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The Face of Medea
Was it Helen whose face "launched a thousand ships" or was it in reality the face and form of a cruel barbarian princess, a granddaughter of Helios the sun god, a priestess of Hecate and Gaia? Was it Helen, or was it in actuality Medea who caused the Trojan War?
Euripides powerful play, "Medea", is the story of vengeance by a woman scorned. In his tragedy Medea is abandoned by Jason in a land totally alien to her, even after she has committed a long line of hideous murders for his sake. ...
But if you follow the story of Medea beyond her life with Jason, through the country of Greece to the land of Iran and into the afterlife where she is both immortal yet an inhabitant of the underworld, her life becomes a symbol of the clash of cultures that led to the Trojan War, the invasion of Greece by Darius and Xerxes, and the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great. ... Medea may have been truly puzzled by the Greek reaction to her bold and clever assassinations - of her brother, the bronze monster Talos, Pelias. ... When Theseus, the son whom Aegeus had abandoned in infancy, appeared at the court in disguise, Medea was quick to recognize that threat. ...
Medea would hardly have seen her act as one of perfidity. ...
Medea was a child of her culture, and, when her plot to ensure the throne for her own son, Medus, failed, she finally fled Greece forever, returning to the east.
Approximate Word count = 1141
Approximate Pages = 4.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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