that she has conferred on him and convicting him of ingratitude and violation of his marriage oath. In a
speech of almost exactly equal length, Jason responds, arguing that, so far from harming Medea he
actually has her best interests at heart and, therefore, she should instead be grateful to him! This is a tactic
that was familiar from the contemporary law courts, where the defendant sought to show that, not only
was he innocent of the charges, but he was in fact a public benefactor deserving of rewards rather than
punishment. In Jason’s case, his assertions are so obviously outrageous that his very ability to express
himself in so articulate a fashion increases the audience’s disgust.
“I have only gone on at such length about my own problems because of this competition in words
that you initiated. With regard to your condemnation of me in the matter of my engagement to a royal
bride, I propose to show, first, that in this particular I am exhibiting my inherently reasonable nature,
next, that I am behaving prudently and, what is more, that I am acting as a great friend to you and to
my children. Wait! Let me finish! When I came here from the land of Iolcus, with a massive freight of
insuperable difficulties, what greater stroke of luck could I, an exile, have happened upon than to
marry the daughter of a king? It was not a matter of my finding your bed displeasing and being
smitten with a passion for a fresh mistress, which is what seems to have caused your annoyance, nor
was I eager to engage in a competition to see who could produce the most children – I have no
complaint with the children I have – rather I did this above all so that we could live a decent life and
not have to live from hand to mouth.” (Euripides, Medea 545–60, Jason justifying himself to Medea)Aristophanes
The world of Euripidean drama is entirely new, its novelty only enhanced by contrast with the rigid
dramatic form to whose traditional requirements Euripides strictly adheres. In formal terms, Euripides’
tragedies are scarcely distinguishable from those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, but the characters he puts
on the stage think and act more like contemporary Athenians than like the mythical figures whose names
and situations they are given. For this reason, his tragedies intrigued their original audiences, and for this
reason Euripides was an easy target for parody in comedies like those written by Aristophanes. Tragedy
and comedy were closely related genres: They were presented competitively as part of the festival of the
Dionysia; they were performed exclusively by male citizens wearing masks; they involved a pattern of
spoken scenes broken by passages of singing and dancing; and they used many of the same metrical forms.
Therefore, it was not unusual for comic playwrights to parody authors and works of the older genre. But
Aristophanes ridicules the plots, the characters, and the language of Euripides far more frequently than he
does those of any other tragic poet, and he even makes Euripides a character in some of his plays,
including three of the plays that survive. In the earliest of Aristophanes’ preserved comedies (Acharnians,
produced in 425 BC), Euripides has only a small part. The hero of the play, an Athenian farmer of modest
means who is fed up with the hardships imposed by the Peloponnesian War, has negotiated a personal
peace treaty between himself and the Spartans. Since this is treasonable behavior, he needs to defend
himself against a crowd of angry neighbors, so he goes to the house of the sophisticated and highly
educated Euripides to borrow rags to wear in order to arouse sympathy when he makes his speech of
defense. The rags in question are the costume in which the hero of Euripides’ (lost) tragedy Telephus
disguised himself in order to plead his case before his enemies. Euripides has many such costumes and
Aristophanes comically makes his character in Acharnians name all of them, the implication being that
Euripides habitually parades his tragic heroes on stage in rags to make them appear less “heroic” and to
enhance the drama’s pathos.