The King's Daughter: Medea in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

Abstract

Medea's awakening love for Jason is the great theme of the third book of Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. At the opening of that book—that is to say, at the very centre of the four-book epic—the Hellenistic poet signals a programmatic redirection, invoking the Muse Erato to inspire his tale of Jason's winning of the golden fleece, aided by the love of the Colchian princess (Мηδείηϛ ὑπ' ἔϱωτι, Ap. Rhod. 3.3). This is the first mention of Medea in the poem. Writing a few centuries later, the Flavian poet Valerius Flaccus for the most part adheres closely to Apollonius' narrative outline. As we shall see, however, he manifests comparatively little interest in the love story between Jason and Medea, and takes a different approach to the problem of integrating Medea into the plot. Though, as with the earlier epic, she will not appear as a dramatis persona until the second half of the epic, she is mentioned at the very outset of the narrative (1.61-63), and a number of times thereafter in the early books. Thus by the time the Argonauts reach Colchis and Medea enters the narrative proper, she has already been presented to the reader in a number of ‘previews’.