is a play by Euripides that deals with Jason's return from the events in The Odyssey. Jason enlisted Medea's help in retrieving the Golden Fleece. Medea, having become a traitor to her own people for the love of Jason, has no choice but to flee with Jason. Upon returning to Jason's home, Medea learns he has led her on and that he is married with children. Furthermore Medea is reduced to that of a servant to care for the children. She exacts her revenge against Jason by killing his children in what it one of the most horrific plays of the Greek tragedies. Infanticide is taboo in most cultures, and as a result Medea is often seen as “evil” or villainous.
The differences between the Pindaric and the Apollonian Medeas are even greater than those between their Jasons. Compared to the near-evanescence of Medea in Pythian 4 , the Medea of Apollonius is a strong and disturbing presence from the moment that she appears. When she abandons her home, she is torn apart by grief (4.34–40); she threatens Jason with the terrible consequences of his breaking of his oath to her, when it seems that he will negotiate with the pursuing Colchians (4.383–93). There is even a subtext which hints at the future rupture between Jason and Medea, since the myth of Ariadne, mentioned several times (3.997–1004, 1096–1108; 4.430–34), cannot but recall Theseus' abandoning of his foreign princess. Nevertheless, in spite of these darker characteristics of Jason and Medea, as the Argo sails into its home port of Pagasae at the end of the poem there is no mention of impending trouble. Indeed, about Medea's future career, we have learned explicitly only two things. First, according to Hera's plan, Medea will arrive in Iolcus as a kakon (κακόν), ‘bane,' to Pelias (3.1134–6). Second – so Hera assures Thetis – Medea will ultimately marry Achilles in the Elysian Fields (4.810–16).11 Whatever has gone before, the ending of the epic is serene, concluding as it does at the moment when the Argo itself bows out of the story:
Tragedy and Greek myth Buxton, Richard. In The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, edited by Woodard, Roger D, 166-189. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.