Opening Passages: From Medea (not counting the translator-added stage instructions):
NURSE. How I wish the Argo never had reached the land
Of Colchis, skimming through the blue Symplegades,
Nor ever had fallen in the glades of pelion
The smitten fir-tree to furnish oars for the hands
Of heroes who in Pelias's name attempted
The Golden Fleece! For ten my mistress Medea
Would not have sailed for the towers of the land of Iolcos,
Her heart on fire with passionate love for Jason;
Nor would she have persuaded the daugthers of Pelias
To kill their father, and now be living here
In Corinth with her husband and her children.... (p. 26)
From Hippolytus (not counting stage instructions):
APHRODITE. Strong am I among mortals, not without a name,From Helen (not counting stage instructions):
the goddess Cypris, who in heaven too is known.
And of those who live and look upon the light of the sun
from Pontus to the boundaries that Atlas set,
I give honour to the ones who reverence my power,
and those whose thoughts of me are arrogant I crush. (p. 78)
HELEN. These are the shining virgin streams of the river Nile
who, with the white snow melting, takes the place of rain
from heaven and waters all of Egypt's level fields.
Proteus was, while he lived, the ruler of this land
King of Egypt, though he lived in Pharos' isle.
He for his wife took one of the numphs of the sea,
Psamanthe, who had once been the wife of Aiacus. (p. 131)
Summary: In Medea, we find Jason and Medea settled in Corinth with their young children, years after their fateful meeting during the quest of the Golden Fleece. Just before the beginning of the play, however, Jason came to an agreement with the ruler of Corinth, Kreon, for Jason to marry Kreon's daughter, Glauce. Medea, fiery in temperament due to being the granddaughter of the Sun, is in a raging fury over it. Hearing of Medea's threats against Glauce, Kreon, and Jason, Kreon comes to her to inform her that she will be exiled. Medea, however, begs him to give her one day to make arrangements; he notes that he is likely making a mistake, but he grants it to her out of mercy for her children. Jason comes to Medea next, in order to promise her that he will make provision for her and the children, and to try to explain himself. Jason argues that she fails to appreciate her true position, how she was brought from a barbarian land to Greek civilization; he has not agreed to the marriage in order to have another woman but in order to gain the political protections for himself and the children that would come with such a marriage, and he hoped, and still hopes, that over time the two families would be united together properly, the children of his wife, Glauce, and the children of his mistress, Medea simply dismisses him as a coward. Medea then meets an old friend, Aigeus, the king of Athens, and gets a promise from him that if she can make it on her own to Athens, he will provide protection for her and her children.
The preliminaries all done, Medea springs her plan into action. Convincing Jason to lend his support, she sends her children with a robe and a coronet to Glauce, purportedly to ask Kreon to spare the children from exile. They turn out to be poisoned with a terrible poison, and Glauce dies soon after she puts it on; Kreon also dies trying in desperation to tear the robe off of his screaming daughter. Medea then kills her children. Jason attempts to confront her, but Medea has a trump card; she rises above the house, which she has set on fire, in a chariot from her grandfather Helios. Saved by the deus ex machina -- which, in a remarkable twist, is herself -- she is entirely out of his reach, and escapes to Athens.
We are inclined to take Jason's defense of his actions as mere bluster, and certainly he is trying to spin the situation; but I think it's important to recognize that within the framework of the story, Jason is not obviously wrong. Their position in Corinth is precarious, and being on Kreon's good side is seen to be essential, given that Kreon can exile anyone he pleases. But he has also, as Medea's exit shows, meddled in divine things, crossing a boundary that was not his to cross. Ironically, it is Kreon's willingness to show mercy that leads to the deaths of his daughter and himself; he falsely thought that Medea could not be a serious threat in only a day. In the end, in fact, none of the Greeks really understood the powers with which they were dealing; they saw in Medea a barbarian woman with a reputation as a witch, and thus utterly underestimated the real power Medea held.
In Hippolytus we find ourselves in Troezen, where Theseus is enduring a temporary exile with his son Hippolytus. Aphrodite tells us that Hippolytus has sworn himself to chastity in devotion to Artemis and spurned her interests, and that she is bringing disaster upon him. Phaedra, Theseus's wife and Hippolytus's stepmother, is in Athens, and when Hippolytus previously visited her, Aphrodite made her subject to a powerful and overmastering passion for him. Recognizing this as wrong, Phaedra is attempting to starve herself to death to avoid disgracing herself. Phaedra's nurse attempts to rectify the situation by telling Hippolytus of the problem, but this is what precipitates the disaster. Ashamed that her secret is known, Phaedra hangs herself. Theseus on his return to Athens discovers her body and a letter on it accusing Hippolytus of raping her. Theseus is furious; he has received from his father, Poseidon, the power to apply three terrible curses to anyone he wishes, and he uses one of them against Hippolytus. Hippolytus protests his innocence, but Theseus sends him to exile. He is barely even out of the city when the curse takes effect, and a bull roars out of the sea, violently startling his horses so that Hippolytus is fatally wounded. At the end, Artemis appears to Theseus and tells him that Hippolytus was innocent and fated to die by Aphrodite; no god can interere with the firm purpose of another god, but she will revenge herself by harming one of Aphrodite's favorites. The dying Hippolytus has his last meeting with his father, forgiving him, and thus it all ends.
In Helen, Helen is in Egypt, having been whisked away by the goddess Hera, who replaced her with an eidolon. The idol-Helen was the Helen for whom the Trojan War was taught; Helen, meanwhile, has been stuck in Egypt, powerless to change the fact that her name everywhere is that of an adulteress responsible for endless deaths. The king of Egypt who had protected her, Proteus, has recently died and been replaced by his son, Theoclymenus, who intends to marry Helen and has a policy of killing any Greek man on sight. A man named Teucer happens to come to Egypt and gives Helen news of the Trojan War. I find it fascinating that he's the character who is chosen to give Helen this news. The Trojan War was especially brutal for Teucer; he was related to people on both sides, being the half-brother of Ajax on the Greek side and the nephew of King Priam on the Trojan side. He was particularly successful, killing at various times at least twenty of the top Trojan heroes, and narrowly avoided being killed by his cousin Hector twice. The Trojan War was brutal for everyone, but no one knew the brutality of it better than Teukros. From Teucer, Helen learns that Menelaus and his wife Helen have vanished; they may well be dead. She also learns that her brothers, Castor and Pollux have either become gods or committed suicide. We see here one of the fascinating things about the play -- all the major characters have a double story. Helen both is and is not guilty of precipitating the Trojan War; Menelaus both has and has not reclaimed her; Helen's brothers both are and are not gods. Theoclymenus's sister, Theonoe, is a prophetess; Helen goes to see her to learn the fate of Menelaus.
Menelaus and idol-Helen meanwhile have shipwrecked nearby and Menelaus learns from an old woman, to his astonishment, that there is someone living there who claims to be Helen. This is literally incredible to him, but everything he learns about her matches up. Helen meanwhile has learned from Theonoe that Menelaus is still alive, and while she is wishing for him to come to her, they run into each other. They cannot deny each other's resemblance to their spouse, but it's an easier sell for Helen, who has just had divine word that he is alive, than for Menelaus, who has just left his wife sheltering in cave after having been journeying with her since the end of the war he fought to retrieve her. Menelaus's final word as he turns to leave is interesting:
MENELAUS. My sufferings at Troy convince me. You do not.
Menelaus has literally suffered to reclaim Helen at Troy; many great Greek and Trojan warriors died in the attempt to reclaim Helen at Troy; the Greeks found themselves at times contesting with gods to reclaim Helen at Troy; so, regardless of how she looks and sounds, regardless of what people say, regardless of how many baffling mysteries are left in the air, how can Helen possibly have been in Egypt the entire time? Having made his choice, Menelaus begins to return to idol-Helen, but fortunately for him the gods are not quite done messing with events, as a messenger meets him with the astounding news that idol-Helen has ascended into the sky after having told everyone that she was not the real Helen. This is about as good a proof as one could get of such strange events, so Menelaus returns to Helen.
Interestingly, this is not the end of the story, because Menelaus and Helen have to escape from Egypt. Helen actually tries to get Menelaus to flee, since Theoclymenus will kill him if he learns that he is in the land, but Menelaus refuses. Instead, they swear to live and die together. Since death seems the only option left to them, they consider how to face their deaths. But Theonoe meets them and, of course, knows immediately what the situation is. The problem Theonoe faces is that she too has a double story of sorts. Hera wishes Menelaus and Helen to return home together. Aphrodite opposes their return. She has an obligation to her brother to tell him of the situation, but this would lead to their deaths. Since she knows what will happen, her choice is the one that will decide matters: either she must rule for Hera and against her brother and Aphrodite, or for her brother and Aphrodite but against Hera. She is inclined to tell her brother, but Helen begs her in the name of justice, and Menelaus in the name of honor, and she agrees to cast her vote for Hera and hope that Aphrodite will be satisfied with prayer. What she does not tell them, but certainly knows, is that by doing so she has agreed to her own death, because her brother will certainly put her death when he finds out, which he will.
Now protected from discovery for a time, Helen and Menelaus form a plan. Helen tells Theoclymenus that a messenger arrived bringing news of the death of her husband at sea. She will marry him, but before she can do so, she must symbolically bury him at sea, so that despite the circumstances, funeral rites may be properly done; she'll do that with the help of the 'messenger', who is Menelaus himself. Theoclymenus agrees, but, of course, now that they have a boat, the two escape. Theoclymenus realizes what must have happened and tries to order his sister's execution. His servants balk somewhat at this, risking their own lives, but before things can spiral out of hand, Helen's brothers, Castor and Pollux, appear as gods, and, faced with divine revelation that he should neither pursue Helen nor kill his sister, Theoclymenus is at least intelligent enough to concede. His concession speech perhaps indicates that his concession is a bit grudging:
THEOCLYMENUS. ... Let me rejoice with you in Helen's noble mind,
a thing that in most women is not found at all. (p. 192)
With the interference of The Twins, the double stories finish snapping back into one final story. Helen is innocent. Menelaus has his wife. Castor and Pollux are gods. Theonoe fulfilled her responsibilities. The play is a tragedy. But the tragedy is what was there all along, in the double paths, which brought endless suffering; resolved back to one, Menelaus and Helen have come through to the other side. For now, at least. As Euripides always reminds us, you can never tell with the gods. If there's one thing that the tales teach us, it is that the gods are never giving us the story we think they are giving us.
Favorite Passage:
HELEN. And are the sons of Tyndarus alive or not?
TEUCER. Alive and not alive. There are two stories here.
HELEN. Which is most likely? [aside] Oh, the pain that I go through.
TEUCER. The brothers are made gods, they say, and turned to stars.
HELEN. Good news indeed! What does the other story say?
TEUCER. That for her sister's sake they stabbed themselves and died.... (pp. 135-147)
Recommendation: Highly Recommended, all. If I had to rank them, I would rank Medea as most recommended, followed by Helen (I was very impressed this reading by the handling of the double-story theme), then Hippolytus. But these are fine distinctions.
*****
Euripides, Three Great Plays of Euripides, Rex Warner, tr., (Meridian: 1994).
