Medea
Abandoned by Jason for the king’s daughter and ordered into exile, Medea takes a revenge that destroys his new family and her own children.
📖 Read the full bookThe complete public-domain novel, paired with the StoryBites version of every chapterMedea left her father and her country, and killed her own brother, for the sake of Jason. Now, in Corinth, he has married the king’s daughter, and the king wants Medea and her two sons gone by morning. She has one day. Euripides gives her arguments about marriage and exile that are hard to dismiss, then follows her to a revenge so terrible that even the women who pity her beg her to stop.
What happens in Medea
In Corinth, Medea’s old Nurse wishes the Argo had never sailed. Medea, who came from Colchis, helped Jason win the golden fleece and tricked the daughters of Pelias into killing their father. Now Jason has married the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, and Medea lies inside refusing food and cursing Jason and even her sons. Word comes that Creon means to banish her and the boys. Medea comes out and tells the Chorus of Corinthian women how little power a wife has, and they promise silence if she finds a way to punish Jason, Creon, and the bride. Creon orders her into exile at once, saying he fears her sorcery, but grants her one day. Jason visits to offer money for the journey. Medea reminds him that she saved his life and gave up everything for him; he answers that he owes his safety to Cypris, goddess of love, and that the royal marriage will secure the family. Aegeus of Athens, returning from Apollo’s oracle, stops to greet her. He is childless, and Medea promises to cure that if he will shelter her. He swears never to expel her from his land or give her up. Medea then reveals her plan: her sons will carry a poisoned robe and golden crown to the bride, and then she will kill the boys. The Chorus begs her not to. She pretends to Jason that she has come round, and he agrees to ask his bride to let the children stay. The bride accepts the gifts. Medea wavers in a long speech to her sons, then hardens. A messenger reports that the princess died as the robe and crown burned her, and that Creon died caught in the robe as he embraced her. The children’s cries are heard from inside the house. Jason arrives to save them and learns they are dead. Medea appears in mid-air in a dragon chariot sent by the Sun, her grandfather, with the bodies beside her. She refuses Jason the bodies, says she will go to live with Aegeus, and foretells his wretched death.
Where and when Medea happens
Corinth, before Medea’s house
The translation’s scene heading names Creon’s palace, but the speeches place the action at Medea’s own doors: her cries come from inside, and her sons are killed behind them.
Creon’s palace
Never seen. The messenger’s report takes the audience inside, where the bride admires herself in her mirror before the gifts turn deadly.
Athens, the land of Erechtheus
Where Aegeus promises Medea safety. The Chorus praises it as a holy land and asks how it could receive a woman who has killed her children.
One day, after the voyage of the Argo
Creon allows Medea a single day before exile, and the whole play unfolds within it, years after she helped Jason win the golden fleece.
Chapter by chapter summary + why it matters
- 1
The Nurse’s Fears
Medea’s Nurse wishes the Argo had never sailed and reveals that Jason has married the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. Medea lies inside, starving herself and cursing, and the Nurse fears what she may do, even to her sons. The children’s attendant brings a rumor that Creon will banish Medea and the boys. Medea comes out and tells the Chorus of Corinthian women how hard a wife’s lot is, then asks for their silence if she finds a way to punish Jason, Creon, and the bride.
Why it mattersBefore Medea appears, the Nurse has already raised the possibility of harm to the children, so the audience watches everything that follows with dread. Medea’s first speech wins over the Chorus by speaking for all wives, not only for herself.
- 2
One Day’s Grace
Creon orders Medea and her sons out of Corinth at once, admitting that he fears her cleverness and her threats against his daughter. She pleads, and he grants her a single day. Alone with the Chorus, she vows to kill Creon, his daughter, and Jason, and settles on poison. Jason arrives to offer money for her exile, the two argue over what each owes the other, and the Chorus sings of the danger of love that goes past all limits.
Why it mattersCreon’s small mercy, the one extra day, is the mistake that makes the tragedy possible. The debate sets Jason’s practical reasoning against Medea’s appeal to loyalty and sworn oaths, and the Chorus judges that he has wronged her.
- 3
The Oath of Aegeus
Aegeus, returning from Apollo’s oracle and still childless, stops to greet Medea. She tells him of Jason’s betrayal, promises that her spells will end his childlessness, and asks for refuge. He agrees to protect her if she reaches his land on her own, and swears by Earth, the Sun, and all the gods. Now sure of a haven, Medea reveals her full plan: poisoned gifts for the bride, and then the death of her own sons. The Chorus begs her to reconsider and sings of Athens, asking how that holy land could welcome a woman who has killed her children.
Why it mattersAegeus’s longing for children comes just before Medea resolves to destroy her own, a pointed contrast. His oath also gives her what Jason’s broken one did not: a promise that holds.
- 4
The Poisoned Gifts
Medea tells Jason she has come to her senses, praises his marriage, and calls the boys out to make peace with their father. Jason promises them a fine future in Corinth and agrees to ask his bride to spare them from exile. Medea sends the children to the princess with a fine robe and a golden crown, gifts the Sun once gave to his descendants. When the attendant reports that the bride has accepted them, Medea swings back and forth between sparing her sons and killing them before her resolve hardens.
Why it mattersJason’s cheerful plans for his sons are dramatic irony at its cruelest, since the audience knows what the gifts are for. Medea’s farewell shows that her love for the children is real, which makes her choice more horrifying, not less.
- 5
The Dragon Chariot
A messenger describes how the princess put on the robe and crown and died as they burned her flesh, and how Creon died held fast by the poisoned robe as he embraced her. Medea takes up the sword, and the children’s cries for help are heard from inside the house. Jason arrives to save his sons from the vengeance of Creon’s family, only to learn they are dead. Medea appears in mid-air in a chariot drawn by dragons, refuses him the bodies, announces that she is going to Aegeus, and predicts his miserable death.
Why it mattersThe messenger’s speech makes the offstage deaths horribly real. By giving Medea a chariot from the Sun, the ending lifts her beyond human punishment, and readers still argue over whether that means the gods approve of her or that the play refuses to offer any comfort.
Characters and how they connect
Medea
Jason’s wife, from Colchis
A proud, brilliant woman descended from the Sun, who gave up her home and family for Jason. Betrayed and banished, she turns her intelligence to revenge and kills her own sons to destroy him.
Jason
Medea’s husband
The hero of the Argo, who leaves Medea to marry the king’s daughter and presents the match as a sensible plan for the family. He ends the play childless, cursing Medea.
Creon
King of Corinth
The bride’s father, who banishes Medea out of fear but grants her the one day she needs. He dies embracing his poisoned daughter.
Creon’s daughter
Jason’s new bride, never seen
The Corinthian princess, never named in the play. She turns away from Medea’s sons in disgust, gives in once she sees the gifts, and dies when the robe and crown burn her.
Aegeus
King of Athens
A childless ruler, son of Pandion, travelling from Apollo’s oracle to consult Pittheus of Troezen. His oath to shelter Medea gives her the refuge she needs before she acts.
The Nurse
Medea’s old servant
Loyal and frightened, she opens the play by lamenting the voyage of the Argo and warning that Medea’s anger may fall on her own children.
The Two Sons
Children of Jason and Medea
Young boys who carry the poisoned gifts without knowing what they are. They are heard crying for help offstage as their mother kills them.
The Chorus
Women of Corinth
They pity Medea and keep her secret, but beg her not to kill her children and can only lament when she does.
Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
Love / marriage
Family
Friendship / ally
Connection
Themes in Medea what the novel is really about
Revenge and its cost
Medea’s revenge is complete: Jason loses his bride, her father, and his sons. But she must destroy what she loves most to do it, and she calls herself a lady of sorrows even as she takes up the sword.
Broken oaths
Medea keeps returning to the oaths Jason swore and the gods who witnessed them. The Chorus sings that oaths have lost their grace, and the careful oath Medea asks of Aegeus shows by contrast what a binding promise looks like.
The position of women
Medea’s first speech describes marriage as buying a husband at a huge price and taking a master with him, and she says she would rather stand in battle three times than give birth once. Jason’s wish that children could come without women shows the contempt she is up against.
The outsider
Medea is a foreigner in Greece with no city or family to turn to once Jason leaves her. Jason tells her she should be grateful to live among Greeks, and at the end says no Greek wife would ever have dared what she has done.
Passion and reason
Medea understands exactly how terrible her plan is. In her great speech she says that passion has overpowered her better judgment, while the Chorus prays for love that stays within limits.
Symbols & motifs
The robe and golden crown
Gifts the Sun gave to his descendants, dressed up as wedding presents. They turn the bride’s delight in her finery, and the marriage itself, into the means of her death.
The dragon chariot
The Sun’s gift lifts Medea out of Jason’s reach. It marks her divine descent and shows that no human power can punish her.
The Argo
The ship opens the play in the Nurse’s lament and returns in Medea’s prophecy that a broken piece of it will crush Jason’s head. The voyage that made Jason a hero is also the start of his ruin.
Jason’s right hand
The Nurse and Medea both recall the pledge Jason gave with his right hand. In the false reconciliation, Medea has her sons take that same hand.
Recurring motifs
Oaths and divine witnesses. Themis, Zeus, and the Sun are called on again and again to witness promises, from Jason’s broken vows to the oath of Aegeus.
Fear of mockery. Medea repeatedly refuses to let her enemies laugh at her. It is one of the reasons she gives for killing the children rather than leaving them behind in Corinth.
The lioness. The Nurse says Medea glares at her servants like a lioness with cubs. Jason later calls her a lioness fiercer than Scylla, and Medea accepts the name.
Important quotes
“I would gladly take my stand in battle array three times o’er, than once give birth.”
“O Zeus! why hast thou granted unto man clear signs to know the sham in gold, while on man’s brow no brand is stamped whereby to gauge the villain’s heart?”
“Gone is the grace that oaths once had.”
“I will, for that will stab my husband to the heart.”
“At last I understand the awful deed I am to do; but passion, that cause of direst woes to mortal man, hath triumphed o’er my sober thoughts.”
“Dost think a woman counts this a trifling injury?”
The ending of Medea, explained
Medea ends with the killer triumphant and the betrayer destroyed. After the messenger describes the deaths of the princess and Creon, Medea steels herself to kill her sons, and the Chorus hears the boys calling for help and wonders aloud whether to go in. Jason arrives hoping to save the children from the anger of Creon’s family and is told they are already dead. When he orders the doors forced open, Medea appears in mid-air in a chariot drawn by dragons, the bodies beside her. The chariot comes from the Sun, her grandfather, and puts her beyond Jason’s reach. She refuses to give him the bodies. She will bury them herself in the sacred ground of Hera on the Cape, so that no enemy can pull down their tombs, and she will establish a solemn feast and rites in Corinth, the land of Sisyphus, to atone for the killing. Then she will go to the land of Erechtheus to live with Aegeus, and she foretells that Jason will die a wretched death, his head crushed by a broken piece of the Argo. Jason is left begging to touch his sons and calling on the gods to witness, while the Chorus observes that the gods often bring about what no one expects. Readers disagree sharply about what this means. Some see a wronged woman whose revenge, however horrifying, answers a real injustice, and they point to the Chorus’s early sympathy and Jason’s self-serving arguments. Others see a woman whose pride and hunger for revenge swallow her love for her children, and they note that she herself calls the deed unholy. The chariot raises a further question. Because it comes from the Sun, some take it as a sign that the gods stand behind her. Others read it as the play’s refusal to deliver justice at all, since the mother who kills her children escapes and the only punishment left is Jason’s grief and her own.
Common misreadings
MythMedea kills Jason.
ActuallyJason survives. Medea kills his bride and Creon with the poisoned gifts and kills her own sons, then predicts that Jason will die later, struck by a piece of the Argo.
MythThe children are killed in front of the audience.
ActuallyThe murders happen inside the house. The audience hears the boys cry for help, and their bodies are seen only when Medea appears in the chariot.
MythMedea is caught and punished at the end.
ActuallyShe escapes in a dragon chariot sent by the Sun, her grandfather, and announces that she is going to live under the protection of Aegeus, who has sworn to shelter her.
Test yourself
1. Why does Creon banish Medea?
Creon admits he is afraid of her cleverness and of her threats against the bride.
2. What does Medea ask Creon to grant her?
She begs for a single day to plan her exile, and that day is all she needs.
3. What does Aegeus swear to Medea?
He will not take her from Corinth, but swears to protect her if she reaches his land.
4. What gifts do the children carry to the bride?
Medea smears the robe and crown with poison, and they kill both the bride and her father.
5. Where does Medea say she will bury her sons?
She refuses Jason the bodies and says she will bury them in Hera’s sacred field so no enemy can disturb their tombs.
Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know
Nice work.
Medea helped Jason on his famous quest and left her own home to be with him. Years later, in the Greek city of Corinth, Jason leaves her to marry the king’s daughter. The king orders Medea and her two sons to leave, but she talks him into giving her one more day. Medea is so hurt and angry that she decides to punish Jason in the worst way she can think of. She sends the new bride a poisoned dress and crown, which kill the bride and her father. Then she kills her own sons so that Jason will have no children left. At the end she escapes in a flying chariot pulled by dragons, and Jason is left alone with his grief.
Compare & connect the story universe
Antigone
Another Greek tragedy in which a woman defies a king, told by a different playwright about a different Creon.
A Doll’s House
A wife confronts a husband who puts his position first, and her final choice shocks everyone around her.
Othello
Another tragedy of an outsider in a proud city whose marriage ends in murder, driven by a burning sense of betrayal.
Macbeth
A killer argues aloud with his own conscience before the murder, and the audience watches the decision harden.
Adaptations. Médée (1797, Opera by Luigi Cherubini), Medea (1969, Film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini).
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- Why does Medea kill her children
- What happens to Medea at the end of the play
- Why did Jason marry Creon’s daughter
- How does Medea explore the theme of revenge and its cost?
- How does Medea explore the theme of broken oaths?
- What is the central conflict in Medea, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how Euripides develops the theme of revenge and its cost in Medea. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the robe and golden crown in Medea. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does Euripides use messenger speech to shape the reader’s experience of Medea?
- Some readers assume that medea kills Jason. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- Why does Medea kill her children
- What happens to Medea at the end of the play
- Why did Jason marry Creon’s daughter
- What is the role of Aegeus in Medea
- How does Medea kill Creon and his daughter
- Is Medea a victim or a villain
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. Quotations and the full text are from Euripides’ Medea (431 BCE) in the English prose translation by Edward P. Coleridge (The Plays of Euripides, George Bell and Sons, 1891), as transcribed on Wikisource. Both the play and this translation are in the public domain.