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‘It Wouldn’t Happen Here … Could It?’ – Chorus and Collusion in Euripides’ Medea
Sophie Mills
Perhaps more than any other extant Euripides play, Medea is shot through with questions, central to critical reception of Euripides since as early as his contemporaries (e.g. Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 85, Frogs 1050–54): why does he portray such dangerous, transgressive women and what are these portrayals intended to suggest to his audience about the treatment of women in fifth-century Athenian society? What is the relationship between Medea’s early speech to the Chorus on the unfair restrictions surrounding women (Medea 230–51) and the horror of what she will prove able to do when freed from those restrictions? Many scholars argue that Medea’s manifesto-like speech is intended deliberately to seduce the Chorus into complicity with her plans of revenge against those who have hurt her, and that they are deceived into doing so because, like all the male characters in the play, they are no intellectual match for her – as is powerfully shown at 358–63, when their sympathy for Medea’s apparently hopeless plight is rejected by a Medea who is utterly in control under an apparently vulnerable exterior. Medea herself is also often viewed as a warring mixture of elements of hero and mother, or masculine and feminine, most notably in her great monologue (1019–80), in which the ultimately heroic Medea conquers Medea the mother. Both claims can certainly be amply substantiated by Euripides’ text, yet they also have the potential to diminish some of the play’s more sinister aspects, which emerge from greater scepticism concerning Medea’s supposed manipulation of the Chorus.
If Medea is an unusual mixture of masculine and feminine, she is formidable and dangerous, but also anomalous, so that she is easier to distance from the regular run of women. Jason himself does this at the end of the play as he tries to comprehend the process by which he has lost children, new wife and his newly-acquired status in Corinth, coming to the deeply flawed conclusion that a Greek woman would never have done this (1339–40). Of course, we know from the Chorus only some fifty lines earlier that the Greek Ino also killed her child, and some in the audience might even remember other Greek mothers who killed their children, so he is clearly mistaken, but it is understandably easier for him to view Medea as uniquely terrible. But since he is wrong in his assessment of Greek women’s powers, it is worth looking closely at the Chorus of Corinthian women in Medea and questioning standard interpretations of their role in the play.
The conventions of Greek tragedy mean that we should not expect complete naturalism from the Chorus, nor even expressions of entirely consistent attitudes throughout the play. The multiple functions a chorus must play mean that their perspectives can shift from scene to scene, and yet, as Greek choruses go, these are is remarkably consistent in their view of Medea. The verbal support that they offer most of her decisions means that they are implicated in everything she dares to do, even ultimately those things which they ostensibly condemn, and their acquiescence may raise disturbing questions about the nature of what a Greek woman might in fact do. I suggest that, although they are bounded by choral convention, the Chorus are actually more amenable to what Medea does than is often emphasized and that even their rejection of the infanticide is portrayed ambivalently by Euripides. This element of the play has been underemphasized for two reasons. First, Medea is supremely dominant and her individualism naturally overshadows the Chorus, but this fact need not deny them all capacity for individual response or force us to interpret them purely as pawns in Medea’s game. Second, even today, a mother’s murder of her children is shocking and barely imaginable: perhaps we too, like Jason, would prefer to turn Medea into a special case and separate what she does from typical or ordinary female action. But what if there is a degree of common ground and understanding between this remarkably individualistic heroine and the collective – between an abandoned and vengeful Colchian woman and fifteen ordinary Corinthian women?
‘On this one day I think some spirit’s clamped so many sorrows hard on Jason, but with justice’ (1231–32). This is the Chorus’ response to a remarkable messenger speech, which graphically describes the hideous effects on Jason’s prospective bride and her father of the poisoned gifts Medea sends her. It is clear from the unfavourable reaction to him by characters such as Aegeus that Jason’s behaviour has been undoubtedly unattractive and that Medea’s complaints are at least up to a point legitimate. Choruses often respond to suffering individuals in ways that by the standards of modern realism seem remarkably unsympathetic (e.g. Sophocles, Oedipus the King 1347), but their direct and perfunctory judgement here is striking. It is, however, quite typical of the role of the Chorus in this play.
Euripides’ choruses can sometimes seem rather disconnected from the action of the play as a whole (as already noted by Aristotle, Poetics 1456a27), and it is not always easy to see how the content of their choral songs is related to that action. In Medea, however, three main factors closely connect Chorus and protagonist. First, they use very few of the lengthy mythical examples that can often contribute to a sense that the choruses are detached from the immediate action of the episodes. Second, the connections between the choral songs and the actions of the protagonists are usually very clear: for example, the unfavourable stereotypes of women that Medea invokes at the end of the first episode prepare us for the first stanza of the first stasimon. Similarly, the fourth stasimon predicts what will happen to the princess (980–89) and agrees with the extended account offered by the messenger (1135–203). Connections between the stasima and the action in the episodes can even have a rather sinister effect: the end of the second stasimon laments Medea’s lack of friends and a safe haven, but immediately Aegeus unexpectedly appears to offer her refuge. Third, as at 1231–32, they sometimes make direct and quite partisan moral judgements. All these factors help to create the impression that the Chorus is unusually directly connected with the events of the episodes, and their engagement intensifies their bond with their fearsome protagonist.
In tragedy, different combinations of categories of age, gender and nationality either align or alienate protagonist and chorus. Different combinations will make for a more, or less, naturally sympathetic relationship than others. Thus in Sophocles’ Antigone, the contrast in gender and age between the Chorus and Antigone automatically creates a distance between them, that isolates her from the collective body of the Theban citizens, while there is little love lost between Clytemnestra and the Chorus in the Agamemnon, in spite of their shared nationality. In Ajax or Philoctetes, by contrast, the similarities in gender and nationality between Chorus and protagonist strengthen the bonds between them. Plays such as Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Andromache feature bonds between women which transcend differences of nationality, but these are more bonds of friendly sympathy than actual complicity. In Euripides’ Hippolytus, Phaedra has a bond with the women of Troezen, whose good intentions towards the royal household are clear: they support her in attempting to uphold traditional morality against the temptations offered by the Nurse (Hippolytus 482–85), and though they are sworn to silence by Phaedra, they do at least try to save Hippolytus from his father’s curse by urging Theseus to rescind it (891–92).
It is important to realize that Euripides had considerable freedom in choosing the identity and character of his Chorus in Medea, and that there is no play quite like this one, whose Chorus and protagonist frequently invoke their shared gender to further the protagonist’s own interests at others’ expense. Although in the play at large, Medea’s nationality is given at least as much emphasis as her gender, Jason and Creon are the ones who emphasize her foreign birth, and the Chorus and Medea find common ground in their common gender. The result of this is that ordinary Corinthian women who ought, as does the Nurse (82–83), to want their city to be safe and the royal line to be continued, rather than destroyed, in fact side with Medea, and thus she carries out her vengeance. Moreover, there is something slightly off-balance in this Corinth, since the C
horus, though women and therefore not technically citizens, are in some ways analogous to the male citizen choruses so common in tragedy, but their focus is on female interests rather than those of the civic community at large.
But of course, all this does not yet address the argument invoked at the start of this chapter, that the Chorus are essentially victims of Medea’s formidable powers of persuasion and superior intellect. It is certainly true that she must use all her powers to get her natural enemies, Creon and Jason, to do what she wants them to do, but the Chorus are not her enemies in the same way. If she does manipulate them at all, she is working with much more fertile ground from the start. The choral comments that precede Medea’s great speech on the wrongs of women display plenty of sympathy and goodwill towards Medea (in particular 136–38, 178–83) and, while they do urge her to restrain her excessive grief, they also promise her that Zeus will have revenge (152, 157–59; cf. 208), so that she should not grieve excessively. Nothing Creon or Jason say is like this.
Moreover, the differences between the Nurse and the Chorus at the start of the play are highly significant. Both are portrayed as ordinary and non-heroic. The Nurse desires to avoid grand passions and live moderately (125–30), a wish similar to that expressed by the Chorus later (636–37), but the Nurse shows herself highly aware of Medea’s destructive potential and expresses explicit loyalty to Jason as her master, whatever she thinks of his conduct (36–45, 82–83, 91–95, 102–4, 108–10, 171–72, 187–89). By contrast, although they have ‘heard’ (130, their very first word) the same threats from Medea that the Nurse has, the Chorus focus much more on expressing sympathy for Medea and only once express a rather vague concern for ‘those inside’ (182–83). In fact, they seem most concerned about the effects of Medea’s grief on herself. Again, already at 205–7 they seem to share Medea’s point of view by calling Jason ‘the man who has betrayed her bed, her evil-hearted husband’.
Euripides suggests a depth of sympathy between the Chorus and Medea, which begins before she exercises her formidable rhetorical and intellectual skills upon them and lasts throughout the play. Medea’s great speech is indeed partly designed to get her emotional and intellectual solidarity with the Chorus, so she uses the first person plural, calls them ‘friends’, and addresses them with notable respect throughout the play, here contrasting strongly with the rude and abrupt addresses of Creon or Jason to her (271, 446, 866), but their attitude to her before her speech suggests that they need less active encouragement to be sympathetic to her than many commentators claim. At most, we can say that she is playing to an audience already sympathetic to her, who understand (unlike Jason), both before and after her great monologue, that her anger stems not merely from sexual jealousy (though Medea does cite this motive at 263–64) but issues of status and justice (157, 208; cf. 659, 1000). She does not have to try that hard to win them over. To her request (259–63) that they should keep silence about any plan she concocts, not only does the Chorus acquiesce without any reservation, but they agree that she will have revenge on her husband ‘justly’, the very same word (endikos) that they use to characterize his loss of bride and father-in-law (1232).
Since Greek choruses are typically continuously present on stage, it is a convention of tragedy that protagonists must frequently secure their silence, but different degrees of complicity and realism in motivation are possible. Sometimes choral complicity is a natural result of a strong sympathy between the chorus and protagonist (cf. Euripides, Hippolytus, or Aeschylus, Choephoroi), while sometimes it is more perfunctory. In this play, of course, the Chorus and Medea are closely aligned with one another and it is significant, given Medea’s immense interest in the sacred importance of oaths, shown most notably in the Aegeus scene (746–55; cf. 161–3), that she does not exact any formal oath from them at this point, but merely asks them to promise to keep silence. Even her formulation at this point seems quite casual – ‘and so I would ask this one thing of you’ – and in stark contrast to the way in which she secures Aegeus’ help. Perhaps oaths are superfluous if she knows she can already trust in their extreme partiality to her.
Here, a comparison with Hippolytus is instructive. At Hippolytus lines 713–14, the Chorus swear a solemn oath by Artemis to reveal nothing of what they have heard of Phaedra’s troubles, whereas Medea simply asks her Chorus to be silent. Moreover, Phaedra’s Chorus promise their silence before they discover that Phaedra will attempt to preserve her good reputation as a woman by killing herself. Medea’s Chorus promise silence after Medea has explicitly expressed her desire to find a means of revenge on her husband (260–67). Later in Hippolytus, though the Chorus keep their oath of silence, they do their best within the constraints laid on them to avert disaster by begging Theseus to take back his curse on his son (Hippolytus 891–92). Medea’s Chorus manage to keep silence rather more effectively.
After their assent to Medea’s request for silence, the very next words that the Chorus speak express sympathy for Medea’s terrible plight (358), but, almost immediately, she reveals the first incarnation of her revenge, promising that this day will see the deaths of father, daughter and her husband, following this with a sustained meditation, directly addressed to the Chorus (‘dear friends’, philai, l.375, cf. 765), on exactly how she can accomplish her revenge. At the end of the monologue she appeals directly to them again in the first person plural, invoking gender solidarity in the name of evil-doing.
The Chorus say not one word against the plan, either at this time or at any other, and their next utterance is the first stasimon, in which they apparently see what Medea is about to do as something that will redress the balance of years of unfavourable utterances about women of the kind of stereotype that Medea defiantly appropriates at the end of the scene. Again, the very direct link between speech and stasimon exemplifies the way in which the integration of the choral stasima into the action of the episodes binds Chorus and protagonist unusually close. Not only does the first stasimon view Medea’s projected revenge as a means of bringing honour (415, 417) to women, invoking one of Medea’s greatest obsessions but, as they consistently do throughout the play, they view the situation from Medea’s own perspective. They condemn Jason’s misdeeds, in particular his perjury (413, 439) and dishonour of Medea (438) as a punishable offence against the gods and the whole moral order. In the last two stanzas they endorse Medea’s own narrative about how she comes to be in Corinth, which conveniently omits her violent past (432–44), and elide sympathy with Medea with the violent revenge already promised. While it would be possible to see this Chorus as inspired (or duped) by Medea into expressing sentiments that support her feelings, I am not sure that this is the only explanation. They articulate the point so well that it is hard not to imagine this as a voluntary expression of thoughts that they really do espouse themselves. Through Medea’s actions in avenging dishonour done to her by poisoning three people (375, 385), honour is coming to the female race, and they too will acquire honour from it (415–20). The Chorus are similarly staunch in the next episode and second stasimon, agreeing with Medea all the way about the injustice of what Jason has done. Unlike many choruses who speak with caution and deference to those in power, this Chorus even feel empowered enough to confront Jason at 577: ‘even if my words now will offend you, I think you have betrayed your wife and acted all unjustly’.
When everything is at last in place for Medea’s plans to come to fruition, she shares what will happen next with the Chorus, using the same language of Jason’s betrayal (778) that they have endorsed all along. But then, of course, a whole new level of revenge comes into play, a revenge which Medea claims must be done (791). The response of the Chorus to this shocking new development seems decidedly weak: they have consistently endorsed revenge on Creon and his family and Jason too, but until now, such revenge has been in the theoretical realm because of the practical obstacles to the completion of Medea’s plan. So it would have been conceivable that they might at this point have had second thoug
hts about the entire plan: Euripides was interested in the concept and consequences of second thoughts for his tragic characters, and indeed makes Medea question her decision at various points in the next two episodes of the play. But in fact, they simply state (812–13), ‘Since you have taken us into your confidence, and as I want to help you and uphold the laws of men, I tell you: do not do it.’
It seems that they continue to accept the first part of the revenge and are opposed purely to the infanticide, but, when Medea insists that it can be no other way, they barely challenge her, merely asking her if she really will dare to kill her children and pointing out that she will be a most wretched woman if she does (816–18). Their attention, as it was at the start of the play, seems to be as much on the effect such a deed will have on Medea as on issues of morality and justice. It is true that the third stasimon, after its praise of Athenian purity, does eventually focus on the infanticide, and directly calls her deed ‘sacrilege’, but even here the Chorus express doubt that she will really be able to carry out the plan and even some sympathy for the pain that she will experience if she does (860–65). Again, though, there is not a single mention of the other horrific part of Medea’s revenge.
It is obvious that the Chorus cannot deem the infanticide itself acceptable. Not only would doing so be far too shocking but it would also diminish the transgressive power of a truly horrific act. The Chorus of Corinthian women are needed as a background to give Medea’s act its full depth of meaning, so that they can express what is right and normal (mothers should not kill their children), and horror at Medea’s plan. However, they have supported the other elements of her revenge so consistently that the clarity of their condemnation of the infanticide is inevitably muddied. They have essentially condoned Medea’s hideous revenge on Jason via the princess and her father, and only now tell her to go no further; but when Medea insists that the infanticide cannot be detached from the plans she has already made with their approval, they can merely say, ‘But will you bring yourself to kill your children, lady?’ This rather weak response makes their resistance to her plan seem more ambivalent than if they had maintained the counsel they offer at the very beginning of the play (155–57), that she should wait for Zeus to take revenge.
Looking at Medea Page 14
