48. But in our two essentially character plays, the Medea and the Hippolytus, we have the passions of female jealousy and of unlawful love—each resulting in terrible revenge—drawn in imperishable colours. Though succeeding ages have equally praised and imitated them, the judgment of the Athenians, I think rightly, preferred the Hippolytus.
The Medea came out in 431 B.C., with the Philoctetes, Dictys, and the early-lost satyric Θερισταί, or Reapers. It is said to have been anticipated, as to subject, by a play of Neophron, a contemporary but now unknown tragic poet. Like many other great literary works, it was at first a failure, as it only gained the third prize, Euphorion (son of Æschylus) obtaining the first prize, Sophocles the second. To obtain the third prize was considered a disgrace, for even if more than three poets ever contended (which I think doubtful) nothing lower than the third place is ever mentioned. Accordingly the Medea was a failure, and this is justified by the criticisms upon it, which are still extant in the Poetics of Aristotle, who blames the poet for the introduction of king Ægeus, and for the fabulous device of the winged chariot at the conclusion of the play. Possibly some of its original defects have disappeared from our texts, for there is considerable evidence that there was a second edition, and many of the variants or supposed interpolations in our texts may arise from the two editions being imperfectly fused by a later hand. But apart from Aristotle's objections, any modern critic might bring this charge against the Medea, that the whole interest turns upon the delineation of the furious passion of Medea, and her devices to punish those who have offended her. For the other characters are either mean or colourless, if we except the two aged and faithful servants, the nurse and pedagogue, whose prologue and dialogue admirably introduce the play. Jason, the faithless husband, is a sort of Greek Æneas, who endeavours to justify his desertion of his wife by specious excuses, and has not even, like Virgil's hero, the excuse of a warning
