Visualizing Pain in Tragedy: The Death of Glauke

Mary Ebbott (College of the Holy Cross)

Elaine Scarry’s work on the representation of physical pain in literature has suggested that pain resists its own representation, resists language itself. When it comes to describing someone else’s pain and not one’s own, she argues, the need for a delicate balance of tact and immediacy, together with the instability of the language and metaphors used to describe pain, make the effective realization of another’s pain a precarious endeavor. Greek tragedy frequently portrays physical pain, and sometimes does so onstage as characters express their agony (think of Hippolytos in Euripides’ play or Herakles in Sophocles’ Trachiniai, for example). But another common way tragedy presents pain is through the words of another, often a messenger, who describes the pain he has witnessed. In this paper I will examine closely the messenger-speech in Euripides’ Medea (1136–1230), which describes the death of Glauke resulting from Medea’s gifts of a poisonous dress and crown, as an example of the expression of physical pain in Greek tragedy. Because this is indeed a report of that pain by a witness, and not a direct expression onstage by the victim herself, my argument focuses on the descriptive details used to convey Glauke’s suffering and on whether the description successfully communicates her experience to the audiences, internal and external.

In the messenger’s speech, language having to do with sight is prevalent, as is typical in messenger-speeches (de Jong 1991). There are even multiple viewers in this report: we hear not only what the messenger himself saw, but also another bystander, and, most remarkably, what Glauke looked at as well as what she looked like. A central question, then, concerns the connection between sight and understanding someone else’s pain. What sights they actually saw are significant for how pain is expressed: what physical changes are visible, what they are compared to in metaphors and similes, and how sensations become manifest, such as burning pain becoming visible as flames.

I will investigate whether or not her pain is conveyed successfully through the reactions of the characters within the drama: the messenger himself, Medea, and the chorus. Medea feels pleasure (1127–1128; 1132–1135) but the messenger expects her to feel fear instead (1129–1131). The first reaction of the chorus is to affirm that Jason deserves these losses, but then, in disputed lines (1233–1235), to pity Glauke for her pain and death. Are these reactions reliable guides to that of the audience: should they feel the Aristotelian emotions of fear and pity, and if they do, has the messenger successfully conveyed Glauke’s pain? If the lines are to be excised, do both Medea and the chorus fail to feel Glauke's pain (does the chorus feel pleasure as well?), and if so, how are we to understand the audience’s reactions? I will address these questions as I consider this feature of tragic diction—the narration of bodily experience—and the possible advantages of telling over showing such experience.

Works Cited

de Jong, Irene J.F. 1991. Narrative in Drama: The Art of the Euripidean Messenger Speech. Leiden.

Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain. Oxford.