The Witch Who Betrayed All for Love and Destroyed All for Hate
Princess of Colchis, granddaughter of the sun god, and a witch of the highest order. For Jason she betrayed her father, killed her brother, and forsook her homeland; cast aside, her revenge was just as total. Euripides’ tragedy Medea remains, after more than two thousand years, one of the most chilling roles ever put on a stage.
After helping Jason steal the Golden Fleece, she boarded ship with her brother and fled. As her father’s fleet gained on them, she killed her brother and scattered the body across the sea — knowing her father would have to stop and gather it. For love she burned every path of retreat behind her for a foreigner.
When Jason took a new princess bride, Medea sent a poisoned crown and robe that burned both bride and king to death. Then she made the most horrifying choice in the history of theater: she killed her own two children by Jason to leave him without heirs, and fled through the air in the sun god’s dragon-chariot, denying him both revenge and a burial.
Euripides’ Medea has her kill her own two children, the most widely known version; but an earlier local Corinthian tradition held that the children were actually killed by the enraged people of Corinth, with Medea framed by later ages. Euripides’ stage version is more sensational and more "usable" than the original legend, and gradually eclipsed it to become the "standard" in the popular imagination.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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