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Laura Abrahamsen
1
For in favor of stage production, see L. Herrmann, Le Theatre de S?
arguments
neque, Paris 1924, 152-232. For arguments see O. Zwierlein, Die
pp. against staging,
Rezitationsdramen S?necas, Meisenheim 1966. While other scholars have considered
the question, these two remain the centra] statements on the issue
of production. W. M.
Calder HI, "Seneca: of Rome', Class. Journ.72,1976, pp. 1-11, sug
Tragedian Imperial
that the plavs were in private theatres, in the manner of "home movies"
gests performed
(p. 5).
2
Susan Roman Iusti the Time to the
Treggiari, Marriage: Coniuges from of Cicero
Time of Ulpian, Oxford 1991.
riage (nunc primum soceris sponse volentibus) all indicate that this
new union is iustum matrimonium, unlike Jason's marriage to Medea.
Parental consent is explicitly present and conubium is implied with
the contrast to the first The phrase invita... dextera
marriage. implies
that ajfectio maritalis, the intent to be married, was absent from his
first marriage. Jason and Creusa certainly
meet the minimum age re
and are not within of
quirements, clearly prohibited degrees kinship.
In the eyes of the Chorus and presumably the Roman audience, Jason
and Creusa have no impediments to a
legal marriage.
But Medea is an impediment. She views herself as an obstacle be
cause, in her mind, she is still Jason's wife; the other characters of the
do not her claim to the status of wife, but they
play acknowledge legal
understandably do fear her supernatural powers and legendary crimi
Medea's to retain her as Jason's co
nality. desperate struggle identity
niunx, while that identity is denied by the other characters of the play,
is underlined at a level as well as a dramatic level by
linguistic
Seneca's use of marital Seneca uses coniunx as his over
vocabulary.
whelming word of choice for "spouse" 4, perhaps because of its non
as well as its metrical convenience, in a way that accords
specificity,
with the prevalent literary usage and marks Medea's struggle. Medea
calls herself coniunx five times and Jason once; she also refers to her
coniugium with Jason two times. Only twice do other characters apply
the word coniunx to Medea 5.
3
All from Seneca's Medea are taken from Costa's 1973
quotations Cambridge
edition (C. D. N. Costa, Seneca. Medea, Oxford 1973). Variations from Zwierlein's
1986 OCT are noted (0. Zwierlein, L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae, Oxford 1986). The
quotations from Euripides' Medea follow Diggle's 1984 OCT (J.Diggle, Euripidis Tabu
lae, Oxford 1984).
Translations for all Latin and Greek are my own.
passages
4
Treggiari 1991, p. 6.
?
The first w. 102-106, was discussed above. Jason does
passage, immediately
play.
The mutually exclusive perceptions of the marriage that Medea
holds emerge in her references to herself as a coniunx. Her use of the
a as can
word always has negative cast, if she claim the title only in
anger and bitterness: at v. 23, part of her curse upon Jason is that he
should want her for a wife (me coniugem optet) 8; at v. 418, she notes
that he was afraid to say a final word to her; at v. 501, she calls herself
niugis nulla est fides / nihilque superest opibus e tantis tibi ("The
Colchians have departed, there is no trust in your husband / and noth
8
Zwierlein 1986, opto for optet in p. 23, Axelson's sugge
prints following
stion.
9
At v. 144, she blames Creon as one solvit-, in her last to Jason
qui... coniugia plea
to flee Corinth (w. 447-489), she calls her sacrifices for him coniugi testes mei (v. 481).
At v. 740 f. she calls for a graviorpoena to be on socero mei
imposed Sisyphus, coniugis
(v. 746).
10
Helen Fyfe, An Analysis of Seneca 9sMedea. Seneca Berwick-Victoria
Tragicus,
1983, pp. 77-93, 80.
remains w. In this
ing from your great riches for you", 164-165).
statement the Nurse the marital bond between Medea
acknowledges
and Jason, but like the Chorus, she recognizes
the union only to note
its rupture.
Seneca's use of the Roman of marital alliance
vocabulary clearly
creates a of exclusion for Medea the Since
pattern throughout tragedy.
five of the seven applications of the word coniunx to Medea in the
play
come from Medea's own mouth, it becomes part of the tragic conflict
that the other characters of the play identify Medea by parameters
other than her marital status, a situation which motivates her violence.
Seneca gives his Medea further language that underlines her belief
that she is legitimately married to Jason. At w. 488-489, she requests
the return of the bloody she to their union: tib? patria
dowry brought
- sua
cessit, tib? pater frater pudor / hac dote nupsi. redde fugienti
- to
(amy home-my father, my brother, my chastity all have fallen you
/with such a dowry Iwed. Give the exile her due"). The definition of
her losses has escalated. At w.
277-278, her father and brother are
they have become her dowry, and Medea will cooperate only if her
is returned to her. The return of such losses is of course
dowry impos
sible, but through her angry logic, the murder of her children will be
come her means of regaining her father, brother, homeland and inno
cence. Her words here underscore the notion that her fury stems from
a sense of -
legal having been betrayed she has given much, but gotten
in return n.
nothing
Seneca has situated his Medea, however, in a context in which she
is the only one who believes her marriage to be All of
legally binding.
Corinth celebrates the wedding of Creusa and Jason, and no character
-
but Medea (and once, briefly, Jason cf. n. 5, above) uses
language
that contradicts the existence of the new union. Furthermore, Seneca's
use of socer and gener, about a
secondary relationships brought by
primary marital bond, also tightens the pattern of exclusion and inclu
sion. The words denote what we call in English uin-law" relation
As of kinship ties, they create bonds between charac
ships. language
ters which can serve to exclude others. Euripides the
barely employs
Greek in his Medea. at vv. 990-991 does
equivalent vocabulary Only
the Chorus address Jason as the uson-in-law of kings":
play.
In Seneca's Medea, the use of gener and socer establishes a close
12
The is at v. 179 f.; it is worth that nowhere in it does he refer to
speech noting
18
K. R. Bra die v, Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History,
New York-Oxford 1991, pp. 133-135.
19 see
For matrimonia iniusta and their effects, Treggiari 1991, pp. 49-51. The
definition that emerges from Treggiari's careful consideration of the evidence makes it
that Medea could he viewed as a concubina, as Jason does name her as '"wife"
unlikely
once and the union did produce children (Treggiari 1991, pp. 51-52).
20 see
For three case histories from the late Republic, 1991, Ch. 6: 'Dislo
Bradley
in the Roman For the imperial see M. T.
cation Family', pp. 125-155. period, Raepsaet
Charlier. Ordre s?natoriale et divorce sous le haut-empire: un de l'histoire des
chapitre
mentalit?s'. Acta class. Debrec. 17-18, 1981-82. pp. 161-173.
21
Bradley 1991, p. 131. See also Treggiari 1991, p. 467 f for the fate of children
after a divorce; and B. Rawson, The Roman in The Family in Ancient Rome:
Family',
New Ithaca 1986, 1-57, 35-36. Jason proposes at v. 544 f.
Perspectives, pp. explicitly
that he should keep the children, and the scene, his character does not ima
throughout
a future without the children.
gine
22
Xreggiari 1991. p. 49.
ty"
to convey the essence of the importance of cognatic relationships
in the Roman
family. The bonds that Seneca has his Medea emphasize
to the bonds Hallett finds Roman
correspond emphasized throughout
literature.
are also bonds that recall an earlier, more model
They primitive
of kinship The choice to sacrifice one's marital relatives to
reckoning.
one's blood relatives has a in
avenge long tradition classical literature,
from Nestor's story of Meleager and Althaea in Book Nine of the Iliad
through Herodotus' Histories 3, 119, to the famous vexed passage of
905-920: there are women in classical
Sophocles' Antigone myriad
myth and literary retellings of myth who choose to honor brother and
father over husband and children. It is predominantly a female act,
until Aeschylus has Orestes use a twisted version of the reasoning to
justify killing Clytemnestra to avenge Agamemnon. It the in
requires
28
That Seneca has Medea make such an uover the top" demand (w. 488-489),
which she not expect to be fulfilled,
surely does is part of his characterization. What Me
dea wants is and her character is driven to extremes in order to
recognition, consistently
get it. Like the first wife who put her husband
through medical school, Medea wants her
so-called "crimes" to be as acts of love. Her to Creon at w. 204
acknowledged speech
251 this as her defense, to no avail.
employs argument
24
Hallett n.
(above, 16).
25 Hallett
(above, n. 16), p. 320.
These lines make clear the source of Medea's rage: she is not a
but an sister and daughter, like Procne or Al
jealous wife, avenging
thaea, who finds in her maternity a connection to her
repellent enemy,
26 The
Furies she invoked as witnesses of her wedding in her first speech (w. 13
have now arrived to over its final dissolution.
18) preside
She has fulfilled the demand made for the return of the dowry
of her back at w. 488-489. As Medea sub
composed family literally
tracts from Jason's
family, she adds
regaining
to her own, those mem
bers she has
longed for throughout the play.
Although he tries to reason with her, she will hear nothing of it. In
her logic, two deaths are one for her brother and the other
required,
for her father 28. Medea will be satisfied only if she leaves him wdth
as he tried to leave her in Corinth. Her furor reaches its cli
nothing,
max (w. 1012-1013):
27
R. The Ghost', Class, et Mediev. 41, 1990, pp. 151-161,
Edgeworth, Eloquent
that the fratri of line 957 refers to and pater Jason.
suggested patrique frater Absyrtus
When Medea o? frater and pater, however, as at v. 488, she means and
speaks Absyrtus
Aeetes.
28
G. Lawall, 'Seneca's Medea: The Elusive of Civilization*, in Arktouros:
Triumph
Hellenic Studies Presented to B. M. W. Knox, ed. G. Bowersock et al., Berlin-New York
1979, sees the two murders as first the crimes she commit
pp. 416-426, 425) avenging
ted for the sake of the Argo and second, Jason s desertion. Seneca states in the
explicitly
text, however, that she equates the children with the loss of her two relatives,
priman'
father and brother (v. 957).
Here Seneca
effectively portrays the extremity of Medea's position
in her quest for vengeance. As Charles Segal notes, pignus used to
mean "child" evokes the idea of a love-pledge between husband and
wife. Her willingness to draw the sword against herself is a "literal
and metaphorical out' of her tie to Jason" 29. She would be
'rooting
moved to violence her own womb if it were necessary, in order
against
to
deprive Jason of all possible blood relations 30. It is a neat summa
tion of the motivation behind her perceived reconnection with her vir
status. the for her natal
ginal princess Through ongoing preference
Medea is forced to show in Seneca's she has reversed their
family play,
situations. He is completely alone, but she has reconnected
original
with her roots.
Thedrama ends with a Medea the desolate
triumphant taunting
Jason, as Creon and the Corinthian chorus mocked Medea at its
just
beginning. Her parting question, coniugem agnoscis tuam? (v. 1021)
is the capstone for the character's use of coniunx in the play. The
monumental act of
murdering her own children, the act that defines
her mythic can force Jason to Medea's
identity, finally acknowledge
status as his wife 31. It is also the she can end the
only way marriage.
She cannot accept divorce on Roman terms; Medea, mad but tri
Cleveland
29
Ch. 'Boundary Violation and the Landscape of the Self in Senecan
Segal, Trage
dy, Antike und Abendland 29, 1983, pp. 172-187, 178.
30
Her words are extreme, and they have some extreme
certainly inspired interpre
tations. n. the lines as an affirmation of ma
Barthouil (above, 11), pp. 507-509 reads
ternal over the and finds her in the murders "un
power patriarchy pleasure orgasme".
-
them in a similar fashion her threat to abort is the threat to remove
Segal interprets
any proof of male sexual domination from her body (C. Segal, Language and Desire in
Seneca's Phaedra, Princeton 1986, p. 147 n. 31). I find the theme of sexual power dif
ferences less than that of human connections.
developed
31
Medea is for external confirmation of her at v. 1021; in the
only looking identity
vision that led up to the killing of the children, she has already affirmed herself: Medea
nunc sum Elisabeth and Denis read this final scene as Medea's self-de
(v. 910). Henry
struction by Furor (Denis and Elisabeth Henry, The Mask of Power, Chicago 1986, pp.
113-114).