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The Color Gold And Its Symbolism In Euripides’s Medea
Euripides was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens, born about 480 BC on Salamis
Island
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After two disastrous marriages, where both of his wives were unfaithful,
Euripides decided to live by himself in a cave on Salamis, where he wrote most of his
tragedies
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Medea finds her position in the Greek world threatened as
a result of sacrifices she makes for her husband Jason, who ends up abandoning her and their
two sons for a new wife of higher political status
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The storyline of Medea follows the myth of Jason and Argonauts, according to which
Jason sailed off to Colchis to find the Golden Fleece in order for Jason’s uncle Pelias to let
him rule the country of Iolcus as its rightful king
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He forms a group
of Greek heroes called the Argonauts, who sail on the Argo ship
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Jason gains help from Princess of Colchis, Medea, who has, with
Cupid’s help, fallen in love with him
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She flees from her homeland of
Colchis with Jason on the Argo ship, killing her own brother in the process
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While married to Medea, Jason begins a new relationship with the princess of
Corinth, the land to which he and Medea escaped after the murder of King Pelias
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Medea, who has gone to extremes before, such as in the case of killing
Pelias, is not impressed by Jason’s behavior and decides to take a revenge on him by not only
killing the princess of Corinth, but also slaying her own children in order to further hurt
Jason
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” In this extract, the chaplet of gold represents Medea’s precious plan full of evil
intentions
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At
the same time, it also embodies her hatred for Jason and for society in general for abandoning
her in such a hard time
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By accepting the expensive presents from the hands of Medea’s sons, the princess of
Corinth signs her death note
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” While longing for gold, the princess is oblivious
to the danger she puts herself into, and this mistake ends up to be her very last, as Medea’s
plan quickly unfolds
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” The princess did not questions Medea’s intentions once she saw the
golden gifts the children had to offer, which led to her painful death caused by the poison that
came together with the gifts
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Whilst the golden nature of the gifts acts as a lure to the princess, it is also the instrument of
death, a fact that illustrates the multiple symbolism of the color gold
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“Give me no gold within my
halls, nor skill to sing a fairer strain than ever Orpheus sang, unless there-with my fame be
spread abroad (Euripides, 21)!” The hunger for power in Jason’s case is comparable to the
princess’s longing for gold, becoming ominous and leading to a miserable end
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The murder of the princess leaves Jason with no chance of
becoming a king, while the death of his sons takes away his last hopes: there is no one to
carry on his name, nor to take care of him in his old age
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Thought she comes from a royal family, and he
has found fame and riches by obtaining the Golden Fleece, it seems that the material gains,
symbolized by gold, brought them only misfortune
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To some extent gold and its today’s replacement, money, can make a life easier,





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and possibly a little bit happier, too
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The characters
in Medea experienced the trend of gold bringing bad luck into their lives
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In real life the
consequences of being power or money hungry might not always be that tragic, but the fact
that wealth might bring more trouble than happiness still applies and is a current issue, even
thousands of years after the story of Jason and Medea was written
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Medea
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Print
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Cliff Notes on Greek Classics
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p
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147-48
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