The Most Evil Woman in Greek Mythology

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:01][music] >> So, at some point the Jason and the Argonauts and Medea went to the island of the Phaeacians. Mhm.

[00:00:13]And the Alcinous was the king of the Phaeacians. He also features in the Odyssey, which Mhm. uh as concerns events that happened one generation afterwards.

[00:00:24]>> Right, exactly.

[00:00:25]Alcinous is the king of the Phaeacians there. And he tells them that the only way that he can grant them uh refuge >> Mhm.

[00:00:36]is if they get married.

[00:00:38]So, they get married in a in a in a rush. Yeah.

[00:00:41]>> So, it's it's like a Las Vegas marriage.

[00:00:43]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. It isn't a royal marriage that Medea had in mind.

[00:00:48]No.

[00:00:48]>> And that she could expect given what she was told. And what Ja- Yeah, what Jason was expected to inherit on the other side of it. Yes. And then, when they go to to Greece, Mhm. Jason is contemplating marrying another woman.

[00:01:05]And he's being offered another woman.

[00:01:07]Yes. uh a a princess. Young, beautiful, all the things that a man would wish for.

[00:01:12]>> Yes. So, it's like she she got her wish, but she also didn't.

[00:01:17]>> Mhm. And then, all of that came to nothing. And the second point, which is the most important part of her character, because you could say that on the first case, she she has been she has been in a way wronged. Mhm.

[00:01:30]And Jason will sort of tend will does tend, as we will see, I'm sure, does tend to completely minimize the extent >> Yes.

[00:01:42]to which Me- Medea has helped him, and what she has sacrificed.

[00:01:47]Mhm. But the most important thing for her, because she is a villain.

[00:01:52]Yes, yes, absolutely.

[00:01:53]>> She is a villain. In a way, this is Jason's tragedy. Yes. So, she is the villain in a way who has been wronged, but the most weird thing about her is that she looks at her children Mhm.

[00:02:08]and instead of looking at the her children as their children first she looks at them as like as Jason's children's first.

[00:02:19]>> Mhm.

[00:02:21]She looks at them like Jason's children more than she looks at them as her children. Yes.

[00:02:27]Uh it's interesting as well, isn't it?

[00:02:29]That actually you would think that she would see her own children as perhaps the one good thing that came of all of this.

[00:02:40]>> Yes. Yes. And yet, it's not Yes. at all.

[00:02:44]At all. And you do hear women who regret spending uh significant amount of their life with with a man saying, "Well, at least the only good thing was my children." Mhm.

[00:02:57]Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:58]>> You you hear this. Yeah, you do. I I've heard that.

[00:03:00]>> comes to women who who regret spending a lot of time with a particular man Mhm.

[00:03:06]just if they think they've wronged or if they have been wronged.

[00:03:10]But but media doesn't have this. No, not at all. Well, she's not um there is nothing really maternal about her her character whatsoever. And so, we we we see from here that so in their flight to Corinth Jason has seen being the arch pragmatist that he is a golden opportunity that he is happens to have found Creon who is the king of Corinth. He only has one child, which is his daughter, who is unmarried, and so he has no Creon has no male heir to inherit his kingdom.

[00:03:48]Along comes Jason. Now, and Jason is obviously very very famous, even though he didn't come into his birthright and set himself up as king of the Olcos, he is a very renowned figure for his great deeds aboard the Argo and all of the tales and the men that he fought with and the stories that came from it, the legend, right? And so, Creon sees an attempt to marry his family into that legend, right? That's really what's happening here. And obviously also to give some peace of mind for the fact that he is an older man and it will bring some much-needed stability to the succession of Corinth after he's gone.

[00:04:29]Now, Jason looks at this and just says, "Yeah, sounds good to me."

[00:04:36]Right? Jason first agreed to marry Medea. And I I think when I say agreed, I should actually be more technical and say he swore an oath before the gods that he would marry Medea and be faithful to her and, you know, love her.

[00:04:57]And so, for Jason to just cast Medea aside for the sake of his own status, his own political expediency, because, yes, I needed Medea to get the Golden Fleece to come back to the Olcos and then rightfully inherit my kingdom, but I don't have my kingdom. And so, the plan needs to change, right? Jason is just adapting to the latest occurrence, whereas Medea is saying, "No, that thing that happened all the way back then, that still binds us together and you have no right to try and escape from it." Yes. And one thing that we have to mention is that at the time and for a long time afterwards, there was this idea that without your polis, you're nobody.

[00:05:42]So, she became a nobody in that respect for Jason. Mhm.

[00:05:47]But also Jason became a nobody after her actions. So, in this case, it's not like he just uh had a fling and he he met the other woman and you know, they got on and he completely neglected his family. It was that they were essentially exiled. Mhm.

[00:06:07]And they were both nobodies and they they could you know, they they they weren't in a safe situation.

[00:06:14]>> Mhm. So, it's not exactly like he he went to Mexico, he had a he met a Mexican there and and you know, he completely forgot his family.

[00:06:25]No, no, I I agree with that. And but so uh the nurse is met by the tutor of um of uh her children, the children's tutor. And the two of them are obviously slaves, right, in the story. But they have an enormous amount This is the thing as well. You see you see from the point of view of the slaves an incredible amount of emotional investment into the lives of their superiors. They deeply care about the welfare of the children. The nurse deeply cares about Medea's emotional state, not just from the pure I don't want to cross this woman and she's very dangerous, but actually from some sense of duty of care.

[00:07:09]And so, the tutor says that he has heard that Creon is going to be banishing Medea and her children. That they are now going to be exiled from Corinth and Jason will remain in Corinth to marry his daughter.

[00:07:28]And so, and we constantly get even before Medea comes on stage, we get this we hear her from behind the stage just whoa, screaming, you know, vengeful, scornful, um biting. And she talks uh she's suicidal. She's saying, "I don't want to live any I want to die. I'm I'm so desperately unhappy. I want to die." So, that brings about the question, why doesn't she?

[00:07:55]Why doesn't Medea just kill herself now?

[00:07:57]Not saying that anyone should just kill themselves if they get, you know, distressed. But like the point is like why from her point of view is she deciding not to just end her own life and be free from all of this suffering?

[00:08:10]Well, I think it comes back to something that we had a window into back when we read Apollonius' story. Now, I don't think it's something I really brought up in detail back then, but it's worth pointing out now.

[00:08:21]When Medea is first first comes along with the Argonauts, and we find them in that position where Apsyrtus is blocking them off, and it's a little it's a bit uncertain as to where all of this is going to go.

[00:08:37]And the men start Jason doesn't do it, but some of the men start talking about, "Well, what if we just hand Medea back to them, right? And leave her, and then we can go on our way." And Medea lashes out at this idea. She threatens to kill herself, but she also threatens to burn the Argo.

[00:08:57]Right? She She says, "I will strand you here, and I will make you suffer for making me suffer." And this is why Medea clings to life. Because if she is going down, she's not going down before she has seen all of her enemies made to suffer as well.

[00:09:16]Um, which is monstrous. She's She's very destructive, but that that's the point.

[00:09:21]You say this about her enemies, but it isn't exactly she isn't going to do exactly this. Mhm.

[00:09:28]She wants to harm Jason. Yes. And are we allowed to say >> go for it. the spoiler It's It's important for to be able to to understand. She at the end of the play Yeah. and I say this not to spoil it for people, but it's because >> It's a very old play, guys. Yes, yes.

[00:09:48]It's [laughter] an old play, but No, it's very important because we have to see what happens in light of the ending.

[00:09:55]And people who did sit down to watch the play, they already knew the ending. They already knew how the myth ended.

[00:10:02]Medea is going to kill her her children just to stick it to Jason. Yes.

[00:10:07]Yeah.

[00:10:08]Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:10]Um and it's the absolutely monstrous, obviously, but uh well, well, we'll talk about the ending, you know, more when we get to it. Um >> [clears throat] >> so, Medea is uh servants are having this conversation. And then Medea finally comes out, and she actually is surprisingly composed, right? When she's actually alone, it's all volatility. It's all just giving in to her emotions. But as soon as she's out in public, it's collectedness. She's shrewd. She's calculating. She's always It's just a mind always at work at manipulation.

[00:10:50]And again, this just comes back to the thing that um I mean, it obviously it speaks to the um the very xenophobic attitude of the Greeks. And I'm not judging that, obviously. That's very sensible when you're living in an ancient world and even today some might argue. Anyway, point being that Medea goes on to have this grand monologue with the chorus. Now, the chorus in this play uh the women of Corinth.

[00:11:18]And it's very, very interesting because you can see that Euripides actually gives the women of Corinth, the chorus, a character journey of its own.

[00:11:26]The women start off very, very sympathetic to Medea's position in all of this because they they see uh a fellow woman, right? This is kind of a an old ancient view of the sisterhood going on here. However, that only gets so far and you can see the further that Medea goes down this escalating dark path of vengeance towards what will result in the murder of her own children. The chorus by the end of it cannot go through with it and you can see Euripides making a point here about the the barbarity of the foreigner, of the person who comes from outside of Hellas, Hellas being the place where law and justice and civil all these things are sovereign.

[00:12:14]And Medea having no consideration for these larger high-minded ideals whatsoever.

[00:12:20]Right. So, this is a very interesting point and I'm I'm sure we're going to touch on it later because there's there's much I have to add here. Mhm.

[00:12:30]Because there are many tropes that Euripides is highlighting when it comes to talking about Medea and in a way she represents the the barbarian in the wilderness. Mhm.

[00:12:47]The pre-civilized individual.

[00:12:50]And Does this Can I just ask a question as well? Does this also draw on the fact that because she is a worshiper of Hecate, right? Cuz Hecate is a chthonic she's not an Olympian.

[00:13:03]Uh well, yeah yeah you you could say this. You could definitely say this. I think Hecate was the goddess of dark magic, but apart from magic, I don't think that Euripides mentions magic that much.

[00:13:16]Well, she prays to Hecate on several occasions.

[00:13:19]>> Yes, but I think her being a sorceress in the play doesn't play that much Not as much as does in in Napoleon.

[00:13:30]So, when it comes to the law and order and justice, it's just she represents the complete wild beast that doesn't have any sort of appreciation for society. And it's not a coincidence that the prime unit of society is the family.

[00:13:50]And when she's going to kill her children, she is going to essentially reassert the wild the wild beast self of hers against civilization. She's saying essentially, I utterly reject society.

[00:14:11]I'm a beast. Yes. That's what she says with her with her behavior.

[00:14:16]And so you get this moment where she bursts out to the chorus.

[00:14:21]And it's very very famous passage and it's certainly worth reading where she says that women of Corinth, I would not have you sanction me, so I have come. Many I know are proud of heart indoors or out, but others are ill-spoken of as supercilious. Just because their ways are quiet. There is no justice in the world censorious eyes. They will not wait to learn a man's true nature.

[00:14:46]Though no wrong has been done them. One look and they hate. Of course, a stranger must conform. Even a Greek should not annoy his fellows by crass stubbornness. I accept my place. But this blow that has fallen on me was not to be expected. It has crushed my heart.

[00:15:06]Life has no pleasure left, dear friends.

[00:15:08]I want to die. Jason was my whole life.

[00:15:12]He knows that well. Now he has proven himself the most contemptible of men.

[00:15:18]Surely, of all creatures that have a life and will, we women are the most wretched. When for an extravagant sum we have bought a husband, we must then accept him as possessor of our body.

[00:15:31]This is to aggravate wrong with worse wrong. Then the great question, will the man we get be good or bad? For women, divorce is not respectable, to repel the man not possible. Still more, a foreign woman coming among new laws, new customs, needs the skill of magic to find out what her home could not teach her. How to treat the man whose bed she shares. And if in this exacting toil we are successful, and our husband does not struggle under the marriage yoke, our life is enviable.

[00:16:07]Otherwise, death is better.

[00:16:10]If a man grows tired of the company at home, he can go out and find a cure for tediousness.

[00:16:17]We wives are forced to look to one man only, and they tell us, we at home live life free from danger. They go out to battle. Fools, I'd rather stand three times in the front line than bear one child.

[00:16:32]And so you can see all of this pent-up aggression because she sees from Jason that he has this new life before him.

[00:16:39]And actually implicit in him divorcing her, which he will have to do, obviously to marry another, means that she is disgraced in front of the entire world.

[00:16:50]Actually, this the man in the marriage has decided that she is not worthy of the marriage any longer. And so the stigma around it attaches to the woman far more than it does to the man who, as she says, can simply move on to the next marriage and not have to have the concerns of women in this time. If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters, [music] head to our website where you can find more.