LOVE, GRIEF, FEAR, AND SHAME: MEDEA'S INTERCONNECTING EMOTIONS IN BOOK 3 OF APOLLONIUS’ ARGONAUTICA

Abstract

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.