Argh, I am so sick of those decimal places! 🤬
Uh. Anyway.
Today's book was Theseus, Volume Three, by Jordan Holt. A graphic novel I backed on Kickstarter. Volume one was back in 2020, so it's been long enough since the previous volumes that I forgot many of the individual quirks of this telling of the Theseus myth.
Or rather I forgot the problematic one: the author chose to include the "Medea subplot."
Which is a genuine part of some ancient tellings of the myth, but it sucks. (The subplot, not this book.) Basically, it makes Medea into Theseus' evil stepmother, and...yeah, actually, that's pretty much all that needs to be said. Making Medea into a villain instead of a victim was emblematic of the misogyny and xenophobia that was so prevalent in ancient Greek society.
There's something extra demented about adding Medea to Theseus' tale in particular. (Again, I am specifically here talking about whatever ancient Athenian chose to add her into the story.) Because let's look at the facts:
1) Medea playing the evil stepmother comes hard on the heels of the conclusion of Theseus' brief affair with Ariadne, who he abandoned on Naxos at the orders of Dionysos. (Surprisingly, the author of this modern book chose to leave that out, so Theseus actually ended up with Ariadne.)
2) Medea and Ariadne play the exact same role in their own stories: they are both foreign princesses who betray their fathers in order to enable the Greek hero to achieve his goal successfully, rather than dying miserably as they would have done unaided.
3) Both Medea and Ariadne are thrown over by their dependent Greek beau as soon as they are no longer useful. (Excuses were made in both cases, but they don't change the hard facts of the matter. Especially since there are versions where Dionysos does not order Theseus to abandon Ariadne, and merely picks her up after Theseus has sailed off and left her. (Those versions presumably came from somewhere other than Athens...))
4) Medea and Ariadne are actually first cousins! Ariadne's mother, Pasiphae, is the sister of Aeetes, Medea's father.
5) (And this is the big one!) It's actually chronologically impossible for Medea to have been courting/marrying Aegeus during Theseus' youth. This is why: in his old age, the twice-widowed Theseus abducted an underage Helen of Sparta, planning to make her wife #3. Her twin brothers, Castor and Polydeuces, rescued her while Theseus was held prisoner in the House of Hades for trying to help his bestie kidnap Persephone in an attempt to marry her. Castor and Polydeuces went along on the voyage of the Argo to steal the Golden Fleece from Colchis. (This event basically had to be after the abduction of Helen, since Castor and Polydeuces are the same age as Helen, and surely would have been viewed as too young to Argonauts before that time!) Therefore, Theseus is already old and twice widowed by the time Medea leaves Colchis!
This is, of course, the big trouble in trying to work with Greek myths, because you have centuries of ancient texts (even setting aside Roman versions...which very few people do, as pretty much anyone you ask is likely to know Ovid's version of Medusa's 'origin story,' despite that his version is literally not attested anywhere prior to his Metamorphoses, strongly suggesting that he just effin' made it up), which were written drawing on different traditions from different regions, and which represent the different opinions and agendas of different authors, etc. There is no hint of consistency even in the actual Greek versions, and as soon as you start looking at modern versions as well (to say nothing of Medieval and Renaissance versions!) it becomes even more wildly muddled.
Uh...
Yeah, I have completely lost track of anything else I may have wanted to say.
So.
Erm.
Well.
Guess that's the post, then.
Original language: English
