For its holy streams renowned
Can that city, can that State
Where Friendship’s generous train are found
Shelter thee from public hate,
When, defiled with horrid guilt,
Thou thy children’s blood hast spilt?
Think on this atrocious deed
Ere the dagger aim the blow.
But at the end of the play the Sun-god, the grandfather of Medea, places his chariot at her disposal in order to facilitate her journey to Athens,[272] the Corinthian gods accepting, as an expiation, the establishment by blood-stained hands of a festival and mystic rites![273] Jason is foredoomed to death,[274] and we are told that Medea will escape the Erinnyes of her children![275]
If Euripides, as Wedd maintains,[276] habitually contrasts the morality of the legends with that of his own day, we can only say that here the contrast is so obvious that it need not have been indicated at all. But is such a contrast really indicated? Does the futile protest of the Chorus represent the Athens of Euripides, and does the action of Aegeus typify the Athens of a barbarous past? If not, how do we explain the facts of the drama? In our view, it is Jason, not Medea, who is the villain of this play. Medea had left her home, her kindred, everything that life held dear, for the love of a Greek adventurer. Jason never taunts Medea with the slaying of his father. He had commanded it. Driven forth as an exile from the land of Thessaly, she clings to her blood-stained mate. In Corinth he deserts her, and she is ordered to go away—anywhere, somewhere, into the great unknown. To the distracted mind of a desperate woman who sees herself deserted in a friendless world comes then the image of a two-edged sword, begotten of slighted love and sexual jealousy. Love rejected, love transferred, transforms Medea from a faithful friend into a dangerous enemy. Her children, erstwhile the sweetest pledges of affection, are now so many goads which stimulate her vengeance. The conflict of passions which rages in Medea’s breast is depicted by Euripides with matchless skill. It proclaims her at once human and insane. Subjectively therefore she need only plead guilty to extenuated homicide, to slaying in a passion; and if such a plea were accepted she would be entitled in Greek law[277] to the sanctuary of exile. Why then does she bind Aegeus by an oath? We suggest that the explanation is to be found in the distinction between the objective or legal aspect of an act and its subjective or psychological aspect. It would have been difficult for Medea to have established her plea in any court, formal or informal. Aegeus might not have given her the benefit of the doubt, as Theseus did to Oedipus, and Medea could take no risks. Furthermore, this legend has an archaic setting, and portrays a Greek story of a period which was antecedent to the establishment of regular State courts of justice and to codified international law. This explains why Aegeus observed his oath. There was no authority of an international religion to declare that it was not binding. Viewed in this light, the protest of the Chorus in our last quotation is a confirmation of our hypothesis. They actually approve of the slaying of Kreon and of his daughter, though they regret that they should have suffered for Jason’s infamy. They say[278]: