Medea
Euripides(-431)
Extract
I would rather stand three times in the front of battle than bear one child.
A woman who dismembered her own brother and betrayed her father's kingdom for the sake of a Greek adventurer discovers that his gratitude has an expiration date. Euripides staged this tragedy in 431 BC and won only third prize, perhaps because Athens was not ready for a heroine whose logic is impeccable and whose conclusions are unbearable. Medea is no madwoman. She reasons with terrifying precision, measuring her suffering against the cost of vengeance and choosing to pay in the currency that will bankrupt her utterly. The infanticide is not a collapse of reason but its most appalling triumph. She escapes in the chariot of the sun, beyond all human justice, having become something neither pity nor law can reach.
If you loved this
Shakespeare stages the same intersection of love, betrayal, and murder, but gives the violence to the man instead.
Brontë writes love with the same destructive force, and Heathcliff's vengeance is just as methodical.
Sophocles gives another woman an impossible choice and watches her refuse every alternative.