Ah, Women!

My contribution to the celebration of International Women’s Day!

History, Mythology, Philosophy, Sex! There are thousands, if not millions of women who “stood out” for me, who have inspired me, who have stopped me stunned in my tracks but, for obvious reasons, I’ve chosen these two: Phryne and Medea. They have something vital in common! Tell me what you think that is!

The Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the life and deeds of St. John the Baptist on the 6th of June during which day, priests and a lot of believers go to a nearby beach. There, after a mass, the priest throws a specially made cross into the blue ocean and immediately swimmers (once only men but increasingly now also women) dive in to find it and to bring it out. I don’t know what the prize is nowadays but once it was simply a divine blessing and a certainty of sorts that the year would be a “lucky” one for the winner.

It is my belief that the greater part of this ecclesiastical tradition has been borrowed from the ancient Greek celebration of Poseidon, the god of the sea, an effort to ask Poseidon to help the seafarers, especially during the winter months. Poseidon, you might know, hated Odysseus since the hero blinded one of Poseidon’s sons, Polyphemus and so the god gave him the worse possible “nostos” (“home journey”). But that’s another story.

During this ceremony to Poseidon, certain things were uttered about the god and his powers, sacrifices of goats and chickens would be had (the very wealthy would sacrifice cows or bulls) and many men would jump into those waters and swim with great dedicatory gusto, to show the god that they are his loyal and serious devotees. During those celebrations no women were allowed to take part and enjoy themselves in the same manner.

One year however, during these celebrations in Athens, a most beautiful woman dove into the Aegean, naked. Her name was Phryne and was a well known “hetaira.” The word means “partner” or “companion,” women who usually were highly educated prostitutes who were rented by wealthy male Athenians. They were usually slaves or foreigners who were not only beautiful but also able to take high involvement in conversations of quite some intellectual substance. Beauty interested the ancient Greeks very much, indeed they were very keen students of beauty. Evidence will be found in the many marvellous sculptures and buildings they built around the city. The Golden statue of the goddess Athena in the Acropolis temple -and the temple itself of course, were just two such paradigms.

Phryne was gorgeous to say the least, exquisitely so, to get a bit closer to the truth, with all parts of her body perfectly in harmony with each other so as to make mortals think that surely a god or goddess had a hand in shaping her body. During that day in Athens, she, too, ungarmented herself and jumped into Poseidon’s Blue Kingdom. And she, too swam with a similar degree of dedicatory gusto as did all the men and one could see, that she, too was truly enjoying herself!

The priests and all the men were furious!

The following day she was brought to the court. Here we have a bit of a problem with accuracy but only whether she was represented by a lawyer or did she represent herself. In any case, the “apology” was the same, as was the result. Phryne’s lawyer asked her to disrobe for the judges, an act which she had mastered many years earlier. Phryne disrobed.

“Your honours,” said her lawyer, “Poseidon’s day is the day when we make offerings to the god of the sea, so that the god will treat our seafarers kindly. We offer him sacrifices of our best animals so that the scent of their burnt skin would please him. Phryne decided to offer the god her body, the body you see before you. Will any of you suggest that this mighty god would be offended by her offering?”

There was no waiting for the answer. Case dismissed cried out one of the judges. Case dismissed!

Now let me bring to that court, Euripides’ Medea, another woman subjected to much inquisition.
Euripides took an old myth (from Apollonius Rhodius) and twisted it a little. I will get to the “twist” in due time.

Medea, a princess of Colchis met Jason, a prince of Iolcus. This happened when Jason went to Colchis to steal the Golden fleece.

A long river with many tributaries all lead to the King of Iolcos, Pelias (usurper of the throne of Iolcos) telling Jason, to whom the throne rightly belonged, that before Pelias allows him to sit on that throne, he must go to Colchis and from there steal the golden fleece and bring it here, to Iolcos. This, Pelias explains, is because the Golden Fleece had the ability to increase the fertility of the land and to cure the ills of its people. Jason could not disagree to such a fruitful task and so the very long story of the “Argonautica” (Apollonius Rhodius) begins. We will go to a shorter version of it.

When Jason landed in Colchis, he first asked the king (Aeetes) to let him have the golden fleece, a huge fleece which was guarded by a huge dragon with fire in its mouth but who also suffered from acute insomnia, or sleep apnoea or some such ailment that kept him awake 24/7, as they say. The dragon could never sleep! An ideal guard!

Aeetes agreed but, he said to Jason that before he gave him the fleece, Jason had to perform several tasks; tasks which were impossible for a human to accomplish. However, from the palace windows the princess’ eye caught sight of Jason and immediately the beautiful Medea “fell in love” with him. She would help him complete those tasks. I won’t go into describing those tasks in any detail due to the length of their description, suffice it say that, with Medea’s help, Jason was indeed able to accomplish them and to accomplish also the stealth of the fleece from under the dragon’s nose! (Medea, being Hecate’s priestess) knew also how to mix a good sleep-inducing herbal tea which she gave to the dragon.

Jason and Medea then jump onto the ship which was named “Argos,” because that was the shipbuilder’s name and also because the word means “speedy”. Medea also grabbed her little brother and the ship’s oars smashed the sea. Not long after that, Aeetes, Medea’s father discovered what had happened and so he, too jumped on the fastest ship he had and began the pursuit. As they were getting closer, Medea killed her brother and started to dismember him and to throw each of the boy’s parts into the sea whenever her father’s ship got too close to theirs. Aeetes had to stop and collect those bits so that he could give his son a proper burial. This, of course gave the argonauts the time needed to escape Aeetes.

End of the Colchis part of the story!

The story in fact continues for at least one thousand more pages but, for obvious reasons, I shall jump to the point where Euripides takes over many months later, and not in Iolcos, where Jason should be king and Medea the queen but in Corinth where neither got what they desired. Jason is still not a king. He is still married to Medea who is still not a queen and by now, Jason is also the father of two boys. The wish to be a king, ate at his liver. By now he was getting desperate and prepared to do things that Medea would not welcome.

In the Palace of Corinth lived a very beautiful princess, Glauke (aka Glauce). She, Jason thought, would make him a king. He would marry her and after a little while, when her ageing father, Creon died, the throne would be ready for his rear end to rest upon it. Jason would become king of Corinth. So, wanting to do the “done thing,” Jason asked the king for Glauke’s hand in marriage. Creon agreed and the news didn’t displease Glauke. It did, however, displease Jason’s current wife. He gave Medea all sorts of excuses why it would be a very good thing for everyone, including the boys, if they became members of the palace; excuses which unfortunately Medea scoffed at.

Jason was not discouraged by that and the marriage with the Princess became imminent.

Medea, now very angry, takes out of her trunk a gown and crown, gifts of her grandfather, Helios (god or titan of the Sun), applies some ointment over both of them, puts them both in a pleasantly wrapped box and gives the box to her two boys, telling them to give it as a gift to Glauke.

It so happened that Aegeas (aka Aigeas) was passing through Corinth and doing so he met Medea. Medea asks the king of Athens what was he doing there and he admitted that he was going to a friend (another long and beautiful story) to remove whatever it was that had stood in the way of him being able to have children. Medea reassured him that she could do that herself if only Aegeas would give her safe asylum. Aegeas agreed.

Euripides here gives us two warnings:

“Stronger than lover’s love is lover’s hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make,” and “Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour…”

Medea’s two boys return to Medea and tell her that they did what she asked of them.

The events that follow require us to be moral judges. Fair, no matter what.

The princess wears the gown and the crown and the ointment on these begin to burn her flesh. Her father runs to her and hugs her and so he too is burnt alive.

The next thing the audience hears is the screams of the two boys and their words “I am being killed!” And the next thing they see is Medea on a golden chariot (another gift from her grandfather Helios) floating above her house, the corpses of the boys bent over the walls of that chariot.

At the front of the house is Jason, madly trying to open the door to get in. He does not manage this and so he screams at Medea.

At least he could ask for their corpses. Medea refused.

Now for that “twist” which Euripides made to the myth. The myth had it that Medea left without the boys and that the Corinthians tortured them and killed them. Euripides, it seems didn’t like that end. No mother, he thought would allow this to happen to her children. Rather she would relieve them of that horror by killing them herself; and that’s what he had Medea do.

Now we need a “good” lawyer, though what the word “good” means might be problematic.

I taught this play to adults of U3A (University of Third Age) and every time I asked if they thought that Medea committed a murder and therefore be punished severely. The first and quick answer was that of course Medea had committed murder and she should be punished severely; but then, I asked again, this time adding, “what would have done, knowing that the children would be found and would be treated as the original myth said they were?” If, in other words, there was no other way that they could be spared this treatment. All the students rose their hands and said that they, too, would do as Medea did, ie kill their children, “out of love!”

The rest of the lecture would always be a moral discussion of what the word “love” truly meant and whether the deed was indeed that of love.

I now ask if there’s a “good” lawyer in the house, “good” meaning one who looks at the morality of the deed and not what the legal scrolls say. Is it euthanasia and if Medea’s deed could be considered that and if it did, was it a mitigating deed of an adequate force?

Lawyers, please respond: Was Medea a murderer? Is the title “murderer” of the same description as that of the title “baker?” Medea had killed before -her own little brother for one and the king Pelias for another, elsewhere also but if we are to forget about those murders and think only of this murder, of her two boys, where are we morally?

Bakers wake up every morning and go straight to their kitchen to bake their bread or croissants etc. Is the word “murderer” a description of someone who murders someone every day, as an occupation, or does it mean something different?

Lawyers please help!

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