Medea and the Mandrake

Jeremy Miranda (University of Arizona)

The Aegeus scene in Euripides’ Medea has generally been criticized for its seeming irrelevance to the remaining portion of the play. Aristotle’s famous censure of the scene as being without reason, ἀλογία (Poet. 1461b 19-21), surely originated the attack that has persisted in commentaries and articles to the present day, though there is a possibility that Aristotle was referring to a fragmented play of Euripides. The scene posits Aegeus, the Athenian king, passing through Corinth on his way to Troezen to receive advice on a prophecy regarding his childlessness. Medea, on the road by coincidence, greets him as a friend. A deal is struck, wherein Aegeus agrees to protect Medea from Creon and Jason, provided Medea cures his condition. She states: τοιάδ’ οἶδα φάρμακα “I know such drugs” (718). As nearly as I can tell, this line has largely been ignored, with no attempt having been made to identify exactly which drugs Medea has in mind. I submit that the drug is none other than the mandrake; further, that the meaning of the scene hinges on this identification.

Structurally, the scene is literally central to the play: 662 lines precede it, 651 lines follow. With an eye towards the parallels established within the play, and within the corpus of Euripides as a whole, there is little doubt that the playwright intended this scene to play a crucial role. Aegeus’ character is balanced perfectly against that of Medea; the contrast is so strong, in fact, that the scene easily allows one to read the relationship between Medea and Jason through it. In recent years, attempts have been made to justify the worth of the scene, usually either for suggesting to Medea a more sinister way of harming Jason, namely, by killing his children instead of him, or for providing her with shelter after the deed has been done. Neither of these explanations goes far enough to permit the emphasized position in the play. Modern editors have also dismissed Aegeus’ nationality as a means of boosting Athenian morale during the period of tension that preceded the second Peloponnesian war, but this view is oversimplified. The merit of Aegeus’ Athenian status lies in its ability to encourage for Euripides’ audience the reading of Medea as l’autre, the Other. Though Medea hails from Colchis, her connection with the Persians, known formerly as the Medes, is obvious from her name and her familial relationship with Perses. From there, the leap to Greek associations of the Persians with dark magic is not far, especially when buffered by the infamy her aunt, Circe, enjoyed, whose drug of choice, moly, has been identified as mandrake. The plant, for the Greeks, was a fertility drug (Genesis 30.14), a hallucinogen, and a highly lethal poison. Though modern pharmacology only supports the last two, it should still be remembered that the most potent of all effects was the incredible lore which surrounded the drug.

There are many reasons to suggest that the mandrake is the drug Medea offers to Aegeus; at least one commentator has read the plant as the poison that the fatal robe at the end of the play is steeped in. If both of these readings are accepted, then Aegeus will have gone a long way towards countering Aristotle. Linking Medea and the mandrake, both life-providing, both life-depriving, is more than beautiful enough to earn its keep.