Medea, << mih DEE uh >>, was a woman in Greek mythology who had magical powers. She helped the hero Jason capture the Golden Fleece, the famous golden wool of a flying ram.
Medea was the daughter of Aites, the king of Colchis. The Golden Fleece hung in a grove of trees there, guarded by a dragon that never slept. Medea fell in love with Jason when he and his companions, the Argonauts, came to Colchis to capture the fleece. She put a spell on the dragon so Jason could take the fleece.
Medea and her brother, Apsyrtos, sailed from Colchis with Jason and the Argonauts. When Aites tried to overtake them, Medea killed Apsyrtos and cut him into little pieces, which she threw into the water. The king stopped to recover the pieces of his son’s body, and Jason and Medea escaped.
The expedition traveled to Iolkos, the Greek city where Jason had been born. There, Medea plotted against King Pelias, who had seized the throne of Iolkos from Jason’s father. She told the king’s daughters that she had a magic charm to make the king young again. However, Medea withheld the correct ingredients. The daughters tried the magic on the king, and he died. The king’s son forced Jason and Medea to flee, and they settled in the city of Corinth.
Jason and Medea had two children and lived happily in Corinth for 10 years. But then Jason fell in love with Glauke, also called Creusa, the daughter of the king of Corinth. He left Medea and prepared to marry Glauke. Medea gave her rival a magic robe that burned Glauke to death when she put it on. Medea then killed the two sons she had by Jason and fled to Athens.
Medea lived with Aegeus, the king of Athens, and they had a son named Medus. When the king’s first son, Theseus, came to Athens, Medea feared he would replace Medus as the heir to the Athenian throne. She tried to poison Theseus, but Aegeus learned about the plot and banished Medea. Medea returned to Colchis, where she lived the rest of her life.
Medea is the central character in tragedies by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides and the Roman author Seneca. Her story is also told in Médée (1635) by Pierre Corneille of France and in Medea (1946) by the American poet Robinson Jeffers.
