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LOVE, GRIEF, FEAR, AND SHAME: MEDEA'S INTERCONNECTING EMOTIONS IN BOOK 3 OF APOLLONIUS’ ARGONAUTICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2021

Ed Sanders
Ed Sanders*
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
*
Ed.Sanders@rhul.ac.uk
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Extract

In its justly celebrated Book 3, the fast pace of action elsewhere in Apollonius’ Argonautica slows dramatically, such that Medea's erotic infatuation with Jason, and the consequent effects of this infatuation, become the central episode of the entire epic. Indeed, the role that Medea's erôs (erotic love, desire) plays in Book 3 is so great that one scholar has opined that ‘It is not the heroic as such but rather the erotic that becomes the real theme.’ However, it is not just erôs that shapes this book, but also Medea's internal battle with a number of other emotions that erôs engenders: principally grief, fear, and shame. Assessing the impact of each and understanding their interplay is complicated, however, because the text frequently presents them as occurring multifariously, or in quick succession – for example switching from erôs to grief, back to erôs, to fear, back to grief, to pity, and to grief again, all within a few lines (443–71). Accordingly I propose to disaggregate her emotions, looking at each in turn wherever it occurs, before considering how Apollonius presents them as interconnecting, and what such interconnections add to his overall presentation of Medea – especially by contrast to that of Euripides, from an emotional perspective the most important precursor.

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Research Article
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Greece & Rome , Volume 68 , Special Issue 1: The Emotions of Medea , April 2021 , pp. 45 - 60
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Introduction

In its justly celebrated Book 3, the fast pace of action elsewhere in Apollonius’ Argonautica slows dramatically, such that Medea's erotic infatuation with Jason, and the consequent effects of this infatuation, become the central episode of the entire epic. Indeed, the role that Medea's erôs (erotic love, desire) plays in Book 3 is so great that one scholar has opined that ‘It is not the heroic as such but rather the erotic that becomes the real theme.’Footnote 1 However, it is not just erôs that shapes this book, but also Medea's internal battle with a number of other emotions that erôs engenders: principally grief, fear, and shame. Assessing the impact of each and understanding their interplay is complicated, however, because the text frequently presents them as occurring multifariously, or in quick succession – for example switching from erôs to grief, back to erôs, to fear, back to grief, to pity, and to grief again, all within a few lines (443–71).Footnote 2 Accordingly I propose to disaggregate her emotions, looking at each in turn wherever it occurs, before considering how Apollonius presents them as interconnecting, and what such interconnections add to his overall presentation of Medea – especially by contrast to that of Euripides, from an emotional perspective the most important precursor.

To connect the many references to each emotion, I use a variant of a ‘script’ analysis. Scripts have, in one guise or another, long been used by scholars in the social sciences to examine how emotions work in their own, and other, languages, cultures, and societies. They are sometimes called emotional experiences, events, concepts, or processes, instead of scripts, but the concept is similar: in essence, a meta-story that explains how real-life instances of an emotion will play out.Footnote 3 Emotion scripts were first significantly used in Classical scholarship by Robert Kaster, to explore the scenarios covered by the Latin terms verecundia, pudor, paenitentia, invidia, and fastidium.Footnote 4 Kaster rejected using English-language alternatives (or a range of alternatives) to these Latin terms, in favour of long meta-explanations, or scripts. For example, paenitentia occurs thus: ‘Upon seeing that (some actual) X falls short of (some notionally preferable) Y, I have an unpleasant psychophysical response comprising distress (e.g. dolor) and the desire to undo that-X-falls-short-of-Y, where X-falling-short-of-Y is/is not “up to me”, and involves considerations of utilitas (material well-being, or the like)/honestas (worth as a person/“virtue”, or the like).’Footnote 5 This sort of script requires multiple re-readings to make sense of, and to my ear does not sound very different from the kind of ‘natural semantic meta-language’ (NSM) scripts used by the linguist Anna Wierzbicka, which have been rightly criticized by Douglas Cairns as overly complicated and necessitating an understanding of English that Wierzbicka had intended NSM to obviate.Footnote 6 I have critiqued Kaster's approach elsewhere, and have suggested two important changes: adopting memorable English-language ‘labels’ for scripts, making them easier to think with and use in analysis; and incorporating insights from psychology and other social sciences directly into the analysis of specific emotion (there envy and jealousy) episodes in classical texts.Footnote 7

One such insight is that scripts can be broken down into stages, the most important being: antecedent conditions, which our senses perceive and interpret; stimulated psychological feelings and physiological changes; verbal and physical actions that these impel; ‘defences’ or coping mechanisms; and resolution. Or, in simple English: causes or triggers; feelings; bodily symptoms; things we say, do, and think; and the emotion ending.Footnote 8 In literary descriptions, we can add similes, metaphors, and imagery that describe the feelings and symptoms.Footnote 9 I propose to apply this technique, of looking at the individual stages of an emotion script, to Medea's erôs and other emotions in the Argonautica – from the proleptic introduction of her tale of erôs by the narrator (3.1) until she flees the palace (4.40), following which her emotions and agency change considerably.

Medea's erôs

The primary cause of Medea's erôs is enchantment by Aphrodite or Eros (3–5, 33, 85–6, 941–2, 973–4), and, more specifically, being shot by Eros’ arrow (26–8, 142–3, 275–87).Footnote 10 We might generically describe this cause as ‘epic’, since god-given emotions frequently drive epic plots.Footnote 11 Divine causes are traditional for Medea's erôs, though the method varies.Footnote 12 But we find other causes too in Argonautica: looking (or imagining looking) at Jason; Jason's beauty, grace, and manner; his voice or words; and his movements as he stands, sits, and walks (443–5, 451–8, 956–61, 1140–1). Such triggers are more typical of lyric poetry.Footnote 13

Medea's erôs (so labelled at 297, 1018, 1078, 4.213) engenders a whole host of symptoms: psychological, physiological, or somewhere in between. She feels longing (described as πόθος [33, 86, 752], εέλδεσθαι [956], or ἵμερος [653]), δυσίμερος (i.e. lovesickness: 961, 4.4), and ἄτη (798, 973, 4.4, 4.62, 4.449), an extreme, usually heaven-wrought, strong emotion that overwhelms senses and reason.Footnote 14 Medea pejoratively refers to her lust (μαργοσύνη: 797, 4.375).Footnote 15 Her erôs is destructive (297) and an affliction (πῆμα: 4.4, 4.63, 4.445). Its psychological effects include distress (289, 961), forgetfulness (288–90), lack of concentration, and listlessness (948–51). Her noos is in anguish (298; literally uncaring [of everything else]) in her cares for Jason (471).Footnote 16 It creeps like a dream, fluttering after his footsteps (νόος δέ οἱ ἠύτ’ ὄνειρος ἑρπύζων πεπότητο μετ’ ἴχνια νισσομένοιο, 446–7). Concerns are stirred in her thumos (451–2), which is flooded with sweet pain (γλυκερῇ δὲ κατείβετο θυμὸν ἀνίῃ, 289–90), and melts within her (χύθη δέ οἱ ἔνδοθι θυμός, 1009). Her phrenes are tossed about in her breast (οἱ ἄηντο στηθέων…φρένες, 288–9), and are warmed and melt (ἰαίνετο δὲ φρένας εἴσω τηκομένη, 1019–20), like dew on roses in the sun. Her soul flies up to the clouds (ψυχὴ γάρ νεφέεσσι μεταχρονίη πεπότητο, 1151).

Physiologically, the arrow of erôs burns like a flame in her heart, and curls secretly underneath it (286–7, 296–7). The flame is likened to that springing up on kindling (291–5).Footnote 17 Her heart shatters repeatedly in, and drops from, her chest (954, 962). Her cheeks turn now pale, now red with heat (297–8, 963), her eyes mist over like those of a dying person (962–3), and she is unable to move her feet (964–5). On coming finally to talk with Jason, she – like he – is first speechless (967; cf. 284), then on the point of gabbling unstoppably (971–2; cf. 1011–12), like wind rustling branches (970–1).Footnote 18 Behaviourally, she looks for him (951–3), looks at him – sometimes from behind a veil,Footnote 19 or from under her eyelids (287–8, 444–5, 1023) – or casts down her eyes (1008–9, 1022, 1063). Her erôs also affects her thoughts and dreams: she thinks about his manner, clothes, and movements (451–6); imagines him already dead (460–1); and dreams that he secretly wished to marry her (617–23), and that she chose him over her parents (630–1).

When Medea's sister first begs her to help Jason, this liberates her to do what she deeply desires, and her heart leaps for joy (τῇ δ’ ἔντοσθεν ἀνέπτατο χάρματι θυμός, 724). On feeling this joy, her skin turns red as it warms with pleasure, and mist covers her eyes (φοινίχθη δ’ ἄμυδις καλὸν χρόα, κὰδ δέ μιν ἀχλὺς εἷλεν ἰαινομένην, 725–6), symptoms we also saw for erôs. When Jason later hints she might be Ariadne to his Theseus and praises her,Footnote 20 she smiles heavenly sweetly (1009) and feels uplifted (1010), her eyes sparkle (1018–19), and her eyebrows are radiant (1024). These symptoms likewise suggest joy, and when Jason admits to feeling love (φιλότης, 1129) for her too, her thumos melts inside (1131), as it did with erôs. Her joy is thus closely interconnected with her erôs: it is a natural concomitant of erôs achieving reciprocation.

Medea's other emotions

However, erôs makes Medea feel other emotions that are not as pleasant. The first of these is fear – referred to by τάρβω (459, 4.16), φόβος (633, 4.11), φοβέω (633, 636), δείδω (637, 753), and δέος (742). It is caused initially by the thought that Jason might be killed in the challenge her father set (459–60, 753–4). She pretends to her sister that her fear is for her nephews’ lives, since they are in Jason's band (688–9). She dreams that Jason and her parents quarrel and ask her to adjudicate; when she immediately chooses Jason, her parents’ grief and anger wake her with a start (627–32). This suggests that she fears her father too, confirmed when she says that she fears devising plans to save Jason behind her father's back (741–3). After Jason's success, Hera causes her to feel most grievous fear (4.11) of her father's violent rage, leading her to flee the palace.Footnote 21

Medea's fear again includes psychological symptoms, physiological symptoms, and behaviours. She feels that fear ‘seizes’ her (742). Her phrenes wave around (638), and her thumos is tossed about (688) – both verbs used for things blown by the wind. Her thumos needs to be re-collected in her chest (634–5), whence it must have fled. The heart in her breast flutters wildly and trembles (755, 760) – Apollonius employs a simile about a sunbeam bouncing around a house, reflecting off water surfaces (756–9).Footnote 22 Fear makes her shake (633); her anxieties keep her awake (751–2); and when she does sleep she suffers from destructive or baneful dreams (618, 691).Footnote 23 Early in Book 4, fear is felt in her heart (4.11), her eyes fill with fire, and she has a terrible roaring in her ears (ἐν δέ οἱ ὄσσε πλῆτο πυρός, δεινὸν δὲ περι βρομέεσκον ἀκουσαί, 4.16–17). Her fear induces the behaviours of clutching repeatedly at her throat and pulling at her hair (πυκνὰ δὲ λαυκανίης ἐπεμάσσετο, πυκνὰ δὲ κουρὶξ ἑλκομένη πλοκάμους, 4.18–19), and finally fleeing (τρέσσεν ἠύτε, 4.12; φέβεσθαι…ἀτυζομένην, 4.22–3).

A second painful emotion is grief, or its variant forms sorrow or anguish. It is referred to by ἄχος in the singular (446, 464, 764) and plural (709, 784, 836); ἀχέω (659), or its perfect passive participle ἀκηχεμένη (672, 1104, 4.92); ἀσχαλάω (710); ἄλγος (644); ἀλεγεινός (764, 1103 – both times in the superlative); ἀνία in the singular (290) and plural (764, 777, 1103); κηδοσῦναι (462); μελεδήματα (471, 752); πένθος (675); and ὀδύνη (762). Five different causes are given for her grief. The first is at Jason's likely death during the impossible task set by her father. This is not stated directly, but the first statement of grief – that her heart smoulders with ἄχος (446) – occurs as Jason leaves the palace, immediately after having the task laid on him. The second cause is imagining him already dead (460–1). The third comes when she determines to commit suicide, to avoid the choice of watching him die or betraying her father: she bitterly laments her fate (αἴν’ ὀλοφυρομένης τὸν ἑὸν μόρον, 806). The fourth, occurs when, having decided not to commit suicide but to help him, she imagines his future life far away from her (1069–76). The final one appears when she imagines that in that future life he will forget her (1111–16).

In grief, cares smite Medea's noos (471) and sorrow her phrenes (675), and she feels pity (462, 707, 761).Footnote 24 Grief is felt and smoulders in her heart (446, 1103). It burns inside (661; cf. 446, 762), and makes her suffer (675). It distresses her in the chest, smoulders through the skin and around the sinews at the base of the neck, sinks inside, and smites the senses (ἔνδοθι δ’ αἰεὶ τεῖρ’ ὀδύνη σμύχουσα διὰ χροὸς ἀμφί τ’ ἀραιὰς ἶνας καὶ κεφαλῆς ὑπὸ νείατον ἰνίον ἄχρις, ἔνθ’ ἀλεγεινότατον δύνει ἄχος, ὁππότ’ ἀνίας…πραπίδεσσιν ἐνισκίμψωσιν, 761–5). Medea weeps (463, 657, 1065), her eyes are wet/sullied with tears (673, 1161), tears flow from her eyes (761) and down her cheeks (461–2, 804–5, 1064; cf. 1077). She laments (460, 709, 804), wails (662, 708), and lies on the bed and scratches her cheeks (κέκλιτ’…δρύψεν δ’ ἑκάτερθε παρειάς, 672).

Medea's final named emotion is shame, referred to primarily by αἰδώς (649, 652, 653, 681, 742, 785, 1068), as well as αἶσχος (797) and αἰδέομαι (1023). It again has multiple causes: that her sister will realize her feelings for Jason (648–55); at acting behind her father's back, in ways he will not like (741–3, 785); imagining the Colchians reproaching her for betraying them for Jason's sake (791–801); and at feeling erôs (649–55, 681–7). Like fear, shame ‘seizes’ her (742). We can infer it is felt in her heart, since at one point Medea – using the sort of epithet Helen uses in Homer – says she will make her heart doglike, or shameless (θεμένη κύνεον κέαρ, 641).Footnote 25 It makes her blush with maidenly shame (τῆς δ’ ἐρύθηνε παρήια⋅ δὴν δέ μιν αἰδὼς παρθενίη κατέρυκεν, 681–2) and cast down her eyes (1008, 1063). It stops her from acting (652–5) and from speaking (684–6), and makes her lie (687).

By way of conclusion, it is worth reflecting on what we might call Apollonius’ emotional body, grouping what we have seen for each part of the body mentioned, adding references from other books and for other characters than Medea where applicable. The phrenes are located in the breast (289), and are affected by erôs (289, 1019), fear (638, 810), sorrow (675), and joy (4.92–3)Footnote 26 – which suggests by all emotions. They are capable of being tossed around as if by wind (288, 638), and warming and melting (1019–20). The prapides are associated with both erôs and grief (761–5). They can refer to the diaphragm (per LSJ), or to the mind or senses, which suggests the latter are also located in the chest.Footnote 27 The psuchê, too, is located there (1016), though – at least metaphorically – it can leave the body under the influence of erôs (1016, 1151). The thumos is also located in the breast, though it too can leave it (634–5, 4.1061), again perhaps metaphorically. It is associated with erôs (290, 451), joy (724, 1009, 1141, 2.761, 2.878, 4.1126, 4.1628), sorrow (451, 1.1289, 2.863, 4.1061), shame (4.1047), fear (1.979, 4.53), and anger (4.8–9).Footnote 28 It can be blown about as if by wind (688), flutter (4.23), shake (4.53), whirl (4.1061), leap (724), and melt (1009, 1131, 4.914). Finally, the heart (kêr, kear, or kradiê) is also, not surprisingly, located in the chest (755, 760, 954, 962). It feels erôs (287, 296–7), fear (4.11), grief (446, 644, 954, 1103, 1.274, 4.351), and shame (641). It can go cold (4.1279), burn (287, 296, 661Footnote 29), smoulder (446), flutter (755, 760), break into pieces (954), and drop from the breast (962) – once again clearly metaphorically. Finally, the noos – which Apollonius usually uses to mean intention or will, but sometimes mind: its location is never mentioned, but it feels cares (471) and carelessness (298), and is capable of creeping like a dream and fluttering (446), and whirling (4.3).

Comparing all these side by side suggests that, for Apollonius, the psuchê, phrenes, thumos, and heart (by various names) are all located together in the breast. They can feel a number of physiological sensations (burning, smouldering, warming, melting, chilling) and they move in a variety of ways (blown as if by wind, fluttering, shaking, whirling, leaping, breaking, and so on), usually metaphorically. Since all (including the noos) are associated with a range of emotions, that locates the emotions firmly in the breast as well (and suggests that the noos, too, is located there). Given the large number of times that emotions are mentioned in connection with the kêr, kear, kradiê, or thumos (one of whose meanings is heartFootnote 30), this suggests that for Apollonius, the emotions are in fact located specifically in – or at least strongly associated with – the heart.Footnote 31 There is a Homeric echo here, which most likely reflects the genre of the poem.Footnote 32

The interrelationship of Medea's emotions

Having looked at a number of emotions individually, I now turn to what interconnects them. To a greater degree than is usual in archaic or classical texts, Medea's emotions in the Argonautica are presented as highly interconnected. In Euripides’ Medea, her many emotions are presented fairly separately. Her long-ago erôs for Jason is only occasionally mentioned (Eur. Med. 8, 330, 433, 530, 627–8). In the introduction, we hear reports by those onstage of her rage and hatred (90 ff.), interspersed with Medea's grieving laments from inside the house (111 ff.) – the emotions kept even physically apart on- and offstage, until the chorus enters with reports of her grief (131 ff.). This emotion, so prevalent in the introduction, almost disappears after Medea comes on stage. Her anger is referred to twenty-one times in the play (orgê: 121, 176, 447, 520, 615, 870, 909; cholos: 94, 99, 172, 590, 898, 1266; thumos: 108, 176, 271, 865, 879, 883, 1056, 1079), and her hatred twelve times (misos: 311; stugos: 36, 103, 113, 463, 1374; echthos: 117, 290, 467, 1374; echthra: 16, 45), only rarely together. Pride is also occasionally referred to: either claims that she has been dishonoured (20, 33, 696, 1354) or concerns that people might laugh at her (383, 404, 797, 1049, 1355, 1362). We should also note that, from her first entry, Medea presents herself as in control of her emotions (unlike in Argonautica), even when she consciously chooses to let them overrule her reason (1078–80). While her jealousy stems directly from her erôs – that is, without erôs she could never have felt jealousy – even this connection has to be teased out of the text; it is not obvious.Footnote 33

By contrast, the Argonautica tells us explicitly about the interconnection of Medea's emotions.Footnote 34 The first intimation of this comes after Jason's first audience with Aeëtes, observed by Medea, shortly after she is shot with Eros’ arrow. As Jason leaves the hall, Medea gazes at his beauty and grace from under her veil, and her heart smoulders with grief (444–7). Returning to her room, she broods on all her concerns, which the forces of Eros stir up (ὅσσα δ’ Ἔρωτες ἐποτρύνουσι μέλεσθαι, 452).Footnote 35 After she imagines a vision of his manner and clothes, how he sits and walks, the narrator tells us (456–62):

οὐδέ τιν᾽ ἄλλον ὀίσσατο πορφύρουσα
ἔμμεναι ἀνέρα τοῖον⋅ ἐν οὔασι δ᾽ αἰὲν ὀρώρει
αὐδή τε μῦθοί τε μελίφρονες, οὓς ἀγόρευσεν.
τάρβει δ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ αὐτῷ, μή μιν βόες ἠὲ καὶ αὐτὸς
Αἰήτης φθίσειεν⋅ ὀδύρετο δ᾽ ἠύτε πάμπαν
ἤδη τεθνειῶτα⋅ τέρεν δέ οἱ ἀμφὶ παρειὰς
δάκρυον αἰνοτάτῳ ἐλέῳ ῥέε κηδοσύνῃσιν.

As she pondered, she did not think that any other man was like him, and ever in her ears rang his voice and the honey-sweet words he had spoken. She was afraid for him, lest the oxen or else Aeetes himself would kill him, and she lamented as if he were already dead and gone, and in her grief tender tears of most profound pity ran down her cheeks.Footnote 36

Here the reasons for, and symptoms of, her erôs lead directly to a statement of fear for him (because of his perilous task) and grief at his expected passing, as well as pity for him – presented as a symptom of her grief. All these emotions are intimately connected to her erôs: arguably, none would be felt – or not to the same degree – had she not felt erôs for him, and therefore we can say that erôs is one of the causes of these other emotions. These interconnections are found in many other places in the poem too. At one point, Medea cannot sleep because her pothos (longing, yearning, desire) for Jason causes her to feel cares, and fears of his death (πόθῳ μελεδήματ’…δειδυῖαν, 752–3).Footnote 37 She feels both shame and dread when she contemplates acting behind her father's back (αἰδώς τε στυγερόν τε δέος, 742).

But it is the interconnecting causal link between love and grief – namely, knowing that the object of her love is going to die – which is presented most clearly and most frequently. As well as the passages we have already seen, we hear again that the tireless forces of Eros stir up pity, pain, and grief (δάκρυ δ’ ἀπ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἐλέῳ ῥέεν⋅ ἔνδοθι δ’ αἰεὶ τεῖρ’ ὀδύνη …, ἔνθ’ ἀλεγεινότατον δύνει ἄχος, ὁππότ’ ἀνίας ἀκάματοι πραπίδεσσιν ἐνισκίμψωσιν Ἔρωτες, 761–5). This is picked up once more in Book 4, when the narrator invokes Eros in a manner reminiscent of Hesiod, calling him cruel and a great affliction, from whom come destructive quarrels, groans, laments, and boundless other pains (σχέτλι’ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν, ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ’ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε, ἄλγεά γ’ ἄλλ’ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν, 4.445–7). We see a particularly striking connection of erôs and grief when Medea's erôs leads her to act as if she is already married to Jason – his imminent supposed death also having happened, leaving her as a newly widowed newly-wed (656, 662). Just as if she really were newly arrived in a house after her wedding, she is ashamed before the servants lest they mock her, and so cannot mourn properly, instead weeping silently on her bed (σῖφα μάλα κλαίει, 662).Footnote 38

Medea's emotions do not, however, only connect causally – one causing the another, or both having the same cause. Sometimes they are in conflict, and then they give rise to one final emotion. We see it first when she is frightened (636) at the danger to the man she loves, with pain in her heart (644), so intends to see her sister to try to help him. Yet, en route to her room, she stops, held back by shame (αἰδοῖ ἐεργομένην, 649). She goes forth and back multiple times: each time she goes forward, she is restrained by shame; each time shame holds her back, she is impelled on again by desire (ἤτοι ὅτ’ ἰθύσειεν, ἔρυκέ μιν ἔνδοθεν αἰδώς⋅ αἰδοῖ δ’ ἐργομένην θρασὺς ἵμερος ὀτρύνεσκεν, 652–3). We see Medea here trying to act in accordance with two emotions with opposite aims, and she vacillates – indeed, almost oscillates – between the two.Footnote 39 When Chalciope comes to see Medea in her room shortly after, the same emotional competition arises: maidenly shame restrains her (αἰδὼς παρθενίη κατέρυκεν, 681–2), the bold erôtes drive her forwards (θρασέες γὰρ ἐπεκλονέεσκον Ἔρωτες, 687). The vacillation previously physically affecting her feet now affects her ability to talk: at one moment speech rises up to the tip of her tongue, at the next it flies down into her breast – with this repeated many times (683–6), as her pedal vacillation was.

The third instance where this occurs is in a long episode where Medea is trying to decide whether to act to help Jason, to act and then commit suicide to avoid her father's anger, to commit suicide first to avoid the decision, or to simply do nothing but endure in silence (766–9 ff., to 821).Footnote 40 She starts with a binary choice – to help Jason or commit suicide – but feels cowardly (771 – she does not say for which course). Her senses are at a loss (772). She feels misery which burns (773), and much-lamenting sorrows (777). She wants to help him but does not know how, or how she would then behave (779‒82), and calls herself evil-fated (783). She tries to reject shame (785), and resolve her dilemma by deciding to both save him and then kill herself (786‒90); but she then reflects again on how people will reproach her, which will be shameful (797), so resolves to kill herself first (798‒801). She laments and cries gushingly (804–6) at her impending death. Fear of Hades overtakes her phrenes (δεῖμ’…κατὰ φρένας ἦλθ’ Ἀίδαο, 810), causing speechlessness (811). But finally, memories of life's pleasures and, crucially, Hera's help make her change her mind again for good: she will help Jason and remain alive.Footnote 41 In this scene, once again, the courses of action urged by erôs and shame are in tension, this time with fears – for Jason, of her father, and of Hades – weighing in on both sides. The conflict leads her again to vacillate, this time mentally, become speechless, and feel grief – with all that emotion's usual symptoms.Footnote 42

The final scene in which she vacillates is just before her conversation with Jason, when (though unstated at this point) desire still makes her want to help, but she yet fears the consequences. Consequently, her thumos cannot turn its attention to other things (οὐδ’…θυμὸς τράπετ’ ἄλλα νοῆσαι, 948), and she cannot enjoy anything for long, but keeps ceasing from her activities helplessly (οὐκ ἐπὶ δηρὸν ἐφήδανεν ἑψιάασθαι, ἀλλὰ μεταλλήγεσκεν ἀμήχανος, 950–1). When Jason appears, she feels lovesick distress (961). She can no longer move her knees backwards or forwards, but rather her feet are fixed to the ground (γούνατα δ’ οὔτ’ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπάροιθεν ἀεῖραι ἔσθενεν, ἀλλ’ ὑπένερθε πάγη πόδας, 964–5). Her earlier oscillation has now ground to a petrified halt: Medea has wobbled into stillness and, with Jason, is compared to a rooted tree (ἐρρίζωνται, 968–9), both speechless (967).Footnote 43

Medea's turmoil in these episodes is, I would argue, more than simply a conflict of two (or more) emotions.Footnote 44 In each case there are indications that yet another emotion has been created, with its own psychological, physiological, and behavioural symptoms. These include mental confusion, paralysis of speech, and a physical oscillation that eventually solidifies into paralysis of body and mind too. There is no English word that does justice to this as an emotion: ‘indecision’, ‘hesitancy’, or ‘anxiety’ are too weak; ‘helplessness’, ‘distress’, or ‘despair’ are stronger, but lack any implication of vacillation; ‘vacillation’ itself is not an emotion, and underplays the petrified paralysis. In Greek, the word used in three of the four cases is an adjective, ἀμήχανος (772, 951, 1157), which roughly translates (per LSJ) as ‘without means’ or ‘at a loss’, though again this lacks any strong indication of emotion.Footnote 45 The effect is perhaps best summed up in English in two common phrases: ‘rabbit in the headlights’, and ‘fight, flight, or freeze’. However we render it, this final emotion serves to dramatize Medea's internal conflict, and helps place it at the heart of the drama of this book.

Conclusion

We have found a mixture of traditional genres in Apollonius’ treatment of Medea's emotions. Typically epic are divine magic as the cause of Medea's erôs, and perhaps the position of emotions in her body. While symptoms of emotion do appear in epic,Footnote 46 the ways in which they are presented in Argonautica are more typical of the lyric genre – such as the symptoms, and indeed the causes, of erôs in Sappho 31 L-P. The sheer volume of psychological, physiological, and behavioural symptoms of the various emotions Medea suffers, however, and the extent to which such emotions interact, reflect the heightened emotionalism of Hellenistic texts.

Script theory can be effective in helping us analyse emotions of characters in literature, especially when emotional episodes are drawn out over lengthy passages, or where a number of different emotions interconnect or conflict with each other. A script approach can be used not just linearly, over the lifetime of an emotion, but also allows us to better appreciate individual aspects or stages of a specific emotional episode – for example, the various causes of Medea's emotions. In the case of erôs, these are enchantment by the gods of love, alongside visual stimuli from a handsome and graceful love-object. For grief, fear, and shame, there are a range of outside causes, as well (in each case) as a concomitant of Medea's erôs – that erôs being itself a cause of these further emotions.

Each of Medea's emotions has psychological, physiological, and behavioural effects, which we might call symptoms. Medea feels things in her phrenes, noos, thumos, psuchê, and heart (by various names). She changes colour, going pale or red. She experiences sensations of care, anguish, or pain; warmth, burning, or melting. Her eyes sparkle, fill with fire, or cover with mist; she hears roaring in her ears; and she feels as if her soul and thumos leave her body, albeit temporarily. Her heart has a particularly moveable geography, fluttering and trembling, and swooping around inside – or dropping from – her chest. She is induced to look in various directions, sometimes hiding her glance. She experiences garrulousness or speechlessness, and struggles to get her tongue or her feet to follow her wishes. She feels blown about; she shakes, cries, and laments; and she clutches at her throat and hair. She experiences anxiety and depression, morbid and suicidal thoughts, insomnia and vivid dreams. Apollonius sometimes describes these symptoms with typically epic natural similes: dew on roses, wind in the trees, fire on kindling, or a sunbeam bouncing off water.

While Medea's emotions often act in sympathy or causally, sometimes they conflict. When this happens, new symptoms are created, including mental vacillation, physical oscillation, and paralysis of movement and speech, combined with a feeling of utter helplessness, and not knowing whether to act, freeze, or flee. This is suggestive of a new emotion, caused by the conflict of others. This final emotion has as much influence on the narrative as any of the others – not, perhaps, in determining its overall direction, but in allowing Apollonius to slow the narrative to a crawl in Book 3, so that he – like we – can explore the emotions of Medea.

Footnotes

My thanks to Damien Nelis and Douglas Cairns for the invitation to speak at the colloquium on ‘The Emotions of Medea’ at the Fondation Hardt, at which this paper was originally given; and to the anonymous reader for G&R for their comments. All translations are my own unless otherwise identified.

References

1 Barkhuizen, J. H., ‘The Psychological Characterization of Medea in Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 3, 744–824’, AClass 22 (1979), 33Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 37, lists the stages of her most changeable emotional episode (744–824).

3 See e.g. Fehr, B. and Russell, J. A., ‘Concept of Emotion Viewed from a Prototype Perspective’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113 (1984), 464–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D., and O'Connor, C., ‘Emotion Knowledge: Further Exploration of a Prototype Approach’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (1987), 1061–86CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Parrott, W. G., ‘The Emotional Experiences of Envy and Jealousy’, in Salovey, P. (ed.), The Psychology of Jealousy and Envy (New York, 1991), 3–30Google Scholar; D. J. Sharpsteen, ‘The Organization of Jealousy Knowledge: Romantic Jealousy as a Blended Emotion’, in ibid., 31–51; Wierzbicka, A., Emotions across Languages and Cultures. Diversity and Universals (Cambridge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russell, J. A. and Lemay, G., ‘Emotion Concepts’, in Lewis, M. and Haviland-Jones, J. M. (eds.), Handbook of Emotions (New York, 2000), 491–503Google Scholar; Gross, D. M., The Secret History of Emotion. From Aristotle's Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science (Chicago, IL, 2007)Google Scholar.

4 R. A. Kaster, Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome (Oxford, 2005). As noted in the main text, Kaster does not find it helpful to translate these terms, but, for the sake of readers with no Latin, I offer the following: verecundia: a concern, related to modesty, respect, or shame, at acting socially correctly toward superiors; pudor: close to our shame or embarrassment; paenitentia: regret, a desire to make amends, occasionally remorse; invidia: envious or indignant distress at someone's good fortune; fastidium: disgust, aversion, or supercilious disdain.

5 Ibid., 70.

6 Wierzbicka (n. 3). D. Cairns, ‘Look Both Ways: Studying Emotion in Ancient Greek’, Critical Quarterly 50.4 (2008), 47–50.

7 E. Sanders, Envy and Jealousy in Classical Athens. A Socio-Psychological Approach (New York, 2014), esp. 5–7 and 33–57. An ‘episode’ is a specific instance of a general ‘script’.

8 See further ibid., 2, with references to psychological scholarship. Parrott (n. 3) and Sharpsteen (n. 3) are both especially relevant to this formulation.

9 All these stages have individually been subjected to focus in recent scholarship on ancient emotions (usually without acknowledging a wider script). For example, for causes, see D. Lateiner, ‘The Emotion of Disgust, Provoked and Expressed in Earlier Greek Literature’, in D. Cairns and D. Nelis (eds.), Emotions in the Classical World. Methods, Approaches, and Directions (Stuttgart, 2017), 31–51; and F. Iurescia, ‘Strategies of Persuasion in Provoked Quarrels in Plautus: A Pragmatic Perspective’, in E. Sanders and M. Johncock (eds.), Emotion and Persuasion in Classical Antiquity (Stuttgart, 2016), 281–94. For feelings, see M. Graver, ‘The Performance of Grief: Cicero, Stoicism, and the Public Eye’, in Cairns and Nelis (this n.), 195–206. For verbal expression, see R. R. Caston, ‘The Irrepressibility of Joy in Roman Comedy’, in R. R. Caston and R. A. Kaster (eds.), Hope, Joy, and Affection in the Classical World (New York, 2016), 95–110. For somatic symptoms, see J. Hagen, ‘Emotions in Roman Historiography: The Rhetorical Use of Tears as a Means of Persuasion’, in Sanders and Johncock (this n.), 199–212. For bodily symptoms, see D. Cairns, ‘Horror, Pity, and the Visual in Ancient Greek Aesthetics’, in Cairns and Nelis (this n.), 53–77; and J. Masséglia, ‘Conflicting Emotions in the Drunken Old Women of Munich and Rome’, in A. Chaniotis (ed.), Unveiling Emotions. Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World (Stuttgart, 2012), 413–30. For metaphor, see D. Cairns, ‘Metaphors for Hope in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry’, in Caston and Kaster (this n.), 13–44. For imagery, see M. Kanellou, ‘Lamp and Erotic Epigram: How an Object Sheds Light on the Lover's Emotions’, in E. Sanders, C. Thumiger, C. Carey, and N. J. Lowe (eds.), Erôs in Ancient Greece (Oxford, 2013), 277–92.

10 All line references are to Book 3, unless otherwise stated. I orthographically distinguish gods from emotions (e.g. Eros/erôs).

11 E.g. Aphrodite causing the Trojan War through Paris and Helen's love; Achilles’ mênis being the instrument of Zeus's will (Hom. Il. 1.1–5). On Eros’ role in Hes. Theog., see G. W. Most, ‘Eros in Hesiod’, in Sanders et al. (n. 9), 163–74.

12 Especially in Pindar: see M. Fantuzzi, ‘Which Magic? Which Eros? Apollonius’ Argonautica and the Different Narrative Roles of Medea as a Sorceress in Love’, in T. D. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill's Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden, 2008), 287–90.

13 E.g. Sappho 31.1–5 L-P: φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν | ἔμμεν’ ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι | ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί−|σας ὐπακούει | καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν… (‘He seems to me to be like the gods, that man who sits opposite you and listens nearby to your sweet speaking and delightful laughing…’).

14 In the Iliad, Ate, daughter of Zeus, blinds all men (19.129). Atê afflicts Agamemnon (1.412; 2.111; 8.237; 9.18; 16.274; 19.88, 136), Achilles (9.504, 505, 512; 24.480), Patroclus (16.805), Alexandros (6.356; 24.28), and Dolon (10.391).

15 Though she denies this at 4.1019, with ulterior motives.

16 Psychological/physiological terms that will recur throughout this article are: noos (mind, perception, sense, thought; also heart, when intended as their location); thumos (anger, courage, desire, or other spirited emotions; the seat of these in the soul; by extension heart, mind, intention, soul, or life); phrenes (thoughts, wits, or senses; the heart or breast as the seat of those); psuchê (soul); kêr, kear, or kradiê (heart).

17 F. Vian, Apollonios de Rhodes. Argonautiques, Chant III (Paris, 1961), 56, comments: ‘A. R. emploie les comparaisons plutôt dans les situations sentimentales que dans les récits héroïques; il aime en emprunter les sujets à la vie féminine’ (‘A. R. uses comparisons in emotional situations more than in tales of heroic exploits; he likes to borrow subjects from female life’) – it is a wool-spinner who fires this kindling.

18 B. Acosta-Hughes, Arion's Lyre. Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton, NJ, 2010), 49–53, draws attention to similarities between the symptoms of Medea's erôs in Argonautica (particularly 3.275–98, where Eros causes her to fall in love) and those in Sappho 31 L-P (see also n. 13 above). He also (203–5) notes parallels between Medea and Jason's love and several fragments of Simonides.

19 See M. Pavlou, ‘Reading Medea through Her Veil in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius’, G&R 56.2 (2009), 188, on the eroticism inherent in Medea peeking at Jason from behind her veil, symbolizing both her modesty and her ‘erotic awakening’.

20 On the rational and emotional arguments of this speech, see L. A. Liñares, ‘El paradigma en Argonáuticas 3.975–1007: de la razón a la emoción’, EClás 131 (2007), 7–28.

21 E. S. Phinney Jr, ‘Narrative Unity in the Argonautica, the Medea–Jason Romance’, TAPhA 98 (1967), 327–41, sees Medea's primary motivation changing from love for Jason in Book 3, to fear of her father in Book 4.

22 Barkhuizen (n. 1), 39–40, argues that ‘the function of this simile is not confined to her physical reaction, but it serves indeed as a simile of the whole psychological conflict that follows…[and] can even be seen as the central symbol or image of her struggle throughout the whole of book 3’, contra H. Fraenkel, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich, 1968), 379.

23 M. J. Reddoch, ‘Conflict and Emotion in Medea's “Irrational” Dream (A. R. 3.616–35)’, AClass 53 (2010), 49, sees these dreams as ‘central to’ Medea's ‘psychological characterization’. On Medea's wakefulness, see S. Montiglio, The Spell of Hypnos. Sleep and Sleeplessness in Ancient Greek Literature (London and New York, 2016), 168–76. Montiglio notes some parallels and contrasts between Medea's sleep here and Penelope's at Hom. Od. 18.188–99. I would add that both feel emotion (fear/grief) on wakening, and Penelope's wish for death to solve her problems will later be echoed by Medea.

24 Pity (eleos) is subsidiary to grief, as joy is to erôs. Eleos here clearly diverges from Aristotle's definition, where pity is felt at something destructive happening to someone unworthy when you fear you (or someone close to you) might suffer the same misfortune (Rh. 2.8, 1385b14–15: ὃ κἂν αὐτὸς προσδοκήσειεν ἂν παθεῖν ἢ τῶν αὑτοῦ τινα [emphasis added]).

25 On Helen's self-insulting dog words, see M. Graver, ‘Dog-Helen and Homeric Insult’, ClAnt 14 (1995), 41–61.

26 Also by Medea's fifth emotion (772), discussed below.

27 Vian (n. 17), 101–2, says that the prapides here, like the phrenes, serve to designate the soul; he comments that Apollonius is showing off his physiological knowledge.

28 And with Medea's fifth emotion (948) – see below.

29 Variant readings have 661 ending with περ (Loeb) or κῆρ (TLG).

30 See n. 16 above.

31 While Apollonius’ repeated mention of emotional symptoms, warming/cooling, etc. is reminiscent of medical texts, the only Hippocratic text to discuss the origins of emotions locates several – including joys, sorrows, and fears – in the brain: Hippoc. Morb. sacr. 14: εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ὅτι ἐξ οὐδενὸς [than the ἐγκέφαλος, mentioned in the previous section] ἡμῖν αἱ ἡδοναὶ γίνονται καὶ αἱ εὐφροσύναι καὶ γέλωτες καὶ παιδιαὶ ἢ ἐντεῦθεν, καὶ λῦπαι καὶ ἀνίαι καὶ δυσφροσύναι καὶ κλαυθμοί…τῷ δὲ αὐτῷ τούτῳ καὶ μαινόμεθα καὶ παραφρονέομεν, καὶ δείματα καὶ φόβοι παρίστανται ἡμῖν… (‘And men must know that, from nothing other than this [the brain], joys come to us and merriments, laughter, and childish games, as well as pains and sorrows and cares and lamentations; … and from this same [organ] we also become mad and deranged, and terrors and fears attend us’). On emotions in medical texts (both Hippocratic and philosophical), see especially C. Thumiger, A History of the Mind and Mental Health in Classical Greek Medical Thought (Cambridge, 2017), 337–76. To pursue this question in philosophical texts, S. Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford, 2004), 5–110, is a good starting point.

32 D. Cairns, ‘Ethics, Ethology, Terminology: Iliadic Anger and the Cross-Cultural Study of Emotion’, in S. Braund and G. W. Most (eds.), Ancient Anger. Perspectives from Homer to Galen (Cambridge, 2003), 24–5: ‘Cholos…is associated with the thumos, the êtor, or the kêr.’

33 The data in this paragraph comes from E. Sanders, ‘Sexual Jealousy and Erôs in Euripides’ Medea’, in Sanders et al. (n. 9), 41–57. For a fuller exploration of Greek sexual jealousy and its relationship to erôs, see Sanders (n. 7), 130–68.

34 A characteristic of Hellenistic texts, both literary and non-literary, is heightened emotionality. See e.g. A. Chaniotis, ‘Empathy, Emotional Display, Theatricality and Illusion in Hellenistic Historiography’, in A. Chaniotis and P. Ducrey (eds.), Unveiling Emotions II. Emotions in Greece and Rome. Texts, Images, Material Culture (Stuttgart, 2014), 53–84; A. Chaniotis, ‘Emotional Language in Hellenistic Decrees and Hellenistic Histories’, in M. Mari and J. Thornton (eds.), Parole in movimento. Linguaggio politico e lessico storiografico nel mondo ellenistico (Pisa, 2013), 339–52; A. Chaniotis, ‘Affective Epigraphy: Emotions in Public Inscriptions of the Hellenistic Age’, MediterrAnt 16.2 (2013), 745–60; E. Dickey, ‘Emotional Language and Formulae of Persuasion in Greek Papyrus Letters’, in Sanders and Johncock (n. 9), 237–62.

35 R. L. Hunter (trans.), Apollonius of Rhodes. Jason and the Golden Fleece (Oxford, 1993), 153: ‘this plural (erotes) not uncommonly denotes “the forces of love”, and is barely distinguishable from the singular eros’. Vian (n. 17), 71, notes that the pluralization of ‘Amours’ (Erotes) is common in Hellenistic poetry.

36 W. H. Race (ed. and trans.), Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica (Cambridge, MA, 2008), 253.

37 A different loving emotion (here maternal) leads Chalciope to feel fear and grief, when she believes her sons are in danger (688–709).

38 On this passage, see F. Bornmann, ‘La Medea di Apollonio Rodio: interpretazione psicologica e interpretazione testuale’, in R. Uglione (ed.), Atti delle giornate di studio su Medea. Torino 23–24 ottobre 1995 (Turin, 1995), 47–68.

39 For a literary precedent, see Penelope at Hom. Od. 19.512–34, esp. 524: ὥς καὶ ἐμοὶ δίχα θυμὸς ὀρώρεται ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα (‘so is my heart stirred in two directions, this way and that’).

40 Her psychological state in this scene is the focus of Barkhuizen (n. 1) and of T. Papadopoulou, ‘The Presentation of the Inner Self: Euripides’ Medea 1021–55 and Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica 3, 772–801’, Mnemosyne 50.5 (1997), 641–64.

41 T. G. Rosenmeyer, ‘Apollonius lyricus’, SIFC 10 (1992), 186–8, contrasts the rational decision-making of Homeric epic with Medea's typically lyric ‘associative’ process here (until Hera's intervention): ‘What Apollonius gives us is a series of conflicting thoughts…The possible choices are not stated as simultaneous alternatives, but as additive mental correlates rapidly presenting themselves in flickering succession, and rendering an ultimate resolution ever more unlikely…Their cumulative pressure increasingly narrows the options and is bound to lead to ἀμηχανία, lyric paralysis’ (on which, see below).

42 Barkhuizen (n. 1), 36, and elsewhere compares this mental vacillation to a pendulum swinging – a literal oscillation.

43 Acosta-Hughes (n. 18), 57, notes that this ‘conventional epic simile’ bears comparison with Sappho 47 L-P, and that: ‘The moment of Medea's meeting Jason, from her play with her maids to the moment of her utterance, is a synthesis of models Homeric and Sapphic, Nausicaa and Sappho's tormented erotic psyche.’ He earlier notes (41) that this ‘more lyric mode’ starts from the proem of Book 3 (see also nn. 13 and 18 above). The Nausicaa connection to this scene is discussed further at 149–50. Vian (n. 17), 70–1, compares Medea's first meeting with Jason to Nausicaa's with Odysseus, and suggests literary parallels to the rooted tree simile (121).

44 On this conflict, see Reddoch (n. 23).

45 This word and its noun/participle cognates ἀμηχανίη/ἀμηχανέων occur many other times in the poem (1.460, 638, 1053, 1233, 1286; 2.410, 578, 623, 681, 860, 885, 1140; 3.126, 336, 423, 432, 504, 893; 4.107, 692, 825, 880, 1049, 1259, 1308, 1318, 1527, 1701), used of Jason, the Argonauts, or others, when placed in the situation of having to make a politically, militarily, or emotionally difficult choice. Race (n. 36) translates them variously as ‘(in) despair’, ‘(in) distress’, ‘helpless(ness)’, ‘helpless distress’, ‘helpless dismay’, ‘stunned with helplessness’, etc. See the main text as to why these translations are imperfect for Medea. Apollonius at one point provides a typically epic elaboration: ‘Stunned with helplessness, Jason…sat there, eating his heart out from deep within at this grievous calamity’ (ὁ δ’ ἀμηχανίῃσιν ἀτυχθεὶς…Αἰσονίδης, ἀλλ’ ἧστο βαρείῃ νειόθεν ἄτῃ θυμὸν ἔδων, 1.1286–9; translation from Race [n. 36], 107) – the imagery is striking. F. Vian, ‘Ιησων Αμηχανεων’, in E. Livrea and G. A. Privitera (eds.), Studi in onore di Anthos Ardizzoni, 2 vols. (Rome, 1978), ii.1025–41, explores these scenes, expressing the view (1031) that: ‘Ἀμηχανίη couvre une large gamme de sens: il exprime le plus souvent le désarroi paralysant qu'on éprouve devant une situation sans issue; ἀμήχανος signifie alors “étonné” (au sens fort), “étourdi”, “abasourdi”; mais il a aussi le sens plus faible de “préoccupé”, “qui a l'esprit ailleurs”, voire “penaud”…Le terme perd parfois toute valeur affective’ (‘Ἀμηχανίη covers a wide range of meanings: it expresses most often the paralysing helplessness which one suffers in the face of a situation with no way out; ἀμήχανος thus signifies “astounded” [in a strong sense], “dazed”, “stunned”; but it also has a weaker sense of “preoccupied”, “someone whose mind is elsewhere”, or even “sheepish”…The term sometimes loses all affective value’). See also M. R. Falivene, ‘Un'invincibile debolezza: Medea nelle Argonautiche di Apollonio Rodio’, in B. Gentili and F. Perusino (eds.), Medea nella letteratura e nell'arte (Venice, 2000), 109–16.

46 E.g. for Achilles’ cholos, Hom. Il. 18.109–10: ὅς τε πολὺ γλυκίων μέλιτος καταλειβομένοιο | ἀνδρῶν ἐν στήθεσσιν ἀέξεται ἠΰτε καπνός (‘It trickles down far sweeter than honey and billows in the breasts of men like smoke’).