The story has been dramatized in Greek by Euripĭdês; in Latin by Senĕca and by Ovid; in French by Corneille (Médée, 1635), Longepierre (1695), and Legouvé (1849); in English by Glover (1761).
Mrs. Yates was a superb “Medea.”—Thomas Campbell.
Mede´a and Absyr´tus. When Medea fled with Jason from Colchis (in Asia), she murdered her brother, Absyrtus, and, cutting the body into several pieces, strewed the fragments about, that the father might be delayed in picking them up, and thus be unable to overtake the fugitives.
Meet I an infant of the duke of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did.
Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act v. sc. 2 (1591).
Mede´a’s Kettle. Medea, the sorceress, cut to pieces an old ram, threw the parts into her caldron, and by her incantations changed the old ram into a young lamb. The daughters of Pelias thought they would have their father restored to youth, as Æson had been. So they killed him, and put the body in Medea’s caldron; but Medea refused to utter the needful incantation, and so the old man was not restored to life.
Change the shape, and shake off age. Get thee Medea’s kettle, and be boiled anew.—W. Congreve, Love for Love, iv. (1695).
Médecin Malgré Lui (Le) a comedy by Molière (1666). The “enforced doctor” is Sganarelle, a faggot-maker, who is called in by Géronte to cure his daughter of dumbness. Sganarelle soon perceives that the malady is assumed in order to prevent a hateful marriage, and introduces her lover as an apothecary. The dumb spirit is at once exorcised, and the lovers made happy with “pills matrimoniac.”
In 1723 Fielding produced a farce called The Mock Doctor, which was based on this comedy. The doctor he calls “Gregory,” and Géronte “Sir Jasper.” Lucinde, the dumb girl, he calls “Charlotte,” and Anglicizes her lover, Léandre, into “Leander.”
Medham (“the keen”), one of Mahomet’s swords.
Medicine (The Father of), Aretæos of Cappadocia (second and third centuries).