Episode 6 Flashcards
messenger panicking
-“take flight take flight by land or sea, any means of transport you can find” (she uses the air, the element of the divine, a demon, the messenger is panicky in contrast to Medea who is cool and collected)
Medea’s response to the news about Glauce’s death
responds to the death of the princess by “what glorious news you bring” “take your time” of how they lost their lives, it will give me double the pleasure to hear that they have died the foulest of deaths (gloating and loathsome, very repellent)
Messenger creates suspense
- uses delay, gives an introduction to build suspension
connectives such as “when” and “then” that connote a quick succession of events
Many full stops, panic
Messenger, what happened till she puts the veil on
the children were loved, their hands and heads were kissed (still a future for them?)
The princess kept her eager eyes on Jason (love?)
Turned in disgust at the children
Jason entreats her not to send the boys away in exile.
She could not resist the adornments (childish in contrast to Medea), promised her husband all she asked (an innocent compared to the cold calculated Medea)
Put on the robe and golden garland and looked in the mirror, laughing at the lifeless picture of her body (Grim image, she is already dead, she was nothing to the cruelty of Medea)
describes vividly the way she walked, admiring the way the robe fell as she stood on tiptoe.
Glauce’s death
changed colour, staggered back, limbs trembling, fell on the throne (mocking image) one of the maidservants perhaps thought the frenzy of pan or some other god had come upon her gave out an ecstatic cry that turned to a great howl when she saw the below (?Medea given a godlike status)
White foam from her lips, eyes starting from their sockets, flesh drained of its blood.
A pause as everyone panics, adds description as she regains consciousness but a “double calamity was advancing upon her” “poor woman”
Fire on her head, robe feeding on her skin, she fled all on fire no escape, fell to the ground misshapen. Her flesh melted from the bones like teardrops or resin. (Sad)
Creon’s death
Creon fell on the corps, which of the gods has destroyed you, “let me die with you, my child” (ironic as he tries to escape, he cares too much about his child, unlike Medea) kept tearing his flesh from his bones as he tried to escape.
`Chorus’ response to Glauce’s death
it is with justice that the god (Medea) has clamped so many disasters on JAson this day
daughter of Creon, your marriage with JAson has brought you to the house of Hades.
JASON KILLED THEM IN THE CHORUS’ OPINION
Medea convinces herself to ill the children, she knows this is their end
“Come, my cruel hand, take the sword, take it, go forward to where life’s pain begins” (Greek metaphor of the race of life, the race post that marks both the start and finish of a running race, beginning of her pain and end of their life)
Do not think of how much you love your children, how you gave them birth, forget your feelings for them this one day, then lament (by saying it she’s evoking these emotions)
Medea does not take responsibility for her actions
I am an ill-fated woman (an easy way to displace your actions, not taking responsible)
Chorus pray to the gods
turn agaisnt Medea
O Earth and radiant brightness of the Sun (divine forces that don’t intervene)
it is your divine blood that will be spilt by a mortal (descendants of the sun)
Zeus hold her back, stop her
Drive this Fury from this house (hideous divinities of the underworld, punished offences against the family, punishing Jason but destroying her own family and committing a crime against family herself, she has been dehumanised and demonised)
{MEDEA IS OFF STAGE ABOUT TO KILL THEM]
The Children cry
The children shout “help! help!” From off stage
One asks where can he run from his mothers hands,mother other says I do not know this is our death.
Call on the gods for help
The children are dead, the chorus dehumanise Medea.
WOMEN
cruel woman you must be stone or iron (dehumanisation)
Ino who kills her children then herself, driven mad by the gods
after that what horror could surprise us, Women have brought a vast history of catastrophes upon men.
JAson says Medea can only escape
Medea must fly with winged body if she is to escape the penalty.
What does JAson claim he has come to do
I have come to save my children’s life (too late)
-the chorus inform him and Medea appears in her chariot
Medea addresses JAson, the chariot’s importance
You will never lay hands on me, the chariot of the sun, gift of my grandfather (the sun did not intervene to stop the infanticide but gave Medea the deadly gifts and her get away vehicle)
