#jason and medea

[community-gardenss]

did I not love them best? I who birthed, who nursed, who killed them?

[moon-kissed-corner]

Details from the painting Medea meditating on killing her children (1852), by Bezzuoli.

[two-bees-poetry]

are you hungry? (medea, alone)

[kexytimes]

When you kill your kids and the Gods provide you with the getaway car.

(pose based on a work by @liridi )

[doodlerose]

This is supposed to be children of Hero's who were killed by their parents, chilling in a field. Hopefully having a much peaceful afterlife compared to their lives.

Hippolytus- son of Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyte - who was killed by Poseidon as a wish from Theseus after being falsely blamed for Phaedra (Theseus's wife) suicide.

Iphigenia- daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra - who was killed in a sacrifice to Artemis in order to sail to Troy.

and Medea's and Jason's sons- who were killed by Medea for revenge against Jason, and after researching were not able to find definitive names for them in the play which is tragic. But I haven't read the play so I could be wrong.

Feel free to correct me if I got any information wrong :).

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) "Jason and Medea" (1907) Oil on canvas Pre-Raphaelite Currently in a private collection

[jugganautism]

Do you know about madea? She's technically from Greek mythology but she's also apart of Georgian mythology, (the country not the state) and I am from Georgia, and I think she would look really cool In your artstyle,

(Also I'm still waiting on that hermpolipenody art)

(Btw ur animation looked sick on tiktok you should post it here as well)

Love you 💛

funny thing, medea's one of my favorite greek mythology characters. i have briefly doodled her before, but im yet to make any actual art of her

[gabriel-ey]

✦ Medea and the guardian of the golden fleece ✦

And she's still one the most powerful woman in greek mythology

and jason is still one of the dumbest heroes in all myths and legends

[theoi-crow]

The chess game between Medea and Jason and how Medea's original story is a feminist story:

So a few days ago I was talking to @teawiththegods about a book he had read that was a feminist re-telling of Medea. The author seemed to have lacked a very fundamental understanding of Medea's character because Hecate wasn't mentioned in the book at all, which is wild since Hecate is Medea's go-to goddess for every spell she does!

But as we talked further it was clear the author also lacked a very fundamental understanding of Medea and Jason's relationship towards the end of their separation but it's one of my favorite parts of Medea's story which, in my opinion, makes it feminist by itself but not many people understand that because they lack the ancient context for which it was written that drives the point that:

Medea won a chess game where the odds were stacked in favor of Jason and the game was rigged against Medea herself:

How were the odds of the game stacked in favor of Jason:

1) Medea couldn't kill Jason or he'd win:

One of the main things people complain about regarding the story of Medea is Medea killing her children and wonder why she didn't just kill Jason instead. But the reason why she didn't do that, and why she couldn't kill Jason at all was because she would have immortalized Jason's heroic persona.

In ancient Greece they believed the best thing someone famous could do was die at the height of their popularity so they wouldn't have time to ruin their own reputation and legacy. At the beginning of Euripides's Medea, Jason is at the height of his popularity. This is evident by the king of Corinth wanting him to marry his daughter because he was the legendary Jason from Jason and the Argonauts (the ancient equivalent of being the modern leader of the Avengers since he also assembled legendary heroes in his ship like Hercules and Orpheus).

Jason knew he had the upper hand and if Medea killed him, he would forever be remembered as a hero who was tragically killed by his jealous wife (in the same way Agamemnon was killed by his own wife Clytemnestra) and Medea herself already had a bad reputation for killing her own brother, despite her only doing so to help Jason escape her father.

2) If she killed Jason, her own children would have to kill her:

Her children would be bound by the gods to kill her and if they did kill her, the furies would come to torment them for killing their own mother.

In Aeschylus's Oresteia, written a good 20 plus years before Euripides's Medea, One of the main tragic points in the story was Orestes being duty-bound to avenge his father which meant he had to kill his mother. In ancient society this was a rule. Children, especially sons, needing to avenge their parents, especially their fathers, so Jason knew that if Medea killed him, not only would she ensure his heroic legacy, but the ones in charge of carrying out his revenge were his sons, the keepers of his legacy, who were also the great-grandchildren of Helios (Medea's father was his son).

Medea preferred living with the guilt of killing her own children rather than the thought of forcing her own children to kill her and be forever tormented by the furies if they did, or be punished by the gods for not avenging their father if they did not. She had already killed her own family member for Jason before, so killing again for Jason would be a type of dramatic irony that now also affected him.

3) If she did nothing Jason would still win:

When I say Jason had everything, I mean he had everything. He was going to become the king of Corinth and live his life as a hero.

Medea is the reason behind him getting the golden fleece and she is the power behind all of his success and he was going to take her credit and cast her out of his new kingdom along with their children. He didn't care if his children were going to be bound to a woman who had a cursed reputation and be doomed to living a life of extreme poverty. He only cared about getting rid of his previous family to make room for a royal family, in his opinion, a proper life fit for a hero. He was Hera's favorite and even Medea could see that he had insulted Hera (the goddess of marriage) by not honoring his own marriage vows to her. Jason was being selfish and Medea couldn't let him just get everything he wanted.

Imagine working so hard to help someone you loved and trusted and you sacrifice your own comfortable and cushy life only for them to steal your credit, take all of your stuff and curse you to a life of poverty, and despite how he fucked you and your children over, your children still had to praise their father because they are bound to his legacy! He is the reason why you are irrelevant and no one will ever remember you except as a stepping stone for HIS success!

Jason took Medea's credit, used her as a stepping stone to reach his heroic status and had children with her who were a part of taking care of his legacy and bound to avenge him if she killed him. But if she chose not to do anything to him he would win either way and his legacy was set to be praised forever, this time as a king who could continue to expand his legacy and potentially turn into a god like Hercules. There was nothing she could do about it.

How she won and ruined his legacy and reputation:

1) Using her status as Jason's property:

Like most ancient Greek women, Medea was seen as Jason's property which made her his responsibility.

A lot of people think it was unnecessary for her to have killed the princess of Corinth because it wasn't the princess's fault who her father wanted her to marry but Medea was trying to kill the king of Corinth himself and she knew he was going to hold his dying daughter without realizing he too would get killed through the poisoned garments. Plus Medea knew the princess of Corinth wanted to exile her children with her and doom them to a tragic life which is why she sent her children with gifts from Helios in order to beg the princess to change her mind about exiling them.

What would killing the king and his daughter do to Jason? He would be blamed for not knowing how to "handle" his woman and "control" her, as was expected of men back then. Her outbursts were his responsibility.

Her killing the leader of Corinth and his only successor made Corinth vulnerable for another kingdom to invade. As Jason's property this made Jason the reason behind Corinth's downfall, thus causing Jason to be known as a cursed hero who will ruin your city-state if you try to associate with him or even welcome him into your home.

2) Jason depended on his children to fix his reputation:

Did Medea have to kill her children? Yes, because she knew that if she didn't whether they wanted to or not, they would undo everything she had done to ruin him because when ancient Greek people did well their fathers would also be praised because their father's names were used as a last name for the child for example: Odysseus's full name is actually Odysseus son of Laertes and thus in the ancient world whenever you praised Odysseus you were also praising his father Laertes.

Similarly, Jason's children had a duty to fix their father's reputation which means that if she allowed them to live, they would also do their best to uphold his reputation and undo everything and Jason would still win. Even if they didn't like him or they didn't' want to they had to. Plus already being the great-grandchildren of Helios, the sun itself meant they were already great, which meant their father was already great because they had "son of Jason" attached to their names as a last name.

So imagine your ex has ruined your life because before he came into your life you were the princess of Colchis, the granddaughter of the sun itself, your father was a demigod and your aunt was Circe! The same Circe who turned Odysseus's men into pigs. You had everything and you left your glamorous life because you fell in love with someone who stole your credit, used your ancestral connections to Helios and ultimately betrayed you. And now that you found a way to ruin him in order to avenge yourself, your own children, regardless of their own complicated feelings towards their father would have to undo everything you did and uphold his legacy as a hero so he still won. But killing them would ensure your ex will be seen as a walking bad omen and ruin his reputation forever.

3) Killing her children sealed Jason's fate:

Jason never expected Medea to kill her own children, no one did because no woman had ever done that before but Medea herself was already a walking curse, she knew that if she killed her children the world would pity them and never blame them for what she did but if she allowed them to live they would be at odds with her because of how society favored fathers plus she also risked ruining their reputation and living a miserable life anyway because of her own reputation.

Being exiled meant they would potentially have faced a lot of SA as children who are doomed to wander and potentially live as slaves if they got kidnapped. Medea herself would have to be a sex worker if she wanted to make money to support her children as a single parent while Jason lived a glamorous life as the king of Corinth.

If she killed Jason they would have to kill her no matter how much they loved her or they would be cursed by the gods.

If they live they would automatically fix Jason's reputation if they gained glory and would have to blame their mother in order to explain why their father, the hero, was cursed. No one would care that Jason stole her credit and she was angry about it because they were married and according to their customs, she is his property and her credit is his credit.

But if Medea killed them, they would not be blamed for anything, they wouldn't be used as pawns to fix Jason's reputation and Jason would also be blamed for not knowing how to "handle" his wife and save his children, and Medea would finally get the revenge she has been wanting for every wrong Jason has ever committed. He would finally feel the pain she felt from his betrayal. He would finally feel as helpless as this game of chess made her feel. He would finally suffer in the way he made her suffer.

In the end she cursed him to live a life where his reputation was ruined and when he finally became irrelevant, he died being killed by the rotting wood of the very same ship which once made him great.

Checkmate.

[sparklyshmarkli]

argonautica’s fraying end for a Ukrainian olympian lore charity zine

[sarafangirlart]

Medea

I combined medieval Georgian and Ancient Greek together for this design.

[community-gardenss]

become the most wretched of women

HII this piece might look familiar and that is because it is a rendered version of the red figure pottery piece I posted a while back... this is part of the same style study assignment as my helen piece :3 got a bit more symbolic with the background elements

[laniidae-passerine]

I am so not immune to a Medea moment. my beloved has left me. we had a life and a love and a child. my beloved has left me for another. I have lost my life and my love. I still have my child. my beloved deserves to pay. all he has ever really loved is our child. here is a stage. here is a role. here is the chorus to sing my sins. here is my beloved with his horrified gaze, fixed on me. here is my beautiful daughter. here I am, in her countenance, her phrasing, her cruelty and her mirth, mother that I am. punishing him. letting the light in. letting my daughter burn. and here I am, in those beautiful eyes of the girl I helped raise, the very last thing she ever sees before she dies. I am her and she is me; and all that is left of us both is utter agony

[two-bees-poetry]

this has to be enough

[qisaaa]

Circe & Medea

Very very messy drawing of them, i just wanted to get the idea out of my head fast so thats the reason😭 had the idea for a while.

had to design medea and redesign circe becauseee i wanted to🗣

I dunno if i like Circe's design but im tired so it'll do

[floralcavern]

Greek hero Highschool au. We’ve got the star track player, Atalanta. We’ve got the volleyball team consisting of leader, Odysseus, and his other teammates, like the star duo, Achilles and Patroclus. We’ve got the messy couple that just need to break up already, Jason and Medea. We’ve got the overly aggressive power lifting star, Heracles, who one time got into a fist fight with Professor Hades’s 3 Rottweilers because of a bet.

One time, Odysseus’s team goes on a 10 day volleyball tournament out of town, but after missing the bus home, Odysseus takes 10 more days to figure out how the hell to get back himself.

Anymore ideas?