Ideas - Worst marriage ever! The story of Jason and Medea

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

The ancient Greek story of Jason and Medea starts as a love story and ends as a horror show — just the way the Greeks liked it. The met, fell in love, stole the magical golden fleece (a symbol of authority and kinship) and escaped like a primeval Bonnie and Clyde. Find out why one of our guests calls Jason "an absolute hypocritical pig of a husband" as IDEAS explores their turbulent relationship. *This episode originally aired on Sept.19, 2022.Guests in this episode:Edith Hall is a professor of Classics at Durham University.Florence Yoon is an assistant professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of British Columbia.Rosie Wyles is a senior lecturer in Classical History and Literature at the University of Kent.James Clauss is a professor of Classics at the University of Washington.Lucy Jackson is an assistant professor of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University.Connor Heaney is a collections manager at the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation in Edinburgh.Vanessa Harryhausen is Ray Harryhausen's daughter.Lyndsy Spence is the author of Cast a Diva: The Hidden Life of Maria Callas, published by The History Press.

What's the connection between being an astronaut and being a novelist? I hadn't really thought about it until I talked to the astronaut-turned-writer Chris Hadfield about his new thriller, Final Orbit. Every week on the podcast bookends, I sit down with today's best authors for candid conversations about their writing, inspirations, and lives. You'll get to see the world through the eyes of your favorite writers, and they might even take you to outer space, too. Bookends with Matea Roach is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyad. Jason and the Argonauts, the classic story of an epic voyage that has been told and retold since the birth of Western civilization.

The ancient Greek story of Jason and the Argonauts is the story of a quest, and one of the first ever told. a man, a ship, and a team of sailors all in search of a miracle. And where will you find this miracle? I have heard there is a tree at the end of the world, with a fleece of gold hanging in its branches. Jason also shows up centuries later in Dante's Divine Comedy, and centuries after that, in the 1800s, in a poem by William Morris and a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

And he sets out on this fantastic voyage by sea, to get the golden fleece. Which his uncle says, if he manages to get it and brings it back, then he'll be able to take his rightful place as king. But unfortunately, it was guarded by a horrible, toxic, fire-breathing dragon. Coiled round a tree in a dark forest. Now, tell me your name. Medea, and you can answer my first question.

Who are you? My name is Jason. You may have encountered Jason and the Argonauts before, or Medea. If you've ever had the TV on late at night any time in, oh, the last 50 years, to see the classic 1963 movie adaptation with its iconic animated monsters. Jason and his band of Argonauts, the mightiest warriors the world of adventure has ever known, battling the army of skeletons. Sword-fighting skeletons, a bronze statue that comes to life and attacks the Argonauts.

Kare, kill! Medea, the temple dancer, mysterious, exciting, and exotic. And in the play by Euripides, she's a cold-hearted killer. Oh, arm yourself in steel, my heart. Come my hand and take the sword. The story of Jason and Medea is an adventure tale, but it's also got to be the worst marriage ever. With the help of God and Hegant,

It is a marriage that you will regret. He's taken everything from her by disrespecting their marriage, and so she has to take everything from him. I want no happy fortune that brings pain. But you have got from me more than you gave. You have broken your word to me. Like almost all Greek tragedies, it ends up as a horror story, and you just can't look away.

Contributor Tom Jokinen brings us his documentary called Worst Marriage Ever, the story of Jason and Medea. Where have you come from? Thessaly. But that's the other side of the world. You don't look like a merchant. Are you a priestess? I can't help when I imagine those parts of the myth.

I'm doing it with the 1963 classic film in mind. That's how I encountered this story. Me too. I've seen it more than ten times for sure. It has the famous stop-action animation by Ray Harryhausen. I can still see those creepy skeletons. Kill!

They've got swords and shields and they're trying to kill Jason. If you've watched that, it's very difficult to unthink it. Revenge yourself against the Thessalian. They're sort of fantastical and this adventure into unknown lands. Deliver to me the children of the hydra's teeth.

My name is Rosie Wiles. I'm senior lecturer in classical history and literature at the University of Kent in the UK. Some people say Casablanca or citizen Kane, I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest fun. Tom Hanks, at the Oscars in 1992, when animator Ray Harryhausen was given a lifetime achievement award. When Ray's films were released, he would often be criticized for reinterpreting the classic myths and having them boil down into these 90-minute films. And some people say,

you're getting it wrong, you're sabotaging the original mythology. Jason, now listen to me. The gods have ordered me to. to tell you whatever you want to know, but the gods have gone too far with me. But nowadays, so many people say to us that they grew up on Ray's films and then became a classicist or archaeologists or all of these different academic fields. And the link is always, oh, I watched Jason and the Argonauts when I was young and I got hooked. I'm Connor Hini and I'm the collections manager for the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation. He loved mythology. Any kind of mythology. And I think he's,

He wanted to carry that through and thought it'd be great. Like, we used to read the Iliad of Homer a lot at home. When do we sail? Tomorrow. I think that's what inspired him, especially with Jason. He managed to put it together in such a wonderful fashion that we all believed it. I'm Vanessa Harryhausen. I'm Ray Harryhausen's daughter, and I live in Scotland.

So there's the movie, which takes a few Hollywood liberties, and then there's the ancient Greek myth, as told by Apollonius of Rhodes in his epic poem called the Argonautica, dating back to the third century BC. The ancient myth of Jason is one of a whole cluster of stories about how a young man whose heir to a throne is frustrated by an evil older relative in his attempts to simply succeed to his own throne. The people need more than a leader.

They must believe that gods have not been. deserted them. They need a miracle. And where will you find this miracle? My name's Edith Hall. I'm Professor of Classics at the University of Durham in Northern England. The quest he ends up going on with the organauts is to modern-day Georgia, but the journey is far from easy. Which was to go to the far end of the black sea and bring back a Greek magical object, which was a sheep's fleece made entirely of gold. I have heard there is a tree at the end of the world. with a fleece of gold hanging in its branches.

I have heard this too. So have many men. They say it is a gift of the gods. Jason, importantly, isn't from Athens. He's from an area in North Greece in the kingdom Ioccus, and he loses his kingdom to his uncle Pellias, who takes the throne from his father.

And so this is a story about redemption. This is getting back what you're owed, a story of coming of age. First, search for this golden fleece. Do not reveal yourself to Pallias, but build a ship and find a crew. And when you have this prize, then, and only then, return and kill Pallias. It's like, in Maryy Fairy Tales, sending out a hero to kill a dragon.

He's not supposed to be able to do it. If I could find this prize and bring it home to Thessaly, then it would inspire the people. Wipe out the years of misrule. They would know that the gods have not abandoned them. My name is Florence Youen, and I'm Associate Professor of Greek at the University of British Columbia. So this is a narrative that may seem very familiar, a young man off on an adventure, trying to achieve the unachievable. And of course, he's going to win. My name is Dr. Lucy Jackson, and I'm an assistant professor in ancient Greek literature at Durham University in the UK.

So what happens on the trip? He puts together this team called the Argonauts, right? So Jason puts together a team of some of the most extraordinary heroes in ancient Greece. He's got Heracles, who's the alpha male, who can wrestle with any adversary. He's got Telemone, who's Heracles' best friend, who is one of the strongest men in Greece. He's king of Salamis. He's got Orphus to provide them with music. I mean, you just get the best bar in Greece.

So they sail off, and they have some adventures on the way, including stopping in on the island of Lemnos, where they had some liaisons with the ladies, and in Heracles case was one of the young men there. We set sail. He had to face clashing rocks. He had to face and fight mythical creatures. Get forward there! What is it you want to know? The way to Colchis.

The way to Colchis is through the clashing rocks. These are rocks that keep on coming together, and no ship had been able to pass through them except the Argo, thanks to the help of Athena and to their great pilot Tiffis. Steer Norwest and you reach them in five days. Northwest. My name is James Claus. I'm a professor of classics at the University of Washington.

After the clashing rocks, you turn north east. Before long, you'll sight the shores of Colchus. But tell me what gods protect you. None now. And you won't pass the clashing rock. John Kearney played Hylis in the 1963 film and spoke to Connor Heaney in a podcast in April 2017. It's funny. the film has attained an iconic status that it's nothing to do with its artistic ability.

It's the actual honesty of the nonsense in it and the falsity of models and the falsity of monsters and the falsity of actors, but nonetheless being taken quite seriously. The false monsters were in fact models built by Ray Harryhausen. The actors never saw them, of course. They were filmed separately and then edited it. into the scenes later. The actors had to pretend to see them and carry out action sequences alone in a kind of pantomime. I had to be crushed by a Blumen Giant who was invisible, who existed in the sky according to a clock face, given me by Harry Housen. The clock face was the giant's head at 12 o'clock

and his feet at 6 o'clock and his arms at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. And they called out a number and I looked in that direction as I ran along a beach and then appropriately fell flat in my face. The Argonauts battling vultuous hobbies. There was I a working actor of a minor distinction, and all I had to do was fall flat my face in the sand. One man defying a universe of mortal and immortal dangers. Jason and the Argonauts. Number 63 was a much less sophisticated age than today. And Harryhausen was almost Aeons ahead of his time.

That's where we couldn't appreciate it. We were accommodating a good man who seemed to know what he was talking about. A rare event in film. And he always said, you know, you've got to bring the child out and these actors to believe and pretend and really think that you're fighting these creatures. And he did it. It worked because they're still talking about that film today. Is there any man here who does not obey the gods? We will do as the goddess Heer commands if she will speak to us.

This is your last chance, Jason. Then know this, Argonauts. Heilus is dead. Hylus is dead. As for Hercules, he is not fated to go further with the Argo. Zeus has other tasks for him. And for us, Hero? sail to Frigia.

Seek out Phineas the blinded man. Only he can guide you now. And the Argo sails on to the Black Sea, to Colchus. Peoples of the Black Sea in the Greek imagination, that probably wasn't historically true at all, but in the Greek imagination, we're always very xenophobic and always wanted to do things like human sacrifice

if visitors turned up on their shores. So King I-80s, he's actually son of the son, he's son of Helios. These Colchians all have these flashing eyes like the sun and flashing white teeth. So he decided he wanted rid of this horrible young Greek. He may well have been worried he was going to run away with his daughter, who had very valuable magical powers. The goddess Hekarty has spoken.

There will be one among us today from the ends of the world. So he sails up there and he does indeed manage to get the golden fleece, but only by getting the head. of the extremely discontented Princess Royal of the House, the palace, the kingdom of Colchis, as it was then called, whose wicked father Iatis seems to be just as much of a problem to Jason as Pilias had been. Rise up, you dead, slain of the Hydra. Rise from your graves and avengers.

Those who steal the golden fleece must die. In 2014, archaeologists found evidence of ancient gold mining in the Republic of Georgia. They say villagers would use sheep's fleece to line the sandy riverbeds in order to collect coal dust like a filter, and the fleece would glitter with gold. This, they said, could have been the prize at the end of Jason's journey, the golden fleece. In the Apollonius tale, the fleece hangs from a tree. But unfortunately, it was guarded by a horrible, toxic fire-breathing dragon. Get the fleece.

The only reason he managed all of this, of course, was that by then, Medea, Princess of Colchus had already fallen madly in love. But then they've actually got to get the fleece. There's no point even going back to Greece to claim his throne if he hasn't got the condition on which he was sent off to get the throne. So she helps him, and the way she does that is, that she hypnotises the dragon. There's an incredible scene in a poet called Apollonius,

who wrote a long epic about the Argonauts, where she actually sings sort of soothing lullabies and chants to him, which means that Jason can just whip the fleece off the tree, and they jumped on board and off they sailed. Someone's rocking my dreamhole. Someone's invading my dream We were sailing along, so peaceful and calm, Suddenly something went wrong.

In the 1963 film, Medea isn't much more than Jason's trophy wife. It's really his movie, but in the myth, she's something else altogether. She's stronger. She's dangerous. Let once a storm blew us apart and left me drifting alone. Someone's rocking my dream. What does the myth tell people about what Medea is about? Because here we've got somebody who's local, who throws it all the way to go off on a whim, basically, with a stranger, a foreigner, right?

It depends how you sort of read ancient sources. Her father is very unpleasant and very tyrannical. a lot of stress is always put, and surprisingly modern-sounding ways, on the difficulties of being a very able woman, very talented, very intelligent, in any system where you had no outlet for that. Euripides, Apollonius,

all the people who write about Medea stress that. One has to read the myth of Medea in the context of Greek imperialism and colonialism in the Black Sea. This is the sort of story that arises when one country is expanding, massively into other territory. The Greeks were building cities, including the Athenians, all around the Black Sea. Way back in the Bronze Age, they were founding these cities.

And they did indeed get sheep from there. They did indeed get wool from there, like fleece. And they absolutely got gold, both mind and alluvial. But of course, Greek men, they would go off on these ships with no women in them. And the Greeks did. They intermarried wherever they went. They tended to move into these towns on the Black Sea they founded and marry the local population. So the idea that you bring back a beautiful woman from the Black Sea was not in itself particularly strange. That's the sort of positive side that you go and you have your romantic orientalising sexual encounters in the East. But the flip side of that is you're absolutely terrified of these people because they're your enemy. You often have to fight them. A lot of people

never come back alive from the Black Sea. They're a shipwreck. There are kidnappings, there are abductions, there are ambushes by native tribes. So her terrifying personality kind of has that double thing, the allure of the richness, the riches that you could acquire and the sexual adventures, but the danger and the fear and the terror and the destruction as well. The tale by Apollonius of Rhodes ends with the Argonaut's narrow escape from Colchus with the fleece. The Colchians give chase, led by Medea's brother. Medea kills him, cuts his body up and scatters the pieces in the water behind the Argo as they sail away.

She's now betrayed her own home and family to help Jason get away. But it's in the play Medea by Euripides, where the story takes its darkest turn. Euripides' play of Medea covers a very particular episode and a crucial moment in the partnership of Medea and Jason. In the play, Medea and Jason are married with two children, boys. And before long, Jason has his eye on another woman. And we see the impact of this on Medea, a formidable woman. We have sacrificed a great deal for Jason. The play itself is staged in 431 BC.

So in terms of where we are in historical context, we're on the brink of the Peloponnesian War, which was a battle between Greek states. and Corinth is a setting for the play. Jason and Medea are in Corinth, having come back from Colchis. Corinth is a very rich mercantile seafaring town on the north of the Peloponnese Peninsula and famed for its decadence as a port city, it's a party city. You go there to have a good night out.

He manages to ingratiate himself and he finds out that the king Creon has a marriageable daughter and no sons. So if he marries the marriage of the daughter, he will get to be the successor to King Creon in Corinth. So he will finally get the Greek kingdom he always felt he deserved. The only problem here is what to do with Medea. So you have the nurse at the opening of the play, summarising. I wish the Argo never had reached the land of Colchis.

I wish that the Argo had never arrived at the land of Colchis. No, I ever had fallen in the glades of Pele and the smitten fir tree to furnish oars for the hands of heroes who, in Peelius' name, attempted the golden fleece. What a radical thing to say about this myth, which is all about the heroic feat. So we know of Jason what he is achieved, but actually we know that from that outset we're going to see a different angle.

So in the Yerbidi's play, Jason and Medea have returned from this fantastic voyage. And the play begins with a situation in which Medea has been told that Jason is going to remarry. Deserting his own children and my mistress, Jason has taken a royal wife to his bed, the daughter of the ruler of this land. Poor Medea is slighted. That Jason is going to marry the daughter of the King of Corinth and that she is, being set aside. She gave pleasure to the people of her land of exile, and she herself helped Jason in every way. But now there's hatred everywhere.

Not only is she going to be essentially divorced, but she is going to be sent in exile. And this in the Greek world is a very terrible fate because she has no resources. She can't go home, that's for sure. She has burned all her bridges at home. You have a woman who's done every single thing that she could for Jason, things that were really vile. And now the person who she's supported so is ditching her. What kind of character, what kind of person is Medea as we meet her?

She's an ever-shifting character. I think it's part of what makes her so compelling. I think it's an enjoyably complex presentation that you get for the Medea. And when we first meet her, she's not even on stage. She's a voice crying out from backstage. I pity you, poor creature. How can your children share in their father's wickedness?

And the play by Euripides opens with Medea outside lamenting her abandonment by the husband she loved so much and for whom she had done so much. I mean, she'd left home and family fallen into a life of crime all out of loyalty to this man. And in that regard, she's vastly superior to him in terms of fidelity, sticking by the plan,

sticking by the promises. But this betrayal has broken my heart. And the first half of the play by Euripides actually wins us over. He has been an absolute hypocritical pig of a husband. Medea, I order you to leave my territories and exile. Has abandoned her the minute a better opportunity came along. Now I'm in the full force of the storm of hate.

You're listening to the documentary Worst Marriage Ever, the story of Jason and Medea by contributor Tom Jokinen. Ideas is heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also hear ideas on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayyad. If journalism is the first draft of history,

What happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Euripides' play turns the myth of Medea and Jason and the famous quest for the golden fleece into a domestic drama with a tragic outcome, just the way the ancient Greeks liked it. I heard a shriek that was laden with sorrow, shrilling out her heart grief. And so the story begins with Medea in this really impossible situation. and she enlists the support of the women of Corinth,

who are appearing as a chorus in this play. She cries out upon him who betrayed both her bed and her marriage. Ron, she calls on the gods, on the justice of Zeus, and the oath sworn, which brought her way to the opposite shore of the Greeks. Through the gloomy salt straits, to the gateway of the salty, unlimited sea. Before she's even had her formal entrance onto the stage, out into the playing space,

she's already causing chaos. This is the end. Now I'm in the full force of the storm of hate. And then... Men say we have a peaceful time living at home. When she does come out... Well, they do the fighting in war. She's fully in control.

How wrong they are, I would rather stand three times in the front line of battle and bear one child. And she's able to make this very measured, highly manipulative speech to get them to agree to keep silent about what she's planning. I have no father or brother, nor any friend with whom I can take refuge in this sea of woe. But this much I beg of you, if I can avenge this wrong, Keep silent. This I will promise. You are in the right, Medea. Enter Jason.

Jason. What follows is a scene of both passive aggression and plain old aggression, and any trace of the love hatched in Colchus under the potent conditions of magic and danger has now completely disappeared. This is not the first time. I have seen it before, how hopeless it is to deal with your stubborn temper. I bear no malice toward you.

You. I saved your life, and every Greek knows I saved it, who was a shipmate of yours aboard the Argo. First, when you were sent to yoke the bulls that breathed fire, then when you sowed that deadly field, and then the snake who never slept, and encircled with his many folds the golden fleece you sought,

I killed. You have broken your word to me. Why is there no mark engraved upon men's, bodies by which we can know the true from the false. Medea, I shall not answer you in kind, but like a man who has a good grip of the tiller reef up my sail and so run away from under this mouthing tempest of your bitter tongue. They have big row on stage, which it sounds so modern, because it's like any modern divorcing couple.

They've got two little boys who are always around as well. It's very disturbing children of these splitting up parents. When I arrived here from the land of Ialkus, what luckier chance could I have come upon than this, an exile to marry the daughter of the king? It was not that I grew tired of your bed and felt the need of a new bride, nor with any wish to ado your number of children.

I am quite content. But this was the main reason, that we might live well, that I might bring my children up worthily, and by producing more to be brothers of yours, we would draw the families. together and all be happy. And he actually has the gall to say, I'm doing it for you, darling.

It'll improve all of our position in Corrard. You need no more children. And I may do good to those I have now by having others. Can you think this a bad plan? You can stay here and best be a good girl. Keep quiet, lie low, look after the children. I'll come and see you sometimes. I want no happy fortune that brings pain with it.

Do not consider painful what is good for you. Seize your anger and you will I shall never accept the favours of your friends, nor take anything from you. Then I call the gods to witness that I wish to help you and the children in every way, but you refused. No, enjoy your wife. But perhaps, with the help of God and Hegant, it is a marriage that you will regret. So he goes off, leaves Medea, gets marriage.

Madeira is far too proud and far too rebellious and far too aware of her own worth to take that so she not only manages to kill the love rival by sending a poisoned wedding dress and tiara but she then decides that the way to hurt her husband most is to kill her children my task is fixed to kill my children

and leave this land force every way now will have it they must die and since this must be so I their mother shall kill them and she realises the way that she can truly truly hurt Jason

is to deprive him of the thing that he loves the most in all the world his children because that is the most painful thing that she can do to Jason that is the reason she gives is what is the maximum pain I can inflict on this man. And she has this moment of indecision where she thinks, Oh, my children. I can't do this.

Why children do you look upon me? She looks at her children and she, Why do you smile so sweetly that last smile of all? No, no, I will not do it. She feels their skin and she smells their smell and she thinks, I can't do this. Why would I do this? What is wrong with me?

There is something specific in the ancient Greek codes of morality and of heroism. which makes it absolutely unbearable to be laughed at and to be shamed. Will I let my enemies go unhurt and be laughed at? I mean, the line is there in the play. The line is saying that she can't be laughed at. Children come into the house. By hell's avenging furies, it shall not be. This shall never be that I should suffer my children to be the prey of my enemies.

Give your mother your hands. And to kiss. She really decides that her hatred for Jason is more important than her love for her children or really her love for herself. The perhaps more arcane sounding context for the Medea myth certainly still applies now the extent that people will go to to preserve their honor if slighted. And in a way, she sacrifices all her human ties for this desire for revenge. You said there's sympathy for Medea at the beginning. What is Euripides telling his audience with this move? You know, transgressing an ultimate taboo, a mother killing her children, in order to get back at her husband.

Erippides is saying more than one thing. He's a very complicated playwright. One thing he's definitely saying is if you abandon a woman who is known to be capable of murder, then you don't leave her unsupervised with your children. I think it's actually quite a simple, practical lesson. And I've done a lot of research into filisidal parents. Philicide is the technical term if you kill your own children. A Miami mother facing murder charges.

A mother under arrest accused of the unthinkable killing for two children. And it almost always happens in exactly the situation, Euripides, described in this play. It's quite extraordinary. The mother arrested over the weekend in the death of her three children could make her first court appearance today. Happens within the first two weeks of the split. Grosome new details in the case against a mother accused of killing her children. The parent who's left alone is usually faced with sexual jealousy as well,

but the person has left for someone else. People go demented in these circumstances. Abandon women like this at your peril. I genuinely believe that. Her weep and knife, Allily and Loney. There she took those sweet beige life Down by the Greenwood Side.

The Greenwood Side, also called the Cruel Mother, is an English murder ballad about a mother who kills her two children, sung here by Ian and Sylvia from the album Four Strong Winds. She wiped the blade against her shoe, hollily and lonely and lonely, more she rubbed the rhetoric,

down by the Greenwood Sidi-O. Bob Dylan once wrote that the oldest American folk songs told of, quote, debauched bootleggers, Cadillacs that only got five miles to the gallon, floods, Union Hall fires, darkness, cadavers at the bottom of the river, and mothers that drowned their own children. It was down in Mississippi,

not so long. The Medea's story just won't go away. It gets told again and again. And Dylan's point is that America fails when it refuses to face up to its own violent past, to look at it, to confront its own sin. The obligation to face up to our sins. Euripides is asking the same thing of his audience.

There is room to, to hate Medea. There is room to admire her. There is room to understand her or not. And I think that that range of responses is absolutely part of what almost all art forms aim at, but particularly theatre. The other thing is that she regards herself as an agent of the justice of Zeus. The sanctity surrounding ritual things like a ritual oath meant that people genuinely believe that if you broke them, Zeus would blast you with a thunder. That's how the Greeks felt. So although she does something terrible, and it is terrible,

and Erippides goes out of his way, you know, we have the little boy's voices screaming from inside. Do you hear the cry? Do you hear the children's cry? Oh, you heard. Mommy, don't go, you know, mommy put down your sword. Mummy, it's terrible moment. But because by that time, she's actually convinced us that she's some sort of almost

divine agent of divine justice. that also takes some of the sting out of it. She turns into a theological, providential agent rather than just a wronged wife. And I think Euripides absolutely is not telling you how you have to respond to her, right? Is, you know, like many forms of art, showing you this and provoking unemotional response,

but not dictating a particular emotional response? I mean, the big question, of course, now, over 2,000 years old, that keeps being asked is why does she make that decision? You can see the logic in its twisted way of killing the king and the new bride and the spouse who's wronged her. Then the move to taking the children, the question that's never gone away is why does she do it? So why does she do it? It's very tempting, I think, to start psychologizing and think, well, she's given up everything for Jason.

This is everything that she's given to him, their sons, and he's taken everything from her by disrespecting their marriage, and so she has to take everything from him. I think part of why it's an ongoing question is because that's not good enough. But, you know, it doesn't justify it. What I find more intriguing was thanks to Frederick Nietzsche and his book Beyond Good and Evil. what Euripides was imagining here, possibly. By killing her children, Medea had in some sense become like a god

because the gods lived beyond good and evil, not subject to morality. And she had done something so horrific and so unthinkable from a mortal perspective that it raised her to a status that was beyond our imagination. It's a matter of mental gymnastics, a very human trait of rationalizing. she's a goddess. She plays by different rules. She kills just as Abraham was prepared to kill Isaac

for a higher reason. There must be a reasonable explanation, a moral justification. So people concocted in all kinds of ways of evading the full force of Euripides, where of course, just before she goes in to do it, she says loud and clear, just in case any of you are thinking, I'm mad, I know what I'm going to do is wrong, but my ability to take rational decisions has been, overcome by my thumos. Now, thumos means your temper, your seat of emotions, your heart. This is the line from the Euripides play. I know the full horror, says Medea, of what I am about to do. But anger, the spring of all life's horrors, masters my resolve. So this is fascinating because it's not actual madness. I am absolutely aware this is a wrong action and I'm incapable

of controlling myself, despite that knowledge, because I'm so angry. Oh, arm yourself in steel, my heart. Come my hand and take the sword. Do not think of them. Do not remember now that you are their mother. This is Maria Callis in the role of Medea in the Cherubini opera of the same name, at Teatro Alaskala from 1958. The first time she played Medea,

she learned the role in a week, and then she lived it for the rest of her life, up to and including the 1968 film Medea by Pierre Paolo Pasolini, in which she played the starring role. What we are trying, I may say, is to find the human part of Medea. A woman, with all the experiences of a woman,

even more so. Everything is bigger. But it was the opera that, for his opera, brought together the singer and the character from the myth. When I think of Callas as Medea in the opera especially, I think of the opera coinciding with the key points of her personal life. And it was also the beginning of the end of her opera career, for it was in Medea in 1962 that her voice cracked.

So I'm interested in the way Medea, the mythical figure, runs in parallel to Callis, the woman. My name is Lindsay Spence, and I'm the author of Castadiva, the hidden life of Maria Callis. And obviously in terms of the opera as well, she always said when she played Medea, Medea wasn't born to be a woman. She betrayed herself by trying to be a woman. She was actually a witch. And I think that speaks to Maria herself when she said, there are two people in me. There is Maria and there is Callas. And it's always a fight for supremacy

who's going to win. And I think she felt that with Medea as well. Is she Medea the woman or is she Medea the witch? I was dying to ask a question. I was trying to think how to ask it. The gentleman Aristotle Anastis is a mutual friend. He's a good friend, and I think he's a delightful man. And I wondered what you thought were his greatest qualities. Oh, you can ask. We're the finest of friends. I've always said that, and I'm quite sure that he considers me his best friend,

and that's a lot in life. Maria Callis on the David Frost Show in 1970. And I think in Venice, we became fine friends, and we stayed, and we will be. all our lives, we hope. Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis, a real world, Jason and Medea. He was a Greek billionaire, and she was the most famous Greek woman in the world,

and Onassis thought two greatest Greeks in the world should get together. And he really, I guess today, we would say he stalked her. He followed her from 1957 until 1959, and it was when she was performing in Medea in London. He bought nearly all of the tickets, so he could bring himself and his friends, and he put a party on for her, and he invited her on a cruise. And of course, on that cruise in 1959, they started their infamous love affair.

Do you think that that's sort of her experience was to actually live the character of Medea? In terms of, I think, of how the public perceive her, they see this woman suffering for love and never having the children that she wanted and just doing everything to please the men, particularly onassis in her life. He identified with Greek mythology. when you have that as your alter ego, you know, you're going to clash. Have you talked to Mr. Onassis? I talk to all my friends. You expect to see Mr. Onassis when you go to Europe?

I hope I see all my friends and I hope I say Mr. Anassis. Why not? I am answering no more questions. That's all, gentlemen. That's really what happened, and that's why I find it quite interesting. When she portrayed Medea, the way it coincided with the key moments of her life. And what happened with the relationship? He dumps her basically, right? Yes, she thinks that they're going to get married.

She thinks, you know, he will devote himself to her. They will have children. She will be his one and only. But he has such a huge ego. He just collects these famous, brilliant women. And once he conquered Callas, he was on to other people. And he eventually got with Jacqueline Kennedy, not because he loved her in any way,

but because she was another trophy to show off. And Maria said, you know, Jacqueline, might be younger, thinner, prettier, but he loves me. He'll always come back to me. But sadly, for Maria, that didn't happen. I'm sorry. I can't talk. What are you going to be going to? How do you feel about the court litigation that's coming up? I'm giving no interview. And behind her back, he married Jacqueline Kennedy. I said, don't. I'm not answering any interview. Now stop it. It reminds me of a quote from the story itself when she says, my love for you was greater than my

wisdom. For me, it sums up the way she felt about Onassis was the way Medea felt about Jason. The hook on the Medea story obviously is the revenge that Medea takes on Jason. Is there a sense of revenge on men like Onassis that Callis seeks? Is there any sort of parallel on that idea of revenge? After Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy, Maria Callis wrote lots of letters to her closest friends. And in every letter there is this hysterical element of revenge, almost as if she's channeling Medea, she will say, they will pay for this, the gods will make them suffer, you wait and see, I will be victorious. And it's almost like when Medea is screaming at her husband before she kills her children and then she does kill her children, you know, he will pay, she kills to make him suffer. But I don't think Maria herself was like that. I think when she was hurt and she had suffered her betrayal. She went into hiding mostly, and she just, she self-destructed it, so she sacrificed herself.

So not the children, but herself, because there are no children, but she sacrifices herself. Yes, she becomes addicted to pills. Her health suffers. She can't see any logic in living anymore, and obviously she dies young. And to me, she self-destruct it. You hope a lot. Maybe it's my fault. I put a man on a pedestal. And I hoped a lot, and I probably was disappointed and probably was my fault. I thought that when I met a man I loved, that I didn't need to sing. And I have integrity, which is a very expensive, using Anasi's words, it's a very expensive price to pay for integrity and honesty.

But I can pay that price. There's a Roman play called Medea. by Seneca. So this is a poet who is responding to Euripides, who knows Euribides. He has quite a different answer to the question, why does she do it? One of the things that he does is to make her aware that she is Medea, that she is part of a tradition in which Medea kills her children. And she speaks about herself in the third person all the time, where she says, you know, should I do this? what am I doing, Medea does this. This is what Medea does. And there's such consciousness of the fact that this is how Medea is now defined. And she really leans into that role. And Seneca really highlights

that awareness. Answer to the question, why does Medea kill her children? Because that's who Medea is. She becomes the symbol of women who kill their children. Wow, that's really interesting. That's kind of meta. I mean, it's, and that's sort of a tautology. Medea kills her children because Medea kills her children. But that's really digging into what myth is, right? That myth is really these stories about individuals where there is lots of room for variation and for change, but that there's a hard line of continuity or there is something essential. And for Medea, it becomes Medea is the woman who kills her children. And that is what her myth is. So in answer to the question, do we have free will?

The Greek answer is, well, yes, and no, right? I think that's right, yeah. Okay. So part of Medea's story is that it's out of her hand. Well, certainly Medea is in this terrible position, right? And certainly the extent to which she is making a choice and the extent to which she is feeling these emotions that are so overwhelming and so beyond her really explores the extent to which this is a choice and the extent to which this is a necessary

course of action. And all of those lines connect. Medea kills because Medea kills. People are sinful because people are sinful. It's a bind if you believe in fate. But the way out may be to recognize fate and find some wiggle room and choose as far as you can not to sin again. lessons for those who prefer to ignore history, a long history of what people, regular people, just like you and me, like Jason and Medea, are capable of doing. There's a social historical angle, too. What do we do about colonialism, residential schools, the legacy of slavery, Jim Crowe? You start by not pretending these things never happened. One of the things I think tragedy does very well, and it's extraordinary, given the numbers of

centuries that have passed is to continue to help us to address and explore global issues of concert. And that doesn't require us to do that much to the text. I actually think that in fifth century Athens, there was a very, very great interest in thinking through the nature of ethnicity, in thinking through the nature of power, in thinking through how you interact culturally, not just with barbarian states, but also with other Greek states. I think these are are dynamic and living texts. In the 1963 film, Zeus and the gods of Olympus have the last word. And the word is, the story doesn't end.

It simply keeps going. For the moment, let them enjoy a calm sea, a fresh breeze in each other. The girl is pretty, and I was always sentimental. But for Jason, there are other adventures. I have not yet finished with Jason. You were listening to Worst Marriage Ever, the story of Jason and Medea by contributor Tom Jokinen. Special thanks to Connor Hini and Vanessa Harryhausen

at the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation. Lisa Ayuso is the web producer of ideas. Technical production, Danielle Duval. Nikola Luchschic is the senior producer. The executive producer of ideas is Greg Kelly, and I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.com.