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In Greek mythology, Medea (; , ''Mēdeia'', (グルジア語:მედეა), ''Medea'') is a sorceress who was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis,〔Colchis was an ancient Georgian Kingdom〕 niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play ''Medea'', Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, offers him his daughter, Glauce.〔Glauce is known as Creusa in Seneca's ''Medea and in Propertius 2.16.30.〕 The play tells of Medea avenging her husband's betrayal by killing their children. The myths involving Jason have been interpreted〔See, for example, Nita Krevans, "Medea as foundation-heroine", in John Joseph Clause, Sarah Iles Johnston, eds. ''Medea: essays on Medea in myth, literature, philosophy, and art'' (Princeton University Press) 1997:71-82.〕 as part of a class of myths that tell how the Hellenes of the distant heroic age, before the Trojan War, faced the challenges of the pre-Greek "Pelasgian" cultures of mainland Greece, the Aegean and Anatolia. Jason, Perseus, Theseus, and above all Heracles, are all "liminal" figures, poised on the threshold between the old world of shamans, chthonic earth deities, and the new Bronze Age Greek ways.〔For this general aspect, see especially Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples, ''The World of Classical Myth: Gods and Goddesses, Heroines and Heroes'' University of North Carolina 1994, part III: The Liminal Hero.〕 Medea figures in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, a myth known best from a late literary version worked up by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd century BC and called the ''Argonautica.'' However, for all its self-consciousness and researched archaic vocabulary, the late epic was based on very old, scattered materials. Medea is known in most stories as an enchantress and is often depicted as being a priestess of the goddess Hecate or a witch. The myth of Jason and Medea is very old, originally written around the time Hesiod wrote the ''Theogony''. It was known to the composer of the ''Little Iliad'', part of the Epic Cycle. ==Jason and Medea== Medea's role began after Jason came from Iolcus to Colchis, to claim his inheritance and throne by retrieving the Golden Fleece. In the most complete surviving account, the ''Argonautica'' of Apollonius, Medea fell in love with him and promised to help him, but only on the condition that if he succeeded, he would take her with him and marry her. Jason agreed. In a familiar mythic motif, Aeëtes promised to give him the fleece, but only if he could perform certain tasks. First, Jason had to plough a field with fire-breathing oxen that he had to yoke himself. Medea gave him an unguent with which to anoint himself and his weapons, to protect him from the bulls' fiery breath. Next, Jason had to sow the teeth of a dragon in the ploughed field (compare the myth of Cadmus). The teeth sprouted into an army of warriors. Jason was forewarned by Medea, however, and knew to throw a rock into the crowd. Unable to determine where the rock had come from, the soldiers attacked and killed each other. Finally, Aeëtes made Jason fight and kill the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece. Medea put the beast to sleep with her narcotic herbs. Jason then took the fleece and sailed away with Medea, as he had promised. Apollonius says that Medea only helped Jason in the first place because Hera had convinced Aphrodite or Eros to cause Medea to fall in love with him. Medea distracted her father as they fled by killing her brother Absyrtus. In some versions, Medea was said to have dismembered his body and scattered his parts on an island, knowing her father would stop to retrieve them for proper burial; in other versions, it was Absyrtus himself who pursued them, and was killed by Jason. During the fight, Atalanta, a member of the group helping Jason in his quest for the fleece, was seriously wounded, but Medea healed her. According to some versions, Medea and Jason stopped on her aunt Circe's island so that she could be cleansed after the murder of her brother, relieving her of blame for the deed. On the way back to Thessaly, Medea prophesied that Euphemus, the helmsman of Jason's ship, the ''Argo'', would one day rule over all Libya. This came true through Battus, a descendant of Euphemus. The ''Argo'' then reached the island of Crete, guarded by the bronze man, Talos (Talus). Talos had one vein which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by a single bronze nail. According to Apollodorus, Talos was slain either when Medea drove him mad with drugs, deceived him that she would make him immortal by removing the nail, or was killed by Poeas's arrow (Apollodorus 1.140). In the ''Argonautica'', Medea hypnotized him from the ''Argo'', driving him mad so that he dislodged the nail, ichor flowed from the wound, and he bled to death (Argonautica 4.1638). After Talos died, the ''Argo'' landed. Jason, celebrating his return with the Golden Fleece, noted that his father Aeson was too aged and infirm to participate in the celebrations. Medea withdrew the blood from Aeson's body; she infused it with certain herbs and returned it to his veins, invigorating him. The daughters of king Pelias saw this and wanted the same service for their father. While Jason searched for the Golden Fleece, Hera, who was still angry at Pelias, conspired to make Jason fall in love with Medea, whom Hera hoped would kill Pelias. When Jason and Medea returned to Iolcus, Pelias still refused to give up his throne, so Medea conspired to have Pelias' own daughters kill him. She told them she could turn an old ram into a young ram by cutting up the old ram and boiling it in magic herbs. During her demonstration, a live, young ram jumped out of the pot. Excited, the girls cut their father into pieces and threw him into a pot. Having killed Pelias, Jason and Medea fled to Corinth. With Jason she had five sons, Alcimenes, Thessalus, Tisander, Mermeros and Pheres and a daughter, Eriopis. They were married happily for ten years in Corinth. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Medea」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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