MEDEA (lat. Medea, it. Medea) - 1) the heroine of the tragedy by Euripides ' Medea» (431 BC). In Greek mythology, M - a witch, a daughter of the king of Colchis, which helped Jason and the Argonauts get the Golden fleece, and then fled with them and had become the wife of Jason. In the famous tragedy Бврипид once again turned to the image of the M: he made his debut tragedy «Пелиа plants», where she also was the main character. In the drama M. insidiously forced daughters фесса-лийского king Peliah kill his father, suggesting that they return the youth in him. For his famous tragedy poet chose Corinthian episode from the myth of Meters, and its most tragic option: he needed the guilty heroine, and if, according to one of the types of stories, not she killed the children, and the Corinthians, мстящие for the death of the king and the Princess, Frank collision cunning tyrant and revenge by the victim would be too banal for the tragedy. «Led by the higher sense, the poet gave us in this tragedy minimun direct horror and dirt steps to the stronger make us feel all its terrible price» (I.F). At the beginning of the drama heroine does not come on the scene: her faithful nurse describes what a terrible anger has seized her mistress, when she learned about the change of Jason. Itself M. appears later to a calmer, present the Corinthian women (they sympathize with her grief) their own and common to all women misery: «I would prefer a stand three times for a shield than once to give birth...» Then is king CREON and announces her exile together with children. She asks - and gets - day of delay, already having decided to destroy the king and Princess, but do not think of his revenge in detail. Then you receive Jason. This image from Euripides displayed not heroic. Rather, it Sophist, a cynic with a well-supported language, which convinces M, that she had a blessing, bringing in Greece and thereby freeing the from vegetating in obscurity in its barbarian country; entering into a new marriage, Jason, being obliged to salvation not to her, and Киприде, on top of all offers her money on the road. She exclaims: «O Zeus, why have you given people the exact signs of a fake gold, but if anyone needs to recognize the unworthy person has no body no mark?» But, having met with Эгеем and with his consent to give her shelter (this scene caused the greatest disapproval; it was considered unnecessary or even hindering the overall impression), M. comes to his last decision and talking with Jason's different. Pretending to be consonant with his suggestions, she asks that he persuaded the bride and CREON leave in Corinth children who gives a precious gift for the bride poisoned by the venom. When vengeance was done, and Jason, who lost his bride comes to receive his Feet, he already misses their children alive, and the witch M hiding in the chariot of his grandfather Helios drawn by dragons. «She was dealing not Eros, and Erinia, and M does not lover, which mourns the lost joys of marriage» - in such words precisely formulated the meaning of the image I.F. The tragedy by Euripides won an extremely popular in ancient and modern times.