This outburst from Medea in response to Jason’s first speech in Medea shows the reader how Medea feels about Jason directly; until now we have only seen her describe her problems of being abandoned by Jason and exiled by Creon in the abstract, or in a sort of narration of events. In this confrontation between the two of them, we see her express her emotions to him, a completely different type of situation. Jason is telling Medea that he feels bad for her, but everything that’s happened tot her has been her own fault. When presenting her case to the audience, Medea can control every aspect of the story, and can appear however she likes. However, when Jason arrives, she is forced to respond in real time, while the audience can also see who Jason
…show more content…
Each line is long, containing lengthier and perhaps more ‘sophisticated’ words. It feels poetic and dramatic – the qualities expected from an ancient Greek tragedy such as this one. However, despite the poetic and somewhat ‘official’ tone of the translation, it still reads quite easily. The meaning behind Medea’s frustrations seems fairly evident – perhaps because she’s so worked up about the situation in the first place. Medea uses powerful language to deride Jason, calling him unmanly and a coward. And while she claims what he’s doing is far beyond it, the word “audacity” is still called into play. Audacity can mean both rude or disrespectful behavior – what Jason is doing by showing up and trying to act sympathetic, but it can also mean the willingness to take bold risks – something that Medea herself is planning to do before the day is out – she wants to kill Jason and his new family. After criticizing him strongly for his behavior, Medea relents, because she finds an advantage to his being there: she can make him uncomfortable by retelling the history of their time together, reminding him how much she has done for him. She can “make [him] wince”. To wince can be to shrink away or to grimace both in a response to distress and pain. This could be read as a type of foreshadowing – not only is he going to wince now, but later on when Medea plans to murder him. …show more content…
While accessibility in writing is important, some of the depth and emotion seems to be lost as Robertson simplifies the speech. Even when conveying the same ideas, the word choice seems to dilute the emotion. While Vellacott has Medea in an outrage, asking Jason how he could “look friends in the face after betraying them”, Robertson says that Jason “wrong[ed his] family and then visit[ed] them”. Not only are the words ‘wrong’ and ‘betray’ at completely different intensity levels (the former meaning to act unjustly while the latter conveys a treacherous level of deceit – and a very intentional one), the sentences which they lie in are different in tone as well. Vellacott’s is full of drama – looking someone directly in the face when you’ve knowingly done something horrible to them is very different than visiting someone you’ve acted ‘unjust’ with, something that could range from cheating at a game to what is really at hand – abandoning someone and letting them be exiled. The Robertson sentence structure doesn’t give you a good measure of the level of emotion and confrontation occurring between Medea and Jason. Robertson uses shorter sentences with less flair – conveying the meaning and events well enough, but not carrying the
Each line is long, containing lengthier and perhaps more ‘sophisticated’ words. It feels poetic and dramatic – the qualities expected from an ancient Greek tragedy such as this one. However, despite the poetic and somewhat ‘official’ tone of the translation, it still reads quite easily. The meaning behind Medea’s frustrations seems fairly evident – perhaps because she’s so worked up about the situation in the first place. Medea uses powerful language to deride Jason, calling him unmanly and a coward. And while she claims what he’s doing is far beyond it, the word “audacity” is still called into play. Audacity can mean both rude or disrespectful behavior – what Jason is doing by showing up and trying to act sympathetic, but it can also mean the willingness to take bold risks – something that Medea herself is planning to do before the day is out – she wants to kill Jason and his new family. After criticizing him strongly for his behavior, Medea relents, because she finds an advantage to his being there: she can make him uncomfortable by retelling the history of their time together, reminding him how much she has done for him. She can “make [him] wince”. To wince can be to shrink away or to grimace both in a response to distress and pain. This could be read as a type of foreshadowing – not only is he going to wince now, but later on when Medea plans to murder him. …show more content…
While accessibility in writing is important, some of the depth and emotion seems to be lost as Robertson simplifies the speech. Even when conveying the same ideas, the word choice seems to dilute the emotion. While Vellacott has Medea in an outrage, asking Jason how he could “look friends in the face after betraying them”, Robertson says that Jason “wrong[ed his] family and then visit[ed] them”. Not only are the words ‘wrong’ and ‘betray’ at completely different intensity levels (the former meaning to act unjustly while the latter conveys a treacherous level of deceit – and a very intentional one), the sentences which they lie in are different in tone as well. Vellacott’s is full of drama – looking someone directly in the face when you’ve knowingly done something horrible to them is very different than visiting someone you’ve acted ‘unjust’ with, something that could range from cheating at a game to what is really at hand – abandoning someone and letting them be exiled. The Robertson sentence structure doesn’t give you a good measure of the level of emotion and confrontation occurring between Medea and Jason. Robertson uses shorter sentences with less flair – conveying the meaning and events well enough, but not carrying the