Reading Euripides’ Medea, and nearing the end, I’ve come to the point where her revenge is complete, and she’s having her final words with Jason.
One line runs something like “you didn’t expect, having scorned my bed” or, perhaps more accurately, something like “you were not about to…” [εμελλες] (1354) and then the next line: “to live your life through pleasurably, laughing at me.” (1355, of course)
It seems to me as if these two lines perfectly encapsulate the two sides of her emotion. In 1354 is all her spite. There is no way, she says, that you were going to get away with this, and calls the injury by name (also interesting that at this pivotal moment, the injury she names is not the breaking of oaths, but the sexual insult). In the next line, she describes quickly and vividly the life that he meant to lead, and both her brevity and her inclusions (pleasure, laughter) are more than adequate for anyone who’s ever felt resentful. That line, its irony, is pure hate.
And it’s not hate of the time that makes Medea fearful, I don’t think. Here more than anywhere, even though she’s just killed her children, she is sympathetic. In her last burst of rage, where her choice of words is no longer calculated, but expresses everything that boiled in her mind until her vengeance broke forth, she is finally human. She is more human here, when she admits that her deepest motivation the whole time was Jason’s sexual infidelity, was jealousy, and just jealousy, than she was even when she wavered in her plan to kill her children.
Maybe she’s not supposed to be quite this sympathetic to the spectator, but this is how I’m reading her. I would love to play Medea. I’m not an actress, but I think, in this scene at least, I get her.
In a move seemingly unprecedented in Skype history, my mother has selflessly converted her status message to a full-time information relay provider, the Gobo Update System (GUS). This is very exciting for those of us who can’t get enough of the goon, and are constantly disappointed when he doesn’t say hi back to us on the phone (now I’m just sounding bitter). Recent updates include “Gobo is 3 today!” and “Gobo is bored.”
How can you gain access to this fantastic and gripping data stream? Well, you have to make friends with my mom, and then Skype friends with my mom. It’s a small price to ask, really. (Especially since everyone who meets my mom not only becomes friends with her, but most of my friends quickly become better friends with her than with me. Oh, there goes the bitter again!)
I’ll leave you with a photo of the man himself.
I’m getting desperately annoyed with myself as a result of this recent set of posts–something that would probably be well-described in terms of a bad lecture series–so to-day I am going to share something very dear to my heart: dinosaur love.
But first, a word to the wise: The Exhibition Center at the Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut is Closed on Mondays. I’m just trying to save you from the same heartbreak Graham and I experienced. We wanted to go relive our heritage through the aid of dioramas and multimedia displays, but the plan was destined to failure. While it’s true that just being there made us feel closer to our ancestors, and also that we did glean some educational value from the trip, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed not to get to see the huge fossils. But that’s enough blather. I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
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- Graham the Brontosaurus taking things from the top
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- Graham the Brontosaurus prowling in the shrubbery.
Please see my small google album.
Don’t worry, there’s more to come, namely a video that will allow you to partake in our exhilarating educational experience.
To follow up (for courage to face lobsters):
(I love that “love” + “body” = dance)
The act of dancing makes me feel connected to my human heritage. In this house, we are always dancing, which is perfect, and marvelous. We dance during the day, waking up, getting ready for the night (last night, we danced for courage to go face the lobsters). Earlier this week, Ryan and I danced to African drumbeats together. Miles and I dance whenever there’s music, and there’s always music.
And when I think of dancing, I don’t just think of these things, but also of the country dances Hardy described, and the tribal dances in Africa and the Americas, of the Irish who kept dancing even when it was outlawed, of all the times people have turned to dancing in sadness, and also in elation. I need to keep dancing.
The weather is such a vital part of our sense of home. Bernard always used to tell a story about when he did military service in the Côte d’Ivoire with a company of Bretons, and how they slowly realized that all the sun was giving them mal du pays. They were homesick for the overcast, rainy Breton sky. Of course, I was at home in Britanny for similar reasons. And though when I first came to New York, some plants looked outright exotic to me, I quickly adjusted to those, and don’t feel too out of place here, since it’s just a little bit warmer than at home. Of course, I feel most comfortable when it’s foggy. You don’t even notice a thing like that until you leave, but it was always foggy at home. I miss the marshes.
Then there’s the land. I’ll always be for lakes, for instance. The ocean just doesn’t do the same thing for me. Of course, standing alongside Lake Michigan, you can’t see the other side any more than you could standing next to the ocean. But it’s calmer, and freshwater, with coarser sand on the beaches.
So, however badly I might want to go study in the south to get their sense of the English language, I don’t think I could do it. I wouldn’t survive that heat.
So last night, we were discussing what was to be done about dinner, and I felt strangely invested in the question. I wanted good food, but more than that. I wanted what I wound up terming “a food experience.” What we got, given that the pizza was no longer fresh at 8pm, was more experience than food, but certainly not a disappointment. The Pizza king moved to the corner of Jay Street right across from the courthouse a couple months ago, though I personally had never heard of it before then. Then for taste of Union two weeks ago, they offered free pizza to Union students, which, after a little bit of fretting (isn’t it always like that with me?) I enjoyed. Even when it’s not free, though, the pizza is very reasonably priced, and the guy who runs the place is very personable, though he told us last night that he “doesn’t like people, especially not humans.” We showed up just as they were closing, so he boxed up what was left over and gave it to us, dimming the lights for “atmosphere,” but mostly so that people wouldn’t wander up, thinking they were open.
My pizza had tomatoes and bacon on it, and Joey got a very intense vegetable number of which the pizza guy had said “I mean, they’re all good, but you want to get what’s really good…” I drank a cherry coke.
