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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
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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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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’).