be found in Euripides’ agon.
children! Don’t use them as an argument to indulge your desire to sleep with
Glauce! Don’t make animal instinct a strategy!). Again, through her heroine’s
irate, though lucid voice, Hélia Correia indicates that now, more than ever be-
fore, the tension behind this conflict has to do with physis, which claims its
rights under the carefully-wrought guise of nomos.
Words of accusation are exchanged, bringing to light the truth behind ap-
pearances, and the couple’s break becomes final; the last thread that had con-
nected their two lives is now irremediably broken. Adding to Medea’s stateless
condition, which had been the result of her violent actions against her own
people and family, now Jason erects another wall that separates her from the
world of humanity and affections (22): “Nem vosso Zeus podia fazer voltar o
tempo àquele instante em que ainda não tinhas dito nada. O mundo acabou.
Começou outro”30 (Not even your Zeus would be able to make time go back to
that instant when you had not said anything. The world has ended. Another
one has begun). All the steps that had shaped their common life course were
thus left behind, contrasting, in the outcome that was sealed by these bitter
words, with the time when there was genuine harmony between Jason and
Medea’s souls, a concord that did not require words to express itself. At that
time, there was nothing the Argonaut needed to ask or explain to ensure the
princess’s concurrence, despite the fact that, socially, they were enemies. Back
then, in their inmost hearts, nature sang hymns of love and empathy (33).
Their deep, genuine feelings for each other needed no words – words might
even have misrepresented and disturbed it. Now, hypocrisy and hidden inter-
ests do require words, elaborate, false, persuasive words.
Wrought between obscure feelings, intentions, and objectives, dictated by
the contradictory impulses of the human soul, the story of Jason and Medea
must be assessed through the difficult accuracy of words. Orthoépeia, ‘the rigor
of expression’, is a concept to which Hélia Correia returns. Finding the exact
name for the fluidity of emotional reactions influences the soul and affects the
30 This notion according to which words – both the ones that make up a legend and those
that antagonize human creatures – can be a propelling element in collective or individual
life is a topic repeatedly present in Hélia Correia’s texts; Rancor, 56: “Helena – Sempre
a mesma conversa! Haja paciência! Já era altura de mudar de assunto. Etra – Como se
fosse um passo de magia. Como se cada um abrisse os olhos e regressasse ao tempo antes
de Helena” (Helena – They keep talking about the same thing! I can’t stand it anymore!
High time to change the subject. Etra – As if by magic. As if each person could open their
eyes and go back to the time before Helena.) In Euripides, Medea’s Nurse makes a similar
remark (1–13), saying that she wishes that the past might be undone, so that life could go
back to its starting point.
180 Silva
narrative. Is ‘love’ the right name for the experience of the Colchian woman
and the captain of the Argos?31
One must, first of all, define ‘love’. Experienced Melana declares (8): “Não
se chama de amor um sentimento que existe só durante a escuridão” (You
don’t call love a sentiment that exists only during darkness), meaning a spo-
radic, gratuitous, inconsequential relationship like the one between a master
and an attractive slave. But things are quite different between spouses; in this
case, anything that entails seduction or stimulates sexual impulse is deemed
unfitting and condemned to erosion by a kind of social conventionalism (14):
“Melana – Ela está à tua espera. Vestiu-se, penteou-se para ti. Decerto se es-
tendeu no vosso leito. – Jasão – Pareces uma velha alcoviteira. Isso não são
maneiras de falar para esposos com filhos” (Melana – She is awaiting you. She
has dressed herself and groomed her hair for you. I am sure she is lying in your
bed. – Jasão – You sound like an old whoremonger. That is not how you should
talk to spouses who have children). But this couple is experiencing the mo-
ment when tedium is shaken by the threat of a breakdown. Medea reacts to
the idea of having a rival for Jason’s attentions, and in her protest her vibrancy
comes from “o orgulho, não o amor” (22) (pride rather than love). The way
she judges his treason is proportionate to the natural excess of her character;
therefore, there is no right word for Medea’s extreme revolt (25): “Melana – E
deveremos chamar amor a coisa tão medonha? – Medeia – Decerto não, eu
bem procurei essa palavra nova. Não existe. Se houvesse uma palavra, eu pode-
ria talvez achar conforto, convertê-la num sentimento que me consolasse”
(Melana – And should such a thing be called love? – Medeia – Probably not,
I really did seek that new word. It does not exist. If there was a word, maybe I
could find some comfort, turn it into a feeling that could afford me some con-
solation). Because her thirst for revenge is not quenched by the annihilation of
her rival and the inevitable impact it would have on Jason, she goes even fur-
ther, using her children as an instrument of retaliation, and taking advantage
of the children’s innocence as a shield to protect herself against any suspicion.
Surely pragmatism is not the only reason why she chose this strategy. By involv-
ing their sons in the tragedy, she aims to utterly destroy both the home she had
built and her own self. The excessiveness of her actions bewilders those who
31 Defining the type of relationship that drew the princess to the Argonaut is one of the
most unstable motifs in the whole tradition of the Medea myth. The need to find the
right word for it is an exercise whose model can be found also in Anouilh; incidentally,
“desvario” (madness) is a term equally used by Anouilh and Hélia Correia; see above, p. 76.
See López and Pociña (2002).
witness them. Melana and Abar, two women who are close to Medea, still try
to understand, that is, to name the turmoil in her soul (28): “Abar – A pobre!
Causaria compaixão se se chamasse angústia aquilo que sente. Mas em ne
nhuma língua eu sei dar nome à coisa sem medida que a possui. – Melana – Tu
não conheces a palavra, Abar? Nunca a pronunciaste? É o ciúme. – Abar – Isto
é mais que ciúme. É desvario” (Abar – The poor thing! It would be a cause for
compassion if what she feels could be called distress. But in no language can
I find a word to name the excessive thing that possesses her. – Melana – Don’t
you know the word, Abar? Have you never said it? It is jealousy. – Abar – This
is more than jealousy. It is madness).
This love, which desertion had transformed into jealousy to then become
madness, is justified before the angry Argonaut, now deprived of a bride who
represented to him the conquest of a new treasure. Led again by the hand of a
love-sick maiden, the hero intended to conquer a prestigious position of lead-
ership among his people. Anger makes Jason, whom we know as a fearful, cow-
ardly character, loquacious and excessive in his words; his confessions are free
from subterfuge and deception, though not necessarily appropriate or subtle.
He does not scream out his repentance for having once given in to the tempta-
tion of what Medea meant in terms of his immediate interests: the conquest of
a treasure and a hero’s crown that might redeem him from human mediocrity.
In his anger, he utters the word ‘gratitude’ as an insult where ‘love’ was the word
that was expected (32). Then, confronted with Medea’s perplexity before the
evidence of what had hitherto been but a mere suspicion, he re-formulates it,
ignoring orthoépeia, a weapon that ensures success in an agon as in life: “Amor.
Talvez. São precisões desnecessárias, essas” (Love. Maybe. Those are unneces-
sary niceties).
3 Medea’s Revenge
This awkward, albeit candid, confession is probably what triggers Medea into
planning the last of her crimes. She had indeed committed many crimes for the
sake of her lover’s ambition – and this is the moment to note it – to the extent
that ‘love’ became synonymous with ‘death and violence’. Jason is not wrong
in his remark (32): “Dá-se o nome de amor a muita coisa. Até a uma força que
destrói” (Many things are called love. Even a force that destroys), at the precise
moment when a noise announces that the children are approaching. In a last
effort to save them, Medea still tries to lure Jason into fleeing from Corinth, the
limit of her dreams, and go back to Colchis, which means returning to the place
182 Silva
where her adventure had begun.32 But Jason has his own future plans, and he
dreams of a new odyssey for himself, which includes his children and young
Éritra’s red hair, under the bright, warm Corinthian light; in order to be perfect,
his dream must also include power and the throne, two seductive goals which
Jason cannot reach through Glauce, the legitimate heir, although he might
still be able to accede to them through the love of the king’s illegitimate child,
Éritra, whom old Creon will surely acknowledge. But, being repudiated one
more time, Medea is no less coherent in her predisposition to commit another
crime, following the pattern of her extreme responses when faced with seri-
ous obstacles. As in Euripides, the monologue where Medea assesses her own
state of mind when the time comes for her to commit filicide is significantly
long. Suspending the gesture that strikes everyone – Jason, the unfaithful, their
children, and her inmost soul, she can still find a word that affords her a last
measure of courage (37): “Essa palavra que os designa – mortais – não significa
que tarde ou cedo hão-de morrer?” (The word that names them – mortals –
doesn’t it mean that sooner or later they are going to die?).
This is the end of Medea’s story and the beginning of a whole culture that
gave shape – and a voice – to both her feelings and her life. Telling the myth
of the Argonauts will forever mean beholding a culture which regarded the
seductiveness of words as one amongst its supreme pleasures (9). A different
notion of society was built upon words, endowing each individual citizen with
freedom, including the right to speak without fear or limitation, which, as is
generally recognized, is the ultimate privilege (9). To enjoy the prerogative of
being Greek, and thereby gaining access to a clear, higher world, in contrast
with the barbarian world, is principally to speak the Greek language but also
to aspire to glory that lasts beyond life, immortalized by the voices of the poets
(13): “Glória alguma equivale à de reinar numa terra cantada pelos poetas. O
que não é narrado, não existe” (No glory is equivalent to the glory of ruling a
land sung by poets. What is not narrated does not exist).
This is the glory Medea wished for her children: being full-fledged Greeks,
both in their lifetime and in the eternal memory that survives death itself. But
then Jason’s impudent, though unfortunately true words made her aware of
the fact that hers was an illusory dream (20). After all, ‘os filhos da estrangeira’
32 In this respect, it seems appropriate to recall the commentaries that value Euripidean
Medea’s ability to utter words that are more akin to those of heroic morals, placing the
values of the soul and affection before material interests. This is perhaps the facet em-
phasized by H. Correia when her heroine tries to awaken the ideals of love and dignity in
Jason, the decadent hero. The lack of empathy of his response to her proposal leaves her
isolated, like a Sophoclean hero/ine, betrayed, humiliated, but still resilient and unbro-
ken. On this, see Knox (1977) 193–225; Bongie (1977) 27–56.
(the foreign woman’s sons) are not Greek, nor are they by right the heirs to
their father’s throne. Therefore, they become an object of manipulation caught
in the midst of their parents’ mutual hostility: ‘argumento de desejo’ (an argu-
ment of desire) for Jason, ‘poção’ (a potion) in Medea’s vengeful witchcraft.
Torn between two conflicting forces, they are thus dismembered between life
and death. This is Medea’s supreme decision (37): “Meus filhos vão comigo para
casa. Levarei deles o que de mim descende, a metade divina. Quanto aos cor-
pos ofereço-os, estendidos, a seu pai” (My children are coming home with me.
From them I shall take what descends from me, their divine half. As for their
bodies, I make a gift of them, lying down, to their father). Such is the end of
Medea’s story, which, in parallel with the sentiments at play in this episode, is
admittedly unusual, unknown, unspeakable. Those who witnessed it and those
who participated in it felt aghast. The same way as those to whom the eternal
enigma of this story is presented will be struck with amazement. That is the
challenge issued by Hélia Correia in her Medea’s final request (38): “Cidadãos
gregos, tudo o que vos cabe é somente ir contando a minha história até que um
de entre vós a compreenda!” (Greek citizens, your only duty is to keep telling
my story until one of you can understand it). It is, after all, only a question of
orthoépeia drawing a precise portrait of something fluid and unfathomable:
the deep, dark meanders of the human soul.
chapter 11
Measure in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura: an Exercise

in Recreating Classical Rhythm
Carlos Morais
A1 palavra é, numa só unidade, três coisas distintas – o sentido que tem,

os sentidos que evoca, e o ritmo que envolve esse sentido e estes sentidos.
Pessoa (1994) 79
(The word is three different things in one unit – its meaning, the mean-
ings it evokes, and the rhythm that envelops that meaning and these
meanings)
∵
In the Colloquium Ofícios do Livro, held at the University of Aveiro in 2007,
Hélia Correia returned to “sua casa”2 (her home), Greece, from where today’s
literature still draws inspiration, in a paper titled “Dois ofícios chamados
literatura”3 (Two crafts called literature):
A língua grega era muito inflexível, isto é, o criador não era livre de escrever
unicamente para transmitir um conteúdo, como no romancezinho barato
[…]. Os Gregos não podiam escrever assim. Tinham de escrever respeitando
o valor do som e da medida de cada palavra, porque em todo o texto literário
grego […] o que quer que se quisesse escrever tinha de respeitar o som, a
forma, a música. Cada palavra tinha uma organização interna em sílabas
longas e breves e a sua escolha dependia essencialmente do esquema mé-
trico a usar. O acento não era o nosso acento tónico, era um acento musical,
2 Correia (2007).
3 Correia (2007) 15.

Measure in Hélia Correia ’ s Desmesura 185
subia uma oitava, e portanto havia música dentro da palavra, dentro da

frase. Cada palavra era uma valiosa peça de puzzle com um determinado re-
corte e submetida a rigorosas regras de encaixe. De modo algum podia con-
siderar-se um utensílio, uma coisa que servia para dizer outra coisa. Não, era
a matéria primordial e essa própria matéria, pelas suas exigências de forma,
determinava aquilo que seria dito. Nós lemos Antígona e louvamos mereci-
damente a sua beleza, mas nunca pensamos que Sófocles teve de a conce-
ber ao milímetro, porque cada fragmento a preencher tinha o seu molde
obrigatório […]. A palavra era quase material, ocupava um lugar físico,
impunha-se. Esse domínio e a sua aceitação criaram as obras mais belas da
humanidade.
(The Greek language was very inflexible, that is, the creator was not free
to write just to convey a meaning, as in cheap novels […]. The Greeks
could not write like that. They had to observe the value of the sound and
the meter in each word, for in any Greek literary texts […] whatever one
wished to write had to be observant of sound, form, music. Each word
had an internal organisation, divided into long and short syllables, and
the choice depended mostly on the metrical pattern to be used. Stress
was not what our stress is now, it was a musical stress, it went an octave
higher, and therefore there was music inside the words, inside the sen-
tences. Each word was a valuable, specifically cut piece of a puzzle and
it was subject to strict fitting rules. It could by no means be considered a
tool, something that was used to mean something else. No, it was the pri-
mordial matter and, given its formal requirements, that same matter did
determine what could be said. We read Antigone and rightfully praise its
beauty, but we never stop to think about how Sophocles had to design it
to a millimetre, for each fragment to be filled had its required mould […].
The word was almost material, it occupied a physical place, it imposed
itself. That imposition and the act of yielding to it did create the most
beautiful of human works.)
While illustrating the author’s profound knowledge on the subject, this long
and detailed reference to Greek rhythm also justifies her choices in Desmesura.
Exercício com Medeia (Excess. An Exercise with Medea) (2006). Indeed, dif-
ferently from Perdição. Exercício sobre Antígona (Perdition. An Exercise on
Antigone), (1991) and Rancor. Exercício sobre Helena (Rancour. An Exercise on
Helen) (2000), Hélia Correia’s well-known fascination with Greek authors –
whose texts she reads slowly and carefully so as to study their words, a ritual
186 Morais
which “é uma missa” (is a mass),4 more than a reading – included also their
metre in the last of the three plays that form this triad of dramatic mytholo-
gies written “in the feminine”. Besides reinventing the fundamental theme of
Euripides’ Medea, in Desmesura the author also sought to recreate the rhythm
of the dialogues and the lyric parts of the play, as I will demonstrate.
1 The Rhythm of the Dialogues
Being simultaneously a “slave” of thought, as Ricardo Reis5 defines it (1987) 158,

and a “master” as concerns the strict structuring and composition of the lines,
the rhythm of Greek poetry was principally based on the alternation between
long and short syllables, in a relationship of ½ duration roughly equivalent to
that of a crotchet and a quaver in musical compositions. Therefore, as in Hélia
Correia’s description, each word was “uma valiosa peça de puzzle com um de-
terminado recorte e submetida a rigorosas regras de encaixe” (Each word was
a valuable, specifically cut piece of a puzzle and it was subject to strict fitting
rules) in the different metrical patterns, which had different degrees of flex-
ibility and variation.
In tragic dialogues, the almost exclusive rhythm was iambic trimeter, the
reason being that, according to Aristotle,6 it was naturally the most fitting met-
rical medium for representing the cadence and the tone of informal, every-
day language. In the 5th century this metrical structure, which Archilochus
endowed with literary dignity, was composed of three metra. Each metron (x –
⋃ –) was constituted by two iambic feet (iamb: ⋃ –), of which the first unit
was occupied by an anceps (represented by an x), which means that the 1st,
5th, and 9th positions of the trimeter can be occupied by a short or a long sylla-
ble, and the same is true for the last syllable of the sequence, called ἀδιάφορος.
From this short description, we can conclude that the iambic trimeter is a line
with a 12-syllable based structure, with two major caesuras – the penthemi-
meral (after the fifth half-foot) and the hephthemimeral (after the seventh
half-foot):7
4 Words transcribed from an interview by Hélia Correia to Notícias Magazine, on 22nd June
2008. See Moura (2008) 64.
5 Ricardo Reis is one of the heteronyms of the most important Portuguese poet of the 20th
century, Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935).
6 Po. 1449a 22–8, 1459a 11–2.
7 On the iambic trimeter, see Descroix (1931); Korzeniewski (1968) 44–63; Prato et al. (1975);
Schein (1979); Philippides (1981); Snell (1982) 19–22; West (1982) 81–8; D’Angelo (1983); Sicking
(1993) 88–101; Martinelli (1995) 77–104; Baechle (2007), and Morais (2010).
1st metron 2nd metron 3rd metron
1st foot 2nd foot 3rd foot 4th foot 5th foot 6th foot
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
x – ⋃ – x – ⋃ – x – ⋃ x
To be in harmony with the cadence of dramatic dialogues, which have a variety

of emotional and rhythmical intensities, the trimeter can extend to the next
line (enjambement),8 it can be broken into different speeches (antilabē),9 or
it can correspond to a single intervention which alternates sequentially with
another one of a similar length, in a perfectly symmetrical pattern that accen-
tuates the contrasts of the language of dialogue (stichomythia).10
Whereas the run-on line process allows the logical concatenation of thought
when it extends beyond the line limits, the last two are used in moments of
marked agitation, heightened emotion, or dramatic intensity, stressing pathos.
This happens, for instance, in the final, tense dialogue between Jason and the
protagonist in Euripides’ Medea (1363–6, 1393–8):
Ια. ὦ τέκνα, μητρὸς ὡς κακῆς ἐκύρσατε.

Μη. ὦ παῖδες, ὡς ὤλεσθε πατρώιαι νόσωι.
Ια. οὔτοι νιν ἡμὴ δεξιά γ᾿ ἀπώλεσεν.
Μη. ἀλλ᾿ ὕβρις οἵ τε σοὶ νεοδμῆτες γάμοι.
(…)
Ια. φεῦ φεῦ, μυσαρὰ καὶ παιδολέτορ.
Μη. στεῖχε πρὸς οἴκους καὶ θάπτ᾿ ἄλοχον.
Ια. στείχω, δισσῶν γ᾿ ἄμορος τέκνων.
Μη. οὔπω θρηνεῖς· μένε καὶ γῆρας.
Ια. ὤ τέκνα φίλτατα.
Μη. μητρὶ γε, σοὶ δ᾿ οὔ.
Ια. κἄπειτ᾿ ἔκανες;
Μη. σέ γε πημαίνουσ᾿.
Jason – Children, what an evil mother you got!

Medea – Children, how you have perished by your father’s fault!
Jason – It was not my hand, you know, that killed them.
8 On enjambement in Greek tragedians, see Prato (1970) 349–55.

9 On antilabē, see Bonaria (1980) 173–88.
10 On stichomythia in Greek tragedy, see Collard (1980) 77–85.
188 Morais
Medea – No: it was the outrage of your new marriage.

(…)
Jason – Pah! Unclean wretch! Child-murderer!
Medea – Go home! Bury your wife!
Jason – Yes – bereft of my two sons – I go.
Medea – Your mourning has yet to begin. Wait until you are old!
Jason – O children most dear!
Medea – Yes, to their mother, not to you.
Jason – And so you killed them?
Medea – Yes, to cause you grief.11
Beginning with a stichomythia, this agōn develops into a final melodramatic

dialogue, fragmented by short, excited anapaestic antilabaí.12 This crescendo
structuring of the speech translates the spiral of tension and emotion that re-
sults from the fact that Jason is alone, deprived of his king’s bed and of his sons
after the Colchian sorcerer carries out her horrendous plan. Moreover, the hero
also feels impotent, unable to take revenge from the “execranda infanticida”
(despicable infanticide) (1406–7) who, far from his reach, on the supernatural
level, departs, ex machina, in the Sun’s chariot.
But the quality that gives the trimeter cadence the ability to adapt to the
rhythm of dramatic speech is the possibility of resolving the long syllables, i.e.,
of replacing one long syllable with two shorts, which can occur in positions 2
(or 1), 4, 6, 8, and 10 (although more rarely):
1st metron 2nd metron 3rd metron
1st foot 2nd foot 3rd foot 4th foot 5th foot 6th foot
1 2 3 54 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
⋃ – ⋃ ⋃– – ⋃ – ⋃ – ⋃ x I
– – – – – – S
⋃ ⋃⋃ ⋃ ⋃⋃ ⋃ ⋃⋃ ⋃ ⋃⋃ ⋃ ⋃⋃ T
– ⋃⋃ – ⋃⋃ D
⋃⋃ – (⋃⋃ –) (⋃⋃ –) (⋃⋃ –) (⋃⋃ –) A
11 The English translation of all the Medea excerpts quoted in this article is by D. Kovacs (1994).
Euripides: Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea. Cambridge, MA-London: Harvard University Press.
12 There are not many antilabaí in Medea. Besides those two, there is a third one four lines
below (1402), also in anapaests, and another one in line 1009, an iambic trimeter, both of
them occurring in emotionally-laden moments. On this, see Bonaria (1980) 177.
Thanks to this metric licence, the verse may, in theory, extend to as much as
17 syllables and be organised into about 250 different structures.13 Resolution is
thus a rhythm variation that formally enables the poet to use words or expres-
sions with a two short-syllable sequence, which would not fit into an iambic
trimeter if its structure were less flexible. However, by breaking the canonical
twelve-syllable pattern of the trimeter, turning it into a more fluid and colour-
ful meter, resolution can also function as a stylistic, rather than a merely met
rical, process, since it introduces a significant rhythm oscillation with an iconic
or a deictic function, or both.14
In the first case, the word, with its double short, being similar to its mean-
ing, iconically suggests or imitates the event or idea described; in Medea, lines
496–509 are an example of this: the accumulation of shorts, as a result of six
resolutions, in such a brief passage suggests the anger felt by the heroine, be-
trayed and lost, unable to determine what path to follow in her, and her chil-
dren’s, life; and again, in lines 1347–8, where the resolved shorts, after a number
of apostrophes, underscore the vehemence with which Jason swears at the in-
fanticidal woman who flees in the mechanē.15
Since it draws attention to a meaning that is already present in the word
or in the context in which it occurs, resolution can have a deictic value, as
was explained above, which is the most productive of its functions. This is the
case, for example, in Medea 324, 497, and 710.16 In these three lines, the rhythm
variation, which stresses γονάτων (‘knee’, a word that, in this context, suggests a
13 Besides the possible alternation of the spondee and the iamb, in the odd feet, given the
anceps nature of the first element in each metron, it can also happen that, with the reso-
lution of the long syllable, the iamb (I: ⋃–) is replaced by the tribrach (T: ⋃⋃⋃), in the
first five feet (less often in the 5th), and the spondee (S: – –) in the 1st and 3rd feet can
be replaced by a dactyl (D: – ⋃⋃). In the 1st foot, with the resolution of the anceps, an
anapaest (A: ⋃⋃ –) may be sporadically found, and it may also occur in the next four feet,
in very specific circumstances. Therefore, considering the possibilities of substitution and
resolution mentioned (five in the first foot, two in the second, four in the third, two in the
fourth, and three in the fifth), it is theoretically possible to produce 240 iambic trimeter
structures: eight with 12 syllables, 40 with 13 syllables, 78 with 14 syllables, 74 with 15 syl-
lables, 34 with 16 syllables, and six with 17 syllables. On this, see Morais (2010) 93–102.
14 These two concepts are adapted from two of the three basic types of signs as defined by
Pierce (1990) 74 sqq., as concerns the relationship between the signum and the signatum:
the icon is a sign that resembles the object it represents; and the index is a sign that refers
to the object denoted by virtue of being affected by it.
15 This play has 75 resolutions in about 1030 iambic trimeters, which corresponds to one
resolution per 14 lines. Over 50% of these resolutions occur in position 6, less than 25% in
position 8, and the rest occurs in position 2 and 4 or in position 1. Cf. Mastronarde (2002)
102–3.
16 The fact that, in this context of pleading, two of these lines (324 and 710) have a double
resolution, accentuating the moment’s emotion, is particularly important. The third verse
containing a double resolution (1322) describes the moment when, at the end of the play,
190 Morais
gesture of entreaty), highlights the importance of her position as a supplicant

as a guarantee of an indissoluble bond of loyalty between the parties involved,
which is broken by Jason. In the last of these examples (710), the deictic func-
tion of resolution is reinforced by the fact that this keyword in Euripides’ trag-
edy, in a context of repetition that is typical of a supplication, is also associated
to ἱκεσία (pray, supplication), a word that belongs to the same semantic field
and which has also a resolution (709–11):17
Μη. ἀλλ᾿ ἄντομαί σε τῆσδε πρὸς γενειάδος

γονάτων τε τῶν σῶν ἱκεσία τε γίγνομαι,
οἴκτιρον οἴκτιρόν με τὴν δυσδαίμονα…
Medea – But I beg you by your beard and by your knees and I make
myself your suppliant: have pity have pity on an unfortunate woman …
Given that they are only slightly different, these two functions do sometimes
overlap, as is the case in Medeia 1176, which is a run-on line:18
Αγ. εἶτ᾿ αντίμολπον ἧκεν ὀλολυγῆς μέγαν

κωκυτόν.
Messenger – Then indeed she raised a wail in answer to her former

shout.
In this context, the word ὀλολυγῆς (sharp cry), with a resolution that gener-
ates a trimeter, mimetises, through rhythm oscillation and alliteration, its own
intrinsic meaning, i.e., according to the Messenger’s account, the shouting
and the uproar produced by the news of Glauce’s horrendous death when it
reached the palace.
Aiming to imitate this twelve-syllable structure, which, as was mentioned
above, fits the rhythm of tragic diction, Hélia Correia chose the ten-syllable
line rather than the dodecasyllable, which at first sight might seem more
Medea is seen in the Sun’s chariot, the mēchanē provided by her father “como meio de
defesa contra mãos inimigas” (as a means of defence against enemy hands).
17 By producing an anapaest and a dactyl [⋃⋃ – ⋃ – | – ⋃⋃ ⋃ – | ⋃ – ⋃ – (AI DI II)] in
line 710, the resolutions introduce a meaningful rhythm variation into the trimeter.
18 By producing a tribrach [– – ⋃ – | ⋃ – ⋃⋃⋃ | – – ⋃ – (SI IT SI)], the resolution intro-
duces a rhythm variation with a clear dramatic function into the trimeter.
logical; she thus followed in the footsteps of António Ferreira in his Castro.19
Like the first Portuguese tragedian, in the dialogue parts of Desmesura, Correia
uses this decasyllabic rhythm, which was introduced in Portuguese poetry by
Sá de Miranda, in both its heroic and Sapphic varieties, with stresses on the 6th
and 10th syllables and on the 4th, 6th, and 10th syllables, respectively. Strong
and solemn, suitable for dignified and serious subjects like this, the decasyl-
lable is also, given it outstanding plasticity, adaptable (like the trimeter had
been) to all emotional movements and to all rhythmic expressions, as befits a
dramatic text in which emotion is “expressa em ritmo através do pensamento”20
(expressed in rhythm through thought).
In her exercise of rhythm recreation, Hélia Correia would not be expected
to reproduce resolutions, which have to do with a cadence based on syllable
quantity and the permutability of longs and shorts, absent from the Portuguese
metric system. However, in Portuguese poetry the poetic licences of compres-
sion, such as syncopation, apocopation, synaloepha, ecthlipsis, and synaeresis,
often allow for the accumulation of syllables, which makes it possible for a
line to be extended, like the Greek trimeter, to about 17 grammatical syllables.
An extreme example of this amplitude is line 182 (p. 24), spoken by Abar, the
Nubian woman whose speeches tend to use this syllable concentration, sug-
gesting her difficulty in speaking other languages besides her mother tongue
(181–5, p. 24):
Abar – Perdoa. Eu lembro bem a minha língua

De infância, a núbia. E o grego que aprendi
Quando para cá, vendida, me trouxeram.
Receio que teu colco já não tenha
Encontrado terreno para raízes.
(Abar – Forgive. I well remember my tongue

From childhood, the Nubian. And the Greek I learned
19 António Ferreira (1528–1569), the Portuguese humanist, was the author of poetry works
inspired by Latin and Italian models, and composed by sonnets, odes, epistles, eclogues,
epigrams, and epitaphs. He was also a playwright, authoring two comedies (Comédia do
Fanchono ou de Bristo and Comédia do Cioso), besides Castro, a tragedy printed in Lisbon
in 1587 which is his most famous piece. Inspired by the classics and imitated by European
dramatists, the play addresses the tragic fatality of the love affair between Infante Don
Pedro and Don Inês de Castro, who was killed in 1355 by order of King Afonso IV, the
Infante’s father, for reasons of state.
20 Pessoa (1994) 73. On the ethos of the (heroic and Sapphic) decasyllable, see Carvalho
(1987) 46–55.
192 Morais
When hither, a sold woman, I was brought.

I fear that your Colchian has been unable
To find a soil for new roots)
In this passage, beside the enjambement, which is common to many other, more
or less extensive, speeches, we should note the way how the author arranges
the words in articulation with the metrical design of the speeches. Central con-
cepts, like her slave condition (“vendida” [sold]) and the different languages
she has gradually learned (“grego” [Greek], “colco” [Colchian]), besides her
childhood (“a núbia” [the Nubian]), are highlighted by the rhythmic stresses of
the heroic decasyllable, on the 6th and the 10th syllables, as well as by one of
the pauses, which coincides with the secondary stress on the 4th syllable, more
typical of Sapphic decasyllables, which, although in a much smaller number
(133 in 990 lines), are harmoniously articulated with the heroic ten-syllable
lines throughout the text.
However, by introducing rhythm variations and oscillations in the lines sim-
ilar to those caused by the resolutions, many of which produce meaning, the
compression licences may have also an iconic function, in the same way as the
trimeter variations, when they translate emotional states or underscore scenic
movements, as in lines 60–2, Part I (p. 19):
Melana – Que sabes tu, tontinha? Tu que sabes?

Éritra – Sei o bastante para …
(Voz de Jasão, fora de cena, aproximando-se)
Jasão – Ela onde está?
Porque não se acha uma mulher em casa?
(Melana – What do you know, silly girl? What do you know?

Éritra – I know enough to …
(Jasão’s voice, off-stage, drawing near)
Jasão – Where is she?
Why should a woman not be found at home?)
Suddenly interrupted by Jasão’s arrival, who comes for Medeia, the last words
in Éritra’s dialogue with her mother at the end of the first scene (“Sei o bas-
tante para …” [I know enough to …]) are perfectly articulated, with all the syl-
lables correctly spoken. Not even the preposition para (to), in conformity with
the Sapphic stress on the 4th and the 8th syllables, is subject to any apocopa-
tion or syncopation, as is usual in normal Portuguese orality. Contrary to this
more paced rhythm in Érita’s speech, Jasão’s short antilabē question (“Ela onde
está?” [Where is she?]) includes two syncopations and one aphaeresis that re-
duce the six grammatical syllables to three metrical syllables, thus introducing
a prosodic acceleration at the end of the line and underscoring the anxious,
rapid movement of the lord of the house.
With Éritra hidden behind a curtain, the dialogue, which is rather frag-
mented and alternates undulating Sapphic lines with more ponderous heroic
decasyllables, continues now between a not overly outspoken Melana and an
authoritarian Jasão (lines 63–71, pp. 19–20):
Jasão – Tua senhora onde é que está?

Melana – Não sei.
Jasão – Isso é resposta que uma escrava dê?
Melana – Como queres que responda?
Jasão – Por acaso
Serás uma criança a quem eu tenha
De ensinar a falar? Não to pergunto
Pela segunda vez.
Melana – Senhor, bem sabes …
Jasão – Bem sei o quê, Melana?
Melana – Onde ela foi.
Jasão – Atrás da núbia?
Melana – Sim.
Jasão – Para muito longe?
Melana – Como é costume. Até onde haja sol.
( Jasão – Your lady, where is she?

Melana – I don’t know.
Jasão – Is that an answer a slave should give?
Melana – How do you want me to answer?
Jasão – Are you
perhaps a child whom I must
teach how to talk? I shall not ask you
A second time.
Melana – My Lord, you know well …
Jasão – What do I know well, Melana?
Melana – Whither she went.
Jasão – After the Nubian woman?
Melana – Yes.
Jasão – Very far?
Melana – As usual. As far as where the sun shines.
194 Morais
Dry and suggestive of weariness, the slave’s interventions, with the excep-
tion of the last one, are always well demarcated by the caesuras that coincide
with the stresses and are reduced to short stichic fragments, both at the end
of the lines, after the masculine caesuras in the 8th and the 6th syllables (“Não
sei” [I do not know]; “Senhor, bem sabes” [My Lord, you know well]; “Onde ela
foi” [Whither she went]) at the beginning, in an hexasyllable, or “heróico que-
brado” (a heroic alexandrine broken in half), as it is also called in Portuguese
(“Como queres que responda?” [How do you want me to answer?]), and after
the feminine caesura of the 5th syllable (“Sim” [Yes]).
This disrespectful attitude on the part of the slave – who enjoyed a special
status in the palace because she had shared the king’s bed – exasperates Jasão,
who scolds her twice. In a clearly higher tone of voice, the second of these
scoldings (ll. 65–8, p. 19), which is demarcated by the main stresses, begins
and ends in the middle of the line, developing a melodic movement that flows
out of the cadence of the metrical unit, since the thought conveyed is carried
on, through an enjambement, from one line to the other, suggesting a harsh
speech, delivered in almost one breath.
In this passage, a small sample of Hélia Correia’s masterly skill as regards
her management of rhythm in Desmesura, it becomes evident that the stress,
which establishes short rhythmic pauses, is a structuring element of the sen-
tence, very often serving as a pivot in stichomythic transitions and, especially,
in antilabaí. Differently from Euripides, who, in line with older practices, uses
the former technique of dialogic structuring (stichomythia) in his Medea, Hélia
Correia prefers the latter (antilabē) as a means of conveying added tension and
movement to dramatic confrontations. Thus, from two antilabaí lines in the
1030 iambic trimeters in Medea we now have 153 in the non-lyrical 990 lines of
Desmesura. Of these, 129 have a double antilabē, 14 a triple antilabē, and two
(464 and 510, pp. 34–5) are scattered through four different speeches.
The first of these two lines (464), which coincide with the most extreme
case of rhythm agitation in Desmesura, significantly belongs to the first, tense
agōn between Medeia and Jasão, when the sorcerer, upon learning that the
hero intended to marry Glauce, feels despised and betrayed and asks what will
become of her who had left “família, e pátria, e língua / E tudo o mais, a vida”
(her family, homeland, and language / And all else, her life) (vv. 473–4, p. 34)
for the sake of love:
Jasão – Trata-se de um acordo, uma aliança.

Medeia – E eu?
Jasão – Tu?
Medeia – Eu.
Jasão – De ti nada foi dito.

Poderias talvez viver aqui …
(lines 463–5, p. 34)
( Jasão – This is about an agreement, an alliance.

Medeia – What about me?
Jasão – You?
Medeia – Me.
Jasão – Nothing was said about you.
Maybe you could live here …)
Most of the antilabē lines in Correia’s play have a point of fracture in the cae-
sura, which can be masculine or feminine, after the stresses on the 4th and the
8th syllables (47 cases), exactly the syllable where the decasyllable is broken
into an “heróico quebrado” (hexasyllable) and a tetrasyllable.
2 The Rhythm of the Lyric Parts
It is precisely with the first of those two rhythmic patterns, which is quite flex-
ible and has variable stresses (and therefore lends itself to a mournful, mo-
notonous melopoea21) that, like António Ferreira in some of the Choruses of
his Castro, Hélia Correia composes the first of two lyric texts, sung between
Part I and Part II (pp. 13–4):
Lamento pelos Heróis

(Coro masculino)
1. Ai do homem que deixa 3. Ai do homem que cai
A cidade sem guarda No fulgor da batalha
E responde ao apelo E assiste ao festim
Ardiloso do mar. Que é o seu funeral
Que é a eternidade Morre longe de quem
Mais que uma sombra parda? Lhe teceu a mortalha
Parda sombra o herói Morre longe da paz
Se irá também tornar. A que sempre quis mal.
21 On the ethos of the hexasyllable, or “heróico quebrado”, see Carvalho (1987) 48, 73–83, 110.
196 Morais
2. Mata, mata o guerreiro 4. Ai do pobre mortal

Entre o corpo e a lança Que nasceu masculino
Põe seu escudo de couro Que do leite da mãe
Põe a sua ambição Em vão se alimentou.
Sobre o pó do terreiro Não pôde ela, falando,
Alguma coisa dança Impedir-lhe o destino.
É o sangue a tombar Só aos homens ouviu
Como folha no chão. Só à glória escutou.
Lament for the Heroes

(Male chorus)
1. Woe the man who leaves 3. Woe the man who falls
The city unguarded In the fulgor of war
And responds to the cunning And witnesses the feast
Call of the sea. Of his own funeral
What is eternity He dies far from the one
But a mere grey shadow? Who had woven his shroud
A grey shadow the hero He dies far from the peace
Shall also be. That he always did hate.
2. The warrior kills, he kills 4. Woe the poor mortal

Between his body and his spear Who was born a male
He places his leather shield Who was fed in vain
Leaves his ambition With his mother’s milk.
Upon the dust of the ground With her words she could not
Something is dancing Free him from his fate.
It is blood that falls He only heard men
Like a leave to the ground. Only listened to glory.
In four octaves, with enclosed rhyme between the 2nd and the 6th, and the 4th
and the 8th hexasyllables (“heróicos quebrados”), in a plangent song reminis-
cent of the Greek kommoi, the male chorus prepares Jasão’s entrance bearing
the news that he is planning a marriage of convenience between himself and
the young daughter of the Corinthian king, which exposes his unlimited ambi-
tion for power. Anticipating the reader-spectator’s judgement, the choristers
express a veiled criticism of the hero. They complain about his attitude when
he insensibly responds to the appeal of the sea, leaving the city unprotected.
They complain about the male hero who, listening only to men, seeks glory and
eternity on the battlefield, forgetting that he is nothing but a grey shadow, a
leaf that falls to the ground and dies far from the one who wove his shroud, far
from the peace he had never loved.
The second lyric text, now for a female chorus, is a hymn to Hécate, the god-
dess of magic arts and crossroads, and a relative of Medeia’s22 (pp. 14–5):
Hino a Hécate
(Coro feminino)
A serpente 3 (1) + 3 A senhora 3 (1) + 3
Que desliza Das três caras
É o jorro 3 (1) + 3 Dona das 1 (2) + 4
De uma ferida Encruzilhadas
Sangra a terra 3 (1) + 3 Das três vias 3 (1) + 3
Da barriga Aziagas
Lua negra 3 (1) + 3 Com as três 3+4
Que ilumina Cadelas bravas
A paisagem 3 (1) + 3 Solta a sua 3 (1) + 3
Da chacina Gargalhada.
Fazedora 3 (1) + 3
De hecatombes
Tombas, Hécate, 3 (1) + 3
Os mortais
No desastre, 3 + 4
Astro da febre,
No fulgor 3 + 4
Dos temporais.
Leva as armas 3 (1) + 3
Para a cova
Herói macho, 3 + 4
Herói perdido.
Que ao luar 3 + 4
A mulher dança
Sobre a tumba 3 (1) + 3
Do marido.
22 In Correia’s play Hécate is sometimes the mother of Circe, who is Medeia’s aunt, and
sometimes she is Medeia’s own mother. In the Euripidean original, Medea also invokes
Hecate, in the monologue where she plans her vengeance (E. Med. 397).
198 Morais
Hymn to Hecate
(Female chorus)
The serpent The three faced
That glides Lady
Is the gush Mistress of
Of a wound The crossroads
The earth bleeds Of the three ways
From the womb Ill-omened
Black moon With the three
That lightens Wild bitches
The landscape Laughs out
Of slaughter Loud.
Maker of
Hecatombs
Tombs, Hecate,
The mortals
In disaster
Star of fever
In the fulgor
Of storms
Take your weapons
To the grave
Male hero,
Lost hero.
For in the moonlight
The woman dances
On her husband’s
Tomb)
Fittingly opening Part 3, this Hymn prepares the audience for the implementa-
tion of the protagonist’s vengeance plan, which includes using poisons.
However, if the song’s place is appropriate, its agitated cadence, suggestive
of a Greek dochmiac, is no less so. In a structure that seeks to reconstruct the
Greek triadic composition, with a ten-line strophe and antistrophe and a 16-
line epode, the short rhythmic segments that constitute it are irregular, ranging
between the monosyllable (1 case) and the tetrasyllable (6 cases), and the tri-
syllable, which is the dominant pattern (29 cases). However, if paired up, these
lines form regular, although rhythmically quite flexible, heptasyllables, since
they have an erratic periodicity [3 (1)+3; 3+4; 1(2)+4], with caesuras coinciding
sometimes with the unstressed and sometimes with the stressed syllables, and
unstressed ranges of three to five syllables.23
Thus patterned, these sequences suggest quick circular motions, marked by
the vowel rhymes, or assonances, of the decastiches and the consonant rhymes
of the final stanza, which highlight the serpent’s sly gliding, the fulgor of the
storms with which Hecate kills the mortals, and, in a clear allusion to the play’s
concluding scene, the woman dancing on her husband’s tomb.
It may be concluded from this analysis that the rhythm of the lyric and recit-
ed parts of this play is, as Pessoa wrote, “preso aos sentidos que a palavra com-
porta ou sugere”24 (bound to the meanings that the word includes or suggests).
Indeed, by measuring her Desmesura, in an exercise of rhythmic re-creation of
Euripides’ Medea, and with refined technical quality, Hélia Correia endowed
the words in her tragedy with not only the “sentido que [têm e] os sentidos que
evoca[m]” (meaning they have and the meanings they evoke), but also with
“o ritmo que envolve esse sentido e estes sentidos”25 (the rhythm that enfolds
that meaning and these meanings).
23 The general range of unstressed is three syllables, except for the 5 syllables in lines 13–4.
On the heptasyllable, see A. Carvalho (1987) 67–72.
24 Pessoa (1994) 80.
25 Pessoa (1994) 79, text quoted in the epigraph.
chapter 12
Medea in the Society of Entertainment: a Reading

of Mário Cláudio’s Medeia
SRD1 – Eu situo-o sempre num tempo que é pretérito e menos apontado

para o futuro.
MC – Por uma razão muito simples: vou à procura de mitos. E não há

mitos no futuro. Os mitos estão todos ligados ao passado. Na contempo-
raneidade haverá mitos, mas estão ainda em formação, não os encontro.
[O meu tempo é] o presente e o passado. O passado lido à luz do
presente.2
(I always associate you with a time past and not so much directed at the
future)
(For a very simple reason: I seek myths. And there are no myths in the
future. Myths are all connected with the past. There are perhaps myths in
our days, but they are still being formed, I cannot find them. [My time is]
the present and the past. The past read in the light of the present.)
∵
1 Introduction
These words by Mário Cláudio, an excerpt of an interview given by the author

to Selecções Reader’s Digest when he was awarded the Prémio Pessoa (2004),
provides a key to the work discussed in this chapter: his play Medeia, premièred
2 Mário Cláudio: «O desafio seria inventar uma autobiografia» (“The challenge would be to invent
an autobiography”). http://www.seleccoes.pt/m%C3%A1rio_cl%C3%A1udio_%C2%ABo_
desafio_seria_inventar_uma_autobiografia: [active on March 2, 2014].

Medea in the Society of Entertainment 201
on March 2nd 2007 by Teatro Experimental de Cascais.3 Because there are no

modern myths, or because the author cannot find them, as he explains in the
quotation above, he resorts to a traditional myth – that of Euripides – to which
he brings a convergence of two time dimensions that illuminate each other
dialectically, the past and the present.
Mário Cláudio further wrote in the advertising programme for the
performance:
A cada Medeia, entendida pelas variáveis da história, ou da geografia,

sobra em desvario quanto lhe escasseia em argúcia. Não que a inteligên-
cia se lhe distinga da paixão, iluminada como vai pela chama da fúria, mas
é pela ruína que investe, cega aos gestos que lhe permitem a edificação
de si, e a prossecução dos seus planos. A mulher que evolui à nossa vista
maniacamente destruirá, conforme à heroína que abraça, os filhos, que
nela engendrou o amante traidor. E até a casa de teatro, na qual um palco
vazio, corroído pelo interminável tempo de um país pequeníssimo, pare-
cia esperar por ela, até essa acabará por ir sendo lentamente demolida.
Ninguém recupera um mito, este ou um qualquer, sem que se lhe

queimem os dedos na incomodidade da empresa. Pode no entanto per-
doar-se a tentativa de o insuflar de um resíduo de sentimentos fingidam-
ente novos, o da angústia que trucida a mãe presa do terror de vir a ser
devorada pelos que pariu, o da catástrofe que a nossa suicidária tendên-
cia não deixa de provocar nos outros, ou o da substituição da estratégia
política pela táctica da informação.
(Seen through the variables of history, or of geography, each Medea lacks

in wit what she possesses in excess of madness. Not that, in her, intel-
ligence can be distinguished from passion, illuminated as she is by the
flame of anger, but she invests rather in ruin, blind to the gestures that
would enable her to construct herself and to carry out her plans. In con-
formity with the heroine she embraces, the woman that manically devel-
ops before our eyes will annihilate the children whom her disloyal lover
had engendered in her. And the theatre house itself, corroded by the
3 This production signalled the 41 years of activity of the Teatro Experimental de Cascais com-
pany, under the direction of Carlos Avilez. The text’s single role was played by actress Anna
Paula, whose age and maturity certainly emphasised her identification with the character
she was supposed to portray. Mário Cláudio’s Medeia (2008) will henceforth be referred to as
“Cláudio a” followed by the relevant page number(s).
endless time of a tiny little country, even that hous e will end up being
slowly demolished.)
(No one can recuperate a myth, this one or any other myth, without his/
her fingers burning from the uncomfortable nature of the deed. However,
he/she can be forgiven for the attempt to breath into it a residue of
feignedly new sentiments, the anguish that mutilates the mother terri-
fied at the possibility of eventually being devoured by those she bred; the
catastrophe that our suicidal tendency necessarily causes in others; or
the substitution of information tactics for political strategy.)
This statement by the author can be approached as a kind of ‘letter of intent’

which will guide us in this reflection. Among the different facets through
which his reading of the Medea myth is defined, what we are mostly interested
in here is the dialogue between different epochs and contexts, a topic that will
be emphasised in this chapter.
Born in Porto in 1941, Mário Cláudio4 has published an extensive and di-
verse body of work that includes such different literary forms as poetry, drama,
essay, and narrative fiction (including such genres as the novel, the novella,
and the short-story).5 His indefatigable literary activity also includes transla-
tion. However, his major field of work is narrative fiction, which is perhaps
where the author feels more comfortable. Some of his best-known novels,
like Amadeo, Guilhermina e Rosa, a novel tryptich later re-titled Trilogia da
Mão (Trilogy of the Hand), immediately indicate one of Mário Cláudio’s most
obvious preferences: the cultivation of biographical fiction. Mário Cláudio in-
terprets the figures of a diverse range of Portuguese artists, from modernist
painter Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887–1918) and internationally acclaimed
cellist Guilhermina Suggia (1885–1950) to the humble representative of pop-
ular Portuguese pottery Rosa Ramalho (1888–1977).6 Besides their extremely
4 Rui Manuel Pinto Barbot Costa’s nom de plume.

5 Among other distinctions, the author has received the following awards: Grande Prémio de
Romance e Novela da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores (Portuguese Writers’ Association
Grand Prix for Novel and Novella) (1984) for Amadeo; in 1997, the Portuguese PEN Club fiction
award; Prémio Pessoa award (2004); Prémio Clube Literário do Porto (2005); “Chevalier de
L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres”, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture in 2006; Prémio –
Personalidade do Ano – Categoria: Literatura | Gala: The Best of Porto (Personality of the
Year Award – Category: Literature) (2006); Prémio Vergílio Ferreira award (2008); Grande
Prémio de Romance e Novela da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores (Portuguese Writers’
Association Grand Prix for Novel and Novella) (2014), for Retrato de rapaz (Portrait of a Boy).
6 A world-class painter of high-calibre, Souza-Cardoso was a member of the first generation
of Portuguese modernist painters. His work dialogues with the avant-garde movements of
different artistic expressions, these figures also represent very diverse strata of
the Portuguese social fabric. The historic novel has also been for Mário Cláudio
a means to gain access to the personality of the Portuguese people as a col-
lective. The initial motivation that triggers much of his novelistic production
may be a true historical event narrated by a Portuguese chronicler, such as
Fernão Lopes (1380–1390? – ca. 1460), or the sculpture details found by the au-
thor in a tomb, which caused him to approach a major national myth like that
of Pedro and Inês.7 An important part of his production concerns the city of
Porto, Cláudio’s birthplace, circumscribing a more restricted, regional identity.
In short, this author has chosen many different literary forms to interpret and
disseminate his Portuguese historical, cultural, and literary heritage.
Thus, the fact that topics like “portugalidade” (portugueseness) or “lusita
nismo” (lusitanism)8 are found in the bibliography dedicated to our author
does not really come as a surprise. The decisive impulse behind a substantial
his time, such as Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism. Guilhermina Suggia showed excep-
tional music skills from very early in her childhood; she lived and worked in Paris with Pablo
Casales and the pair were considered to be the major cellists of their time. Rosa Ramalho,
who worked only in Portugal, was a woman of humble origins; although she had been fa-
miliar with clay work techniques from an early age, only at 68 years of age did she start to
produce the fanciful dramatic statuettes inspired by popular and religious culture that made
her famous.
7 Inês de Castro is the protagonist of a Portuguese ‘myth’ of love and death. From Galicia, this
lady of the Castilian court came to Portugal in the entourage of Dona Constança, who was
betrothed to the heir of the Portuguese throne, the future Don Pedro I (1320–1367). However,
between Pedro and Inês there developed an incontrollable love that produced four children.
For political reasons, this love led to her assassination upon the orders of Don Afonso IV,
the reigning monarch. Don Pedro’s vengeance was horrendous: he had her assassins killed
and, according to tradition, organised a funeral cortege from Coimbra to Alcobaça, and de-
manded that the nobility acknowledged dead Inês as queen. He commissioned two magnifi-
cent tombs for Inês and himself at the Monastery of Alcobaça. Luís de Camões wrote about
these events in The Lusiads (stanza 118), his national epic, where the poet famously describes
Inês as “aquela que depois de morta foi rainha” (“the queen who was crowned after death”).
Besides Camões, this episode from Portuguese history, with its romantic potential, has been
converted into a veritable national myth, giving rise to many artistic and literary versions,
including tragedies such as A Castro, by António Ferreira (1587), A nova Castro (The New
Castro), by the Neoclassicist João Baptista Gomes Júnior (late 18th century) and Pedro, o Cru
(Pedro, the Cruel), by António Patrício (1913); and novels such as A paixão de Pedro o Cru
(The Passion of Pedro, the Cruel), by Afonso Lopes Vieira (1940), Adivinhas de Pedro e Inês
(The Riddles of Pedro and Inês), by Agustina Bessa-Luis (1983), Memórias de Inês de Castro
(Memories of Inês de Castro), by António Cândido Franco (1990), and Inês de Portugal (Inês
of Portugal), by João Aguiar (1997).
8 Cf. Carla Sofia Gomes Xavier Luís, Língua e Estilo: um Estudo da Obra Narrativa de Mário
Cláudio, Centro de Estudos em Letras, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila
Real, 2011.
part of his production is indeed the will to interrogate, to explore, to try and
understand who the Portuguese are, as a people, as a political, social, and cul-
tural entity, to find their roots, to propose a meaning for the cultural manifes-
tations of illustrious, and less illustrious, Portuguese, to dig up memories, to
re-create historical periods, moments and facts that shed new light on both
their past and their present.
Within this inquiry into both the Portuguese historical and social reality
and its imaginary which constitutes the mother ore of Mário Cláudio’s produc-
tion, the presence of the Euripidean theme of Medea emerges at first sight as
a random incursion into ancient Greek drama. However, far from being a de-
parture from his exploration of what constitutes Portuguese identity, this play
can be read as an interpretation of contemporary Portuguese society, with the
myth of Medea being used to illuminate the present.
2 Sources for a New Medea
Cláudio’s play is composed of nine tableaux, with a prologue and an epilogue,

and features a female character, Medeia, as protagonist. This lonely Portuguese
woman who is entering her old age is an actress now at the end of her career
who had always cherished an obsessive plan of performing Euripides’ Medea.9
The text is relatively short, guided by a principle of reduction, which becomes
immediately obvious in its list of characters: from among all the classical myth’s
dramatis personae, Medeia is the only one on stage in this Portuguese play. The
same principle applies to the spaces where the action is set, which are limited
to a throne hall, the actress’s dressing-room, and the living-room of the house
where she lives by herself; in other cases, as in the epilogue, locations are not
identified. The spectator is confronted with nearly bare settings, the only stage
props being a throne;10 a dressing table, a mirror, a wig, and a strange, though
evocative, sheep’s skull;11 a sofa, a telephone and a tape-recorder, some sheets
of paper;12 a wheelchair.13 In their starkness, these props suggestively hint at
the different phases of a lifetime.14
9 This specification and the recitations that the character will later perform convey a rel-
evant piece of information, i.e., Euripides is Mário Cláudio’s only source in this play.
10 Cláudio a (2008) 9, 12.
11 Cláudio a (2008) 17, 18, 19, 24, 28, 33, 34, 35.
12 Cláudio a (2008) 19, 21, 22, 23.
13 Cláudio a (2008) 51.
14 In the Teatro Experimental de Cascais performance, the two dressing-room and living-
room settings occupied two opposite sides of the stage, with the actress moving from one
to the other, shifting between the two basic realities of her life.
The scenic effects consist mostly of a specific use of light and shadow15 and
sound effects, such as the sound of waves, the telephone bell ringing, or the
ringing of a stage bell, besides the insistent noise of sledgehammers, a child’s
scream, the siren of an ambulance, or the shots of a gun. These sound effects
have different functions and they may either be used as a Wagnerian-style ‘leit-
motif’, associated with specific emotional states such as moments of recollec-
tion and daydreaming, or they can metonymically or metaphorically re-present
past events or events happening offstage. The stage is repeatedly plunged into
total darkness, with only Medeia’s face being lit, as happens in the first tableau
and then again in the fifth and the eighth.
As in Greek tragedy, Mario Cláudio establishes a relationship between the
time of the action and dramatic time. According to Greek convention, al-
though the action takes only a short time, preferably one day, there are expe-
dients available to enable playwrights to re-dimension it, as concerns the past
and the future. Besides the characters, who, by reason of their age, experience,
or prophetic abilities, have the power of incarnating memory or foresight, the
Chorus too has the role of recalling the past as an explanation of both the pres-
ent and the future within the uninterrupted chain of events of human life. In
the Portuguese text, where there is no Chorus, the passing of time is signalled
by stage directions: at least twenty years have elapsed between the first and the
last tableaux.16 Despite this long period of time, not much happens in terms
of the plot; the life of this Portuguese Medea is also only minimally changed,
since all the projects she had been entertaining for decades have successively
failed to be accomplished.
One might ask: Why Medea? What in Euripides’ play recommends its pro
tagonist as a reflective light for an interpretation of Portuguese contemporan
eity, which seems to be Cláudio’s major objective? First and foremost, Euripides’
Medea is a classical reference, a major creation focused on a female figure.
Additionally, Medea is the paradigm of a passion that failed to work, of the
pursuance of a project which not even all her excesses managed to materialise.
15 Besides the specific lighting effects within each tableau, the rule is that lights are turned
off and/or on again alternating between them. For example, the stage directions for the
first tableau read as follows: “Cena inteiramente às escuras, vendo-se iluminado apenas
o rosto de MEDEIA” (The scene is in complete darkness with only MEDEIA’s face lit); or,
immediately afterwards, “Apagam-se as luzes. Ouve-se um marulho de ondas que se es-
praiam nos seixos. Reacendem-se as luzes, a iluminar a partir de agora a inteira figura de
MEDEIA, sentada no seu trono. Extingue-se gradualmente o marulho das ondas” (Lights
are turned off. Splashing of waves spreading over the pebbles. As the lights are turned on
again, the sound of waves is gradually suppressed. MEDEIA is standing). (Cláudio a (2008)
11, 12, 14).
16 The stage directions for the fourth and seventh tableaux both indicate that another ten
years have passed (Cláudio a (2008) 25, 37).
But Medea is also ‘the foreigner’, one who is misjudged and, despite all her
best efforts, cannot adapt to the hostile world that surrounds her and rejects
her. And, lastly, like the Colchian princess, the Portuguese Medea is not lack-
ing in strength, the ability to fight for a dream, which she never gives up, even
in the face of adversity. Cláudio’s Medeia reflects these features, although less
incisively, for she has been conditioned by a society who has lost its notion of
grandeur; because she never gave up her life project – to perform Euripides’
play – which appears increasingly unrealistic, this woman of the theatre be-
comes more and more lonely and alienated. The pressure becomes tighter
around her till, unlike her Euripidean model, she ends up dying.
But a second question is also in order: Why then give the name of Medea
to this woman, a middle-class bourgeois with an unnotably, ordinary private
life, hinted at in some family conversations as “uma grande actriz falhada” (a
great failed artist)?17 At a more superficial level, this name obviously fits her
insofar as her whole life had been dedicated to the project of embodying the
Euripidean heroine. However, the name is explained mostly by the fact that
this project stuck so tightly to her skin that this woman eventually began to as-
sess and to lead her own life as a function of Greek drama, in a process of iden-
tification more mental than real. The opening sentences of her first speech
show that she is well aware of this:18 “Eu ralho comigo mesma, ‘Como és doida,
Medeia, teimas em te queixar, quando o que os outros pretendem é apenas
levar a vida da melhor maneira possível, teimas em te queixar, erguendo-te
contra o Rei e contra o teu próprio marido’” (I scold myself, ‘How crazy you
are, Medea, you stubbornly complain when everybody else merely wishes to
live their lives as best as possible, you stubbornly complain, raising against the
King and your own husband’).
The same dissonance between tragic grandeur and small daily gestures can
be heard in the moments when Medeia becomes aware of the mediocrity of
affections and of the absence of room for big gestures:19 “Bem mais felizes
terão sido essas mulheres antigas, descidas de um reino de taças de veneno e
de tronos derrubados, desgrenhando a cabeleira no ventre dos seus amantes.
Pariam em sangue, em sangue assassinavam” (Certainly those ancient women
must have been much happier, descending from a kingdom of cups of poison
and overthrown thrones, dishevelling their hair in the belly of their lovers. In
blood they delivered, in blood they murdered). While she envies the grandeur
with which Greek tragedy redeems the unremarkableness of daily life, the
17 Cláudio a (2008) 24.

18 Cláudio a (2008) 11, s.n.
19 Cláudio a (2008) 28.
Portuguese actress, who undergoes a process that might be understood as one

of growing alienation, goes so far as to criticise Euripides for his absence of a
stark representation of reality as it actually happens:20 “‘A chuva desta noite es-
palhou pela terra as azeitonas antes que amadurecessem’. O texto de Eurípides
não contém, mas devia conter, uma fala assim” (‘Tonight the rain scattered the
olives all over the earth before they could ripen’. Euripides’ text does not in-
clude a sentence like this, but it should).
The actress’s interiorisation of the Greek play is not limited to the creation
of a self-image as Medea: it also extends to everyone around her, which is the
reason why she gives her husband the name of Jasão (Jason),21 all her rivals are
seen as Glaucis,22 and the authority responsible for Culture is identified with
Creon.23 But enhancing the incompatibility between the character’s name and
the banality of her gestures and her language is reminiscent of an equivalent
process in the development of Greek tragedy itself. Thus, while Aeschylus, the
comic figure in Aristophanes’ Frogs (1058–61), advocates a similar practice to
that of the tragedy of older times, i.e., a strict coherence between the charac-
ters’ status, the elevation of the situations they experience, the language and
the gestures through which they are expressed, Euripides, who presents him-
self as a reformer of the genre in its decadent phase, is accused in the same
comedy of preferring the oikeia prágmata (958, “domestic or daily, common or
undignified matters”), which had kept only their mythical traditional names
while using the language and adopting the behaviors of the lowest level of or-
dinary life.
3 Rewriting Medea in Contemporary Portugal
Societies and groups return to myths – whether confined to a specific nation-

al space or, as happens with classical myths, with a wider dissemination and
impact – to identify themselves, redefining or readjusting their world view. In
the first decade of the 21st century, Portugal shares the features of contemporary
western societies: a predominance of economic considerations and the result-
ing loss of values, deterioration of family and interpersonal bonds, mass-ori-
ented entertainment and the devaluing of high culture. This is the background
against which Cláudio designs a Medea figure who is self-willed like her model,
20 Cláudio a (2008) 28.

21 Cláudio a (2008) 17.
22 Cláudio a (2008) 40.
23 Cláudio a (2008) 37.
but who is also resourceless and therefore unable to advance her projects, both
professionally and as concerns her family.
The adaptation of the myth to this new context must include a displace-
ment of the action from the conventional aristocratic milieu of Greek tragedy –
although Euripides did start an effort to bring it closer to the concerns of daily
life – to a bourgeois environment where contemporary reality can be identi-
fied. Characters, situations, and language are confined to a general convention-
ality, which no one except Medeia can escape, even if only partially.
For the author, rewriting Medea in contemporary Portugal means recreat-
ing, at least in part, the solemnity of its Greek matrix. The prologue (Cláudio a
(2008) 9–10) signals exactly that she materialises the image of a classical text
in her attitude, summing up the Medea theme – “Silenciosa, hieraticamente
sentada no seu trono” (Silent, hieratically seated on her throne) – and becomes
the expression of a certain theatrical rhythm, of the ostensible solemnity that
is found in Greek tragedy. This is the character’s facet that is compatible with
the extraordinary aim she pursues. However, another, contrasting, facet of hers
is that, in spite of her dream, she adapts to the surrounding mediocrity, adopt-
ing the standards of behaviour and the language that are generally used.
3.1 The Two Faces of Medeia

From the very first tableau Mário Cláudio’s rewriting of the Medea myth
evinces a deviation that we believe is fundamental as concerns its meaning
for contemporary Portugal. We might even say that this tableau functions as
a kind of new prologue, aimed at establishing another meaning, the mean-
ing the author has in mind for this Portuguese play. The tableau begins with
the recitation of passages from Euripides concerning the experience of love,
notably Medea’s first meeting with Jason, to end with the reading of a letter ad-
dressed to the minister of Culture where the Portuguese protagonist requests
funding for staging the play in Portugal. The major difference here as regards
Euripides becomes immediately clear in the design of the tableau, based as it is
on these two aspects. Structurally, there are three nuclei, physically separated
by a lighting effect.24 In the first, where Medea starts by introducing herself
to the spectators while rehearsing some passages from Euripides (Cláudio a
(2008) 11; Euripides, Medea 869–71), the character’s love and family dimensions
prevail. Her meeting with her future husband, their burning passion, and the
two boys who were born of that relationship are evoked in a poetic tone.
24 Successive stage directions, mentioning lights on or off, the noise or the silence of the sea,
punctuate different dreams, evocation, experience, and disillusionment stages (Cláudio a
(2008) 11, 12, 14, 15 passim).
The second nucleus discloses the frustration of a woman who recalls the
words of an anonymous voice25 denying that she has the necessary skills to
perform the role of the great tragic character, assessing her abilities as being
rather more compatible with a mediocre career in the circus. Although not
identified, this voice can be ascribed to her husband – who may be read as a
spokesperson for the community – both because of its inconsiderate and futile
tone and for the fact that, immediately after this passage, Medea recites the
lines of the Euripidean text where the heroine’s plans of revenge are described:
“Mandarei um presente à tua mulher, o que de mais belo se consiga encontrar
à face da Terra, e serão os meninos que lho hão-de levar” (Cláudio a (2008) 13;
Euripides, Medea 947–50) (I shall send your wife a gift, the finest thing that
can be found on the face of the Earth, and the boys will be the ones to take
it). Here too this Portuguese Medea is aware of the gulf between her chosen
emotional homeland, the world of Greek culture, and her own reality, since
she comments to herself immediately after the Euripidean quotation: “Eu acho
que posso dizer estas palavras sem parecer ridícula” (I believe I can say these
words without sounding ridiculous).26 In other words, she, who had adhered
to the heroic plan of the Greek heroine during her whole life, is aware of her
mediocre stature, a projection of her surrounding context, while she seems
to have interiorised the criticism that society, possibly through Jason’s words,
directs at her.
And last, an important element in the third nucleus is the recitation of the
letter that Medeia addresses to the Ministry of Culture, which signals a major
divergence vis-à-vis the Greek matrix. Throughout the actress’s life, her public
intervention as an advocate of theatre is no less important than her private
and emotional life.27 Medeia’s decadence is manifested at two parallel levels:
to Jasão’s infidelities she responds with her own infidelities and by accom-
modating herself sentimentally, although she never reaches the dimension of
tragedy; her public life gives her plenty of reasons for frustration, to which she
25 “Que disparate, menina! A Medeia não é para ti. Pede outro corpo, outra voz, outra ma-
neira de estar. Tu não tens ancas, já viste? Nasceste para executar um número no arame,
agarrada à sombrinha, até aos vinte anos.” (What nonsense, girl! Medea is not for you.
Demands for a different body, a different voice, a different carriage. You’ve got no hips,
have you noticed that? You were born to do tightrope walking, holding an umbrella, be-
fore your twenties) (Cláudio a (2008) 13).
26 Cláudio a (2008) 13; s.n.
27 When confronted with her husband’s treason, her comment shows that her career is more
important to her than her family life (Cláudio a [2008] 18): “À noite recebi-o como se nada
fosse, uma actriz perdoa tudo excepto o sucesso que visita as colegas (…)” (I welcomed
him in the evening as if nothing had happened; an actress can forgive anything but her
colleagues’ success […]).
reacts with a mixture of defiance and powerlessness. Her great dream does not
find the conditions for its fulfilment in a society that simply fails to understand
her.
There is a marked contrast between the declamation of the letter, with its
purely bureaucratic register, and the daydreaming that follows. To express the
indifferent silence with which her request is met Medeia transposes herself to
a Greek world and resorts to mythological references to describe the passing
of time.28 The pragmatic tenor of her letter and its interaction with Portuguese
public life clashes with the visionary nature of our Medeia in her figurations
of the classical world. The stage direction – “Irónica” (Ironically) – hints at the
fact that, although Medeia’s immersion in the Greek world may be unrealistic
and fantasy-driven, she does not lose sight of the reality that surrounds her and
is aware of the difference between the two.
3.2 The Different Language Levels

Mário Cláudio’s text, bringing Euripides to a new audience in a new conjunc-
ture, in terms of both time and culture, includes the recitation of excerpts from
the Greek tragedy, justified in the new context by the protagonist’s repeated re-
hearsals of the play. There tends to be some connection between the passages
rehearsed by the Portuguese actress, especially those that express an attempt
to appease a conflicting couple,29 and her own self and personal experiences.
This explains the author’s effort to introduce some disjunction into the tone
of the tragic heroine so as to make it more compatible with that of a common
woman who tries, to no avail, to fit into her model’s shoes.
Her misconstrued attempt at a dialogue with the Argonaut, which reveals
a definite incompatibility between their souls and their life projects despite
28 Cláudio a (2008) 14–5. Note the fanciful tone with which, after reading the letter, Medea
describes the passing of time: “A candidatura foi apresentada numa tarde de Primavera,
numa dessas em que o vento arrebatava as primeiras folhas dos plátanos. (Irónica.)
Decorreu a estação em que andavam os filhos de Perséfone, muito ligeiros, a ajudá-la a
entretecer grinaldas de flores. Entrou o Verão, e veio Deméter dirigir a ceifa do trigo. Abriu
o Outono, e apareceram Apolo e Ártemis (…)” (The application was submitted in a Spring
afternoon, one of those afternoons where the wind would begin robbing plane-trees of
their leaves. [Ironically]. The season went by as Persephone’s nimble children were help-
ing her weave garlands of flowers. Summer arrived and Demeter came to supervise the
wheat crop. Autumn ensued and Apollo and Artemis appeared […]).
29 Euripides, Medea 869–71 / Mário Cláudio (2008) 11; Euripides, Medea 873–6 / Mário
Cláudio (2008) 11. This adaptation of the Greek matrix to the personal situation of the
Portuguese heroine also includes a manipulation of the original sequence of the different
Euripidean passages. Their order in the Portuguese text is dictated by their relevance vis-
à-vis the emotional states of the character.
all efforts to converge, alternates with an interior monologue in which Medeia

recriminates herself, aware of the fact that she may naturally also share the
blame for their having grown apart.30 In this transposition to the Portuguese
context, the dialogue mostly takes the shape of an argument between an every-
day couple, with the partners having, if not much else, the same name in com-
mon with their classical models. To achieve that effect, Mário Cláudio imprints
this dialogue with a pathetic tone, alternating with the expression of a certain
conventionality typical of many contemporary human relationships.
The couple’s belligerence is intensified when their children are mentioned
because their existence increases their mother’s feeling of inadequacy as a re-
sult of being rejected both by her family and by society. The topic of exile, which
is central in the Euripidean character, involves two different cultural realities,
the Greek and the barbarian, and its echoes can be heard in the Portuguese
text, namely in the isolation of the protagonist within her own culture: on
the one hand, this is a consequence of the reigning individualism, and on the
other, of the fact that the project that drives her is generally not understood.31
When Medea is betrayed by her husband, an inner desire for revenge awak-
ens in her, and this emphasises the difference between the spirit of the Greek
heroine and the innate ineffectiveness of her Portuguese counterpart. Cláudio’s
version nonetheless includes a certain high-flown style, a conventionally gran-
diose language that may signify an appeal for an attitude of grandeur that
reality denies. Even if only through her words, the Portuguese Medeia seeks to
ascend to the level of actual tragic vengeance.32
With the collapse of her private life comes also hopelessness at the failure
of her proposal for a performance of Medea which she had submitted to the
relevant public authorities. After rereading the letter sent to the Minister of
Culture, which merited no answer from the addressee, Medeia recites some
words addressed to Creon, the king of Corinth, in the Euripidean original. To
express the greatest frustration of her life, in the translation that shapes her
words, the Portuguese actress uses an elaborate, pathetic tone,33 which con-
trasts with the triviality of many of her other speeches. Recalling her husband’s
treason, Medeia reads a letter which reproduces some Euripidean passages
from the agon between Medea and Jason, where the latter expresses his great
30 Cláudio a (2008) 11.

31 Euripides, Medea 879–81 / Mário Cláudio (2008) 12.
joy at the promise of reconciliation. The letter’s opening words are a quotation
from Euripides, imbued with the feelings of the Portuguese protagonist.34
With the passing of time, the recitation of Euripides’ passages loses its con-
nection with the flow of life, repeating itself as a symptom of the protagonist’s
mental and emotional immobilisation.35 The more or less immediate expres-
sion of her experiences is gradually replaced by an obsessive repetition of the
same passages, which serve as a summary of her own existence:36 “Eu teimo
em decorar as minhas linhas” (I stubbornly go on learning my lines by heart).
Also as concerns her language, Medeia emerges as a creature who wavers
between two worlds, the ideal Greek world and her contemporary Portuguese
society, and this breach is also present in her innermost self. Elevation alter-
nates with triviality, and the fact that she increasingly adheres to the elevated
tone of the original play can be read as a sign of her growing distance vis-à-vis
the reality that surrounds her.
3.3 Medeia’s Social Environment

This loss of the Greek model’s tragic nature also happens as regards Medeia’s
social environment. Relationships become trivial and superficial both within
her family and in the public arena. People’s contacts, even among rela-
tives, are conducted via stereotyped letters and telephone calls.37 Medeia’s
husband and children, whose voice is mediated by her, are figures dominated
by the conventionality of their attitudes and behaviour, ultimately inspired in
Portuguese contemporary reality. Jason, a business man with no very specific
traits, emerges as a banal Don Juan, “amante de Glaucis horizontais” (a lover
of horizontal ‘Glaucises’), as he is described by Medeia (Cláudio a (2008) 40),
lacking in ambition and dignity; his language, which is echoed only through his
wife, is itself an expression of that same mediocrity. The oldest son represents a
model of subservient integration in a consumerist society whose major interest
is the displaying of signs of wealth; a paradigm for the contemporary execu-
tive, he lives from airport to airport, absorbed in his reports and indulging in
occasional relationships (34, 49). Medeia accuses him principally of hating the
theatre and what it stands for, i.e., life and genuine emotions (23). The younger,
to whom she granted the satisfaction of all whims – courses, clothes, travel-
ling (47–8) – embodies a process of marginalisation and deviation that is a

35 Euripides, Medea 230–1, Cláudio a (2008) 31, 41; Euripides, Medea 873–6, Cláudio a (2008)
11, 25.
36 Cláudio a (2008) 34; s.n.
37 For the conventional character of the language used in the family’s telephone calls cf.
Cláudio a (2008) 21, 22–3, 26–7.
consequence of his inability to define a direction for his life. Medeia’s realistic
analysis of her relatives echoes her clear-sighted analysis of the overall envi-
ronment (38): “É o intervalo do almoço. Aí vão eles para as suas bifanas e as
suas cervejas. (…) São os artesãos do fim, a desfibrar o casulo da minha fan-
tasia. (…) Cumprem rigorosamente a sua tarefa de desmantelar a magia” (It’s
lunch break. Off they go to their beef sandwiches and their pints. […] They are
artisans of the end, unfibering the cocoon of my fantasy. […] They rigorously
carry out their task of dismembering magic).
However, more significant even than her family members are the public fig-
ures of the successive Ministers of Culture. As the addressee of a letter recited
in its entirety in the first tableau (Cláudio a (2008) 14), this sort of “Creonte en-
gravatado” (pretentious dressed up Creon) (37) begins by setting up a barrier of
silence and indifference against Medeia’s dream. Ten years later (29–30), Medeia
again recites the same letter, in her eighth attempt “submetida à consideração do
décimo segundo ministro, um pequenino de quem já ninguém recorda o nome”
(submitted for consideration to the twelfth minister, a small man whose name
no one remembers anymore). Silence is now replaced by cynicism. The incum-
bent minister hides behind the alleged incompetence of his previous colleagues,
praises the ‘greatness’ of the actress’s career in the highest terms and formally
takes his leave – but the petition still remains unanswered.
Her growing confrontations with the Ministry eventually reveal an increas-
ing lack of responsiveness to any proposal for an elite theatrical performance.
As the actress had foreseen back in the Eighth Tableau (Cláudio a (2008) 35),
“inventarão uma Medeia vendedora de fruta, outra casada com um fabricante
de armamento, uma terceira toxicodependente à beira do fim” (they shall in-
vent a fruitmonger Medea, a Medea married to a weapon manufacturer plus a
third, substance-addicted Medea who is about to die). The climax of this con-
tinued rejection is found in the Eighth Tableau, when the minister in office,
instead of prolonging his predecessors’ silence, comes up with a tailor-made
counterproposal to satisfy the expectations of a new audience (45):
“Mas não entende, minha senhora”, explica o Ministro, “que vamos ofe-
recer-lhe um teatrinho de bolso, e num grande centro comercial onde
desagua nos seus períodos de lazer a nossa população, e não concorda
comigo que é necessário trazer o teatro à rua, e ligá-lo à educação, distri-
buindo pelas escolas a história da nossa Medeia em banda desenhada, e
não acha que em pouco diverge afinal a grande tragédia grega do futebol
de qualidade, e que o nosso ditador Creonte acusa muito da idiossincra-
sia do dirigente desportivo, e que o nosso Jasão bem pode ser encarado
como um craque? Então, minha senhora, não está de acordo comigo? ”
(Do you not understand, Madam, the Minister explains, that we are going
to offer you a little ‘pocket theatre’, in a big shopping centre wherein our
population flows in their leisure periods, and do you not agree with me if
I say that it is necessary to bring theatre out onto the streets, connect it to
education, disseminating the story of our Medea in a comic strip format,
and don’t you think that ultimately quality football is not really as differ-
ent from Greek tragedy as that, and that our dictator Creon shows many
signs of the idiosyncrasies of a football club manager, and that our Jason
could be seen as a football star? Well then, Madam, don’t you agree with
me?)
With outstanding concision, realism, and sarcasm, Mário Cláudio portrays the
panorama of our contemporary society, described by Mario Vargas Llosa (2012)
as “La civilización del espectáculo” (the civilization of entertainment).38 In the
Minister’s words quoted above past and present illuminate each other dialecti-
cally, allowing us to conclude that Euripides’ Medea works like a metonymy of
elite culture, which has lost not only the prestige it had enjoyed throughout
the centuries but also the ability to affirm itself in the mass-oriented societies
of the present.39
This cultural annihilation is materialised in the allegorical process of the
physical disassembling of the building that hosts the actresses’ performances.
As early as the Fifth Tableau, a stage direction indicates: “começa a ouvir-se
ao longe o ruído do camartelo que procede à demolição do teatro” (Cláudio a
(2008) 30) (from far away, the noise of the sledgehammer that is demolishing
the theatre begins to be heard) and with it the eviction of the tragic figure of
Medeia becomes imminent. This is a long process, because ten years later the
sledgehammers can still be heard (37, 39, 41, 44, 46, 48), reaching a climax at
the end of the final Tableau (50): “Atingem o auge as pancadas do camartelo.
Percebe-se o fragor da derrocada do teatro. Ouve-se na distância a sirene de
uma ambulância” (The strokes of the sledgehammer reach their climax. One
38 This is the title of an essay where Vargas Llosa reports the end of high culture in our con-
temporary societies, explaining that the wide expansion of the concept of culture emp-
tied it of its meaning. Mário Cláudio must have read Llosa’s essay before he wrote Medeia.
39 A similar structural design is used in another work by Mário Cláudio, published simul-
taneously with Medeia: Boa noite, Senhor Soares (Good Evening, Mr Soares) (Cláudio b
[2008]). Here the foreigner / the stranger, a character of mythic grandeur against which
the mediocrity of Portuguese society is to be read, is Senhor Soares, who is in fact Bernardo
Soares, one of the heteronyms of the great Portuguese modernist poet Fernando Pessoa
(1888–1935). The fictional figure of Bernardo Soares, the author of Livro do Desassossego
(Book of Disquiet) and a paradigm of high poetic diction, leads a simple life as an assis-
tant accountant in Lisbon.
can hear the roar of the theatre tumbling down. The siren of an ambulance can
be heard in the distance).
As a synecdochical representation of the death of elite theatre, the demoli-
tion of the building happens in parallel with the end of Medeia. Despite all
the frustrations caused by her project, the play’s leitmotif, the Portuguese
Medeia, despite having being defeated in all fronts, still has the same solemn
pose she had at the beginning: “Silenciosa, hieraticamente sentada numa ca-
deira de rodas” (Silent, hieratically seated on a wheelchair), (Cláudio a (2008)
51). The substitution of a wheelchair for a throne is extremely efficient in dra-
matic terms, underscoring the decadence of the protagonist. At the end, three
shots are heard – there is no need to emphasise the symbolic character of this
number – and, when the lights are turned on again, Medeia falls dead.
Even if alienated, Mário Cláudio’s protagonist is the only person who keeps
the cause of drama as high art alive during the entire play. As a consequence of
the segregation and the isolation to which she is condemned, she becomes an
embodiment of the ‘foreigner’, which Greek Medea also was.
Contrary to the Colchian heroine, Medeia does not kill her children or any
of her rivals. The ambiguous ending creates a doubt as to whether she falls vic-
tim of the shot that is heard or whether she commits suicide (which seems less
likely), or even if the shots are the scenic expression of the feelings of someone
who simply dies when the major reason for her being ceases to exist. One thing
is however certain: a crime does take place, and the victim is theatre in its high-
est expression.
chapter 13
Revisiting Medea – Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Escrita

da água: no rasto de Medeia (Water Writing:
In Medea’s Wake)
Susana Hora Marques
1 Introduction1
Escrita da água: no rasto de Medeia (Water Writing: In Medea’s Wake) is the

fourth of a set of five original plays by Carlos Jorge Pessoa,2 compiled under
2 Carlos Jorge Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1966. He completed a degree in Theatre and
Education at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, Lisbon, where he now works as a
Professor and is the pedagogic and artistic coordinator of the MA in Theatre. He also took a
degree in Actor Training as well as a specialized degree in Theatre Direction at the Instituto
Politécnico de Lisboa. He is the artistic director of Teatro da Garagem (Garage Theatre), of
which he was cofounder in 1989 and for which he writes and stages plays to be exclusively
performed by this specific Portuguese company. He has published extensively and is the
recipient of a significant number of awards (e.g., Cyberkyoske99 award, 2000, for his play
Desertos: evento didáctico seguido de um poema grátis [Deserts: A Didactic Event Followed
by a Free Poem]; 2009 prize for best original Portuguese text in theatre guides, for his On
the Road, or the Rainbow Hour). The author’s own words are the best way to describe his
understanding of theatre: “o teatro é uma inteligibilidade do mundo, é um meio de conhe-
cimento tão válido como a ciência – não vejo muita diferença do ponto de vista daquilo que
conseguimos consolidar, registar, sedimentar acerca da nossa relação com o mundo, só que
é feito por outras vias: não temos equações, não temos uma fórmula (…); a medida é outra,
é uma medida não mensurável, do domínio do intangível” (theatre is an intelligibility of the
world, a means of producing and communicating knowledge as valid as science – I don’t see
much difference in terms of what we can consolidate, register, sediment about our relation-
ship with the world, it is just done through other means: one doesn’t have equations, one
doesn’t have a formula […]; it’s another measure, a measure that cannot be measured, which
belongs to the realm of the intangible) (statement by Carlos Jorge Pessoa during an inter-
view conducted by Fernando Matos Oliveira and Mickael de Oliveira, in 2014). Carlos Pessoa
explains that his original productions, “sem influências sistemáticas” (with no systematic in-
fluences), are closely related to the present, and further adds that the text is of paramount
importance, as is, consequently, the relevant role of actors and actresses. In the echoes of the
classical world, which are recurrent and easily identifiable in Peregrinação – o fio de Ariadne
(Peregrination – Ariadne’s Thread), Escrita da água: no rasto de Medeia (Water Writing: In
Medea’s Wake), O Pai (The Father), In(sub)missão (Peça teatral sobre a liberdade) (In(sub)

Revisiting Medea – Carlos Jorge Pessoa ’ s Escrita da Água 217
the significant title of Pentateuco – Manual de sobrevivência para o ano 20003

(Pentateuch – A Survival Manual for the Year 2000). Although autonomous,
these five texts do complement one another and are clearly intended to ex-
press a connection with the present since they encourage a reflection on criti-
cal topics in the West and, more specifically, in contemporary Portugal – “a
fé, a Europa, Portugal, a família, o futuro”4 (faith, Europe, Portugal, family, the
future). Compiling these texts in a volume, under a common title, reflects the
urgent need for reflection and debate on the eve of the new millennium; that
was the reason why the Teatro de Garagem 1998 program comprised a perfor-
mance that included the five plays, as a corollary of a two-year project within
which each of the plays was staged separately in different venues. The biblical
name Pentateuco (Pentateuch) emphasizes the notion of a thematic sequence,
as is the case with the first five books of the Old Testament, which deal with
the origins of the people of Israel and their journey from slavery to freedom in
the Promised Land, led by Moses. The idea of a quest, an urgent journey that
had to be travelled in search of our own selves in the last decade of the 20th
mission (A Play on Freedom)) tradition is subject to a re-reading that stimulates change in

the present.
Producing theatre “que marque uma originalidade” (that distinguishes itself for its orig-
inality), the director of Teatro da Garagem defines the major guidelines of this company,
which boasts an important number of productions (cf. Performance program for Escrita da
água: no rasto de Medeia: 14–16): “entender a vida portuguesa pós-revolução; procurar um
sentido, não apenas estético, mas ético (o teatro como meio de reflexão sobre uma jovem
democracia num país velho de oito séculos)” (to understand Portuguese life after the 1974
revolution; to seek a meaning, not just an aesthetic, but an ethical meaning [theater as a form
of reflection on a young democracy in an eight centuries-old country]. Teatro da Garagem
has been the Teatro Taborda resident company, in Lisbon, since 2005.
3 The Pentateuco cycle includes the following plays: O homem que ressuscitou: epifania em 20 es-
tações (The Man Who Resurrected: An Epiphany in 20 Stations); Desertos: evento didáctico se-
guido de um poema grátis (Deserts: A Didactic Event Followed by a Free Poem); Peregrinação:
o fio de Ariadne (Peregrination: Ariadne’s Thread); Escrita da água: no rasto de Medeia (Water
Writing: In Medea’s Wake); and A menina que foi avó: peça teatral em jeito de conto de fadas
(The Girl Who Became a Grandmother: A Fairytale-Style Drama), all of them staged between
1997 and 1998, sometimes separately and sometimes as a set of plays (the five plays were
successively performed at Festival de Teatro de Montemor-o-Velho – CITEMOR (Montemor-
o-Velho Theatre Festival) in July 1998). Escrita da água: no rasto de Medeia premièred at
Teatro Rivoli, Porto, in 1998, and it was performed again in that year in both Portugal (Centro
Cultural de Belém – Lisboa; Festival de Teatro CITEMOR – Montemor-o-Velho) and Brazil
(“Navegar é preciso” – São Paulo; “Porto Alegre em cena” – Porto Alegre).
4 In Programa do espetáculo: 22. A series of deaths that marked the author’s personal life had
also an impact on Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Manual de sobrevivência para o ano 2000 (Survival
Manual for the Year 2000), instigating him to use theatre as a means to express his feel-
ings, emotions and doubts, like “um reduto de sobrevivência” (a safe haven) (cf. statement
by Carlos Jorge Pessoa in the interview he gave to Fernando Matos Oliveira and Mickael de
Oliveira in 2014).
218 Marques
century, marked by seeming abundance and complacency, is what lies behind

this 5-play cycle written by Carlos Jorge Pessoa. Pentateuco takes us back to the
past and, although it seems to suggest a diachronic conflict vis-à-vis the idea of
the new millennium, it urges us to establish a relationship between problems
affecting different ages – History goes on, incessantly, retrieving and rewrit-
ing characters, behaviors, situations, life-paths. In this sense of a continuity
between past, present, and future, the title Escrita da água (Water Writing) is
certainly not without symbolism: water, the primordial element which flows
permanently, is the image of the uninterrupted flow that binds the physis of
different generations, in all families and societies, simultaneously amniotic
water and mortal water (cf. Escrita da Água 277).5 Writing on water, although
impossible, further highlights the power of words, of the ability to use lan-
guage, of narrative art, while, on the other hand, it reinforces the meaning of
the subtitle, following Euripides’ Medea. Indeed, writing on volatile water re-
sults in something blurred and unclear; however, following Medea’s track al-
lows the Portuguese author to attach less importance to the traditional plot
and give only secondary attention to the heroine, with common elements like
the children’s death and the family tragedy being preserved, although in quite
different terms from the Euripidean original. These elements are now articu-
lated with contemporary western and, more specifically, Portuguese reality,
characterized by a crisis of values, affections, the family, as well as by over-
rated economic considerations. The classical myth becomes mostly a pretext
for a reflection on common moments and situations of the present. Medea
represents the story of the woman-mother associated with the family tragedy,
a reality that links it to “histórias de todos os dias que podem ser lidas <e re-
cortadas> nos jornais” (everyday stories that can be read in <and cut out from>
the newspapers) (Escrita da água 237).
2 Dialoguing with Euripides’ Medea
What are the reasons that lead Carlos Jorge Pessoa to bring Medea to the pres-
ent? First, like the Classics in general, Medea is a key reference that continues
to make sense in the present, allowing writers to approach such critical issues
as human relationships, power, love, and death. Furthermore, as in Euripides,
Medea is a wife and the mother of a family destroyed by death – in Escrita da
água only the father survives, and goes mad, preserving the memory of his
old family nucleus: the wife had died first, during surgery, to be followed by
5 Cf. Heraclitus’ conception of reality, understood as a continuous flow (cf. fr. 12 Diels-Kranz).
their two children, a boy and a girl, drowned in the swimming pool of an hotel
where they were spending their holidays in an attempt to cope with the grief
of having lost their mother. The husband’s unfaithfulness – the character is
generically named Pai (Father) in the 1998 text – is yet another common motif
in both plays: Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s and the classical Euripidean version, al-
though no political reasons are now adduced to explain the betrayal. Neither
does the betrayed wife find stratagems to exact her revenge on her partner
for his extramarital affairs, although she knows about them; might this sym-
bolize the submissive compliance, and perhaps also the weariness, of some
women/mothers of modern families who overemphasize the importance of
their social role as a parent and prefer to keep up appearances, in detriment of
the couple’s love relationship? Like Creusa/Glauce in the ancient myth, Amiga
(Female Friend), one of the characters in Carlos Pessoa’s play, evokes the fig-
ure of one of Medea’s rivals; in a production that convenes the living and the
dead on the stage, thereby giving the play added theatricality and an oppor-
tunity to ask questions, the dead mother, Mãe, addresses Amiga, without any
apparent ill will or animosity, in the following, meaningful words: “Eu sei, eu
sempre soube que amavas o paizinho …” (I know, I have always known that
you loved daddy …, Escrita da água 263). As one of the three characters of the
movie fiction produced within the play itself, the other two being Homem do
Cinema (The Movie Man) and Voz-Off (Voice-off) (= Director), the figure of
Amiga, an actress in the film that is being shot based on the family tragedy6
(“Sou uma amiga que testemunhou alguns momentos decisivos desta história”
[I am a friend who has witnessed some decisive moments in this story], Escrita
da água 232) is suggestive of one of the elements of the love triangle of the
myth’s classical tradition. This enables the author to put in dialogue different
times, past and present, and different arts, theatre and cinema, whose inter-
weaving suggests the repetition of situations which uninterruptedly affect
human beings in general, notwithstanding their social status, their country of
origin, their times. Dialogue is therefore the form of expression par excellence
of Escrita da água.
A paradigm of family disintegration, the myth of Medea lends itself to a
vision of the crisis that has struck many families in contemporary western
societies – it is thus natural that, in contrast with its Euripidean model, this
new Medea does not have the grandeur of the ancient barbarian princess, but
6 Cf. in this volume, Silva and Hörster on Mário Cláudio’s Medeia, where an actress who has
during her whole life dreamt of playing the part of Medea seeks to understand the Euripidean
heroine, as well as her own life.
220 Marques
appears rather as a common woman, in the context of the banality of today’s

western world, marked by the loss of family ties.
The echoes of classical tragedy can also be heard in the opening words of
the Teatro da Garagem performance, which are a kind of prologue spoken dur-
ing the only intervention of a two-element Chorus in the whole play – in a tone
that foreshadows tragedy, important topics are briefly mentioned to then be
developed in the following scene, such as the fragility of human life, the inevi-
tability of fate, children’s naivety and innocence, and death.
However, to reflect on “a natureza do ‘sentimento trágico da vida’”7 (the na-
ture of the “tragic sentiment of life”), Carlos Jorge Pessoa just wishes to ‘follow
in Medea’s wake’, with different choices in terms of theme and form underscor-
ing the distance between the Euripidean version and his own, whose potential
meanings are enriched by a previous reading of the 5th century BC text as well
as by a knowledge of the general outlines of the myth.
O rasto de Medeia representa uma espécie de negativo do retrato clás-

sico; nesta peça, a mãe e os filhos são espíritos cujo verbo inspira os vivos
a retomarem a vida <como se perceberá>.8
(Medea’s wake represents a kind of negative of classical portraiture; in

this play the mother and her children are the spirits whose word inspires
the living to pursue life <as will become clear>.)
Carlos Pessoa’s purposes lead him to change the original list of characters,
which affords a preponderant role to the family in general, omitting the names
of all the four members and replacing them instead with the references ‘Mãe’
(Mother), ‘Pai’ (Father), ‘Criança 1’ (Child 1), ‘Criança 2’ (Child 2); this suggests
that the family addressed in the text is only an example of yet “um caso entre
tantos outros” (one among many other cases, Escrita da água 246) that disrupt
any family nucleus. For the same reason, and besides Amiga, the play’s charac-
ters also include other figures suggestive of the author’s personal taste for the
cinema and which update ancient drama, with tokens of modernity – Homem
do Cinema and Voz-Off, as mentioned above. Besides providing technical indi-
cations in regard to the shooting, Homem do Cinema offers comments on the
tragic events that befall the family whose story is being filmed and compares
them with his own life story, his reflections on it suggesting the chorus of a
Greek tragedy as in, for example: “Mas afinal quem foram eles? Quem somos
7 Programa do espetáculo (Program of the performance): 6.

8 Programa do espetáculo (Program of the performance): 6.
nós? Qual a sua diferença? Qual a nossa diferença? Estará a diferença apenas
no destino? Seremos apenas marionetas do destino?” (But, after all, who were
they? Who are we? What is their difference? What is our difference? Might
difference be only in fate? Are we merely the puppets of fate?, Escrita da água
238). In this confrontation between the past and the present, facilitated by the
voices of both Homem do Cinema and Amiga, two characters that comple-
ment the traditional role ascribed to the Chorus, the perception of higher
powers that seem to continuously control human will underscores the notion
of existential fragility. The text, written in prose, is divided into four tableaux
preceded by the above-mentioned prologue and subdivided into different
scenes, which are separated by the clapboard and include an epilogue. The
tableaux, which suggest the episodes of the classical Euripidean Medea, rather
than focusing on the development of a specific plot, are centered upon a con-
temporary reflection inspired by the tragic story of a family whose members
are characters in the film (cf. the following words spoken by Amiga: “são as cri-
anças que vão morrer, será que não entendem como é terrível, e horrível (…)?
Como podem morrer, com dois erres, as crianças, duas, como podem ser sacri-
ficadas, repito, com r, sacrificadas, os inocentes, oh deuses, porquê?” (it is the
children who are going to die, don’t you understand how terrible, and horrible,
that is […]? How can the children die, with a d, an i, and an e, be sacrificed, I
repeat, with an r, sacrificed, the innocents, o gods, why?, Escrita da água 256).
3 “Antes de começar” (Before we start) – the Chorus
From the twelve or fifteen traditional choreuts of Attic tragedy, in Escrita da

água the Chorus is composed of only two elements who make some comments
on the action – as well as on the human condition at large – in compliance
with its classical functions, creating a tragic atmosphere that lingers in the air
and symbolizes the general tone of the production, as explained before. Their
intervention, limited as it is to the opening of the performance and resembling
a prologue, includes a description of winter weather, with cold and snow, in
a “vale perdido entre montanhas” (valley lost between mountains, Escrita da
água 229), invaded by ferocious hungry wolves who attack both other animals
and human beings, indiscriminately – a young girl, whose dreams are inter-
rupted, an old lonely and helpless shepherd, who is evoked in a speech for-
mulated in the third and the first person, engaging the audience. The rough
landscape provides the background for a number of violent deaths exposed
before the spectators by means of synesthetic language and suggestive of the
crudeness and terror of the scene – from the outset, the audience is presented
222 Marques
with a grim environment dominated by a series of powers which human be-

ings try to deceive daily. The Chorus’ impressive words encourage the audience
to recreate images which are not explicit in the scene but rather linguistically
reproduced with such intensity as to leave no one indifferent.9 Moreover, an
appeal is addressed to the spectators, inviting them to participate in the bloody
performance, and thereby intensifying the tragic atmosphere.10 A significant
trail of blood is clearly visible against the white snow, which can both preserve
and kill.
Estava destinado ser assim, ser de noite a descida dos lobos em alcateias
silenciosas, degolando cordeiros e almas solitárias.
Não havia fim na matança;
o leite impetuoso das quedas de água tingia-se de sangue …
Escrita da água 229
(It was destined to be so, in the night the wolves coming down in silent
packs, beheading lambs and lonely souls.
There was no end to slaughter;
The impetuous milk of waterfalls was forever tinged with blood …)
In line with the prologues or parodos of ancient tragedy, several questions rel-
evant to the overall meaning of the play are raised by the Chorus to be then
developed during the scene. Some examples are, as mentioned before, the
water motif, which emerges in close connection with the life/death dichotomy,
writing as a vehicle for gaining and disseminating knowledge, the fragility of
human life, the inevitability of fate, the naivety and the innocence of children,
all perpetual themes that allow for the articulation of different experiences
and different epochs.
4 The Theater-Cinema Interaction
The film register within the play facilitates a dialogue between theatre and
the movies, regardless of any specific drama conventions. Amiga provides the
bridge between the two worlds.
9 On this dramatic effect and its ability to engage the audience, see Thalmann (1978) 93.
10 Using the Chorus at the beginning of the performance to announce the general outlines
of the play’s major topics is a method used also by Hélia Correia in Perdição (Perdition)
and Desmesura (Excess). On this, see above 159–61; Hardwick, Morais, Silva (2017) 267–9.
Homem do Cinema and Voz-Off, converted into characters on the stage,

evoke the parabasis strategy of ancient comedy, making the author’s voice
heard from within the text. “É claro que nós estamos aqui para esclarecer dúvi-
das, para dar o enfoque crítico, a dimensão social, política e filosófica ao ‘caso’
do nosso homem” (Obviously we’re here to clarify any doubts, to provide a crit-
ical perspective, a social, political, and philosophical dimension to our man’s
‘case’ – Homem do Cinema, Escrita da água 246). On the other hand, they are
reminiscent of Pirandello’s metatheatrical exploration, which allows for the
expression of trans-theatrical figures, providing technical indications and also
commenting on what happens on stage, thus combining illusion and reality,
past and present.11
Words and expressions belonging to the language of filmmaking are natu-
rally combined with the discourse of drama (cf. e.g. ‘zoom’ [Escrita da água
248], ‘acção!’ [action!], ‘Repete, mais pathos …’ [Repeat, more pathos …, Escrita
da água 250], ‘uma panorâmica geral!’ [Panning shot!, Escrita da água 265]).
The difference between these two artistic worlds and their model, a classical
tragedy, is signaled by obvious divergences concerning traditional elements:
the noble – and exceptional – status of the characters of classical tragedy,
their extreme experiences or the solemn language in which they express
themselves, all changes as a function of the production’s framework, which is
compatible with both the reality of contemporary common people and Carlos
Pessoa’s enthusiasm for cinema. A source of inspiration for the author, cinema
is very much present in his work, allowing him to archive memory, select im-
ages, freeze them, reorder them, in contrast with drama performance, which
is more volatile, like water, and also in contrast with life; cinema allows you to
retrieve and store memories, questioning also the ‘here and now’.
At the end of the performance, Homem do Cinema walks alone in the snow
towards the audience, which suggests that through this meeting between ac-
tors/actresses and the spectators, drama seeks a possible answer concerning
the issues that confront human beings today.
11 The idea of converting Homem do Cinema and Realizador into characters is similar to
Anouilh’s and the Portuguese author António Pedro’s choice in their works on Antigone,
along the lines of Pirandello’s drama (cf. chapters by Silva and Morais, in Hardwick,
Morais, Silva (2017) 72–89, 175–91, on Anouilh and António Pedro, respectively).
224 Marques
5 Family: a Major Topic in Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Version
The author’s words included in the program of the performance (6–7) are a
reflection on how the author proposes to address the ‘family’ topic in his play
Escrita da água:
A família é entendida como célula agregadora em crise, crise de afectos,

crise de valores, despoletada pelo acontecimento trágico; a questão prin-
cipal tem a ver com duas posições distintas: ser fiel à memória e abster-
mo-nos da vida no sentido de abdicarmos da mesma, enveredando por
um luto perene, ou a lealdade à memória, que não ignorando o passado
o reescreve numa nova oportunidade, numa vida renovada, renascida.
O objectivo da peça passa por uma reinvenção da Família, e esta con-
stitui uma unidade possível de um processo de transformação social
mais vasto, um processo em que a Cidade se revê, se rearticula. A Família
na tragédia clássica é sempre o mote exemplar para uma reflexão mais
ampla; neste aspecto fomos razoavelmente conservadores.
(The family is understood as an aggregating cell in a crisis, a crisis of af-

fections, a crisis of values, triggered by the tragic event; the main issue
has to do with two different positions: being faithful to memory and ab-
staining from life in the sense of giving it up, choosing to mourn forever,
or being loyal to memory, which, while not ignoring the past, rewrites it
when a new opportunity emerges, in a renewed, reborn life. The purpose
of this play entails reinventing the Family, and this is a possible unit in
a wider process of social transformation, a process in which the City is
reviewed, rearticulated. In classical tragedy, the Family is always the ex-
emplary motto for a more comprehensive reflection; in this aspect, we
were reasonably conservative.)
The family, the first cell to influence us, is used as a starting point for a broader
meditation concerning our western societies – Carlos Pessoa uses the myth of
Medea mostly as a mirror through which his readers/audience gain access to the
story of a contemporary family, constituted by a mother, a father and two children,
which collapses due to a sudden tragedy that befalls them. In a world marked by
the loss of values, by the decadence of the family concept, it is critical to reflect
on the links that are severed by death, disturbing the living (cf. Escrita da água
269). The family, a center of affections, safety, and protection, is also a place of
liberation, of respect for difference and individual anxieties, “um lugar sinónimo
de cidadania” (a place synonymous with citizenship – Pai, Escrita da água 238),
where each member is entitled to have his/her own voice. Its breakdown, when
death intervenes with no warning, selecting no specific age or social class, creates
instability, desperation, madness. That is why in the 1998 play Pai is adrift, rud-
derless, hungry for his old affections and connections, overwhelmed with nostal-
gia, which is materialized in the wedding dress that he wears on stage because
it reminds him of his companion and their past life together: “sou um fraco, sem
força anímica para controlar o desespero; limito-me a enlouquecer” (I am weak,
I have no strength to control my despair; I merely go mad, Escrita da água 237).
The echoes of the Medea myth in this contemporary character can be perceived
in such aspects as the breakdown of his family, with death striking his own chil-
dren, or in his betrayal of his wife – the remaining aspects constitute a deviation
vis-à-vis the Euripidean model, including the way Pai talks to his late wife: a lov-
ing tone replaces the rhetorical discourse of the classical play, since affection and
the importance of family links are exactly the topics that the contemporary play
aims to highlight as a paradigm. The loneliness and the grief experienced by the
character after the death of his loved ones lead him to reflect critically on his past
existence in his role as a family man in contemporary Portugal – and in the west in
general.
“A família, o emprego, o prestígio, a casa … eram essas as preocupações

que dominavam a minha cabeça e no entanto sabia que faltava alguma
coisa (…); neste mundo controlado, vigiado, eu tinha que inventar um
lugar! (…) … eu sentia a teia de poderes que dominam o mundo, eu perce-
bia como a individualidade se desvanece nessa teia (…). A minha família
teria o seu lugar, um lugar que fosse sinónimo de libertação, sinónimo de
respeito pelas nossas diferenças, pelas nossas inquietações, sinónimo de
cidadania” (Escrita da água 237–8). (…) “… a minha lista de contactos é
maior que um rolo de máquina registadora, isso é fundamental para uma
pessoa que queira vencer na vida …”
Escrita da água 252
(Family, job, prestige, the house … those were my major concerns, the
ones that occupied my mind and nonetheless I knew that something was
lacking […]; in this controlled, monitored world, I had to find a place!
[…]… I felt the web of powers that dominate the world, I understood how
my individuality melts away in that web […]. My family would have its
place, a place that would be synonymous with liberation, synonymous
with respect for our differences, for our anxieties, synonymous with citi-
zenship. […] … my contacts list is longer than a cash register roll, that is
imperative if you want to be successful …)
226 Marques
Complying with the standards of a common family man, Pai had the usual
concerns of a contemporary man,12 although he felt there was some dispropor-
tion between social requirements and the singularity that differentiates each
individual family. His behavior after the death of his family seems to converge
towards an ‘abstenção da vida’ (abstention from life): “– Ajudem-me a dar um
tiro” (Help me shoot, Escrita da água 236), a cry that expresses his feeling of
aimlessness.
The importance of the family dimension in the play encourages the re-cre-
ation of past scenes in the domain of private life, suggestive of the feelings
and emotions that are at the center of human relationships. Pai evokes the
affection and patience with which he used to whistle lullabies to his babies at
bedtime (cf. Escrita da água 261). Significantly, this also points to the fragility
of the little ones (262), who need to be protected. And he repeatedly admits to
having loved his late wife, illustrating the longing caused by physical absence
(276), and in particular the appreciation that human beings usually feel to-
wards those whom they have lost.
The family portrait is completed with the perspective of Mãe, a voice that
encourages the living to continue alive, to begin again, despite their memory
of the tragedy and the breakdown of the family. Indeed, she addresses Pai and
Amiga with the following words, which hint at her husband’s infidelity, a recur-
rent characteristic in Carlos Pessoa’s text, as mentioned above: “… oxalá sejam
felizes os dois … (…) Vá lá, dêem as mãos, isso, assim é que vos quero ver, de
mãos dadas!” (… I wish you two to be happy…. […] Come on, hold your hands,
that’s it, now that’s how I like to see you, holding hands!, 263). Her speeches
describe her experience of being a mother and a wife, two roles that the play
stresses. Curiously, although Medea’s family life and her love life are here un-
derscored, there is another intervention by Mãe that seems to allude to the
classical heroine, notably her unbridled nature, which she makes an effort to
control (266, 270), as well as her circumstances as a betrayed, unwanted wife
(267). However, the image that stands out is mostly that of a loving mother,
well-respected and affectionate (cf. “os meus pintainhos” (my little chicks,
264) / “Minha Menina (…), encho o teu corpo de beijos” (My Girl […], I cover
your body with kisses, 265)/ “Eu quero-vos bem, meus filhos” (I love you, my
children, 275)), an unusually shy and weary mother who had endured it all
practically on her own – “dizem que as mães são a força estruturante” (they
say that mothers are the structuring force, Escrita da água 266). She had raised
her children the best way she knew, in compliance with social standards: “a
12 In Euripides’ tragedy, Jason has similar ambitions, for instance, his desire to become king
or his marriage of convenience.
melhor alimentação, vestir, calçar, os melhores colégios (…) …‘melhor’ era o

que eu acreditava que valia a pena, que era seguro …(…) … eu lutei por essa
ordem que me parecia justa, fui pragmática, uma mãe pragmática” (The best
food, clothes, shoes, the best schools […]… ‘the best’ was what I believed to
be worthwhile, to be safe … […] … I fought for the order that seemed to me
to be fair, I was pragmatic, a pragmatic mother, 271). As concerns the couple’s
relationship, although Mãe abundantly criticizes her partner in his multiple
roles – as a husband, a lover, and a man (267) – in their dialogue she reminisces
about the day they had first met, ages ago, their passion, their excitement, in
a very contemporary, ‘en route’ location – under the roof of a gas pump by the
train station (278).13
Mãe and Pai had had two children, whom, unlike the Euripidean heroine,
Medea does not kill, although, to some extent, they die because of her – their
holidays, the swimming pool are a means of trying to ease the grief of losing
their mother. According to tradition, being a child of Medea’s entails a specific
ending: death. The presence of the little boy and the little girl evokes the world
of childhood, something significant in a play in which the family takes center
stage, and points to the power of joining syllables, forming words, and generat-
ing meaning, like children tend to do. Theatre, a space for reflection, questions
the reasons for the terrible death of two innocent children (256); no answers
are offered, though, only “vontade de entender o sentido da vida” (the will to
understand the meaning of life – Homem do Cinema, 257). Living makes sense
to the children, and their words may therefore be understood as an encourage-
ment to start again, to look to a possible future (273):
O meu vocabulário não pára de crescer, cada dia que passa acrescento
novas palavras, cada uma com significados diferentes … antes de ador-
mecer repito em voz alta cada palavra e delicio-me com o som de cada
sílaba, com o modo como os sons se procuram, se fundem …
(My vocabulary just goes on growing, each day that goes by I add new
words to it, each one with different meanings … before I go to sleep I re-
peat each word aloud and I am delighted at the sound of each syllable, at
the way the sounds seek one another and melt together …)
The fact that the story of this family tragedy is recounted in the film that is
being shot within the play gives Homem do Cinema an occasion to briefly re-
call his own late mother, a safe haven in his hours of grief (235) whom disease
13 Her fiery passion is one of the reasons why Medea acts as she does in Colchis.
228 Marques
had robbed him of. He keeps a picture of his mother with him, which makes
her present (236), albeit showing that she has become a “fragmento sem uni-
dade” (fragment devoid of unity, 236), a solitary – and now also a meaningless –
part of the family, of society. “Não me apetece arranjar soluções” (I don’t feel
like coming up with solutions, 247) or “… no fundo, quero aprender a mor-
rer convosco …” (ultimately, what I want is to learn how to die with you, 265),
or “ensina-me a morrer … sinto uma enorme descrença em tudo isto” (teach
me how to die … I feel an immense disbelief in all this, 271) are confessions
that seem to point to an ‘abstenção da vida’ (abstention from life) on the part
of a man of the present who is distressed by the weight of memory. Living
with memory, however, does not necessarily hinder him from inaugurating a
new cycle, being re-born into a new life. In the epilogue, the words spoken by
Homem do Cinema as the outcome of a reflection that he shares with the audi-
ence mention tragedy as being the “derradeiro testemunho de esperança” (the
ultimate testimony of hope).
O sentido trágico da vida talvez nos enobreça, porque não nos alimenta
a vaidade; porque nos torna humildes: não, não se trata de rendição, mas
antes de combate (…). A tragédia talvez seja um testemunho da nossa
necessidade irreprimível de amarmos a vida em toda a sua plenitude.
(The tragic meaning of life may make us nobler, because it does not feed
our vanity; because it makes us humble: no, this is not about surrender,
but rather about combat […]. Tragedy may be an evidence of our irre-
pressible need to love life in all its fullness.)
Escrita da água 284–5
6 The Concept of Tragedy
Recalling a sad tale that wrings the heart but with which one must learn to live
(cf. 250–1) is one of the purposes of the film shooting that brings the myth of
Medea back on stage as an example. This tragic memory calls for reflection:
one must pick up the pieces and carry on, take a step forward without getting
entangled in the old plot, head towards a future: “Esta peça parece-me uma tra-
gédia amniótica! (…) Significa que se renasce desta tragédia!” (This play seems
to be an amniotic tragedy! […] It means that one is reborn from this tragedy!,
252), Amiga observes, illustrating how it is possible to preserve memory from
a (re)constructive perspective, how it is possible to end a cycle and begin an-
other. However, one of the children naturally refutes the comment of an adult,
pointing towards a common understanding of the concept of tragedy: “Mas

numa tragédia morre-se!” (But people die in a tragedy!, 253). This tragedy,
however, is associated with water, which flows and renews life: “esta é uma
tragédia da água, vocês crianças vão morrer, mas a água é também a fonte de
vida …” (this is a water tragedy, you children are going to die, but water is also
the source of life – Amiga, 253).
Even though it does not provide an answer, meditating on these issues en-
ables us to express our deepest human emotions: “a tragédia, porque nomeia
a condição humana, é sobretudo uma teia … teia de perguntas …” (because it
names the human condition, tragedy is mostly a web … a web of questions … –
Voz-Off, 256). “A tragédia, como forma e sentimento, é o resultado da vontade
de entender o sentido da vida, é isso? (…) Se não quiséssemos entender, se não
fizéssemos perguntas, doeria menos, não haveria tragédia?…” (Tragedy, as form
and feeling, is the result of the will to understand the meaning of life, is that
it? […] If we weren’t interested in understanding, if we didn’t ask questions,
would we feel less pain, would there be no tragedy?… – Homem do Cinema,
257). Significantly, Voz-Off identifies the tragedy of Homem do Cinema, which
is common to so many mortals in all eras and in all places: he does not have a
life purpose (cf. 272).
7 The Importance of Words
Dialogue, the mode of expression par excellence of Escrita da água, as men-

tioned above, brings to the same stage different times and perspectives that
mix together, interrupt each other, meddle and interfere with each other, pro-
moting an analysis of the contemporary world and translating the topicality of
the themes addressed. The same is true of Carlos Pessoa’s freedom of creation,
which is not subject to literary rules. The primacy afforded to the words, from
learning to join syllables to the construction of meaning, is highlighted in a
number of interventions by one of the children:
Quando era menino, que agora sou anjo, construía palavras difíceis (…) …
usava advérbios quando queria dizer coisas importantes e inventava pa-
lavras quando se tratava de nomear o que não conhecia, por exemplo
uma erva, chamava-lhe rititão … rititão … a erva que ri e faz comichão …
(…) … delicio-me (…) com o modo como os sons se procuram (…), numa
espécie de ladainha verbal … ladainha … (…) … agora lia, juntava senti-
dos (…) talvez conseguisse escrever o poema da vida:
As palavras
230 Marques
como sementes aladas

procuram
a terra esclarecida.
Escrita da água 249, 273, 281–2
(When I was a little boy, for now I am an angel, I used to make up hard
words […] … I used adverbs when I wanted to say important things and I
invented words when I had to name things that I did not now, for exam-
ple, an herb, I used to call it repeaches … repeaches, the herb that laughs
and itches … […] … it’s delightful […] the way sounds seek one another
[…], in a kind of verbal litany … litany … […]… now I read, I collected
meanings […] maybe I could write the poem of life:
The words
like winged seeds
seek
the enlightened earth.)
More than remedies for the troubles of human life, words and writing stir reflec-
tions and raise concerns in contemporary mankind. The characters are not con-
cerned with finding the right words to voice their feelings, their motives, their life
stories, but rather express themselves with a naturalness that mirrors the reality
of common men and women, dominated by existential angst. Complying with
the routine that society expects them to follow is not enough for them: “arranjar
um bom emprego, ganhar bom dinheiro, ter um filho, talvez um marido, comprar
casa, carro (…) Mas o que é que aprendemos, os conceitos, as ferramentas para
pensar o mundo e transformá-lo?” (find a good job, earn a lot of money, have a
child, maybe a husband, buy a house, a car […] But what do we learn, the con-
cepts, the tools to think about the world and transform it? – Amiga, Escrita da
água 241–2). The theatre initiative is the “meeting space” par excellence,
onde procuramos um acordo quanto à melhor maneira de vivermos uns

com os outros; cada um de nós espera ser compreendido, cada um de nós
espera ser capaz de dar um contributo positivo com o seu testemunho.
No fundo os acidentes são apenas pretextos para reflectirmos sobre a
nossa condição quotidiana (…) O rito teatral proporciona um infindável
manancial de informações que impedem a formulação de uma resposta
clara
Amiga, Escrita da água 247–8
(where we seek to reach an agreement regarding the best way of living

together; each one of us hopes to be understood, each one of us hopes to
give a positive contribution with our testimony. Ultimately, accidents are

mere pretexts to make us think about our daily condition […] The theatre
rite provides an inexhaustible source of information that prevents us
from formulating a clear answer.)
Theatre is thus a privileged place to express life experiences and daily issues
pertaining to human interrelationships – it gives people a voice without neces-
sarily providing them with illuminating answers.
Bringing to the stage reference stories and figures of antiquity bears witness
to the notion that they continue to be pertinent in the present, although even
if only to illustrate common situations of our days which humanize the old
heroes and heroines, converting them into just another example to be con
sidered, alongside others, like Captain Scott and the tragic story of his journey
back from the South Pole (235) “… esta peça relata circunstâncias decisivas na
história de todos nós” (… this play gives an account of decisive circumstances
in the life of all of us – Amiga, 323), like life and death. “Implacavelmente”
(Implacably), “inexoravelmente” (inexorably) are examples of skillfully cho-
sen adverbs which Criança I makes up in order to “dizer coisas importantes”
(say important things) – implacable, inexorable define the fate that inevitably
strikes old and young, poor and rich, regardless of their age and their status, in
fiction as in the real world. The beginning of the play had included a warning
according to which “estava destinado ser assim” (it was destined to be like this,
229). Articulating the fate motif with that of writing, it may be concluded that
“mesmo antes de nascermos já fomos escritos” (we were already written even
before we were born – Amiga, 280), showing how the human being’s fate is
written in the gene pool that we share. This “espécie de escrita que nos conduz
o destino” (kind of writing that conducts our fate) is “uma escrita de palavras
vivas, uma escrita viva que cresce connosco” (writing made with living words, a
living writing that grows with us – Amiga, 280), which expresses itself through
words, which is not fiction but rather a consequence of nature itself, of what
is written in our genetic code. That is why the human soul proves to be deaf to
warnings (240), irremediably following the course of randomness, incapable
of shunning it. The repeated allusions to some elements and excerpts from
García Lorca’s poem “Romance de la Luna”, which Mãe is reading when she
comes on stage, underscore the impression of an inevitable catastrophe14.
14 Other aspects besides the premonition of a tragic fate suggest a similarity between Carlos
Jorge Pessoa’s play and the Spanish text, among them the merging of myth and reality or
the presence of such topics as childhood and death.
232 Marques
8 Conclusion
Following in Medea’s wake is a pretext to bring into the present civilizational

myths that represent timeless values; it is a pretext to question not only the
family, the basic, restricted nucleus where the self is molded, but also contem-
porary societies, dominated by economics-based, consumerist perspectives,
where individualism gains primacy over traditional human values. In a world
that is experiencing a crisis, the death of tragedy provides food for reflection
and can lead to a reconstruction of our universe, provided we do not forget the
past. The general outlines of the myth of Medea are not developed in Carlos
Pessoa’s play, which mostly borrows a name – Medeia – that is closely associ-
ated with the ancient play, together with some motifs from the old heroine’s
story – her condition as woman and mother, the death of her children because
of the parent (though not by her), the children’s innocence, the father as the
only survivor of a tragedy that strikes his family, the husband’s infidelity –
besides other themes related to this myth, such as the fragility of human life or
the breakdown of the family. This contemporary play only follows in the wake
of Medea, toning down her ancient cruel traits, since the focus is now placed
on family relationships, physically and painfully severed by their unexpected
death – parents and children talk, bringing generations together through dia-
logue. Water remains, forever renovating the human physis.
chapter 14
The Art of Translating a Classic: Author’s and

Translator’s Marks
1 Introduction1
Translating Greek classical drama necessarily adds to the difficult task of trans-
lation new contingencies that are proper to the genre. There is no need to dis-
cuss the usual restrictions: the basic need to try and be faithful to the original
meaning, to have a good knowledge of the source text’s subject matter as well
as of its context, to produce a version that is aesthetically equivalent to the
quality that identifies a true classic.2 When the source texts are universal refer-
ences, distant from their receiver by millennia and by thousands of miles as
concerns their original framework, all the requirements mentioned double the
difficulties which all translators are quite familiar with.
However, when the text to be translated is a drama, which means that, be-
sides being read, it can also be performed, the whole issue of faithfulness as
well as the form required by the receiver is even more complex and must be
put differently.3 If the audience for whom the translation is intended is an au-
dience of readers, then they can go over the text in the silence of a library,
or re-read it so as to extract from it increasingly rich nuances of meaning, or
they have the chance of re-analyzing its specific details if these are not im-
mediately accessible. However, besides this reading audience, if the text is in-
tended to be performed on stage, the translator must take into account the
true dramatic function of the translation: offering, within the limited time
2 Being faithful to the original does not merely entail semantic rigor; it includes an observance
of formal elements that are essential to both its meaning and its overall effect.
3 As a translator of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Sophia de Mello is perfectly aware of the particular
difficulty of translating for the stage. She writes (1987: VI): “… é preciso dizer o que lá está,
mas dizê-lo em termos de teatro. O que obriga a uma estreita tensão entre o significado e o
espaço, o peso e a voz de cada palavra” (… you must say what is in there, but say it in theatri-
cal terms. This entails a strict tension between each word’s meaning and space, weight and
voice).

234 Silva
frame of a performance, an action that is supported by a text which, besides

the features indispensable to the quality of a translation, is not only suited to
the ideological and linguistic perception of its new audience but is also able
to efficiently gain their emotional adherence. Besides the audience, the trans-
lator must also take into account the director’s intention and his interpreta-
tion of the main features of the text, as well as the agility of the words when
articulated by the actors and actresses. And this makes the task even more
complex.
Even if our source text has been a reference for centuries and its subject-
matter is well known in its general outline, the translation of a Greek trag-
edy presupposes a number of choices that are decisive in terms of the final
outcome. The translator will have to start by establishing a specific language
level that corresponds to a genre which has been characterized from the be-
ginning by an apparent solemnity. But are contemporary actors/actresses and
audiences prepared to follow and adhere to a text marked by an elevated tone,
laden with adjectives, permeated with compound words that need to be bro-
ken down into more or less long sentences, and which is clearly different from
their daily language patterns? Or would it be legitimate to ignore the specific
diction of the original and replace it with simple, straightforward sentences
which, despite downgrading the overall tone, would facilitate the audience’s
understanding of the text and their adherence to it? However, I am not talk-
ing about texts with fixed rhythmic patterns, but rather of poetic creations
with contrasting rhythms in the speeches of the actors/actresses and in the
choral interventions, which are more poetically elaborated and sophisticated.
Now we must ask: is it enough to render the source texts into prose, where
the contrast between the characters’ speeches and the choral songs is virtually
erased?
Finally, to discuss only the most obvious issues, there is the translation of
words that bear cultural values, whose correspondence in the target language
is extremely difficult to achieve; or the transposition of anthroponyms and
toponyms, which in the written version of the translation require to be clari-
fied through the use of footnotes. In this case, the impossibility of providing
the spectator with this type of, more or less comprehensive, marginal informa-
tion can generally be solved in one of two ways: a radical solution, which con-
sists in simply suppressing the difficulties, that is, deleting the most difficult
passages of the source text, or, as an alternative solution, skillfully introducing
laconic information in the text instead of adding footnotes. Those who want to
produce a quality translation for the stage must be aware of the difficulties and
the requirements described above.
The Art of Translating a Classic 235
2 The Portuguese Translations of Euripides’ Medea
In Portugal, there are at present two reference translations of Euripides’ Medea,

one by Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira,4 a scholar, and another by poet Sophia
de Mello Breyner Andresen.5 Given the different personalities of the two trans-
lators, the nature of these two Portuguese versions is also quite different. This
chapter is dedicated to the latter translation, and, bearing in mind the per-
sonality of the translator, Sophia de Mello, I will be focusing not only on the
solutions she devised for the difficult cases that correspond to the ‘sore points’
of the art of translating summarized above, but also on the poet-translator’s
imprint found in this version. We certainly agree with Lourenço’s words:6 “O
tradutor ideal de uma tragédia grega terá de ser poeta: alguém que põe a es-
sência da mensagem veiculada pelas palavras à frente da veiculação literal das
palavras em si”7 (“The ideal Greek tragedy translator must be a poet: someone
4 (32005) Eurípides. Medeia. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. This is a revised and up-
dated version of the 1955 text, which had been produced to be used in a performance by
TEUC (Teatro dos Estudantes da Universidade de Coimbra – Coimbra University Students’
Theatre Company). A noted Hellenist, M. H. Rocha Pereira produced a translation which,
despite being first intended to be used in this student company’s performance, also became a
scholarly text studied by generations of history of culture or history of Greek drama students.
The characteristics of Pereira’s translation include its rigor in terms of expression and the ac-
curate philological analysis on which it was based, both supported by an impressive body of
information, clear in both the introductory essay and the footnotes.
5 (2006) Lisboa: Caminho, being the posthumous publication of an unpublished text. Sophia
de Mello’s translation was used in a 2006 performance at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, in
Lisbon, staged and directed by Fernanda Lapa. However, my analysis of Mello’s translation
must include references to her poetical works, since this translation evinces two aspects of
her intellectual and literary personality: her academic training as a classicist, which is a guar-
antee of a translation that is faithful to its original, and the clear mark of a specific poetic
diction that characterizes Sophia de Mello as a poet. All references to Mello’s poetic works
are from the 2015 edition of Obra poética. Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim.
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (1919–2004) is among the major names of 20th-century
Portuguese poetry. Two awards have signaled her merit: Prémio Camões, the Camões literary
prize for Portuguese language (1998) and the Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana
(2003). Her poetic production is characterized by the presence of a specific mark of classical
culture, especially Greek culture, to be found in many of her poems – impressions caused by
the Greek landscape, the evocation of places with cultural references (e.g., Delphos, Crete),
mythical themes, reflections on poetic creation.
6 In his Introduction to the above-mentioned edition of Sophia de Mello’s translation (2006:
10).
7 Sophia de Mello expresses similar intentions when preparing to translate Shakespeare’s
Hamlet (1987: VI): “Sou partidária de traduções fidelíssimas, mas onde a fidelidade in-
clui a exigência do próprio poema” (I am in favor of extremely faithful translations, where
236 Silva
who places the essence of the message conveyed by the words before the literal
conveyance of the words themselves).
3 General Effects of Sophia de Mello’s Translation
Let us start by considering some of the general characteristics of Sophia de

Mello’s version that justify, besides the translator’s specific tones that I will
try to identify next, why the Portuguese Medea text she has given us may be
called a ‘translation’. This Portuguese version corresponds to Euripides’ com-
plete text, with all the lines translated and with no deletions or suppressions
to disguise the problems encountered. Naturally, there are no footnote annota-
tions and therefore the interpretation of the text depends only on the transla-
tor’s choices. Consequently, there was an effort to completely and expressively
preserve the general meaning of the original in the translated version. As for
language, to some extent it may be said to be observe the Euripidean grada-
tion: the characters’ lines are given a more natural, or ‘everyday’ style, if I may
so describe it, while a more elaborate poetic tone is reserved for the choral
interventions. The translator also chose to alternate between prose and verse,8
although, contrary to what one might expect, there is no absolute division of
these two forms of discourse between characters and the chorus; for example,
the opening monologue, which is spoken by Medea’s Nurse, is translated in
verse, as is the first rhesis where the heroine addresses the chorus, assessing
the social reaction both to resident foreigners and to women, two fragile ele-
ments in the community (E. Med. 214–66); another example is Medea’s address
to the Corinthian women where she announces her vengeance after having
made sure, in the scene with Aegeus (764–810), that she would be welcome
in Athens; or also Jason’s emotion-laden condemnation of filicidal Medea
(1323–50). In a word, in Sophia de Mello’s interpretation, moments of great
emotional tension justify her preference for a poetic rhythm, somewhat in
line with the old Athenian tragedians’ progressive expansion of monody, the
faithfulness nonetheless includes the requirements of the poem itself). Since the translator
has written no specific considerations on her Medea version, her observations concerning
her translation of Shakespeare are extremely useful here.
8 Also regarding her translation of Hamlet, Sophia de Mello addresses this new aspect as fol-
lows (1987: V): “O contraponto entre a prosa e o verso faz parte da estrutura da peça, do jogo
do poeta, da eficácia teatral, do relevo e sentido de cada cena” (The contrast between verse
and prose is an integral part of the play’s structure, of the poet’s game, of its efficiency as
drama, of the importance and the meaning of each scene).
ode sung by a single actor aiming to enhance the powerful emotions of the
characters – especially young or female characters.9 In the passages trans-
lated in verse form – and we must remember that the whole of the original
was poetry – the tone obtained is not based on metrics, as in the Greek lan-
guage; in Portuguese it is based instead on the rhythm of the words, which
is a result of different poetic strategies. Let us underscore some of the most
apparent rhythmic effects, which are also the most efficient. The use of mean-
ing assonance – a kind of thematic rhyme – at the end of consecutive lines
produces interesting results; for example, the first four lines of the Euripidean
original, with their repeated mention of the Argonauts’ voyage to Colchis
(E. Med. 1–4),10
Εἴθ᾽ ὤφελ᾽ Ἀργοῦς μὴ διαπτάσθαι σκάφος

Κόλχων ἐς αἶαν κυανέας Συμπληγάδας,
μηδ᾽ἐν νάπαισι Πηλίου πεσεῖν ποτε
τμηθεῖσα πεύκη…
O that the Argos ship might not have in her flight

Towards the Colchian land crossed the somber blue Symplegades,
Or that in the Pelion valleys ever fallen,
The pine tree cut, (…)11
are translated by Sophia de Mello as (p. 19)
Nunca os deuses tivessem consentido

Que a proa de Argo ousasse atravessar
O negro azul errante dos rochedos
Para vir até Cólquis pelo mar.12
Nunca no vale do Pélion o machado
Tivesse derrubado esse pinheiro.
9 On monodies and their poetic characteristics, see Barner (1971) 277–320; Pulquério (1969);
Barlow (1971) 43–60.
10 Euripides is quoted from Mastronarde (2002).
11 Each of Euripides’ quotes is followed by an English translation, which seeks to be as literal
as possible, so as to enable readers to compare the ‘original’ version with the innovative
solutions chosen by Sophia de Mello Breyner.
12 Sophia de Mello leaves out the flight metaphor, which suggests the rowing movement,
and she chooses to translate it by a much more linear “pelo mar” (“by sea”).
238 Silva
(Might the gods never have consented

That the Argos prow would have dared to cross
The black errant blue of the rocks
To arrive at Colchis by sea.
Might the axe in the Pelion valley
Never have cut down that pine tree.)
The translator does not seek to distribute the lines in the translation as they
are distributed in the original.13 Another fragmentation of the text – usually
in the Portuguese version the Euripidean lines are more often subdivided into
shorter units – allows the multiplication of the privileged position of certain
specific words, especially at the end of metrical units; in this case, the ending
of each line includes a further note on the conditions of the voyage, associated,
as in Euripides, with the mythical construction of the Argos and its inaugural
navigation to Colchis.
No less interesting are some rhymes, now also phonetic – unrelated to the
aesthetics of the original, but used with moderation. A vowel rhyme repeti-
tion may emphasize an idea that the translator wishes to stress, such as, for
example, Medea’s effort to integrate herself into Corinth and her new life as
a wife. An example of this can be found in Sophia de Mello’s translation of
Medea 11–3, p. 19:
Neste solo de exílio procurou

Ser amada por todos e tentou
Em tudo a concordância de Jasão.
(In this exile soil she sought

To be loved by all and tried
In all things to obtain Jason’s approval.)
Another particularly significant case occurs in a choral intervention, right after

the second meeting between Medea and Jason, in which she is able to feign
repentance and pretend that she is prepared to give in, only to smooth the
path for her vengeance. The Corinthian women are quite lucid as regards the
true purpose of the deceitfully amiable words spoken by the betrayed wife, and
are capable of seeing in Jason’s credulity a sign of the fulfillment of fate, which
13 Amado (2011) 90 notes a similar strategy in Mello’s translation of Hamlet.

must necessarily entail the danger of death. In Sophia de Mello’s translation of

Euripides, Medea 991–4, the chorus says (p. 59):
E. Med. 991–4 Σὺ δ᾽, ὦ τάλαν, ὦ κακόνυμφε κηδεμὼν

τυράννων,
παισὶν οὐ κατειδὼς
ὄλεθρον βιοτᾷ προσάγεις ἀλόχῳ
τε σᾷ στυγερὸν θάνατον.
Δύστανε, μοίρας ὅσον παροίχῃ.
You, wretched, unhappy husband, the son-in-law of kings,

to your children, without knowing it,
disgrace to their life you bring, and to your wife
a terrible death.
Miserable, how you divest yourself from fate!
E tu homem da má sorte,
Esposo traiçoeiro, genro dum rei,
Tu, sem o saberes,
Sobre os teus filhos chamas o desastre
Ai de ti que és cego em frente à sorte!
Sobre a tua mulher atrais a morte.
Sophia, p. 59
(And you ill-fated man,

A treacherous spouse, the son-in-law of a king,
You, without knowing it,
You summon disaster to bear upon your children
Woe to you who are blind in the face of fate!
You summon death to attend upon your wife.)
Word repetition – suggested by the original or used with the purpose of cre-
ating the specific effects desired by the translator – is also effective in its in-
terpretive underscoring of the words. In the Portuguese passage just quoted,
the pronoun “tu” (“you”), which in Greek occurs only once with the emphatic
power that the subject pronoun has in a language in which it can be identified
by the verb alone, is enough in itself to identify Jason as author of a double
initiative: his betrayal and the lack of understanding that is going to generate
tremendous consequences. The different fragmentation of the metrical units,
240 Silva
associated with the rearrangement of the topics mentioned by the chorus fa-
cilitates the rhymes, focusing on two keywords: “sorte”14 (“fate”) and “morte”
(“death”).
Shortly afterwards, when announcing Medea’s imminent grief to the
Paedagogus, who is unaware of the developments, Euripides’ Nurse is particu-
larly terse; in one single line (60), she says:
Ζηλῶ σ. ἐν ἀρχῇ πῆμα κοὐδέπω μεσοῖ.
I envy you. She is only in the beginning of pain, she has not yet arrived at
the middle.
For this line, the translator produces a more elaborate translation, where the
word ‘pain’, which is central in the Greek line and affects all its surrounding
words, is highlighted through repetition; and although the text is rendered in
prose format in the Portuguese version, the repeated ending of successive sen-
tences leaves no doubt as to the centrality of the concept (p. 21):
Invejo a tua ilusão. Ela vai no princípio da sua dor. Nem sequer chegou ao
meio do caminho da sua dor.
(I envy your illusion. She is in the beginning of her pain. She has not even
arrived at the middle of the path of her pain.)
4 Some More Specific Translation Strategies
Since it would be impossible to offer a systematic analysis of the whole transla-

tion in the space of this chapter, I will now focus on some passages for which
more expressive versions were produced in Portuguese: the opening mono-
logue, which introduces the general tone of the play (E. Med. 1–48); Medea’s
rhesis on the female condition, addressed to the chorus (230–66); and Medea’s
rhesis, delivered before Creon, on the dangers of magic (292–315). In each of
these I will try to highlight a number of solutions that make the translation
effective, expressive, and beautiful.15
14 The repetition of “sorte” (“ill-luck/fate”) is obtained by means of the Greek adjective for
“desgraçado” (“wretched”) (τάλαν) and the noun “destino” (“fate”) (μοίρας).
15 It may be interesting to also quote Amado (2011) 86–7, on the specific situation of a poet
translating a fellow poet: “Um dos similes que Sophia propõe para o acto de traduzir é
4.1 Literality Supplemented with Detailing, Clarification, or Added

Meaning
Without necessarily forsaking the text’s literal meaning as such, translation
can emphasize or autonomously interpret its intention by introducing clarifi-
cations or adding some elements.16 Let us start by considering the opening of
Euripides’ text, knowing that a tragic poet would not begin writing a play using
just any random words, but rather makes sure that the words chosen will have
a decisive meaning as the action develops. As for Sophia de Mello, she does not
hesitate to interpretatively clarify the play’s initial Greek words, as if announc-
ing her choices as a translator. Where Euripides (Med. 1), writes his opening
Εἴθ᾽ ὤφελ᾽ – simply, “I would that” –, the Portuguese translator produces a
whole corresponding line “Nunca os deuses tivessem consentido” (Might the
gods never have consented). This new line in the Portuguese translation un-
derscores divine intervention, which is not as clearly stated in Euripides as the
play opens, not even to support the actions to come, which are conducted prin-
cipally by humans and their emotions. If divine presence is emphasized in this
opening moment of the Portuguese version, a new intervention on the follow-
ing lines, in this introductory and information-conveying stage of the opening
monologue, anticipates the first reference to Jason’s name, which is explicitly
mentioned in the next lines. The reason for this may be that the translator
felt the need to clarify, or specify, right at the beginning that the source text
‘tornar-se outro’, que entendo como a tentativa de encontrar a verdade do outro. Abre-se,
no entanto, aqui um paradoxo: a única maneira de ser fiel à verdade do outro é encontrar-
lhe a correspondência na sua própria verdade de poeta de um certo tempo e língua” (One
of the similes that Sophia suggests as a description of the act of translating is ‘becoming
another’, which I understand as an attempt to find someone else’s truth. However, there
is a paradox in this insofar as the only way to be faithful to the other’s truth is to find its
correspondence in one’s own truth as a poet who belongs to a specific time and a specific
language).
16 Amado (2011) 85 makes a comment to that effect on de Mello’s translation of Hamlet,
emphasizing the translator’s acuity in capturing what she calls Shakespeare’s “vibração
e reverberação poéticas” (poetic vibration and reverberation): “As ideias e emoções que
nelas transparecem deixaram marcas no texto traduzido, quer na escolha da palavra ade
quada, quer na opção pela forma a dar aos versos. São marcas que nem sempre apontam
na mesma direcção, e tanto podem favorecer o achado de uma equivalência exacta à ex-
pressão inglesa como conduzir o texto num ligeiro desvio, revelando mais da reacção da
tradutora a estímulos presentes no discurso do que da intenção central do autor” (The
ideas and emotions present in them have left their marks on the translated text, both
in the choice of the right word and in the choice of the conformation of the lines. These
marks do not always point to the same direction, and they can enhance the finding of an
exact equivalence of the original English expression or signal a slight deviation of the
text, thereby revealing more the translator’s reaction to stimuli that are present in the
language of the text than author’s chief intention).
242 Silva
is referring, even if indirectly, to the leader of the Argonauts: for a Portuguese

reader / spectator, the identity of a mythical hero may require some specifi-
cation, while the same allusion would be completely obvious for the original
Greek audience.17 Euripides continues (Med. 4–6):
…, μηδ᾽ ἐρετμῶσαι χέρας

ἀνδρῶν ἀρίστων οἳ τὸ πάγχρυσον δέρος
Πελίᾳ μετῆλθον.
…, nor had he armed with oars the hands

of brave men who the golden fleece
for Pelias did pursue.
The translation reads (p. 19)
Que foi talhado em remos quando Pélias

Enviou os heróis que procuraram
Guiados por Jasão o Tosão de Oiro.
(Which was carved in oars when Pelias

Sent the heroes who were seeking,
Guided by Jason, the Golden Fleece.)
In addition to attributing an identity, “heroes”, present in Euripides, the men-

tion of Jason establishes a strong antithesis with the name of Medea that fol-
lows it in both texts.
After reviewing the usual stages of the Colchian heroine’s life in accordance
with the myth – her escape from her homeland, the murder of Pelias, and her
settling in her new Corinthian home – the Nurse acknowledges Medea’s efforts
to adapt to her new status and her new life project, and expresses the following
view about the female condition (E. Med. 14–5):
ἥπερ μεγίστη γίγνεται σωτηρία,

ὅταν γυνὴ πρὸς ἄνδρα μὴ διχοστατῇ
This is the greatest security there is,

when the wife does not disagree with her husband.
17 Euripides delays his reference to Jason to a later line (Med. 8), where the mention of
Jason’s name describes him not as the commander of valiant men, the Argonauts, but
rather the object of Medea’s passion, “her heart bruised with love for Jason”.
As regards this aspect of conjugal harmony as seen by Greek society – a sen-

sitive issue in a play like Medea, which the protagonist will later expand – the
translator retouches the text discretely, introducing a more general reference
to the submission of the ‘second sex’, not just within marriage but within soci-
ety at large (p. 19).
Pois só existe paz quando a mulher

aceita e se submete.
(Since there is only peace when the woman

accepts and is submissive.)
‘The husband’ disappears from the translation, conveying the idea that the
woman’s submission is more general, not exclusively domestic; accordingly,
the words chosen to express submission are now doubled: “accepts and is
submissive”.
Let us now consider the case of the necessarily sensitive translation of ‘cul-
ture terms’, that is, words that convey concepts which tend to be subtle and
transient throughout the history of the thought that guides a society. Finding a
fair translation for them in the target language is a most challenging exercise.
It may even be that the concept’s clarity or stability require more than a mere
translation, eluding the constancy of its Greek meaning. Here, pure philologist
translators will feel the need to add an explanatory note, whereas a poet-trans-
lator, on the other hand, will feel more comfortable devising the most fitting
and expressive solution for each specific problem. This may be exemplified
with the difficulties raised by the σοφός semantic family, with its multiple oc-
currences in the Greek original.18
Accused by Creon of skillfully manipulating drugs and poisons, thus repre-
senting a danger to those she regards as her enemies – at this stage in the play,
the royal house of Corinth and Jason’s bride, the princess – Medea expounds
on sophía and the evils that it brings (E. Med. 294–305),19 using different forms
of the adjective σοφός:
294–5 Χρὴ δ᾽ οὔποθ᾽ ὅστις ἀρτίφρων πέφυκ᾽ ἀνὴρ

παῖδας περισσῶς ἐκδιδάσκεσθαι σοφούς.
18 In his Introduction to the translation of Sophia de Mello, Lourenço (2006) 10 underscores
the translation of this specific family of words and its interesting articulation with the
translator’s name, Sophia.
19 Rocha Pereira (2005) 114 explains that one does not infrequently find Euripidean passages
where the disadvantages of sophía are mentioned, and that this specific passage has been
read as an instance of self-defense on the part of the poet.
244 Silva
Never should a man who is by nature sensible

Excessively instruct his children and make them savants.
298–9 Σκαιοῖσι μὲν γὰρ καινὰ προσφέρων σοφὰ

δόξεις ἀχρεῖος κοὐ σοφὸς πεφυκέναι.
If, with innovation, knowledge is provided to the ignorant,

One will appear that to be useless, not learned.
304–5 Σοφὴ γὰρ οὖσα, τοῖς μέν εἰμ᾽ ἐπίφθονος,

τοῖς δ᾽αὖ προσάντης. εἰμὶ δ᾽οὐκ ἄγαν σοφή.
Because I am knowlegeable, I’m envied by some,

Others think I am hostile, and yet my knowledge is not that
extensive.
Sophia de Mello’s translation solutions are as follows:
p. 31 Um homem sensato não deve dar aos seus filhos uma sabedoria que
os torne superiores ao comum.
(A sensible man should not give his children a degree of knowledge that
makes them stand above the common man.)
Se ensinas aos ignorantes uma sabedoria nova eles não dizem que és
sábio, dizem que és inútil.
(If you teach new knowledge to the ignorant they will not say that you are
learned, they’ll say that you are useless)
Por causa da minha ciência fui odiada por uns, desprezada por outros.
Because of my science, I have been hated by some, despised by others.
Despite the fact that the translator generally repeats the original – “sabedoria”
(knowledge), “sábio” (learned) – she also resorts to the “ciência” (science)
version, in the last occurrence, where the Greek word means not “sabedoria”
(knowledge) in general, but rather Medea’s specific skill, magic, for which the
word “ciência” (science) must have seemed to her to be more appropriate.
Later in the play, when Medea’s filicidal intentions become manifest, facili-
tated by the promise made by Aegeus, king of Athens, to welcome her in his
city should she decide to flee from Corinth, the chorus sings the glories of the
city of Pallas, and wonders how Athens, the perfect polis, could come to be
the sanctuary of a woman tainted by the worst of crimes, the murder of help-
less children, her own children. This time the idea of ‘sabedoria’ returns, now
expressed by means of the noun sophía to refer not to the type of knowledge
that some men have because they are wiser, or more sensible, but rather to the
sheer excellence of wisdom that only divine touch can provide to the privi-
leged ones, in this case a collective, the Athenian citizens.
E. Med. 824–9
Ἐρεχθείδαι τὸ παλαιὸν ὄλβιοι

καὶ θεῶν παῖδες μακάρων, ἱερᾶς
χώρας ἀπορθήτου τ᾽ ἄπο, φερβόμενοι
κλεινοτάταν σοφίαν, …
The Erechtheus’ people have always been prosperous,

children of the blessed gods and of a sacred,
never conquered land, nourished
with the most glorious wisdom.20
Which is translated by Sophia de Mello as follows:
p. 53 Desde os tempos mais antigos o destino

Protege os descendentes de Erecteu
Filhos dos deuses radiosos,
Filhos de um chão intacto e sagrado,
20 Rocha Pereira (2005) 120 writes in a note: “Aqui ‘Ciência’ traduz o grego Sophía, que
designa o conhecimento das Letras e das Artes” (Here ‘Ciência’ [science] translates the
Greek Sophía, which designates the knowledge of Letters and the Arts). Articulating this
and the following passage (Med. 840–5) the same scholar adds: “Afirma-se nestes versos
que Afrodite mandou os Amores, bem como a Ciência (Sophía), pois todos juntos levam
à excelência na poesia, na música, na filosofia” (These lines state that Aphrodite send
Eros, as well as Science [Sophía], because together they lead to excellence in poetry, in
music, in philosophy). Mastronarde (2002) 308 tries to be even more specific: “Attic sophía
includes the crafts sponsored by the patron gods Hephaestus and Athena (building, met-
alworking, sculpture, painting, weaving, seamanship) and poetry (…) and all the other
intellectual pursuits that had gathered themselves by preference in Athens by the last
third of the fifth century. The encomium is thus anachronistic, or rather timeless”.
246 Silva
Solo nunca invadido,

Eles se alimentam da mais pura
Inteligência das coisas
…
(From the remotest times fate

Has protected the descendants of Erechtheus
Children of radiant gods,
Children of an intact, sacred ground,
A soil never invaded,
They feed themselves upon the purest
Intelligence of things.)
In her version, the translator begins by emphasizing Athenian arete, including

the notion of protective ‘destiny’, which the original does not include. Then
come the ascendants, marked by the repetition of “filhos” (children), which
gives Athenian citizens a dual affiliation: the gods – to which the translator
adds “radiantes” (radiant), instead of a more literal “blessed”, thereby honoring
the traditional luminosity of Athens21 – and the land, in a discreet reference to
its famous claim to autochthony.22 But the really ‘daring’ translation of sophía
is “a mais pura inteligência das coisas” (the purest intelligence of things),
which possesses propriety and a suggestive elegance. In it we may find clear
resonances of Sophia de Mello’s poetry.23
21 Full light is a constant feature in the image of Greece, both continental Greece and the
Greek islands, as portrayed by Sophia de Mello; cf., e.g., Sophia (2015) 447, in Ressurgiremos,
“na dura luz de Creta” (under the hard light of Crete), “na aguda luz de Creta” (under the
acute light of Crete), “na luz limpa de Creta” (under the clean light of Crete), “na luz bran-
ca de Creta” (under the white light of Crete), 550, in Electra, “O sol espetou a sua lança nas
planícies sem água” (The sun stuck his spear into the waterless plains), “Na claridade fron-
tal do exterior / No duro sol dos pátios” (In the frontal brightness of the outside / Under
the harsh sunlight of the courtyards), 626, in Em Hydra, evocando Fernando Pessoa, “Há
na manhã de Hydra uma claridade” (There is a brightness about Hydra’s morning), 631, in
O templo de Athena Aphaia, “O templo de Athena Aphaia é claro” (The Athena Aphaia’s
temple is light), 651, in Cíclades, “A claridade frontal do lugar” (The frontal brightness of
the place), 748, in Chipre, “clareza das ilhas” (clarity of the islands).
22 On the Athenians’ claim of autochthony as a token of their superiority vis-à-vis other
Greek cities, see Rosivach (1987) 294–301; Loraux (1990) 168–206; Silva (2011) 89–103; Leão
(2011) 105–22.
23 E.g., Sophia (2015) 550, in her poem Electra, “a insónia das coisas” (the insomnia of things),
595, in Delphica VII, “o respirar das coisas” (the breathing of things), 629, in O Minotauro,
“a solenidade das coisas” (the solemnity of things), 635, in Os Gregos, “O estar-ser-inteiro
inicial das coisas” (The initial being-whole of things), 860, in Arte poética, “a veemência
In the same ode, referring to the gifts with which Cypris also bestows upon
Athens, Euripides insists:
E. Med. 840–5
(…) Αἰεὶ δ᾽ ἐπιβαλλομέναν

χαίταισιν εὐώδη ῥοδέων πλόκον ἀνθέων
τᾷ Σοφίᾳ παρέδρους πέμπειν Ἔρωτας,
παντοίας ἀρετᾶς ξυνεργούς.
Always placing
A fragrant garland of roses on the hair
of Wisdom, for companions she sends the Loves,
who sponsor all kinds of arts.
Sophia de Mello, who does not insist in repeating the controversial term,24
translates as follows:
p. 53 E aquela que sempre tem em seus cabelos

Uma coroa de perfume e rosas,
Cypris uniu e religou ali
A lucidez que vê todas as coisas
E o amor onde se funda
A perfeição do homem.25
(And the one who always wears in her hair

A garland of roses and perfume,
There Cypris did unite and reconnect
The clear-sightedness that can all things see
And love, the foundation
Of man’s perfection.)
And last, confronted with Medea’s unwavering decision to kill her children
when she learns that her rival for Jason’s attention, the princess, had received
the poisoned gifts that she had sent, and she had only to wait for their intended
das coisas” (the vehemence of things), 652, in Cíclades, “o azul-respiração das coisas” (the
breath-blue of things).
24 See Lourenço (2006) 10.
25 Ἀρετή, another difficult word to translate, although there has been some consensus on
choice of the Portuguese term “excelência” (excellence), is translated by Sophia de Mello
as “perfeição” (perfection).
248 Silva
effect to be confirmed, the women in the chorus address the topic ‘as preocu-
pações que ter ou não ter filhos representam para os mortais’ (E. Med. 1081–115)
(the concerns that the fact of having or not having children bring to mor-
tals). This discussion begins with a consideration on the ability of women
to voice deep philosophical thought; here de Mello goes back to her pre-
vious translation of sophía as “a inteligência das coisas” (the intelligence of
things):
Πολλάκις ἤδη διὰ λεπτοτέρων

μύθων ἔμολον καὶ πρὸς ἁμίλλας
ἦλθον μείζους ἢ χρὴ γενεὰν
θῆλυν ἐρευνᾶν.
ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἔστιν μοῦσα καὶ ἡμῖν,
ἣ προσομιλεῖ σοφίας ἕνεκεν.
πάσαισι μὲν οὔ, παῦρον δὲ γένος
(μίαν ἐν πολλαῖς εὕροις ἂν ἴσως)
οὐκ ἀπόμουσον τὸ γυναικῶν.
Many times before in subtle

matters have I got involved and amid controversy
have I progressed, more than is appropriate for the female
sex to investigate.
But a muse does exist for us as well,
who deals with us with knowledge.
Not with all, no. Rare are those
(one, among many, may be found)
who are conversant with the Muses.
This time, being faithful to her own translation, Sophia de Mello repeats
(p. 62–3):
Muitas vezes tive discussões mais subtis e conversas mais graves do que é
conveniente para uma mulher. Porque também nós temos uma Musa que
nos ensina a inteligência das coisas e dos seres. Mas não todas nós. Entre
muitas mulheres só existem algumas que não são estranhas às Musas.
(Often have I held more subtle discussions and more serious conver-
sations than is convenient for a woman. For we also have a Muse who
teaches us the intelligence of things and beings. Though not all of us.
Among many women there are only a few who are not strangers to the
Muses).
4.2 The Absorbed Footnote

One of the difficulties faced by translators – especially by directors aiming to
stage a classical Greek tragedy – are the frequent references to mythological
elements, as well as to anthroponyms or toponyms, which, from the his/her au-
dience’s viewpoint, are decontextualized. Merely transcribing such references
leads to misunderstandings, while suppressing them may hamper or simplify
the meaning of the text; the ideal solution would be to include an explanation
or an alternative that preserves something of the original motif. This is a strat-
egy which Sophia de Mello successfully resorts to in her translation.
An example of this occurs at the beginning of Euripides’ play (Med. 2), when
mention is made of the crossing of “o território das negras Simplégades”26 (the
territory of the black Symplegades) by the Argonauts. In her translation, Sophia
de Mello mentions “O negro azul errante dos rochedos” (the rocks’ errant blue
black) generically; instead of the name of the rocks, the Portuguese reference
includes only their mythical identification as “errantes” (errant), reinforced by
the color element, in character with the translator’s own usual descriptions of
the sea environment.27
26 Ἐς αἶαν κυανέας Συμπληγάδας. The Symplegades, or clashing rocks, were, as their name
implies, a barrier situated in the access to the Euxine, or Black Sea, a passage to the east,
which moved and crushed the ships that tried to get through. According to the Odyssey 11.
69–70, the Argo was the first ship to successfully cross that point, defeating the magical
power of the rocks, which never moved again (see Pindar, Pythian 4. 210–1). The myth has
it that, by order of Pelias, king of Iolcos, Tessalia, Jason led a mission to those parts whose
aim was to conquer the Golden Fleece, in Colchis.
Let us also consider the color element used by Euripides to describe the deep blue
colour of the Mediterranean. Through the adjective κυανοῦς, the poet referred not only
to the sea (Iphigenia in Tauris 392, 1501), but also the entire marine universe, with its
gods (Andromache 1012–4), the living beings that inhabit it, the ships that cross it (Trojan
Women 1094–5, Electra 435, Helen 1454–5), the rocky boundaries that circumscribe it
(Medea 2). The same qualifier and its compounds had been used by Homer, applied to
such different realities as animals’ skin, Zeus’ or Hera’s brow, sea motifs like Tethys’ veil,
the ships’ prow, or the sand; see, e g., Il. 15. 693, 23. 878, Od. 3. 299, 9. 482, 12. 243, 13. 100,
148.
27 We can find in Sophia de Mello the same taste for color epithets and the projection of the
‘somber blue’ of the Mediterranean environment which impressed her poetic sensitiv-
ity so much. In Andresen’s (32005) 559 poem Ítaca (v. 10), we have “O sol rente ao mar te
acordará no intenso azul” (the sun on a level with the sea will wake you up in the intense
blue); 627, in Hydra, evocando Fernando Pessoa, “o desdobrado azul dos arquipélagos” (the
unfolded blue of the archipelagos); 628–629, in O Minotauro (v. 21), “E o mar de Creta por
dentro é todo azul” (And the Cretan sea is all blue inside); 633, in Ariane em Naxos (v. 2),
“Junto de um mar inteiramente azul” (by an entirely blue sea), (v. 5), “Junto de um mar azul
de rochas negras” (By a blue sea of black rocks); 862, in O búzio de Cós (v. 2), “Mas na medi-
terrânica noite azul e preta” (But in the black and blue Mediterranean night). Impressed
by the expressive quality of adjectives in Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Eduardo
Prado Coelho (apud Ceccucci (2011) 18) writes: “Estes adjectivos (azul, verde, escura) não
250 Silva
4.3 Valorizing the Feminine: Effects of Punctuation and the Impact of the
Translation of Adjectives
A major topic in Euripides’ Medea – the female condition challenged by the
curriculum that society, marriage, and having children have designed for
women – merits a first reference early in the play, as the opening monologue
portrays a mature woman’s reaction to the ill fate that has befallen her mis-
tress. Medea’s Nurse is somewhat laconic when she introduces the topic of the
Argonaut’s betrayal.
E. Med. 16
Νῦν δ᾽ ἐχθρὰ πάντα, καὶ νοσεῖ τὰ φίλτατα.
Now everything is hostile to her, and she suffers in her dearest affections.
With a more punctuated line division, the Portuguese translator ennumer-

ates, step by step, every painful stage of the betrayed wife’s tribulation. The
final superlative in Euripides’ original – “her dearest affections” (τὰ φίλτατα) –
occupies a whole line in the translated version (p. 19):
(…) Porém tudo

Lhe foi hostil. Ela foi magoada.
Em todo o seu amor.
(But everything
Has been hostile to her. She has been hurt.
In all her love.)
But Euripides soon describes as extraordinary the fierce reaction of a strong,

barbarian soul as is Medea’s when struck by misfortune (E. Med. 20–2):
Μήδεια δ᾽ ἡ δύστηνος ἠτιμασμένη

βοᾷ μὲν ὅρκους, ἀνακαλεῖ δὲ δεξιᾶς
πίστιν μεγίστην…
adornam, informam; são verificações de uma experiência visual, um dizer exacto do que
é.” (These adjectives [blue, green, dark] are not decorative, they are informative; they are
verifications of a visual experience, an accurate telling of what is).
Poor, unhappy, outraged Medea

shouts the oaths, invokes, of the right hands,28
the supreme commitment …
Sophia, p. 20
E sob o peso do insulto Medeia

Em alto pranto invoca o juramento,
Invoca as mãos que foram reunidas
No rito mais solene e mais sagrado.
(And under the weight of insult, Medea

In loud tears invokes the oath,
She invokes the hands that were joined
In the most solemn and most sacred rite.)
Without changing the original meaning, the Portuguese translation reinforces

the main elements of Medea’s reaction. ‘Ultrajada, grita’ (outraged … / shouts),
a two word sequence in the Greek text (ἠτιμασμένη / βοᾷ), is expanded into a
line and a half-line, “E sob o peso do insulto … em alto pranto” (And under the
weight of insult … / In loud tears), separated by the name of Medea, to which
both words refer. “Invoca” (invokes) is now repeated, connecting the oath and
the handshake, two gestures witnessed both by the gods and by men. For the
“supreme commitment” (πίστιν μεγίστην), expressed in Greek by a superlative
that conveys the idea of size, the Portuguese translator chose to mention its
“most solemn and most sacred” dimension, thus substituting meaning for
measure. This topic, which Medea, who is now on the stage projecting all the
suffering and anger previously announced by the Nurse in the opening mono-
logue, will develop in her famous rhesis on the female condition – one of those
moments that explain the interest recognized as a priority in Euripides by
his coeval audiences and commentators. In the preamble to her speech, the
Euripidean Medea had identified the ill fate that befalls ‘the female race’, using
another superlative (Med. 230–1):
28 That is, the handshake that seals the marriage agreement between the kourios, the repre-
sentative of the bride (her father or her guardian) and the bridegroom. In Medea’s case,
since the conditions on which the marriage deal was based were rather irregular, it was
the two interested parties, the bride and the groom, who shook hands.
252 Silva
Πάντων δ᾽ ὅσ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἔμψυχα καὶ γνώμην ἔχει

γυναῖκές ἐσμεν ἀθλιώτατον φυτόν.
Of everything there exists with life and thought

We women are the most miserable being.
As is often the case with Sophia de Mello, dividing the verse into smaller units,
she follows her source text, introducing an element of novelty when translat-
ing the superlative (ἀθλιώτατον), a strategy that emphatically doubles its con-
tent; “Lost and sad” seems to highlight the inevitable relationship between the
social abandonment to which women are condemned and their reaction as a
group doomed to unhappiness (28):
De tudo quanto sobre a terra existe

Com vida e pensamento, nós, mulheres,
Somos a raça mais perdida e triste.
(Of everything there exists on earth

With life and thought, we, women,
Are the most lost and saddest race.)
Starting from her arguments about the female condition, Medea reaches the
climax by means of a comparison, mentioning the significant disparity of each
genre’s specific arete: while men run the ultimate risk and are submitted to
public scrutiny on the battlefield, women experience their maximum fulfill-
ment in the pangs of childbirth (E. Med. 250–1):
(…) ὡς τρὶς ἂν παρ᾽ἀσπίδα

στῆναι θέλοιμ᾽ ἂν μᾶλλον ἢ τεκεῖν ἅπαξ.
Thrice in the forefront of the battle

Would I rather be posted than once give birth.
In her translation, Sophia de Mello keeps the same arithmetical contrast: fight-
ing three battles is preferable to experiencing one child delivery. However,
she emphasizes both scenarios by means of the verbs, which express tough,
intense actions. Euripides’ static reference (στῆναι), “postar-me” (being
posted), entailing but a promise of war, becomes “combater” (fighting), in the
Portuguese translation. Again, with the original “dar à luz” (τεκεῖν) being ren-
dered as “uivar … a dor do parto” (howl … the pain of childbirth), the transla-
tion gains in aggressiveness when compared to the source text (p. 29):
(…) Antes combater

Três vezes nas fileiras, com o escudo
A proteger meu flanco, do que uivar
Uma única vez a dor do parto.
(I would rather fight

Thrice in the ranks, with the shield
Protecting my flank, than howl
One single time the pain of childbirth.)
Despite all the difficulties she is faced with as a woman, Medea shows an un-
precedented capacity to endure – even to tolerate; only betrayal turns her into
a fighter, as tough as the fiercest of heroes. This is also Medea’s path, perma-
nently experienced with the acuteness that her fierce soul tends to intensify.
While she continues to address the female condition generally, she seems to be
uttering a specific threat when she says (E. Med. 263–6):
(…) Γυνὴ γὰρ τἄλλα μὲν φόβου πλέα

κακὴ τ᾽ ἐς ἀλκὴν καὶ σίδηρον εἰσορᾶν.
ὅταν δ᾽ἐς εὐνὴν ἠδικημένη κυρῇ,
οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλη φρὴν μιαιφονωτέρα.
(A woman is generally given to fear,

Cowardly, before the strength and the sight of iron.
But when outrage strikes her bed,
No spirit is more bloodthirsty than hers).
This is rendered as (p. 30):
Estremecer é próprio das mulheres

A mulher teme o ferro, a lança, a luta
Mas se a lei do seu leito for traída
Ninguém deseja o sangue com mais sede.
(Trembling pertains to women

A woman fears the iron, the spear, the fight
But if the law of her bed is betrayed
Then no one is as thirsty for blood as she.)
A text that conveys a threat – an as yet undefined threat, though one that will be lying
at the core of the action and for which Medeia soon tries to gain the sympathetic
254 Silva
support of Corinthian women – is given added power in the translation by means of

the substitution of action verbs for the Greek nouns and adjectives: “dada ao medo,
cobarde” (given to fear, cowardly) is replaced by “estremecer … teme” (trembling …
fears), “espírito mais sanguinário” (no spirit is more bloodthirsty) becomes “deseja
o sangue com mais sede” (as thirsty for blood). This substitution produces a higher
degree of concreteness; feelings and states of mind – fear, cowardice, a bloodthirsty
spirit – are portrayed by means of their outward, manifest reactions – “estremecer”
(trembling), “a sede de sangue” (bloodthirsty). This choice is in line with what sev-
eral commentators have recognized as being a characteristic of Sophia de Mello’s
poetic line of work; I agree with Ceccucci, who wrote an article significantly titled
“Trazer o real para a luz. O olhar e o ouvido voltados para os seres e as coisas na
poética de Sophia” (2011: 16) (Bringing the real into light. The eye and the ear turned
towards beings and things in Sophia’s poetics): “De facto, podemos compreender
que Sophia (…), referindo-se directamente à alta função cognitiva e pedagógica do
olhar e do ouvido, e consequentemente, do “vivido”, da experiência, tenha querido
reconduzir ao centro do seu dizer poético o mundo da realidade fenoménica (“da
pura manhã da imanência”), como reencontro com a physis, com a forma e matéria
das coisas” (I can indeed understand how Sophia […], referring directly to the high
cognitive and pedagogical function of looking and listening and, consequently, of
lived experience, may have wished to bring the world of phenomenical reality [“da
pura manhã da imanência”] [“of the pure morning of immanence”] into the core of
her poetic discourse, as a reencounter with physis, with the shape and the matter
of things).
4.4 Describing the Sea, a Markedly Andresian Theme

Last, a topic recognized as a characteristic of Sophia de Mello Breyner
Andresen’s poetry is her taste for the marine landscape, its colour shades, its
movement, and its greatness. Actually, she shares this tendency with Euripides,
the Salamian poet, whom the ancients imagined as living in a grotto overlook-
ing the sea, writing his poems. Some examples where the sea and all things
that are an integral part of its environment are mentioned in Euripides – as the
description of the world travelled by the Argonauts or by Medea herself on her
voyage to Greece, or as a metaphor for human relationships and feelings – are
interestingly translated by Sophia de Mello, mirroring her own poetic style.
Let us look at some examples, starting with the Nurse’s mention of the de-
pressive isolation which is Medea’s response to her husband’s betrayal (E. Med.
28–9):29
29 Mastronarde (2002) 169 brings us back to Homer – exemplifying with the Iliad 16. 34–5,
or the Odyssey 23. 103 – how cliffs and the sea are used as metaphors to express all that is
“harsh, cruel, inflexible, or insensitive”.
(…) ὡς δὲ πέτρος ἢ θαλάσσιος

κλύδων ἀκούει νουθετουμένη φίλων
Like a rock or the sea

wave she listens to the warnings of her friends
These lines become particularly vibrant in the Portuguese translation (p. 20):
Não ouve quem lhe fala não responde

Ora parece imóvel um rochedo
Ora se torce e volta como vaga.
(She does not listen to those who talk to her does not answer
Now she seems still like a rock
Now she twists and comes back as a wave.)
Medea’s anticipated estrangement is intensified by means of the repeated

negative, which makes her silence deeper when her friends try to talk to her.
Then comes the sea metaphor, highlighted by the final position of the words
and more emphatic as a whole, adding to the mention of “rochedo” (rock) an
explicit reference to its immobility, as happens with the contrasting “vaga”
(wave) and its movement.30
An equally suggestive passage describes Medea’s reaction to being expelled
from Corinth, which Creon, the king, comes to announce personally. Her
scream of protest when faced with the violence of her enemies, which digs
30 Some examples of equivalent references to the sea in poems by Sophia de Mello Breyner:
“Foi no mar que aprendi” (2005: 863):
Foi no mar que aprendi o gosto da forma bela.
Ao olhar sem fim o sucessivo.
Inchar e desabar da vaga.
A bela curva luzidia do seu dorso.
O longo espraiar das mãos de espuma.
(At the sea I learned.

It was at the sea that I learned the taste of beautiful form.
When endlessly looking at the successive.
Swelling and crumbling down of waves.
The beautiful shiny curve of their back.
The long flow of their hands of foam over the sand.).
And (2005: 299), in a poem dedicated to Eurydice (l. 2), “As ondas arqueadas como cis-
nes” (The waves arched like swans).
256 Silva
deeper into her feeling of helplessness and abandonment, is again expressed

by means of a marine metaphor (E. Med. 278–9):
Ἐχθροὶ γὰρ ἐξιᾶσι πάντα δὴ κάλων,

κοὐκ ἔστιν ἄτης εὐπρόσοιστος ἔκβασις.
(My enemies unfurl all their sails,

No landing, for ruin, is left accessible to me).
which the translator renders into Portuguese as (p. 30):
Os inimigos abrem no vento as suas velas.

Não tenho praia, nem porto, nem abrigo!
(The enemies unfurl their sails in the wind.

I have no beach, no harbour, and no shelter!)
The ‘wind’ reference materializes the expanding movement of the sails. But it
is mostly the copulative nexus that produces an impressionist portrait of the
seascape, painted with successive brushstrokes, advancing towards a word –
ἄτη, “ruína”31 (ruin) – which is omitted in the translation, although Sophia de
Mello’s presence as a translator still remains implicit.
31 In order to note the difficulty of translating a concept such as ἄτη, I resort to Frederico
Lourenço’s words in the introduction to his translation of the Iliad (2005. Lisboa,
Cotovia: 11), when referring to Agamemnon’s offensive attitude before his rival Achilles,
which serves as starting point for the whole poem: “E num momento que mais tarde
Agamémnon qualificará de “desvario” ou “obnubilação” (utilizo, em desespero de causa,
estas duas traduções da intraduzível palavra grega “áte”, consoante as exigências do con-
texto pendem mais para o campo semântico da insânia ou da cegueira), o chefe supremo
do exército comete o erro de hostilizar o guerreiro supremo do mesmo …” (And at a mo-
ment which will later be described as a moment of “derangement” or of “obnubilation”
(out of complete frustration I use these two renderings of the untranslatable Greek word
“áte”, which depend on whether the context requirements are indicative of the insanity
or the blindness semantic field, the army’s supreme commander makes the mistake of
antagonizing the supreme warrior of the same army …). This problem is absent in Sophia
de Mello’s translation of this Medea passage.
5 Conclusion
As a classicist and a poet, Sophia de Mello was able to find the best solutions
for the usual difficulties that translating entails. Without betraying the origi-
nal, her solutions clarify it and provide a deeper understanding of the text,
suited to contemporary audiences. All is said with felicitous emphases, with
the rigorous skill of poetic diction, with a rhythm measured according to the
emotional vibration behind the text. However, the staging of the translated
version at Teatro Nacional – a test of its quality as a dramatic text – proved that
Sophia de Mello’s version did fit the elocutionary naturalness of the actors and
actresses and guaranteed the aesthetic appreciation of the performance by the
audiences who invariably filled the room.
Conclusion
Although less directly applicable to the reality of Portuguese life than other
classical myths, such as the Antigone story, which best translated the experi-
ence of political repression and gave voice to the denunciation of dictatorship
in Portugal, Medea’s myth had nonetheless a significant expansion in this coun-
try. Its attractiveness was the result of not only the general interest in themes of
classical culture in contemporary Portuguese literature – chiefly those focusing
on female figures – but also of the partial consonance between female issues
and the social reform experienced in Portugal in the last fifty years. The fact
that a significant number of the Portuguese rewritings of Medea was produced
in Portugal in the late 20th century and the early 21st century is not without
meaning: this was exactly the phase during which, after the dictatorship was
abolished, the country underwent a more extensive transformation, involving
a change of mentalities and, with it, a change of its social balance.
In parallel with the social changes experienced internally, Portuguese lit-
erature was influenced by a wave of interest in the theme of Medea, which
attracted Europe’s and even South America’s1 attention, after years of reserva-
tion about it, which can no doubt be explained by the violence involved in a
crime such as filicide. Feminist movements that emerged to advance women’s
rights, such as those that shook the United States in the last decades of the
20th century, generated a new wave of Medeas, and this, even if indirectly, did
not fail to affect Portuguese literary sensibility. Chapter 2 extensively describes
the important dissemination of the theme, especially in the 20th century, with
emblematic Medeas being written in countries which have been tradition-
ally influential on Portuguese culture, such as Germany, with Heiner Müller’s
Medeamaterial (1982) or Christa Wolf’s Medea. Stimmen (Medea. Voices)
(1996). Demonstrating the interest felt for these two German plays in Portugal
is the fact that both were translated into Portuguese (Lisboa: Cotovia) and also,
no less importantly, the fact that the former was performed in Portugal by a
number of companies, both Portuguese and international (1988, 1989, 1996,
1999, 2015). One of these was a ballet performance, choreographed and danced
by Ann Papoulis during the 1990 “Encontros Acarte”, at Fundação Calouste
1 The parallel with Brazilian rewritings of Medea, which had an inevitable influence on
Portuguese Medeas, will be studied in a volume dedicated to the reception of Greek myth in
Brazil which is being prepared. A salient case is Gota d’Água (Water drop), a text produced
and set to music by Chico Buarque and Paulo Pontes (1975) and staged by the Porto theatre
company “Seiva Trupe” in Lisbon and Porto in late 1989. Ulysses Cruz directed the perfor-
mance with much success.

Conclusion 259
Gulbenkian, Lisbon. However, in parallel with performances based on trans-

lations of the original Euripidean play – notably, those by Maria Helena da
Rocha Pereira and, more recently, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (chapter
14) – other performances of foreign re-readings of the myth, especially in the
1980s and the 1990s, have equally contributed towards generating a great deal
of interest in the figure of the Colchian sorceress in Portugal. Among others,
Juan Morillo, Medeia. Rito e cerimónia sobre uma lenda imortal (Medea. Rite
and Ceremony Around an Immortal Legend), an opera that combined different
dramatic aesthetics, performed by Teatro Carrucel (Cadiz, Spain) at the FITEI
Theatre Festival, in 1989; and the plays Medea, by Robinson Jeffers, performed
at Palácio Nacional de Queluz, staged by Tomaz Ribas (1970); Médée, by Darius
Milhaud, performed by the Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos Opera (1971); Medeia –
O amor de uma mulher (Medea – A Woman’s Love), by Maricla Boglio, staged
by the Porto theatre company “Seiva Trupe”, in 1984; Medea es un buen chico
(Medea is a Good Boy), by Spanish playwright Luiz Riaza, staged by Fernanda
Lapa and performed at “Teatro do Século” (Lisbon), in 1992; and Medeia
Estrangeira (Foreign Medea), by Willy Kirklund, performed by Companhia
de Teatro de Almada at the Festival Internacional de Teatro de Almada, in
1998. More recently, in the first decade of the 21st century, after Hélia Correia
and Mário Cláudio wrote their plays inspired by the Medea myth, Oscar van
Woensel, Kuno Bakker, and Manja Topper’s Medeia (2010) was performed on
Portuguese stages, in a production that incorporated the lyrics of some British
and American pop songs, presenting the tragedy of the Colchian sorceress
from the point of view of the Chorus; Max Rouquette’s Médée, a contemporary
tragedy on exile and belongingness, set in the Melilla and Lampedusa refugee
camps (2010); and Queda Medea, a scenic essay on Seneca and Ovid, performed
by the Company Skaenika Teatro de Granada (Spain), under the direction of
and with staging by Carlos Jesus.
Besides the chapters dedicated to the myth of the princess of Colchis in
Apollonius of Rhodes (chapter 3) and in the long Latin tradition (chapter 4),
as well as in 18th century Portuguese literature, with António José da Silva’s
Os encantos de Medeia (Medea’s Charms; see chapter 5), a tragedy rendered
as comedy not a few times staged in Portugal in the last quarter of the 20th
century2, this volume pays special attention to Jean Anouilh’s Médée, as would
be expected considering the traditional influence of French culture, and, spe-
cifically as regards drama, of Anouilh on Portuguese literary production. Hélia
2 At the end of this volume, “A Chronology of Recreations, Editions and Performances” men-
tions three performances in Portugal (1976, 1983, and 1991). See below, pp. 263–9.
260 Conclusion
Correia is a good example of that productive, well incorporated influence

(chapter 6).
Albeit discretely, almost all Portuguese rewritings of Medea discussed in
this volume were either performed on stage or presented under the form of
dramatic readings. Although the Euripidean theme was preserved in these re
creations, its form underwent major changes and was also adapted to modern
conventions. For example, in her novel Sob o olhar de Medeia (1998) (Under
the Gaze of Medea), Fiama Pais Brandão explored the magical qualities of the
heroine, endowing her with an almost divine power of transforming reality; in
her essay A de Cólquida (2002) (The Woman from Colchis), Hélia Correia fol-
lowed the Medea myth, approaching it from the perspective of women’s strug-
gle, back from Minoan times, for affirmation and for the acknowledgment of
their role in society. However, like all the other Portuguese authors who have
recreated the myth, both Brandão and Correia also resorted to drama in order
to explore other mythemes in the Euripidean tragedy. In Eu vi o Epidauro (I
Saw Epidaurus) (1985), Fiama Pais Brandão presents the Medea theme from
within a diachronic view of world theatre, with Epidaurus as the stage where
Shakespearean and Wagnerian characters converse with the Colchian sorcer-
ess. In Desmesura (Excess) (2006), besides recreating the rhythms of Greek
tragedy, adapting them to Portuguese prosody, Hélia Correia constructs a play
that explores the violent, vindictive facet of Medea, interacting with other
foreign women who, like herself, experience the pain of exile. The three re-
maining re-readings of the myth of Medea studied in this volume were written
for specific performances, having been published after their stage presenta-
tion. In 1992, under the direction of Adriano Luz, the Teatro da Cornucópia
stages Eduarda Dionísio’s Antes que a noite venha (Before the Night Comes),
a commissioned piece of work, composed of four female speeches (by Juliet,
Antigone, Castro, and Medea). It was named after “the title of the performance
for which the speeches were written”3 and its structure is influenced by María
Zambrano’s La tumba de Antígona (Antigone’s Tomb) (1967) and its monologic
model.4 At the end of the play, alone on the stage, Medea interacts with Jason,
with herself, and with the audience in her three short monologues, her words
focused, as in the other speeches of the play, on the topics of violent love and
death.
The other two plays, Escrita da Água (no rasto de Medeia) (Water Writing: In
Medea’s Wake), by Carlos Jorge Pessoa, and Medeia, by Mário Cláudio, are more
committed to contemporary reality and further distanced from the Euripidean
3 Dionísio (1992) 9.
4 See Hardwick, Morais & Silva (2017) 285–304.
Conclusion 261
archetype. The former, which was first performed by Teatro da Garagem in

1998, and directed by the author himself, is a reflection on the tragic flow of
life (suggested by the title – “Escrita da Água”), around topoi such as family, so-
ciety, faith, Europe, and Portugal. The latter play was first performed in March
2007, by Teatro Experimental de Cascais, being staged by Carlos Avilez.5 Here,
Medeia is a Portuguese actress, a mature, solitary woman, defeated by a society
that denies her both a sense of personal fulfilment and her affirmation both as
a woman and as an actress.
These Portuguese recreations of the myth of Medea, which incorporate
different perspectives in accordance with the various sensitivities of their
authors, reinterpret and update the topics present in the Euripidean original:
the magic, violent and vengeful facets of the heroine, exile and the cultural
uprootedness of foreigners, and, most importantly, women’s struggle for the
acknowledgement of their role in society. Above all, however, they bespeak an
undeniable preference for this eternal myth of classical culture, a preference
that became even stronger after the end of the Estado Novo dictatorship in
April 1974.
5 The company “Contacto – Companhia de Teatro Água Corrente de Ovar” performed

this rewrite also in 2016 and 2017. See below, “A Chronology of Recreations, Editions, and
Performances”, pp. 263–9.
Appendix
A Chronology of Recreations, Editions, and

Performances
1955 8–9.6.1955: directed by Paulo Quintela, TEUC, Teatro dos Estudantes da

Universidade de Coimbra (University of Coimbra Students Theatre) per-
forms Euripides’ Medea, based on the Portuguese translation by M. H. Rocha
Pereira. The play would be performed again in July of the same year at Teatro
D. Maria II, Lisbon; on September 4th, at the 4th International University
Theatre Delphiad in Saarbrücken (Germany); and, on September 17th, at
the Eleanora Duse Studio, in Rome. In the following year TEUC performs the
play in the North of Portugal and in Mozambique (during the Summer). In
1958, when the play is staged for the last time at the 1st Festival da Primavera
(Spring Festival), organized by the Agronomy Students Association (Lisbon),
TEUC is granted the 1st International University Theatre Award.
1963 7.5.1963: directed by Dimitrius Rondiris and based on a translation by D. Sarros,
Piraikon Theatron staged Euripides’ Medea at Cinema Tivoli (Lisbon).
Aspassia Papathanassiou, the famous actress, played Medea, and was award-
ed the 1963 Festival de Teatro das Nações prize for best performance.
1968 The Portuguese translation of Euripides’ Medea, by Maria Helena da Rocha
Pereira, is published (Coimbra: Atlântida). This translation had a significant
number of editions.
1969 The dance company “Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal” performed
the ballet Medea, choreographed by Brydon Paige on a score composed by
George Savaria, at Coliseu de Lisboa, during the 13th Gulbenkian Music
Festival. The leading role was performed by Margery Lambert, for whom this
work had been expressly composed. This ballet had been broadcast by the
Portuguese television channel, Rádio Televisão Portuguesa (RTP), on October
14th 1965.
1970 10.8.1970: Translated by Germana Tânger, who was also responsible for pro-
duction and voice direction, and directed by Tomaz Ribas, Robinson Jeffers’
Medea was staged at Palácio Nacional de Queluz.
1971 The Opera Company of Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos (Lisbon) presented
Darius Milhaud’s Médée, conducted by (maestro) Reynald Giovaninnetti.
1972 19–24.7.1972: Screening of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s motion picture Medea, includ-
ed in the “Semana Internacional de Cinema da Figueira da Foz” (Figueira da
Foz International Film Week), sponsored by Centro de Estudos e Animação

264 Appendix
Cultural de Lisboa (Lisbon Center for Cultural Studies and Animation),

under the patronage of the Municipality of Figueira da Foz, the Figueira da
Foz Tourism Department, Centro Português de Cinema (the Portuguese Film
Centre), and Sociedade Figueira-Praia.
1976 António José da Silva’s play Os Encantos de Medeia (Medea’s Charms) is staged
by Casa da Comédia, under the direction of Norberto Barroca.
1980 21–23.11.1980: Teatro Carrucel (Cadiz, Spain) presented a performance of
Juan Morillo’s “plastic opera” Medea. Rite and Ceremony Around an Immortal
Legend at Auditório Nacional Carlos Alberto (Porto). Directed by Jesús
Fuente and Miguel A. Butler, the performance was part of the 3rd Festival
Internacional de Teatro de Expressão Ibérica (FITEI) (International Theatre
Festival of Iberian Expression). This was an unconventional play which com-
bined eastern drama techniques, such as Japanese Kabuki and Noh, with
Wroclaw pantomime theatre and Lindsay Kemp’s theatre aesthetics.
1983 7.11.1983: Teatro Estúdio de Arte Realista (TEAR) presented a production of
António José da Silva’s Os Encantos de Medeia (Medea’s Charms) at Auditório
Nacional Carlos Alberto (Porto). Under the stage direction of Castro Guedes,
the performance was included in the 6th Festival Internacional de Teatro
de Expressão Ibérica (FITEI) (International Theatre Festival of Iberian
Expression) and was presented some days later, between November 25th and
27th, at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Lisbon).
1984 March 1984: directed by Júlio Cardoso, the “Seiva Trupe” Company, from
Porto, performs Maricla Boggio’s Medeia – O amor de uma mulher (Medea – a
Woman’s Love) at Cooperativa do Povo Portuense, in a Portuguese translation
by Estrela Novais, who played the leading role.
1986 26.5.1986: directed by Atanasse Bahtchevanov, Euripides’ Medea is pre-
sented by the Youth Theatre Company of Gorna Oriahovítza (Bulgaria) at
Auditório Nacional Carlos Alberto. This performance is included in the pro-
gram of the 9th Festival Internacional de Teatro de Expressão Ibérica (FITEI)
(International Theatre Festival of Iberian Expression).
1988 8–10.9.1988: performance of Heiner Müller’s Medeamaterial at Sala Polivalente
do Centro de Arte Moderna of Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, based
on a Portuguese translation (Material Medeia) by Maria Adélia Silva Melo
and Jorge Silva Melo, who was also the director, in collaboration with Manuel
Mozos. The production was part of “Encontros Acarte 89” (Acarte Meetings 89).
1989 The Madrid Company “La Tartana Teatro” presented Medea Material
(Medeamaterial), by Heiner Müller, in Lisbon. The play was part of a trilogy
that included Ribera Despojada (Verkommenes Ufer), the introductory play,
and Paisage con Argonautas (Landschaft mit Argonauten), the closing piece.
Directed by Carlos Marquerie, this trilogy was based on a translation by
A Chronology of Recreations, Editions, and Performances 265
Brigitte Aschwanden, adapted by Guillermo Heras, and was included in the

program of “Encontros Acarte 89”.
26–29.10.1989: under the direction of Ulysses Cruz, the Porto company “Seiva
Trupe” performs Gota d’Água (Water Drop), by Chico Buarque and Paulo
Pontes at Teatro da Trindade (Lisbon). After this presentation, the play ran at
Teatro Sá da Bandeira, Porto, until the end of the year.
1990 13–15.11.1990: Ann Papoulis presented the ballet Medea, inspired by the play
Verkommenes Ufer / Medeamaterial / Landschaft mit Argonauten (Despoiled
Shore / Medeamaterial / Landscape with Argonauts), by German playwright
Heiner Müller, at Sala Polivalente do Centro de Arte Moderna of Fundação
Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon.
Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, Eu vi o Epidauro (I Saw Epidaurus). Lisbon: Fenda.
1991 11.4.1991: directed by Helena Vaz, the play Os Encantos de Medeia (Medea’s
Charms), by António José da Silva, is performed by the “Marionetas de S.
Lourenço” company at Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente (Coimbra).
1992 A performance of M.-A. Charpentier’s Médée is presented at Coliseu de
Lisboa. Jorge Listopad is the stage-director.
13.3.1992: the Teatro da Cornucópia premières Antes que a noite venha (Before
the Night Comes), under the direction of Adriano Luz; the performance ran
for a month, at Teatro do Bairro Alto, Lisbon. The fourth part of this drama is
formed by three “Falas de Medeia” (Medea Speeches).
Eduarda Dionísio, Antes que a noite venha (Before the Night Comes). Lisbon:
Edições Cotovia. [pp. 57–66: “Falas de Medeia” (Medea Speeches)].
19.10.1992: the play Medea es un buen chico (Medea is a Good Boy), by Spanish
playwright Luiz Riaza is staged at Teatro do Século (Lisbon). Directed by
Fernanda Lapa, this modern representation of the myth of Medea was based
on a translation by José Carlos González.
1993 13.7.1993: under the direction of Yolanda Alves, the Teatro de Papel compa-
ny (Costa da Caparica) performed Euripides’ Medea, at the Sala Polivalente
da Escola D. António da Costa (Almada). This performance was included
in the program of the Festival Internacional de Teatro de Almada (Almada
International Theatre Festival) (FITA 93).
1996 7.7.1996: during the Festival Internacional de Teatro de Almada (Almada
International Theatre Festival) (FITA 96), the “Attis Theater” company
(Athens) staged the play Medea, based on Medeamaterial by German
playwright Heiner Müller. The performance was directed by Theodorus
Terzopoulos and had the collaboration of Instituto Internacional de Teatro
do Mediterrâneo (International Institute of Mediterranean Theatre).
15.10.1996: to mark the launch of the Portuguese translation of Christa Wolf’s
Medea: Stimmen (Medeia. Vozes), by João Barrento (Lisbon: Cotovia), the
266 Appendix
Goethe-Institut Lisbon organized a reading of this novel, which recreates the

myth of Medea. Directed by João Canijo, this dramatized reading was per-
formed by Associação Cultural Saldanha.
1997 2.1997: Euripides’ Medea was staged by Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema
(Higher School of Theatre and Film) (Lisbon), under the direction of Fernanda
Lapa.
1998 5.1998: A performance of Euripides’ Medea directed by Fernanda Lapa was
presented by Academia Contemporânea do Espectáculo (Contemporary
Performance Academy) (Porto) at Sala de Ensaios do Teatro Nacional D.
Maria II (Lisbon).
15.1–22.2.1998: under the stage direction of Ricardo Carísio, who also authored
the text, “Companhia Absurda” performed Jasão & Medeia, o pesadelo do amor
(Jason and Medea, the Nightmare of Love) at Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon.
Based on Euripides’ tragedy, the text, which depicts the conflict between
Jason and Medea, is also influenced by Seneca, Ovid, Apollonius of Rhodes,
António José da Silva, Wagner Salazar, Raul Brandão, and Oscar Wilde. This
play was later presented at Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente, Coimbra, be-
tween February 27th and March 1st of the same year.
27.3–1.4.1998: a production of Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Escrita da Água (no rasto
de Medeia) (Water Writing: In Medea’s Wake) was presented by “Teatro da
Garagem” at Grande Auditório do Rivoli Teatro Municipal, Porto. Pessoa was
also the stage director of this co-production which involved Teatro D. Maria
II, Centro Cultural de Belém, Rivoli Teatro Municipal, and Expo ’98.
5.7.1998: The Companhia de Teatro de Almada group performs Willy
Kirklund’s play Medea fran Mbongo (Foreign Medea), with Portuguese trans-
lation by António Pescada (Medeia Estrangeira), at Auditório Lopes Graça
(Almada). Directed by Jorge Listopad, the play was included in the 15th edi-
tion of the Festival Internacional de Teatro de Almada (Almada International
Theatre Festival) and was again staged at Teatro Municipal de Almada be-
tween September 23rd and October 4th of the same year.
7.7.1998: on the day dedicated to Greece in the Lisbon Expo ’98 fair, the
National Theatre of Greece presented a performance of Euripides’ Medea, at
Teatro Camões (Lisbon), with stage direction by Niketi Kondouri.
14.7.1998: the Omada Edafous Dance Theatre company (Greece) performed a
contemporary ballet based on Euripides’ Medea with score by Vicenzo Bellini,
at the Doca amphitheater of Expo ’98.
Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, Sob o olhar de Medeia (Under the Gaze of Medea).
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água Editores.
1999 20.1.1999: under the direction of Karas, the company “Ninho de Víboras”
(Almada) staged Heiner Müller’s Medeamaterial at Forum Municipal Romeu
Correia, in the ambit of the “III Mostra de Teatro de Almada”. This play, which
is part of a trilogy that includes also Verkommenes Ufer (Despoiled Shore) and
Landschaft mit Argonauten (Landscape with Argonauts), was later performed
at the Palácio de Cristal Gardens (Porto) on May 7th, during the 18th edition
of the Festival Internacional de Teatro “Fazer a Festa” (International Theatre
Festival “Throwing the party”). It was also presented in Lisbon, at Teatro
Taborda, between August 11th and 14th of that same year.
2000 16.6–23.7.2000: the Centro Cultural de Belém hosts a performance of Mónica
Calle’s O bar da meia-noite (The Midnight Bar). This was an adaptation of Eu
vi o Epidauro (I Saw Epidaurus), a text by Portuguese poet Fiama Hasse Pais
Brandão, to which excerpts from Euripides’ Medea, Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet, and Chekhov’s Three Sisters were added. This production aimed to ex-
plore the history of drama, and it therefore included a number of references
to Wagner, Pirandello, Artaud, and Beckett.
Carlos Jorge Pessoa, Pentateuco – Manual de sobrevivência para o ano 2000
(Pentateuch – a Survival Manual for the Year 2000). Lisbon: Cotovia [Escrita
d’Água: no Rasto de Medeia (Water Writing: In Medea’s Wake) is one of the five
plays included in this volume.].
2001 6–8.12.2001: with stage direction by Roberto Merino, DireitoàCena, the Grupo
de Teatro da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade do Porto (University of
Porto Law School Drama Group) presents a performance of Euripides’ Medea
as translated by M. H. Rocha Pereira. This production was staged again on
May 22nd 2002.
2002 21.6.2002: The Grupo Teatral Freamudense (Freamunde Theatre Group) stages
Medea, by Euripides, at Associação de Socorros Mútuos de Freamunde, under
the direction of Juan Fernández. The performance was repeated on July 8th,
at Freamunde, and in October 2002, in the ambit of “Festival de Teatro em
Construção”, at Centro Cultural de Joane.
Hélia Correia, Apodera-te de mim (Take Possession of Me). Lisbon: Author’s
Edition. [Medea is the protagonist of “A de Cólquida” (The Woman from
Colchis), one of the four short texts included in this book].
2006 3.5–11.6.2006: with Fernanda Lapa as director and dramaturg, Euripides’
Medea was performed at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (sala Garrett), based on
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen’s Portuguese translation.
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Medeia. Recriação Poética da Tragédia
de Eurípides (Medea. A Poetical Recreation of Euripides’ Tragedy). Lisbon:
Caminho.
Hélia Correia, Desmesura. Exercício com Medeia (Excess. An Exercise with
Medea). Lisbon: Relógio d’Água Editores.
268 Appendix
2007 Staged by John Mowat and featuring Leonor Keil, Jorge Cruz, José Carlos
Garcia, and Marta Cerqueira, the Paulo Ribeiro and the Chapitô companies
presented a burlesque recreation of the Medea myth.
2.3.2007: directed by Carlos Avilez, Teatro Experimental de Cascais presents a
performance of Mário Cláudio’s Medeia, featuring actress Anna Paula in the
leading role.
2008 M. Cláudio, Medeia. Lisbon: Publicações Dom Quixote.
2010 26–28.5.2010: the Dutch theatre company “Dood Paard” staged a Medea with
text by Oscar van Woensel, Kuno Bakker, and Manja Topper. Marten Oosthoek
was stage director and production manager. Included in the “Alkantara
Festival 2010” program, the show featured American and British pop song
lyrics, presenting the tragedy from the point of view of the Chorus, which
powerlessly witnesses the whole tragic process.
2–13.6.2010: with adaptation and stage direction by Patrícia Carreira, Medeia a
Estrangeira (Medea the Foreigner) was presented by Companhia Cepa Torta
at Teatro da Comuna, Lisbon. A modern adapted version of Euripides’ trag-
edy, this play aimed to interpret the notion of foreigner from the perspective
of cinematographic language. Months later, on November 17th, the play was
performed at Bridewell Theatre, London.
2011 20–22.5.2011: Médée, by Max Rouquette, was staged at Arcos de Miragaia
(Porto), within the project “Odisseia: Teatro do Mundo” (Odyssey: Theatre
of the World). In this co-production, which involved Théâtre Nanterre-
Amandiers and the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, Jean-Louis Martinelli, the
director, constructs a contemporary tragedy about exile and the sentiment of
belonging by setting the events at the Melilla and Lampedusa refugee camps,
where thousands of Africans anxiously await a European visa.
2013 7–22.2.2013: with text and stage direction by Raquel S., Teatro Universitário do
Porto (TUP) presented a performance of the play Medeia de Noitarder (Medea
Burninginthenight) in Porto, in the ambit of the commemorations of the
company’s 65th anniversary.
11.5.2013: Medeia de Noitarder (Medea Burninginthenight) was again staged
on May 11th at the 14.º Festival Anual de Teatro Académico de Lisboa (14th
Lisbon Annual Festival of University Theatre), being granted the award
“Prémio FATAL Cidade de Lisboa 2013” as the Festival’s most innovative
performance.
2014 11.7.2014: Queda Medea (Medea Stays) is performed by the Skaenika Teatro de
Granada (Spain) Group at Teatro Académico Gil Vicente, Coimbra. This play,
a scenic essay on Seneca and Ovid, was directed by Carlos Jesus.
21–26.11.2014: the “Artes e Engenhos” company presents the play Medea at
Teatro Joaquim Benite (Almada). This play, based on contemporary rewrites
of the Euripidean myth, is a co-creation by Sandra Hung and Francisco

Salgado. With Anabela Mendes as dramaturg and Sandra Hung performing
the leading role, the performance was included in the 18ª Mostra de Teatro de
Almada.
2015 20–22.2.2015: the company “O Cão Danado” staged a Medea articulating the
Euripidean and Senecan texts with the Portuguese versions of Heiner Müller’s
contemporary texts Medeamaterial (Material Medeia) and Verkommenes Ufer
(Margem ao Abandono). The performance was presented at Teatro Municipal
Rivoli do Porto (Pequeno Auditório).
2016 7.6.2016: dramatic reading of Hélia Correia’s Desmesura: exercício com Medeia
(Excess: an Exercise with Medea) at Teatro da Cerca São Bernardo, Coimbra.
Coordinated by actress Sofia Lobo, this monthly activity, which aims to pro-
mote the dissemination of different plays, was fostered by Clube de Leitura
Teatral (Coimbra), which includes Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente and A
Escola da Noite.
8–9.10.2016: Mário Cláudio’s Medeia was the play chosen by the Group
“Contacto – Companhia de Teatro Água Corrente de Ovar” to open the 23rd
edition of Festovar, The Ovar Theatre Festival. The production was directed
by Manuel Ramos Costa and the role of Medea was performed by Aurora
Gaia.
10.12.2016: closing the 2016 performance season, “Contacto – Companhia de
Teatro Água Corrente de Ovar” again presented Mário Cláudio’s Medea, now
at Casa do Contacto.
2017 15.1.2017: open rehearsal of “Projeto Medeia I”, at Cine-Teatro Sousa Telles,
Ourique (Lisbon). This project is based on the myth of Medea and, more spe-
cifically, on the play Medeamaterial, by German playwright Heiner Müller.
The author, Margarida Bento, was stage director.
28.01.2017: directed by Manuel Ramos Costa, “Contacto – Companhia de
Teatro Água Corrente de Ovar” performed Mário Cláudio’s Medeia at Theatro
Club de Póvoa de Lanhoso, in the ambit of the 13th edition of the Concurso
Nacional de Teatro da Póvoa de Lanhoso (Póvoa de Lanhoso National Theatre
Competition) (CONTE), sponsored by the Póvoa de Lanhoso Municipality
and by FPTA, the Portuguese Theatre Federation, with the support of INATEL.
17–20.2.2017: with text and stage direction by Margarida Bento, the play
“Projeto Medeia I”, inspired both by the myth of Medea and Medeamaterial, by
German playwright Heiner Müller, was performed at “Latoaria da Mouraria”.
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Index Locorum
This index is a list of the main titles and passages from ancient works included in the text and
notes. The editions of the fragmentary works are indicated in the body of the volume where they
are quoted.
Aeschylus 13, 17n25, 48n10, 3.459–70 28

166n13, 207 3.523sqq. 27
Agamemnon 3.528–33 56n14
10 91n13 3.744sqq. 29
351–2 91n13 3.744-1145 56n14
Choephoroe, 3.771sqq. 28
Libation Bearers 68n8 3.802sqq. 28
168–200 165n13 3.876sqq. 28
229–30 166n13 3.960sqq. 27
Persians 18 3.967sqq. 28
Seven Against Thebes 48n10 3.1078 27
3.1120sqq. 28
Alcman 25n16, 29 4.4 30
Fr. 59 PMG 25n16 4.50–65 56n14
4.109–82 56n14
Anacreon 26, 29 4.249–50 30
4.303–81 32
Anacreontea 26 4.442 151n20
4.445–9 29
Anonymous 4.1665sqq. 30
Argonautica 1, 13
Archilochus 29, 186
Apollodorus 120–1n32
1.9.26 120n32 Aristophanes 16, 51n11, 57n15
1 [141] 9.26 120n32 Frogs 60n19
53 57n15
Apollonius of Rhodes 1, 21–30, 44, 49, 958 207
259 1058–61 207
Argonautica 14, 21–30, 32, 44, Lysistrata
49 1124 146n9
3.1–5 24 Thesmophoriazusae
3.4–5 24 1056–97 57n15
3.11–110 25 Wealth 60n19
3.27 25
3.91sqq. 26 Aristotle 117, 147, 165n13, 186
3.131sqq. 26 Poetics
3.223–7 26 1449a 22–8 186n6
3.250–2 26 1452a 30–1452b 8 165n13
3.253sqq. 26 1456b 15–8 162n7
3.276 27 1459a 11–2 186n6
3.285–6 27 Politics
3.290 27 1.1260.23a–33 90n12
290 Index Locorum
Rhetoric Andromeda 57n15

1407b 162n7 Cyclops 188n11
Dictys 13
Aulus Gellius 35 Electra 20
435 249n26
Bacchylides 513–31 166n13
16.30 28 Helen 46, 46n5, 53
1454–5 249n26
Callimachus 21, 24 Heracles 17
Epigram 28.1–2 22 Hippolytus 25, 68n8
433sqq. 25
Carcinus II 1, 15 Ino 17
Medea 16 Iphigenia in Tauris 46n5, 53, 147n12
TrGF I 70 F 1e 16n21 392 249n26
1501 249n26
Cicero 35 Medea passim
De natura deorum 1 241
2.89 35 1–2 147, 147n11
1–4 237
Creophylus of Ephesus 14, 15 1–13 179n30
Fr. 3 EGM 14n13 1–48 240
2 249, 249n26
Creophylus of Samos 14n13 4–6 242
8 242n17
Curiatius Maternus 31, 35 11–3 238
14–5 242
Dicaeogenes 1, 15 16 250
20–2 127n10, 250
Diogenes Laertius 24–8 133n15
9.52 177n26 28–9 254
31–4 131n13
Diogenes of Sinope 1, 15 36 134n17
40 136n19
Eratosthenes 21 60 240
96–7 136n19
Eumelus 138 150n18
Korinthiaka 1, 14 141–3 177n27
Fr. 20 GEF 14n10 145–7 136n19
Fr. 23 GEF 14n11 163–4 139n22
166–7 131n13
Euphorion 13 179 150n18
181 150n18
Euripides passim 187–9 137n21
Alcestis 188n11 204–6 135n18
309–10 97n40 210–2 147n11
Andromache 214–24 167n15
147–80 18n31 214–66 89n8, 236
1012–4 249n26 226–7 136n19
Index Locorum 291
228 89 523–5 161n5

230 90 524–75 92
230–1 90, 212n35, 251 535–41 98n43
230–51 130 536–44 18
230–66 240 544–67 50
232–4a 89 546 161n5
233–4 130 549–50 178
234b–46 90 550 92n16
238–40 77n20 555–7 130n12
247–51 91 559–60 97n40
250–1 70, 134n16, 135, 252 559–64 92
251b 91n15 562–4 178
251–7 90 565–7a 92
255 90 569–73 136
262–6 89n8 573–4 92
263–6 253 585 161n5
271–3 90 603 90
271–6 76 663–758 41
278–9 256 709–11 190
278–81 211n33 710 189, 189n16, 190, 190n17
282–3 76 764–810 236
292–315 240 765–6 142
294–5 243 805 141n23
294–305 243 809 128n11
298–9 244 824–9 245
304–5 244 840–5 245n20, 247
324 189, 189n16 869–71 208, 210n29
324–6 77n21 873–6 210n29, 212n35
374–6 89n8 879–81 211n31
380 148n15 896–970 91
395–8 148n14, 159n4 899–903 91
397 197n22 905 91
431–3 147n11 909–13 212n34
446–626 41 923 91
453–8 178n28 925 91
455–64 50 930–1 91
465–74 125n6 941 97n40
470 128n11 946–50 69n9
476–82 51n12 947–50 209, 211n32
476–98 50 959–68 69n9
483 90n11 991–4 239
486–8 90n11 1005 91
488 125n6 1009 188n12
496–509 189 1019–80 140
497 189 1021–80 58, 91n15, 92
502–3 90n11 1061 91n15
504 90n11 1081–115 248
513–5 91n15 1156–62 69n9
509–18 131 1156–77 62n22
292 Index Locorum
Medea (cont.) Iliad 18, 48n10, 256n31

1176 190 1.36 165n12
1236–41 15n15 2.689 165n12
1263–4 147n11 3.329 165n12
1282–9 16 6.481–5 91n14
1301–5 15n15 15.693 249n26
1322 189n16 16.34–5 254n29
1323–50 236 23.878 249n26
1329–40 98n43 Odyssey 23, 46n5, 47, 147n11
1347–8 189 3.299 249n26
1363–6 187 4.227 148n15
1393–8 187 5 46
1402 188n12 6.117sqq. 26
1406–7 188 6.149sqq. 27
Melanippe Wise 7.14sqq. 26
Fr. 482 Collard 9.482 249n26
and Cropp 146n9 10.276 25n15
Meleager 17 11.69–70 249n26
Orestes 71n12 12.59–72 147n11
128–9 165n12 12.69–70 23n10
Philoctetes 13 12.69–72 1
Reapers or Theristae 13 12.243 249n26
Trojan Women 18 12.389 165n12
1094–5 249n26 13.100 249n26
13.148 249n26
Euripides, the Younger 1, 15 23.103 254n29
Gaius Valerius Flaccus 2, 44 Hyginus 32, 34

Argonautica 2, 44 Fabulae
4 17n23
Genesis 121, 121–2n37 25 32
26 32
Gnaeus Naevius 31 27 34
Gorgias 177n26 Ibycus 29

Eulogy of Helen Fr. 285 PMG 25n16
8 158 Fr. 286 PMG 25n16
Heraclitus Livius Andronicus 31

Fr. 12 Diels-Kranz 218n5
Lucan 31, 35
Hesiod 25, 159n4
Theogony 13 Lucius Accius 1, 31, 32, 34, 35
411–52 159n4 Medea 35
956–62 13n6 Medea siue Argonautae 33
Homer 22, 24, 26, 28, Lucius Varius Rufus

147n11, 165n12, Thyestes 37, 37n12
249n26, 254n29
Index Locorum 293
Marcus Pacuvius 1, 32, 33, 34, 35 Plato

Medus 31, 32, 33, 34 Cratylus
384b 162n7
Melanthius 1, 15 391a–c 162n7
Euthydemus
Morsimus 1, 15 277e 162n7
Phaedrus
Neophron 1, 15, 16, 18, 29n18 267c 162n7
Protagoras
Ovid 1, 30, 31, 35, 36–9, 339a 162n7
259
Amores 37 Plautus 59, 71n12
3.1 37
3.1. 67–8 37 P.Oxy. 5093 15n17
Heroides 37, 39 P. Oxy. 5131 17n23
XII 2, 38, 39
Medea 36, 37, 37n12, 38, Prodicus 162n7
39
Metamorphoses 39 Protagoras 162n7, 172n21,
VII 2, 30n21, 38 177n26
7.1–158 39
7.159–296 39 Quintilian 35, 36
7.1–424 38, 39 10.1.98 37, 37n12
7.1–452 56n14
7.191–4 38 Quintus Ennius 1, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,
7.297–349 39 36, 38
7.350–97 39 Medea 32, 33
7.398–424 39 Medea exul 32, 33
Parmeniscus 14, 15 Sappho 1, 13, 27, 29, 191,

Frr. 12–3 Breithaupt 15n14 191n20, 192, 193
Fr. 31 Voigt 27
Pausanias Fr. 48 Voigt 27
2.3.6 151n20 Fr. 130 Voigt 27
Fr. 186 Voigt 13n7
Pindar 1, 23, 26n17, 30n19
Nemean Seneca 1, 2, 3, 5, 31, 33, 35,
5.14–6 30n19 36, 38, 39–43, 47,
Olympian 65n2, 67, 94n24,
1.52 30n19 98, 259
Pythian Four 14, 23 Medea 37, 39–43, 95n33
4.9–31 23 20–1 70n10
4.207sqq. 23 53–5 74n15
4.208–9 147n11 116–7 67n5
4.210–1 249n26 168 78n22
4.212sqq. 25 171 42
4.219 25 184–5 78
4.250 26 197 77
294 Index Locorum
Medea (cont.) Trachiniae

211 38 497sqq. 25
213 38 Women of Colchis 46n7
246–8 77n21 Women of Scythia 46n7
273–6 77
450–9 82 Stesichorus 48, 48n9
478–82 38 Oresteia
578 41 Fr. 181a 11–3 165n13
670–842 41
836–9 62n22 Suda 21
910 42
Tacitus
Simonides Dialogus de Oratoribus
Fr. 546 PMG 147n11 12 37, 37n12
Sophocles 13, 17n25, 46n7, Terence 71n12

182n32, 185
Ajax 20 Theocritus
293 90n12 Idylls
Antigone 25, 185 7.45–8 22
60–2 91n13
248 91n13 Theodorides 1, 15
480–5 91n13
781–805 25 Theophrastus 21n3
Electra
612–33 19n32 Varro 35
Eurypylus 17
Oedipus the King 17 Virgil 29, 44
Tereus 17, 17n24
Frr. 160–1TrGFr 121n32, 121n33 Zenodotus 21, 22
Fr. 583+P.Oxy 5131
Radt 90n10
Index of Modern Authors
This index is a list of the main titles and passages from modern works included in the text and
notes. Pages refer to the editions indicated in the body of the volume where they are quoted.
Aguiar, João Jézabel 80n25

Inês de Portugal La sauvage 80n25
(Inês of Portugal) 203n7 Le voyageur sans bagage 80n25
Médée 65–86, 155n27,
Alfonso X the Wise 39 169n18, 259
9 67
Andresen, Sophia de 9–10 68
Mello Breyner 8, 233–57, 259 10 67, 68
Ariane em Naxos 249n27 11 67, 69
Arte Poética 246n23 12 67, 68, 70
Chipre 246n21 13 67n6, 68
Cíclades 246n21, 246–7n23 13–4 69
Delphica VII 246n23 14 69, 70
Electra 246nn21, 23 15 70
Em Hydra, evocando 16 70
Fernando Pessoa 246n21, 249n27 17 71, 71n11
Ítaca 249n27 18 71n11
Medeia 233–57 18–9 71, 71n12
19 237, 238, 242, 243, 19 72
250 20 72
20 251, 255 20–1 72
20–1 250 21–2 73
21 240 22 72, 78n23, 186n24
28 252 25 72, 74
29 252 26 72
30 253, 256 27 72, 74
31 244 28 67n6, 75, 75n16
53 245, 247 29 75
59 239 30 72n13, 75n17, 76
62–3 248 33 78
O búzio de Cós 249n27 34 76, 77, 78
O Minotauro 246n23, 249n27 35 78
O templo de Athena 35–6 78
Aphaia 246n21 36 79
Os Gregos 246n23 38 78
Ressurgiremos 246n21 38–9 77
39 77, 77n21
Anouilh, Jean 65–86, 126, 147n12, 40 79
149n16, 152n21, 44 79n24
153n22, 167n14, 45 80
168n17, 169n18, 46 80, 81n26
176nn23–4, 180n31, 47 81n26
223n11, 259 48 81, 81n28
Antigone 65, 66n3, 68n8 49 81
296 Index of Modern Authors
Médée (cont.) Sob o Olhar de Medeia

49–50 81n29 (Under the Gaze
50 81, 81n28 of Medea) 5, 113, 119–22,
53 81 260
55 82 13 119, 119n27
56 82 16 119
57–8 82 67–8 120, 120n32
58 82 68 121
59 83 99 121, 121n36
61 83 103 121, 121n35
62 83, 84 109 121, 121n34
63 84 112 122, 122n37
64 84 124 120
67 84 166 119n28
72 85 170 120, 120n31
88 86
Nouvelles pièces noires 65 Brecht, Bertolt 113, 117,
Roméo et Jeannette 80n25 117nn19–20, 118
Furcht und Elend des
Artaud, Antonin 113 dritten Reiches  
(Terror and Misery
Avilez, Carlos (director) 201n3, 261 in the Third Reich) 117n19
Schriften zum Theater  
Bergamín, José 66n4 (Studies about Theater) 117n19
Medea, la encantadora
(Medea, the Enchantress) 66n4 Buarque, Chico
Gota d’Água
Boglio, Maricla (Drop of Water) 95, 96, 96n34,
Medeia – O amor de uma 105–6, 258n1
mulher (Medea –
A Woman’s Love) 259 Butler, Guy
Demea 100, 100n50
Brandão, Fiama Pais 5, 113–22,
260 Cacoyannis, Michael 40, 41
Eu vi o Epidauro
(I Saw Epidaurus) 5, 113–9, 260 Calderón de la Barca,
72 115, 115n14 Pedro 45n3
73 114, 119, 119n26 Los tres mayores prodigios
74 118n25 (The Three Biggest
75 118, 118n24 Prodigies) 45n3
82 116, 116n17
84 118, 118n22 Calle, Mónica (director) 115n11
91 116, 116–7n18
102 116, 116n15 Camões, Luís de 203n7
121 116, 116n17 The Lusiads 203n7
127 117, 117n21
128 114, 116, 116n16 Carr, Martina
129 115, 115n13 By the Bog of Cats ... 102n55
Obra breve (Brief Work) 118
Casales, Pablo 203n6 35 204n11, 213

37 205n16, 207n23,
Cattani, Fabrizio 213, 214
Maternity Blues 108n76 38 213
39 214
Cintra, Luis Miguel 40 207n22, 212
(director) 114n6 41 212n35, 214
44 214
Cláudio, Mário 6, 7, 200–15, 259 45 213
Amadeo 202, 202n5 46 214
Boa noite, Senhor Soares 47–8 212
(Good Evening, 48 214
Mister Soares) 214n39 49 212
Guilhermina 202 50 214
Medeia 7, 200–15, 51 204n13, 215
219n6, 260 Retrato de Rapaz
9 204n10 (Portrait of a Boy) 202n5
9–10 208 Rosa 202
11 205n15, 206n18, Trilogia da Mão
208, 208n24, (Trilogy of the Hand) 202
210n29, 211n30,
212n35 Corneille, Pierre 65n2
12 204n10, 205n15,
208n24, 211n31 Correia, Hélia 4, 5–6, 66n4,
13 209, 209nn25– 75, 76,
6, 211n32 80nn25–6,
14 205n15, 208n24, 81n27, 82n30,
213 83n31, 144–57,
14–5 210n28 158–83, 184–99,
15 208n24, 211n33 222n10, 259–60
17 204n11, 207n21 A de Cólquida (The
18 204n11, 209n27, Woman from Colchis) 6, 144–57, 260
212n34 9 145, 145n7, 146,
19 204nn11–2 147, 148, 149
21 204n12, 212n37 10 146, 150, 151, 152,
22 204n12 153, 154
22–3 212n37 11 154, 156, 157
23 204n12, 212 Apodera-te de mim (Take
24 204n11, 206n17 Possession of Me) 6, 144
25 205n16, 212n35 Desmesura. Exercício com
26–7 212n37 Medeia (Excess: An
28 204n11, 206n19, Exercise with Medea) 6, 75n16, 113,
207n20 144n4, 145,
29–30 213 145n8, 148n14,
30 214 149n17, 150n18,
31 212n35 154n23, 155n26,
33 204n11 156, 158–83,
34 204n11, 212, 184–99, 222n10,
212n36 260
Desmesura. Exercício com Medeia (cont.) 158, 159, 162,

4 164, 165, 167, 185, 222n10
172, 174 34 164n10
5 165, 170, 172 Rancor. Exercício sobre
6 164, 165, 174, 175, Helena (Rancor.
176 An Exercise on Helen) 6, 144n4, 158,
7 165 162, 185
8 180 43–6 165n12
9 167, 169, 174, 182 56 179n30
10 169, 170 101–2 164n10
11 170n19, 171
12 170, 173, 175 Correia, Natália 151n19, 158
13 159, 160, 174, 175,
182 Cruz, Ulysses (director) 258n1
13–4 195
14 160, 165n11, 166, Diário de Notícias 114n6
176, 180
14–5 197 Dionísio, Eduarda 5, 115n10,
15 161, 164, 177 123–43, 260n3
16 166 Antes que a noite venha
16–7 177 (Before the Night Comes) 5, 115n10,
17 170n19, 171 123–43, 260
17–8 177
18 167, 175 Dostoyevsky, Fiódor 151n19
19 178, 192, 194
19–20 178, 193 Druckman, Jacob 109n82
20 170, 178, 182
21 168, 178 Ferreira, António 191n19, 195
21–2 178 A Castro 123n3, 191,
22 166, 167, 179, 180 191n19, 195,
24 175, 191 203n7
25 168, 180 Comédia do Fanchono
27 171 ou de Bristo 191n19
28 181 Comédia do Cioso 191n19
29 163
32 181 Fisher, John
33 179 Medea. The Musical 107n74,
34 194, 195 108n78
34–5 194
35 166 Franco, António Cândido
36 113 Memórias de Inês de Castro
37 182, 183 (Memories of Inês de
38 183 Castro) 203n7
Em Knossos (In Knossos) 144
Penthesiléa 144 García Lorca, Federico 231
Perdição. Exercício sobre
Antígona (Perdition. Garcia de Resende 39
An Exercise on Antigone) 6, 74n14, 83n31,
144n4, 156n28,
Gersão, Teolinda 151n19 Lope de Vega, Félix 35, 45n3

El vellocino de oro
Gildon, Charles (Golden Fleece) 35, 45n3
Phaeton, or The Fatal
Divorce 93n21 Lopes, Fernão 203
Glover, Richard Luís, Agustina Bessa 151n19

Medea: A Tragedy 94, 95 Adivinhas de Pedro e Inês
(The Riddles of Pedro
Gomes Júnior, João Baptista and Inês) 203n7
A nova Castro 123n3, 203n7
Luz, Adriano 123n2, 260
Grillparzer, Franz 98n44
Das Goldene Vließ 97n40 Manguson, James
Medea 97, 97nn39, 40, African Medea 100–1n51
42
Milhaud, Darius
Harrison, Tony 109n82 Médée 259
Medea: A Sex-Opera 109
Miranda, Sá de 191
Jahnn, Hans Henny
Medea 98, 98n45 Mónica, Maria Filomena 150–1n19
Jeffers, John Robinson Moraga, Cherríe

Medea 99n46, 259 The Hungry Woman:
Solstice 99n46 A Mexican Medea 106, 107, 107n73
Jesus, Carlos (director) Morillo, Juan

Queda Medea 259 Medeia. Rito e cerimónia
sobre uma lenda imortal
Jorge, Lídia 151n19 (Medea. Rite and
Ceremony Around an
Kennelly, Brendan Immortal Legend) 259
Euripides’ Medea:
A New Version 102n55 Morrison, Toni
Beloved 101, 101n52,
Kirklund, Willy 102
Medeia Estrangeira
(Foreign Medea) 259 Müller, Heiner 103nn61, 63,
104, 105
LaChiusa, Michael John Despoiled Shore 103
Marie Christine 100 Landscape with Argonauts 103
Medeamaterial 103, 103n61, 258
Lapa, Fernanda (director) 235n5, 259 Medeaspiedel
(Medea play) 103n61
Legouvé, Ernest 96n37, 97–8n42
Ninagawa, Yukio (director)
Lenormand, Henry Medea 91n13
Asie (Asia) 98–9, 99n46
Noble, Thomas Satterwhite 101n52 247 228

247–8 230
Notícias Magazine 186n4 248 223
249 230
Novalis / Georg Philipp 250 223
Friedrich von Hardenberg 113 250–1 228
252 225, 228
Oliveira, Jocy de 253 229
Kseni – A Estrangeira 256 221, 227, 229
(Kseni – The Foreigner) 106 257 227, 229
261 226
Pasolini, Pier Paolo 103n59, 121 262 226
Medea 99n46, 101n51, 263 219, 226
102n57 264 226
265 223, 226, 228
Patrício, António 266 226
Pedro, o Cru (Pedro, 267 226, 227
the Cruel) 203n7 269 224
270 226
Paula, Anna (actress) 201n3 271 227, 228
272 229
Pedro, António 223n11 273 227, 230
275 226
Pessoa, Carlos Jorge 6, 216–32 276 226
A menina que foi avó: 277 218
peça teatral em jeito de 278 227
conto de fadas 280 231
(The Girl Who Became 281–2 230
a Grandmother: 284–5 228
A Fairytale-Style Srama) 217n3 323 231
Desertos: evento didáctico In(sub)missão (Peça teatral
seguido de um poema sobre a liberdade)
grátis (Deserts: A Didactic (In(sub)mission
Event Followed by a (A Play on Freedom)) 216–7n2
Free Poem) 216n2, 217n3 O homem que ressuscitou:
Escrita da água: no rasto de epifania em 20 estações
Medeia (Water Writing: (The Man Who Resurrected:
In Medea’s Wake) 7, 216–32, 260, An Epiphany in
261 20 Stations) 217n3 
229 221, 222 On the road ou a hora do
232 219 arco-íris (On the Road,
235 227, 231 or the Rainbow Hour) 216n2
236 226, 228 O Pai (The Father) 216n2
237 218, 225 Pentateuco – Manual de
237–8 225 sobrevivência para o
238 221, 224 ano 2000 (Pentateuch –
240 231 A Survival Manual for
241–2 230 the Year 2000) 7, 217,
246 220, 223 217nn3–4, 218
Peregrinação – o fio de Selecções Reader’s Digest 200

Ariadne (Peregrination –
Ariadne’s Thread) 216n2, 217n3   Shakespeare, William 5, 43, 114, 115,
115n13, 117,
Pessoa, Fernando (vide 235–6n7,
Reis, Ricardo, Soares, 241n16, 260
Bernardo) 184, 186n5, Hamlet 233n3, 235n7,
191n20, 199, 236n8, 238n13,
199nn24–5, 241n16
214n39
Silva, António José 45–64
Pirandello, Luigi 115, 115n13, 223, Anfitrião ou Júpiter e Alcmena
223n11 (Amphitruo or Juppiter
L’ Esclusa (The Excluded) 115n12 and Alcmena) 45n2
Esopaida ou Vida de Esopo
Pontes, Paulo (Aesopaida or Life
Gota d’Água 95, 96, 96n34, of Aesopus) 45n2
105–6, 258n1 Os encantos de Medeia
(Medea’s Charms) 45–64, 259
Público 115n11, 150n19 7–8 48
8 48
Ramalho, Rosa 202, 203n6 9 49, 54, 60
10 60n17
Rame, Franca 87, 87–8nn1–2 10–1 61
Medea 87, 87–8n2 11 54
68 87 12 49, 55
70 87 13 49, 60n17
Tutto casa, letto e chiesa 14 59, 61
(All Home, Bed, 15 60
and Church) 87n2 17 61
18 61n21
Reis, Ricardo (vide Pessoa, 19 50
Fernando) 186, 186n5 21 50, 56
22 51
Riaza, Luiz 24 51
Medea es un buen chico 25 62
(Medea is a Good Boy) 259 26 57
27 62
Ribas, Tomaz (director) 259 32 57, 62
33 62
Rodríguez del Padrón, 35 51
Juan 39 37 60nn16–7
38 58
Rojas, Francisco de 45n3 38–9 57
41 51
Rouquette, Max 44 52
Médée 259 45 60n17, 62
46 62
Schroeder, Juan German 40, 41 49 54, 63
Os encantos de Medeia (cont.)

52 58 Viana Filho, Oduvaldo
57 54, 55 Caso Especial-Medéia
65 63 (Special Case-Medea) 95
67 63
72 52 Vieira, Afonso Lopes
75 52 A Paixão de Pedro o Cru
85 52 (The passion of Pedro,
88 59 the Cruel) 203n7
90 55
91 55 Wagner, Richard 5, 114, 117, 205,
Precipício de Faetonte 260
(Phaeton’s Precipice) 45n2 The Ring of the Nibelung
(Der Ring des
Soares, Bernardo 214n39 Nibelungen) 114
Livro do Desassossego
(Book of Disquiet) 214n39 Woensel, Oscar van, Bakker, Kuno, Topper,
Manja
Souza-Cardoso, Medeia 259
Amadeo de 202, 202n6
Wolf, Christa 93n21, 104,
Studley, John 95n33 104nn65–6, 105,
105nn67, 69,
Suggia, Guilhermina 202, 203n6 151n20
Medea. Stimmen (Medea.
Tchekhov, Anton 113, 115, 115n13, Voices / Medea. A New
117 Retelling) 103–4, 104n64,
The Three Sisters 115, 115n9 151n20, 258
Updike, John 113 Zambrano, María 5, 124, 126

La tumba de Antígona
Vargas Llosa, Mario 214, 214n38 (Antigone’s Tomb) 124, 260
Verasani, Grazia 108n76

From Medea 108
Index of Subjects
This index consists of a list of entries, such as themes/concepts events or historical personalities,
related to the ancient works and their adaptations, relevant in a volume dedicated to reception.
Agon 5, 19, 76–85, 125, 126, 128n11, 159, 162, 103, 104, 104n66, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109,
173, 176, 177, 178n29, 181, 188, 194, 211 109n85, 113, 116, 131, 140, 142, 143, 151n20,
Athens ‘ideal city’ 2, 12 152–6, 159, 163n8, 182, 188, 189, 215, 227,
Audience, Spectators 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 236, 245, 247, 258
20, 22n6, 33, 40, 65, 66, 88n2, 96, 107,
108, 117, 124, 140, 147n12, 208, 210, 213, Magic powers 2, 5, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,
221–2, 222n9, 223, 224, 228, 233, 234, 28, 29, 30, 39, 41, 45n3, 47, 50, 51, 52, 54,
242, 249, 251, 257 55, 56, 56n14, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63, 76, 85,
92, 94, 107, 120n32, 121, 126, 131, 136, 138,
Barbarism 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 16, 18, 18n31, 19, 23, 139, 140, 146, 147, 148, 148nn14–5, 149,
28, 29, 30, 46, 46n5, 47, 52–5, 56, 60, 151, 159, 159n4, 160, 163, 167, 168, 171,
60n17, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71n12, 72, 73, 171n20, 178, 183, 188, 240, 243, 244, 249,
75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 84, 85, 98n43, 102, 105, 260, 261
106, 133, 145, 146, 147, 147n12, 148, Motherhood 2, 6, 7, 12, 25, 26, 70, 88,
149n16, 150n18, 152n21, 153, 154, 155, 88nn2, 4, 91, 91n15, 92, 93, 94, 101, 107,
155n26, 159, 162, 163, 167, 168, 168n17, 108, 108n77, 134–5, 138, 140, 141, 153,
169, 170, 171, 175, 178n28, 182, 206, 211, 153n22, 154, 211, 226, 232
215, 219, 250
Brazil Nomos 130, 153, 168, 172, 172n21, 173, 174, 179
Culture 96 Nurse 41, 42, 55, 56, 58, 65, 66, 67, 68, 68n8,
Politics 105, 106 70, 71, 72, 72n13, 73, 74, 74n14, 75, 75n17,
76, 78nn22–3, 80, 103, 127n10, 133,
Chorus 11, 12, 16, 20, 41, 42, 43, 87, 106, 133, 133n15, 134n17, 137nn20–1, 147nn11–2,
135n18, 137n20, 147n11, 150n18, 159, 160, 149n16, 153n22, 155n27, 163, 163nn8–9,
162–3n8, 167n15, 195–6, 205, 220, 221–2, 164, 164n10, 167n16, 168n17, 169n18, 176,
234, 236, 238, 239, 240, 245, 248, 259 176n23, 177n27, 179n30, 236, 240, 242,
Cinema 7, 114n6, 219, 220, 221, 222–3, 227, 250, 251, 254
228
Orthoépeia 76, 82n30, 162, 162n7, 179, 181,
Deus ex machina 20, 52, 188 183
Exile 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 47, 53, 55, 74, 77, 78, 82, Philia, philos 2, 49, 54, 59, 128, 128n11, 131,
83, 90, 107, 119, 129, 131–2, 135, 137, 141, 131n14, 150n18
143n25, 147n12, 154, 159, 163n8, 167n15, Physis, nature 130, 131, 134, 135, 140, 147,
168, 169, 169n18, 170, 171, 175, 211, 259, 148, 153, 155, 163, 172n21, 173, 174, 179,
260, 261 218, 232, 254
Portugal
Filicide, Infanticide 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15, Culture 7, 203, 203n7, 204, 207, 214
15n15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 29n18, 32, 42, 55, History 203n7, 204, 258
58, 70, 85, 86, 88, 88nn2, 4, 5, 89, Politics 4, 158n2, 207, 261
89nn7–8, 92, 92n17, 93, 93n19, 94, 95, Society 4, 7, 150–1n19, 158n2, 204, 212–5,
95n30, 96, 96nn37–8, 98, 98n43, 99, 217–8, 225–6, 258, 261
99n46, 100, 100–1n51, 101, 102, 102n55,
304 Index of Subjects
Prologue 66, 67, 80, 88n2, 127n10, 168n17, Female condition 3, 4, 6, 11, 17, 70, 77,
204, 208, 220, 221, 222 77n20, 88n2, 89–90n10, 90, 90–1n13, 91,
95, 105, 107, 108, 114–9, 126, 127, 129, 130,
Racism 98, 98nn43–4, 99, 99n46, 100, 134n16, 142n24, 148, 149, 149–50nn16–7,
100nn50–1, 101 150, 150n18, 156, 164, 164n10, 167, 171–2,
232, 240, 250, 251, 253, 258, 261
Scenery 66n4 Feminist movements 97, 100, 258
slave (comedy) 52, 54, 58, 59–64, 71n12 Presence in performances 19
Women
Psychology 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 20, 41, 55, 58, 66,
89n8, 134, 145–6n9, 159

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Portraits of Medea in Portugal during the 20th and 21st Centuries

Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin)

Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

1 Euripides’ Medea in Context 11

2 Medea: the Bewitched Witch in Apollonius of Rhodes 21

3 Versions of Medea in Classical Latin 31

5 In Search of Lost Identity: Jean Anouilh’s Medea 65

6 The Reception of Medea in the 20th and 21st Centuries 87

7 Medea as an Aesthetic and Ethical Space in Fiama’s Work 113

8 A Portuguese Medea: Eduarda Dionísio, Antes que a noite venha

9 Hélia Correia’s A de Cólquida (The Woman from Colchis) 144

10 Language, Barbarism, and Civilization: Hélia Correia’s

11 Measure in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura: an Exercise in Recreating

12 Medea in the Society of Entertainment: a Reading of Mário Cláudio’s

13 Revisiting Medea – Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Escrita da água:

14 The Art of Translating a Classic: Author’s and Translator’s Marks 233

Appendix: a Chronology of Recreations, Editions,

Breithaupt M. Breithaupt (ed.), De Parmenisco grammatico (Στοιχεῖα 4; Leipzig

Ália Rosa Rodrigues

Andrés Pociña Pérez

Aurora López López

and the reception of Classical drama; he has published Máscaras Portuguesas

Maria António Hörster

Maria do Céu Grácio Zambujo Fialho

Maria de Fátima Sousa e Silva

Susana Maria Duarte da Hora Marques Pereira

1 The Plastic Quality of an Old Myth

The continuous popularity of the ‘Medea’ theme undoubtedly echoes the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004383395_002

2 Presentation of the Volume

Euripides’ Medea in Context

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004383395_003

8 For this poem see West (2005) = (2011–13) i 277–312.

20 See Diggle (2004) ≈ (2008).

will no doubt have contained moments of high pathos, it is hard to imagine

32 See Finglass (2007) on Soph. El. 612–33.

Medea: the Bewitched Witch in Apollonius

Maria do Céu Fialho

Born1 and raised in the great cosmopolis of Alexandria,2 Apollonius received

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004383395_004

activity of commentary and text criticism, exemplified by Zenodotus. In his

One seafaring ship alone has passed thereby,

Musée d’Alexandrie”, 47 [Cartography underwent enormous progress during the whole

Versions of Medea in Classical Latin

1 Medea in the Fragmentary Plays of Latin Tragedians1

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004383395_005

3 See, for example, Dumont and François-Garelli (1998) 108.

2 A Special Passion for Medea: Ovid the Poet

Le plus souvent, en effet, on se contente, respectueusement, de rappeler

9 Arcellaschi (1990) 235, 231–312; Hinds (1993).

While we do agree with Arcellaschi’s criticism of the scarce attention dedi­

11 Cf. Mazzoli (1999) 137–51; López (2004) 125–37.

13 See Charlier (1954); Jacobi (1988); Martina (2002).

an articulation of both, and in others still the contributions of each of these

La versión de Schroeder tenía los mejores momentos de ambos drama­

vida y que prácticamente me la sé de memoria, aunque jamás la haya di­

(Schroeder’s version included the best moments of both playwrights.

Although a comparative analysis would have no place here, it may be useful to

L’aver iniziato la tragedia con la protagonista già al colmo dell’ira e già

8 A Portuguese Medea: Eduarda Dionísio, Antes que a noite venha

10 Language, Barbarism, and Civilization: Hélia Correia’s

11 Measure in Hélia Correia’s Desmesura: an Exercise in Recreating

12 Medea in the Society of Entertainment: a Reading of Mário Cláudio’s

13 Revisiting Medea – Carlos Jorge Pessoa’s Escrita da água:

Appendix: a Chronology of Recreations, Editions,

Breithaupt M. Breithaupt (ed.), De Parmenisco grammatico (Στοιχεῖα 4; Leipzig

8 For this poem see West (2005) = (2011–13) i 277–312.

20 See Diggle (2004) ≈ (2008).

32 See Finglass (2007) on Soph. El. 612–33.

Musée d’Alexandrie”, 47 [Cartography underwent enormous progress during the whole

3 See, for example, Dumont and François-Garelli (1998) 108.

9 Arcellaschi (1990) 235, 231–312; Hinds (1993).

While we do agree with Arcellaschi’s criticism of the scarce attention dedi

11 Cf. Mazzoli (1999) 137–51; López (2004) 125–37.

13 See Charlier (1954); Jacobi (1988); Martina (2002).

La versión de Schroeder tenía los mejores momentos de ambos drama

vida y que prácticamente me la sé de memoria, aunque jamás la haya di

This chapter could not be brought to a conclusion without at least a refer

4 Quotations are made by Obras completas (1958) edition.

9 For travelling heroes in Stesichorus see S. Carvalho (2018).

10 Cf. Seneca, Medea 20–1.

18 See below, p. 181.

29 Jackson (1996) 120–3, 142–3.

39 My translation of Grillparzer’s work is based on Miller (1913–14).

54 Corti (1992) 70.

71 The quotation is from Coelho (2013) 374.

7 I I (2002) 903.