Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 2)

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Ancient Greece’s most notorious battle of the sexes, and Euripides’ rumination on the question of whether the Athenian ideals of rationality and moderation sufficiently honor the instinctual side of human nature. Upcoming Episodes: “A New Leaf” (Elaine May), “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee From Me” (Thomas Wyatt), “Beetlejuice” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:19 Erin: or patreon.com/subtextpodcast. 0:32 Wes: Hey, welcome to part two of Medea. In part one, we gave a lot of background on Euripides and the political and historical climate at the time. And we got a little bit into beginning of the discussion of the play, including we got a bit into A discussion of Jason's rationality, or let's just say whether or not he's rational is overturned. His embrace at a conscious level of the idea that he's rational and that he has these reasons versus the idea that Medea is just a representative of irrationality, what that meant for the play at a thematic level and maybe psychologically. So, Erin, you would want it to move from that to the significance of the fact that she's a sorceress. Yeah. 1:21 Erin: So I was just trying to think, like, what can we insert for magic? Like, how can we solve for X to give a psychological explanation for what it is about Medea that might make one resentful of her, fearful of her after a period in which this magic actually served you right. So something for which you're at first grateful, which then sours if you're Jason. And like, I think motherhood. Right, is something we might insert for magic here. I mean, forgive me if I'm oversimplifying this, but this seems like something that could be. That could cause conflict in Jason. 1:55 Wes: Right. 1:55 Erin: You want to have kids, and maybe you're grateful at first to a wife that has those kids or that you think you want them, and then they cause all sorts of problems in addition to motherhood. I think artistry or any kind of creativity we can insert for magic and for her sorcery. And I think the way I'm understanding this is that Jason got a lot of benefit from Medea's. Her genius, her artistic excellence, you know, whatever you want to call it, this creative capacity. He got all this benefit from it, and now he resents her for it and is threatened by it. And he knows, yeah, but he had 2:35 Wes: the muscles and the sword just get 2:39 Erin: well, and now he wants to discard her. He has this potential for. He got a lot of success because of Medea's magic. He has potential for even more success. And he wants to discard the sort of compassion complexity that comes with Medea's sorcery, magic, whatever that might mean, whether that means, like, just scuttling his first family and the difficulties that come with being part of a family and being responsible for a family. So he doesn't want anything to do with them anymore. He wants to start over with someone who's younger. Right. So he wants to, like, just get this out of his. Out of his life so that he can try again and hope that it's going to be less complicated. Or we could say, you know, that he has this wife who is threatening in some way in terms of her creative ability. And therefore he wants to be with someone who threatens him less. That's essentially what. What is my. My reading of this and why, therefore, he's getting rid of her and why he finds Creusa attractive. Now he's still attracted to Medea because there's still something in her that he is. You know, he was attracted to this in the first place. Right. So that's not going to totally go away, but basically, like, he wants someone who's less complicated. This is a 30. This is my favorite 30 Rock episode with Carrie Fisher where she plays. I don't know if you remember this episode, but she sort of plays Liz Lemon's kind of ghost of Christmas future, like Liz Lemon's idol who comes back into her life. And Liz Lemon tries to kind of, you know, maybe help her get a job on TGS or something. Like, because Carrie Fisher's character has fallen from grace and is now kind of insane. And one of the things she says to Liz is, you pick up guys that are smart and funny, and they end up leaving you for someone less complicated. Something along those lines. Right. So Jason wants someone less complicated. Medea means complicated. That's what we could say. Insert for magic is comp. She's complicated. 4:37 Wes: Yeah. And also a murderer for him. No, I. I'm just kidding. I like. I like your. You know, I think that's a legitimate reading. So in a way. Right. Okay. 4:49 Erin: So she. 4:50 Wes: Let's just think about Jason's motivations. Her claim is that, yeah, Jason is just once a new, younger woman, and that it's lust or the desire for novelty. And his claim is that he is just trying to make an alliance and be a social climber and get himself kind of set up and a kingdom which is not his own by marrying the king's daughter, which I think is actually perfectly reasonable argument. Which doesn't change. Right. So even if that's true, it doesn't change, as the chorus of women point out many times. It doesn't change the fact that he has broken an oath and he's a betrayer in some way. It doesn't matter if his motive is the one he says it is or it could be a mix. So there could be a lot of different motives working at the same time. Not wanting a woman who's that complex, being envious of her creativity, being envious of her power. There's evidence for that. Part of it is she has really been the one with power. And this is the first point where there's been a real power reversal. In his marrying the king's daughter. What does magic mean? I think in some sense, magic in the broadest sense is, in this case, a representative of femininity. I think there are only two witches in ancient Greek mythology. Right. There's Medea and Who? Circe. 6:11 Erin: Yeah. Who I think Medea is related to. 6:13 Wes: Right, right. And she's related. So witches don't. This is. And I got this from Edith Hamilton's introduction to her mythology book, but I was really surprised. I had never thought of that fact, that this particular type of feminine power doesn't play a role in Greek mythology generally. It's kind of rare. But, yeah. You could see the idea of witchery and sorcery has something to do with feminine power. And it's the power to procreate, but it's also the power to attract. And it's all of the power implied in feminine signifiers. So not just like having a certain type of body, but having a gender, having a certain psychology, which, of course, has gotten a bad rap over the millennia. Right. It leads to accusations of it being a falsity, of it just being a facade under which there's nothing. In other words, femininity is itself a kind of deception and a trick. That's the idea. So that I think you could point to that at the broadest level. There's a lot of interesting misogyny in Jason. And it's directly commented on and pointed to by the chorus. Right. The contemporary views of women and what they are. It's fascinating because there's what's obviously a very direct critique of that here in Euripides. It receives direct attention, and we'll get more into that. But the other thing I thought of initially, because I have a section in my notes called the Plight of Being Gifted. 7:46 Erin: This is what I want to get to. 7:48 Wes: Yeah, this is on page 57, which is. You find line numbers here. And I want to go back. I kind of want to touch on other parts of the play before that. But this is around line 250. I'm thinking of pages 57 to 60, starting around line 250. She is in the kind of scene before that. She's been talking to the chorus, and she's been lamenting the plight of foreigners, and she's been lamenting the plight of women. And then at this point, she will, in a very famous passage, lament the plight of being a gifted person. So let's see where she does this. Okay. Maybe it's on page 58. So she'll say, so Creon is just entered around. 8:29 Erin: Ah, yeah. 8:30 Wes: After line 270. And the whole point of this scene is that she's going to convince Creon. And this is rhetorically fascinating how she does this, but she's going to convince Creon to give her an extra day before he exiles her. He comes in, very firm. I'm going to exile you. Get out of here. Don't talk to me anymore. But she really works on him. And so. Right. You can see how magic is also a stand in for rhetorical power because she has it, which we're no stranger to. In many of the texts we've read, this comes up and again and again, the rhetorical power of women. So for instance, who is it in. What's that Shakespeare play we read? 9:07 Erin: Winter's Tale? Hermione. 9:08 Wes: Hermione, yes. 9:09 Erin: And Paulina. 9:10 Wes: Paulina, yep. So that kind of rhetorical power. But in any case. So he comes in, says, you're out of here, you're out of here. Medea says, I'm utterly ruined. And why are you doing this? And he says, I'm Creon says some very prescient and reasonable things, which is, I think you're going to harm me and my daughter. Basically. I've been hearing you make threats and that's word has gotten back to me. And so here's a little wonderful passage around 2, starts at 292. Little wonderful speech by Medea. Ah, this is hard to bear. This is not the first time, but one of many, Creon, that my reputation has hurt me and caused me serious harm. Serious harm is translating mega kaka, many evils. This is one of the. One of the ways when I was looking for translation, I'm like, how creative are these people getting with just a phrase like mega kaka. And in many cases I just couldn't bear the translation. And even in this case, serious harm. I mean, why not just say many evils? I don't know, Mega kaka. All right? My reputation has hurt me and caused me serious harm. Any man of good sense should never have his children. Or maybe it's megala kaka. So anyway, yeah, my ancient Greek is terrible. Anyway. Any man of good sense should never have his children taught to be unusually clever, for apart from being good for nothing, into the bargain they invite the envy and hostility of their fellow citizens. Present fools with clever new ideas, and they will think you useless and a born fool yourself. And those with a reputation for fine intelligence will regard you with hatred if the city judges you are their superior. I myself have fallen victim to this misfortune, because I have special knowledge. Some view me with resentment, others, again with distaste. Now, I want to point out, given all the background we gave to this, Euripides, in a way, could be talking about himself. 11:08 Erin: Yeah, sure. 11:09 Wes: He's the one who's right there to corrupt the youth with his cleverness and his skepticism about gods and what you might think of as a kind of rough magic or dark magic, whatever it is, that's transforming society at this point, which turns out to be a form of rationality, arguably, strangely enough, that has a corrosive magic power that can be, in a sense, thought of as a potion. But anyway, I thought here. This is an interesting new complaint that she's adding. It's not just that I'm a woman, it's not that I'm a foreigner, an immigrant. I'm a gifted person. What do you think of that? 11:47 Erin: Well, if we want to take our word for it, there's a question about this. But I do think I find this so fascinating. I really do. I mean, there's a conventional wisdom I've heard expressed in art school that you really shouldn't get into a relationship with anybody who's your peer in art school, because if, God forbid. If you're a woman and God forbid, you end up doing better than he does, then the relationship will be over. If you get married and he ends up doing better than you, then everything is fine. Right. But in a way, Medea and Jason are like. They both went to the same art school. They're both mythological figures. Right. They're both famous. 12:29 Wes: But she's semi divine. 12:30 Erin: But she's semi divine. 12:31 Wes: He might be related to the wind God, I can't remember, but I think he is related to Aeolus. So maybe he does have the same status. The way I was reading this, she, in a sense, starts out with the higher status, and then it's reversed. Right? 12:45 Erin: Well, it's reversed how? 12:46 Wes: By him getting her to Corinth and then saying, screw you. I'm gonna go with the king's daughter now. 12:54 Erin: Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. 12:57 Wes: Until she's kind of isolated in that environment, she has all the power, as far as I can tell, up to that point. Because on a seafaring adventure, that's all that counts, right? If they're in a pioneer mode, if they're in the Wild west, all that matters is the force that you can bring to bear. Right? 13:16 Erin: Yeah. So I agree with you. 13:18 Wes: Sorry I say that, but I'm not wedded to That I don't know, 13:24 Erin: that was my sense as well, that she's 13:26 Wes: doing inclination is to read it as she starts out. And there is other evidence in the play to support this, but she is actually starting out in the top position and that's what makes this so unbearable is this reversal. And then he turns out to have no gratitude for all that she's done to help him with her power. 13:45 Erin: This reversal seems to me to be psychologically necessary for him as someone who we could read as a figure of the insecure man who can't handle the fact that his wife is of a higher status than he is. So he has to discard her and find someone, you know, for whom he could be a person of higher status who could make him feel bigger. Right. 14:06 Wes: Well, she. The question is, can she do anything for him in this environment now, in a civilization, as he calls it? Right. He saved her from the barbarian. Look, what everything I've given you, including civil Greek civilization. 14:18 Erin: Yeah. 14:19 Wes: This is, you know, you ungrateful barbarian. That's essentially what he says to her later on. But yeah, one thing is very clear. He's in this depiction, he's just a user. He's just a cold blooded user and she can't really do anything for him in this particular context. 14:35 Erin: Yeah, I mean, this is a little complicated because I don't know, you know, I made mention of the Pasolini, Medea and the fact that they show Colchis as being like Cappadocia. This is not the physical climate that Colchis would be my understanding. I mean, I don't know, you know, Colchis as a location in the imaginations of Greeks in 431 BC. I don't know what kind of of significance it has. 14:59 Wes: It's not vodka and furry hats. 15:02 Erin: I do know that being on the Black Sea, it would at least be a place of great. I mean, it's the location of the Golden Fleece. It's a place of great, great wealth. Right. I mean, I would imagine this is a lush place with a lot of resources. So I suppose I'm skeptical of his entire argument here. Of course there's a. 15:20 Wes: But they're. They're exotic, right? They're exotic. She's an exotic foreign woman. She might as well, you know. 15:26 Erin: Right, right. 15:28 Wes: She's from a different. Right. So it's just, it's not that she's just a foreigner. She's not from another Greek island or something. She's. 15:33 Erin: This is like Cleopatra. 15:35 Wes: There you go. Yeah. 15:36 Erin: The societies have very different value Systems. Obviously this play has to say certain things, you know, true things. Right. About Greek civilization's emphasis on rationality and various other things. Right. So Cleopatra is from a more exotic coded civilization which has its own rich history and its own way of looking at the world. And Romans disdained it. 15:57 Wes: We should say she was essentially Greek. Right. Part of a Greek aristocracy that was ruling Egypt. So it's. 16:03 Erin: Right. But she was seen still exotic. Yes. And she was viewed with great xenophobia at the time. There was a lot of anxiety over whether or not the Egyptians, Greek. Egyptians would come into the rulership of Rome and also Mark Antony's betrayal of Roman values by associating with Cleopatra. So a very similar situation, I think, just as we can't say that Cleopatra comes from a backward society, rather she comes from a society that is just looked upon through xenophobic eyes by the Romans. Right. I don't know what the situation is in Colchis, if it's a good parallel here. I don't know what kind of society they were thought to have by the Greeks at this time. If it's just supposed to be. It's almost like fairy tale land. 16:46 Wes: Land. 16:46 Erin: It's like far away fairy tale land. Right. 16:49 Wes: Barbaros is the ancient Greek word, but, you know, the barbarians is basically everyone who's non Greek. 16:54 Erin: Right. So. 16:55 Wes: So, I mean, he gives it the pejorative implication by saying, you know, this is civilization. That's not civilization. 17:02 Erin: Right. 17:03 Wes: This is part of what I've given you. This is a great bargain for you. 17:06 Erin: Right. But it depends on what you value. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 17:10 Wes: So, but, but that's his. So that's his point of view. But whether. 17:12 Erin: Yeah, and I think he's full of it. Right. 17:14 Wes: I don't know enough to know whether Colchis is a backwards society or not, but probably. He's probably full of it. 17:22 Erin: Well, it behooves Jason to. Yeah, he's full of it in this argument, Right. Because it behooves him to make Colchis look like a backward place in this. You got such a great deal out of coming here with me argument. Right. So who knows what the situation really is? But the point is he has to spin it. 17:38 Wes: But in this case, you know, I think getting back to sorcery, she makes this explicit connection between her magical powers and it's an interesting conflation, right, because she's a magician. She can do things which are almost divine in their level of power with these potions. Right. So there's almost a technological aspect to it as well. But it's, on a surface level, completely magical. So she makes it out to be, well, I'm not hated because I killed my brother or did all these horrible things. It's not because I'm this notorious criminal that I'm hated. It's because I'm a gifted person and you guys all envy me. 18:17 Erin: But that is true, Wes. That is true. 18:20 Wes: But it's also. Yeah, but it's so. It is also true. Yep. But so. So there is a comic. I think there's explicitly a comic element here. Any good man, a good sense should never have his children taught to be unusually clever. As if that's it. Oh, I'm just this unusually clever person. So Creon is perfectly. It's perfectly rational for him to fear her. And what he says is that you've been tossing these threats around. Then it's gotten back to me. So it's not in his imagination. But she's made this segue to what is a very interesting grievance which identifies magic and intelligence and makes this connection I've been talking about to rhetoric and to the climate of the time. And that becomes an argument for her being associated with the power of rationality rather than irrationality. And it's. Right. And science and technology and the corrosive effects that they might have on a society and their effect on power dynamics and the envy of people who can excel by way of their intelligence, all that stuff gets implicated as well. This is not the way she wins her argument with Creon. This is really just the first step. 19:26 Erin: Yeah, I mean, that does. Associating her with technology and these other qualities you're describing complicates this a little bit. But I do think that there's a way in which we can read her, not just as a kid in the gifted class or as someone, as I'm suggesting, who kind of like goes to art school with Jason and then she ends up being the better painter or whatever. And he's therefore upset by this because all of his paintings are bad, or he's been passing hers off as his or, you know, however. However, we could come up with some sort of corollary here. Right. But we could also just discuss. Associate this, and I think it's logical to do so with the fact of her being a woman. Right. Like this. This, I think, is very much tied to this foreignness or exoticism and also to, you know, the pain of labor and various other things that she connects in this speech. Like, I do think of it as being coherent. If we Want to read her genius as the genius of any woman who has children, that she is the Other. Right. Like that. Women are the. Are the Other in this. They have a secret knowledge. They have the ability to give birth. And therefore there's something. Right. Feared and exotic about their kind of quote unquote, divine intelligence that men don't have access to. Right. So there's a reading of this which is, like, far more straightforward maybe, than just being gifted, in which she's just the female, the woman who is threatening and unknowable to a man and who has a power that man doesn't have. Right. 20:49 Wes: Maybe. Let's go back a little bit in this first, this first act, and then it's in the scene before this that she really talks about the plight of women. 20:57 Erin: I still want to talk about the nurse 21:00 Wes: on page two, which is part of this. So we'll get back a little bit. But I think for this scene, one thing I'll say about what you just said is civilization is coded as feminine. And I even think. And I'll probably be saying this even though I can't prove it right now, but in an evolutionary sense, culture as we know it is a product of gender, and it's specifically the feminine. And culture gets coded as the feminine. Right. The more civilized you are, the more weak and feminine you are. And so as civilization advances, and that's what's happening in ancient Greece right now, the threat of the feminine increases. The more civilized the society is, the less oppressed women are, and the more the arts and even the sciences arguably are ascendant, the more the feminine is actually ascendant. And I'm pointing to this because I think there's an ambiguity. What is it that Medea. What is the threat that she represents in the threat of the feminine? Is it just the crazy instinctual on the one hand, or is it the civilizational and the rational on the other? And in a sense, it's both. She's a representative of the destructiveness of the instincts. And then what it is that civilization might do to instinct, I think both get represented there. Even though for the most part, the play is going to set up Jason and Medea as representatives of the instinctual, the overly instinctual and the overly rational, respectively. We could treat her as embodying that very conflict, I think, in her own character. 22:36 Erin: So you're saying my reading is wrong of. I mean, if we took out. So say that. Say we took out barbarism from the equation. And I think I'm kind of suggesting that Maybe this is a tainted accusation that Jason is flinging around just to suit his own end. So if we take out this idea of civilization versus barbarism and we just said exoticism, would that apply to my idea of this connection between this gifted argument, exoticism and the feminine? In other words, how would exoticism fit into this gender divide? How is it coded? Is it not coded as feminine? Or am I? 23:13 Wes: Yeah, I mean, I think it can be. I think. You know, what I'm pointing to is I'm pointing to two conflicting interpretations that associate her with these. Civilization on the one hand, and the exotic or the foreign on the other, and with the instinctual on the one hand or the rational on the other. I'm saying that maybe it ultimately doesn't make sense, but I'm saying that a conflict that at a more overt level in the play, one in which she represents the irrational. Right. You can see it, that conflict actually as internal to her own character. So when she's talking about this is like the relationship between alchemy and chemistry. Right. Is it magic or is it science? Those two things, they cross over. 23:53 Erin: Okay. 23:53 Wes: Science becomes the highest representative of the dark arts. Science fulfills the dark. That the whole idea of the dark arts, for instance. 24:01 Erin: I see. So I see how you're saying that these things become entangled, but I guess I was wondering, if we tweeze these out, are there coherent readings on either side? Is there a system in which she is representative of, say, barbarism and exoticism and femininity and also rationality and culture and femininity? And I guess I was just wondering if there are coherent readings on this and what you're saying is ultimately not. Not just that they're conflicting with each other in the play, but that they ultimately run together or that they tip over into the other side, they get twisted together. 24:33 Wes: Yeah. So I'm making maybe what's a confusing point, but because I think overall the play is going to make her the representative, at least in. So maybe it's a question that the play is raising. Right. So on one level, it seems as if. And in some senses, it's obviously so because she's a murderer and does all this crazy shit. Right? Right. She's fucking crazy. But let's not play that down. But 24:59 Erin: I think it's important that she's not crazy, but. 25:02 Wes: Well, she murders her kids. 25:04 Erin: Yeah, but I think it's important that that. I mean, isn't this a big question about the play, whether or not this is an actual insane act? We can't just take for granted that she's crazy. Right. She seems totally rational in her decision to do this. 25:18 Wes: I don't. Yeah, I don't see a good argument for the killing of the kids, except that. 25:23 Erin: Well, I don't see a good argument for it either, but. 25:27 Wes: Except for the paranoid idea. Right. Her idea is that she's going to be mocked. She's extremely paranoid, extremely narcissistic. If we do want to pathologize and get into contemporary psychology, both she and Jason are incredible narcissists. And the only reason to kill her kids is to prevent people from laughing at her. Which is. Which is a ridiculous reason. And she's just as concerned with status as Jason is. 25:50 Erin: Oh, absolutely. 25:51 Wes: Status observed. 25:52 Erin: I think, though, there's a lot I want to say about this. And I derailed you by opening this can of worms. So you were saying. Because I want to get to this, but we'll have to get to it later. But you were saying prior to that in relation to this idea of ultimately what the play is saying about these things is conflicted. 26:06 Wes: Yeah. I mean, okay, so maybe on one level, it's supposed to be obvious, he's on the spectrum, she's borderline, and this is a conflict that plays out. But as we see it becomes a question, it gets more subtle. And that's what I was pointing to. But it gets confusing. Okay. And just because I'm calling her crazy and saying, right, that's just external plot. So we got to think about this at the thematic level and then at the plot level, just in plain plot level stuff, she's nuts. But thematically, something else could be the opposite. But I think we'll definitely get more as we get into the play. But I think you were pointing to. Maybe we should just give a little bit more of this whole, what I'm calling the first act, which is what ends with Medea and Creon. But basically, right in the beginning, we got the setup of some background with the nurse and the tutor. And then there's some interesting back and forth between the nurse and the tutor. And then I guess the children are there, and Medea's still in the background. She hasn't come out yet, but there's. 27:07 Erin: She's still screaming inside the house. 27:08 Wes: Yeah, right, right. The tutor comes and says, why are you just talking to yourself out here? And she's like, well, I'm so upset by everything that's going on. I have to tell it to the earth and the sky. And there's a little reflection here. And this is the interesting part on the idea that. Okay, so the tutor says, old ties of affection give way to new. This house has no claims on that man's heart. Now. So, right. There's a lot of general psychological observations at various points in the play, and this is one of them. So the tutor is thinking about this in terms of the fact that people are fickle and their affections change. And also he'll say later on, no one loves his neighbor more than himself. So he'll just say people are actually just selfish. And the nurse's idea is that Jason is just someone who's treacherous, so he's a traitor. It's not just that. You could talk psychologically about fickleness and selfishness, or you could talk moralistically about someone who's just an oath breaker and a traitor. And those are two different ways of looking at it, the psychological and the moral. The nurse sends the children inside and says, stay away from your mom. I'm scared what she would do to you. Medea is still lamenting her suffering from the inside, from inside the house. At this point, Medea is saying things like, her children should die and send Jason's house to ruin. So the prime. This is around page 54 in this penguin edition. Early on we learn she wants to kill the children. That she has a motive to do it, which is to ruin his project. His project, right, is to kind of get status for him and ultimately his offspring. And she can do that by killing the kids. But I guess what I'm working up to here is the psychological observation by the nurse, which is that it's better. She sets up an opposition between modesty and excess. So this is one of the important. We've already talked about it a bit, but one of the important themes here, it's better to live in modesty or in moderation and inequality and not in excess. And excess is something that she associates with royal blood because people who are upper class or royals, they always get what they want. So they don't learn to deal with deprivation and they become immodest, they become excessive. So these are, again, I think, some very. Bringing up the concept of moderation. That's a very philosophically in vogue concept. And it's the idea that the gods or the heroes are being immodest. Right? This is one of these themes in Euripides that he's going to say, well, we thought you were better than this. You don't actually represent the heroic isn't heroic, it's just excessive in one Way or another. 29:46 Erin: Yeah, I'm really interested in this moderation discussion. She says those of royal blood, they have frightening natures. Those of royal blood. So she's talking about both Jason and Medea there know the nurse is concerned with hierarchies, and she, she often connects the family's behavior here back to class, which I think is interesting. I think, as I think I suggested before, the nurse is kind of like a cliche machine, or she, she seems to be just spouting, you know, this conventional wisdom about like moderation or whatever the case may be. And I think that. That she's often kind of proved right, but in that the play takes what she says and almost kind of riffs on it. So this idea of not living in equality with your neighbors is something that I see actually picked up in that speech that you point to where Medea talks about herself as a gifted person. So that what the nurse points to as being connected to class, Medea almost takes as like the slings and arrows of a meritocracy in which she's at the top of the. Of the meritocracy or something. So Medea would argue that she can't live on equal terms with her neighbors, right, because she is actually better than her neighbors. In other words, the nurse is trying to give a sort of traditional read on the situation and saying, you know, well, these are, you know, these are mythological figures, right? Or these are. These are kings and queens. And so they're of a different class. And therefore they have not the right kind of relationship perhaps to the people around them. In fact, they don't have the right relationship to people around them. But it doesn't have to do with class. It has to do with other factors that may have to do both with their actual set apartness and also their psychological extremeness. 31:26 Wes: So, yeah, I mean, they might not have anything. I mean, in some cases they don't have anything to do with class. But the subversive idea, right, is that being a God or a hero implies being psychologically messed up because absolute power corrupts absolutely, or put it that way, or. But it's also subversive to say, I think in this context that being part of the upper class is not good for you psychologically because you don't suffer enough deprivation. You're spoiled, essentially. Now, of course, there are other. Is that right at this point, she kind of compares it. She talks about what she wants for herself. How does she put it? We're looking at pages 52 to 54. 32:08 Erin: Better to have formed the Habit of living on equal terms with your neighbors. Certainly what I want for myself is to grow older, old in secure and modest 32:14 Wes: circumstances for moderation in the first place. Sounds more attractive on the tongue and in practice is by far the best for man. I think. Yeah. What you're pointing to is the sense in which it comes across as a. 32:27 Erin: Like a moral. Yeah, yeah. 32:29 Wes: It's a moral platitude and it's very self serving. Like, you know, I look at me, I'm just the nurse. 32:35 Erin: Right. 32:35 Wes: Unlike these fancy people, you know, I have these down to earth values and blah, blah, blah. 32:40 Erin: Exactly. 32:41 Wes: I think we're supposed to have some skepticism in us aroused by her simple take on things. It's interesting, the chorus, which for the most part is on Medea's sides, right. It's a chorus of Corinthian women wearing Corinthian leather. What is that from? Corinthian leather? Isn't that like a car commercial or something? 33:03 Erin: I think so. 33:04 Wes: With. Do you remember that? What's his face? The guy with the accent. 33:09 Erin: Is it Ricardo Montalban? 33:12 Wes: Yes. Corinthian women. So chorus of Corinthian women. And for the most part on her side. But they do give little hints here that they're going the other way and that not to jump us forward. But after, in what I'm calling the second act, towards the end of that, after, Jason and Medea have had this big fight, basically. And that part of it is there's a whole battle of the sexes element to this. Women versus men, women suck, blah, blah, blah. Jason does a lot of that. The chorus comes in and will say, basically, passions beyond measure bring neither glory nor greatness. But if love is tempered, there's nothing better. This happens pages 67, 68, that's the strophe and then the antistrophe basically says, yeah, may I never love a stranger. This is part of why I was emphasizing this whole idea of loving a stranger and have that inflict me with the kind of stormy moods that come with that. I'd rather have a peaceful marriage. And love should show respect for marriages where peace reigns and judge with a shrewd eye the loves of women. And then the strophe moves on to the concept of exile and homelessness. Not having friends, not having family. So these things are always in tension. The storminess and irrationality of romantic love versus the security and stability of a more rooted familial love, which is what marriage can become. Right. If it moves out of the merely the stormy romance. Let's chop up your brother phase. Let's do crimes together. If it can move beyond that phase. So you get little. Right. So this whole thing about moderation versus excess will recur in the play. But I wanted to stick with what the nurse is doing here, because she will. 190 blockheads, witless fools, that's all you can call them, those men of earlier days who thought up songs to cheer our lives at feasts and banquets and at dinner, without one of them ever inventing music of song or tuneful lyre to banish the hateful sorrows we mortals know, those that lead to death and the cruel strokes of fortune which overthrow homes. So actually, that's a little bit different. She's complaining there. That. Right. So she's making a complaint against poets and musicians, which is very significant. Playwrights, implicitly, that all you do is write cheerful songs for cheerful times. But shouldn't you do something that will help people who are in a bad mood, like Medea, people who are depressed? Can't you create a form of art that is essentially an antidepressant for times like this? And yet how much our lives would be improved if we could cure these ills by the remedy of song? So, getting us a little bit off track there, but that's sort of the end of that scene with the nurse. 35:59 Erin: Yeah, I mean, that's a little. That's her low point in terms of accidentally making sense, but a couple times. Well, actually, one of them is the tutor. The tutor has a kind of similar role, I suppose, because he says, you know, she's talking about how Jason is a traitor and the tutor says, is he so different from the rest of mankind? You made mention of this before. Has it only just dawned on you that no one loves his neighbor more than himself? Have these children not lost their father's love because he now loves elsewhere? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot in here. Again, it's like a platitude, but actually it contains a lot of interesting information. No one loves his neighbor more than himself. There's this interesting idea of who is your neighbor when you're married to a stranger, when you're married to someone who doesn't come from your own country? And don't your children at least count as closer than a neighbor? Aren't you supposed to love your children more than you love yourself? Right, so there's a. There are a lot of tangled things here that actually are quite pressing on the sort of thematic pulse point of what the play is actually about. Who does qualify as one's neighbor. Jason's lack of love for his children is actually, you know, his willingness to discard them in favor of this new wife is actually deeply unnatural. Even though the tutor seems to. To suggest here that it's natural that you just love yourself above anybody else. And, you know, it's. That's not natural. It's natural for Jason, I suppose. Right. But I don't think that's natural in any other circumstance. When it comes to at least how a father should be. Another instance of this cliche is as complicated Theme is when the nurse says to the tutor that she's upset over the break that's happened between Jason and Medea. And she's upset on Medea's behalf. She says, when the dice of life fall badly for a man, Master, a good slave's heart shares the pain. So there's this sort of idea of the downstream effect of pain as pain. That's something that befalls, goes from the top down and affects everybody in the household. 37:52 Wes: So the next thing to happen here after the chorus exits is I think we get a kind of call for, sorry. The nurse exits. And the chorus kind of takes note of Medea's lamentations from inside the house. And. And here's her call for justice. And then Medea. Okay, this is where I was accusing her of paranoia, essentially, or one of the several places. But Medea comes out of the house, and basically she says, ladies of Corinth, Corinthian women, I've come out of doors, in case you may be blaming me in some way for I know that arrogance is a common trait in people, whether it is noticed or kept private. But it happens, happens too, that some win a bad reputation for idleness Simply through keeping their own company. For there's no justice in the eyes of men. A man who has done them no harm may be hated on sight. Before they have formed a true assessment of his nature. And in the case of one who has made his home in a strange city, he must take pains not to alienate the community he has joined. Even the citizen should be criticized. If he is a law unto himself. And offends his fellows by his lack of finer feelings. So we get one of these speeches, for which Euripides, I think, is famous, where she's making a sophisticated argument to the effect that she stays to herself. She could elicit anger and ire on part of the community that she's isolating herself from either because it might be taken as arrogance. She's a law unto Herself, or it might be taken as idleness. And in general, people are quick to judgment and they may come to fear someone, even someone who may do them no harm, especially given the fact that she is a foreigner. I find that interesting. I mean, it's all realistic in a way, but also there are other reasons why people fear her at this point, which is that people are aware. At least the nurse is aware. Creon is aware that she's been threatening him. And. And the nurse seems to be aware that she might want to kill her kids. And Medea has said things like, yeah, my kids shouldn't be alive any longer. You see what I'm saying? Her kind of agitated mental state is the thing that's concerning people. But she comes up with all these ideas about it's. She might be read as arrogant, her isolate. You see what I'm saying? 40:07 Erin: Yes. Though I give more credence to her reading of the situation, I think, than you do, because I think there's evidence for it. 40:14 Wes: I think, like I said, I think it's realistic. It just leaves out. Yes, yes, it part which is that she's depressed and. 40:21 Erin: Right. And is making a lot of threats against people. And she's killed. She's killed once, she killed again. 40:29 Wes: She's capable. She's very capable. This is the point that I wanted to get to, where she makes a speech about women in general. So this starts the theme of, you know, the role of women in society, which I guess we should just wait. We could start with that next. On the next. 40:43 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 40:44 Wes: This is basically pages 56 and 57 that will start with next time around, lines 200 and. 200 and something. 40:52 Erin: Okay. 40:52 Wes: But she has a very interesting relationship with the Chorus. We'll find out. They try to dissuade her at certain points from doing things. At other points. It looks like they're inciting her or scheming with her. There's lots of interesting stuff going on in her relationship. The. The Corinthian women, the Chorus. 41:13 Erin: So. 41:13 Wes: But I guess we'll start with that next time. 41:15 Erin: Okay. 41:16 Wes: All right. So that ends part two of our series on Medea. Part three will be out in a week. Thank you. 41:24 Erin: Thank you.