Medea fascinated Ovid more than any other female mythical figure. She features in the Ars Amatoria (1.336; 2.381–2), the Heroides (6.75, 127–8, 151; 12 passim; 17.229, 233), the Metamorphoses (7.1–424), and the Tristia (3.9). Ovid also composed a tragedy called Medea (Am. 2.18.13–16; Tr. 2.553–4), which unfortunately has not survived.Footnote ¹ In the Remedia amoris Medea is mentioned in a list of mythical men and women who would have been cured of their torturing love passion, if Ovid had been their praeceptor. Medea is not named, but the identification is obvious (Rem. am. 59–60): nec dolor armasset contra sua viscera matrem, / quae socii damno sanguinis ulta virum est (‘Nor would a mother's vengeance on her husband / have steeled her heart to slay their progeny’).Footnote ²

In this article I intend to explore the emotions of Medea in her Ovidian letter to Jason (Her. 12).Footnote ³ Medea is writing her letter while in Corinth, after her abandonment by Jason and his marriage to Creusa, but before the killing of her children. She finds herself in the same place as Hypsipyle, the queen of Lemnos, with whom Jason had an affair en route to Colchis (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1). Hypsipyle, too, sends a letter to Jason (Her. 6). Although letters 6 and 12 share the same recipient and apparently are meant to converse implicitly with one another, Ovid's Medea does not seem to be aware of Jason's past with Hypsipyle.Footnote ⁴

Epistolography as a genre is particularly suitable for the expression of personal thoughts and emotions. The letter-writer is offered the possibility for a more personal, sometimes alternative, narrative, often blurring the lines between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’. Every time someone writes a letter, in effect they build their own self.Footnote ⁵ Depending on the circumstance and the specific needs, letter-writers select those parts of reality that best serve their purpose. They select what, when, and how to write something, as well as what not to write. Through complex processes of selection, censorship, and self-censorship, letter-writers construct a version of reality, a ‘textual’ reality, which may resemble, coincide with, or even deviate significantly from objective reality.

The female letter-writers in the Heroides, including Medea, are no exception to this pattern; they record their own version of reality, which may not always be consistent with ‘objective’ reality. Any deviations may be the result of either deliberate misinterpretation or inability to understand reality. In this context of extreme subjectivity, the role of memory is dominant.Footnote ⁶ The female letter-writers of the Heroides, displaced on the margins of life, of writing, and of love, trigger mnemonic mechanisms to reclaim their presence in the lives of their loved ones who have abandoned them. Memory fills and heals the void of absence and desertion. The past and its lost happiness becomes a final, if not unique refuge for them from their present misery. Through writing the women of the Heroides revive the past by reshaping it in the way they want or in the way their troubled minds allow them to. As a result, the boundaries between the real and the non-real collapse, whether deliberately or not.

Ovid places the letter of his Medea at a pivotal point in her mythical career.Footnote ⁷ Medea outlines her past history and her present distress. She complains to Jason about his betrayal and her abandonment, she reminds him of her good services to him which he has forgotten, she invites him to return to her, and in the end she insinuates that she has already conceived a plan for revenge. Thus, the letter of this Ovidian Medea summarizes past events and prepares the ground for what is to follow. This is achieved through constant flashbacks and covert prefigurations of the future, so that the letter eventually contains, either fully narrated or in the form of hints, almost the whole of Medea's life.Footnote ⁸

To design the character of his Medea, Ovid draws mainly from Apollonius’ Argonautica, Euripides’ Medea, and Ennius’ Medea exul.Footnote ⁹ The verb memini used by Medea right at the beginning of her letter (12.1–2) – At tibi Colchorum, memini, regina vacavi, / ars mea cum peteres ut tibi ferret opem (‘But (I remember) though a princess of Colchis, I found time for you when you asked me to help with my magic’Footnote ¹⁰) – refers both to her memory as a literary character and, on a metapoetic level, to Ovid's memory as the external letter-writer, who draws on earlier works that span a wide range of poetic genres and time periods.Footnote ¹¹

Medea's letter to Jason is fraught with emotion from beginning to end. Looking at it from the point of view of emotions sheds light on her train of thought, enhances our understanding of this text, helps us to comprehend the motivation for her actions, and gives a more accurate depiction of the mythical figure of Medea as she is shaped by Ovid.Footnote ¹² The study of her emotions gives us the opportunity to grasp and appreciate her gradual transition from innocent young girl to fratricidal woman and then to jealous and betrayed woman who feels anger and rage for having been abandoned by the man she loved and supported through all the hardships and dangers they went through. This woman is soon expected – not in the course of this letter but in a dramatic time covered by Euripides’ Medea – to enact a terrible revenge and commit infanticide.

These will be the main lines of my approach: Medea's emotions recorded by herself; the symptoms of her emotions; the fluctuations of her emotions; and her emotions in the past as opposed to her present emotions. As mentioned above, the particularity of Medea's letter to Jason is that, although it is supposedly written at a given moment in her story, it includes both a retrospective account of past events and anticipations of things to come. Consequently, the emotions expressed by Medea are not just the emotions she experiences at the time of writing, but also her emotions in the past – both her past as an individual and her textual past, that is, her past as a literary heroine featuring in earlier texts, such as Euripides’ Medea, Apollonius’ Argonautica, and Ennius’ Medea exul.

Medea sets the tone right from the start of her letter. She is bitter and remorseful for all that has happened and wishes she had died honourably before meeting Jason (Her. 12.3–6):

Hence, what we are going to read are the personal thoughts of a woman who has regretted her actions, and experiences bitterness, remorse, and guilt.Footnote ¹³ The review of her life so far is clearly negative. Medea pities herself and charges her letter with emotion, using a typical exclamatory phrase of sadness, ei mihi (12.7–12):Footnote ¹⁴

The three successive questions introduced with cur and spreading over three couplets pick up the famous beginning of Euripides’ Medea (1–6):Footnote ¹⁵

It is evident right from the start that sadness is going to dominate Medea's letter, though not exclusively. Medea also states that she will gain pleasure (voluptas) and joy (gaudium) from demonstrating Jason's ingratitude (12.21–2): est aliqua ingrato meritum exprobrare voluptas; / hac fruar, haec de te gaudia sola feram (‘I'll take what pleasure there is in attacking the ingratitude of someone who's been helped – the only joy I'll get from you’).Footnote ¹⁶ Exposing her ex-husband's evil character will soften her pain and give her the peculiar satisfaction of revenge. This is the single joy (gaudia sola) that Medea is now expecting to receive. This kind of vengeance, the moral deconstruction of Jason, clearly paves the way for the more drastic revenge that will take place in the future, after the completion of the letter.

Shortly before this declaration, Medea attacks Jason using the first in a series of angry, aggressive, and derogatory addresses: inmemor Aesonides (‘thoughtless Jason’; 12.16).Footnote ¹⁷ She sarcastically uses the epic patronymic Aesonides and highlights Jason's trademark features: oblivion, faithlessness, and ingratitude. Jason has forgotten (or wants to forget), whereas Medea remembers (or wants and needs to remember). Medea then presents a flashback, starting from the moment she first laid eyes on Jason in the palace of Aeëtes at Colchis (12.21–50). She recounts Jason's arrival and the dangerous missions that her father assigned to him. The emotion that clearly dominates this part of her letter, which deals with the past, is love. Medea openly confesses her love for Jason, a love at first sight which proved disastrous (12.31–6):

Medea renders her attraction to Jason with the well-established metaphor of love as fire. What causes her love, before she and Jason even meet and talk in private, is his beauty (formosus eras) and her fate (me mea fata trahebant).Footnote ¹⁹ What Medea also makes sure to stress is that love was unknown to her (nec notis ignibus arsi), since she had been uninitiated in such matters until then. This is a crucial part of Ovid's strategy, namely to depict her as the innocent and naïve victim of a treacherous and ruthless man.Footnote ²⁰ In lines 89–92 Medea refers to the effect of Jason's hypocritical entreaties (73–88), which were accompanied with false tears:

Medea admits that she was captivated by Jason's charm and his manipulative words. In fact, Jason was able to perceive her emotions and exploit them for his own benefit. The fact that the inexperienced Medea could not hide her emotions, made her vulnerable to an experienced man such as Jason (12.37–8): perfide, sensisti! quis enim bene celat amorem? / eminet indicio prodita flamma suo (‘You realized, you traitor. Who succeeds in hiding love? It flares up clearly, giving itself away’).

Medea's instant love for Jason at Colchis causes her to be fearful for his safety. His life is in grave danger because of the missions Aeëtes has imposed on him. Medea records the grief of Jason and his companions upon hearing the words of her father (12.51): dixerat Aeetes: maesti consurgitis omnes) (‘Aeetes had spoken: you all rise in gloom’), but also records her own anxiety about his fate (12.55–6): tristis abis. oculis abeuntem prosequor udis / et dixit tenui murmure lingua: ‘vale!’ (‘You went off, despondent. I watched you go with tears in my eyes, and with a faint murmur I wished you well!’). Like a typical elegiac girl (puella) in love,Footnote ²¹ Medea experiences classic love symptoms and spends sleepless nights, crying and agonizing about Jason's fate (12.57–8): ut positum tetigi thalamo male saucia lectum, / acta est per lacrimas nox mihi quanta fuit (‘I went to bed in my room, badly wounded by love, and spent the whole night long crying’).Footnote ²²

In a very composed and calm manner, the Ovidian Medea of the dramatic present recalls and contemplates the troubled emotions she had experienced in the past, in Apollonius’ Argonautica. Making an extraordinary self-referential comment, she refers to the past simultaneous existence within her of both love (amor) for Jason and fear (timor) for what was about to happen (12.61): hinc amor, hinc timor est – ipsum timor auget amorem (‘I felt both love and fear, and the fear increased the love’). Most often in Ovid, and especially in the Heroides, the heroines face a classic dilemma between love and fear (amor and timor) or between love and shame (amor and pudor). Amor fights against timor or pudor each time a woman wants to help or follow the man she loves. However, in the case of Ovid's Medea, the fear (timor) she feels does not oppose her love for Jason, but instead fuels and magnifies it. While Jason is performing the deeds commissioned by Aeëtes, Medea watches pale with fear (12.97): ipsa ego, quae dederam medicamina, pallida sedi (‘Even I, who'd given you the magic salve, sat there pale’).

Medea's reminiscences of her past with Jason are thus dominated by love for him and fear for his fate. These emotions urge her to commit the first in a series of crimes in Jason's service, the murder and dismemberment of her brother, Absyrtus. Ovid's Medea declares her sincere repentance and is filled with sadness and remorse for what she has done. However, although she confesses her guilt,Footnote ²³ she suppresses the details of her abominable crime (12.113–16):

After completing the narrative of past events in Colchis – her encounter with Jason, her decisive assistance for the accomplishment of his feats, their dramatic escape from Colchis, and their arrival in Greece – Medea dedicates the next section of her letter to more recent events: her divorce from Jason and his marriage to Creusa, the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth. This part of the letter is highly charged as well, but Medea's dominant emotions are different: she is now filled with pain, anger, and rage against Jason.Footnote ²⁴ She begins this section very aggressively: angry and sorrowful, she recalls her divorce from Jason (12.133–4): ausus es—o iusto desunt sua verba dolori!— / ausus es ‘Aesonia’ dicere ‘cede domo!’ (‘You dared – I'm so angry (rightly angry) that the proper words fail me – you dared to say: “Leave my royal home!”’). It is really striking, however, that, despite Jason's ungratefulness and cruelty, Medea is still in love with him. In her own words, her love for Jason is always with her (12.135–6): iussa domo cessi natis comitata duobus / et, qui me sequitur semper, amore tui (‘I left your home, as ordered, taking along our two sons and my love for you (which is always with me)’).

Separation and desertion by Jason is not the only blow for Medea. The situation becomes even harder for her as Jason marries Creusa. In the most dramatic section of her Ovidian letter (12.137–58), Medea recounts Jason's wedding ceremony with Creusa, and records her reactions and the emotions of pain and sorrow that she experienced as an eyewitness. The description of the wedding is enlivened by the alternate use of the historical present (venit, micant, effundit, ruuunt, clamant, inquit) and past tenses (pertimui, putabam, erat, erat, flebant, tegebant, vellet, erat, iuvabat, scirem, erat, constitit, planxi, fuere, suadebat, continui, clamarem, inicerem), an indication of Medea's troubled emotional state as she recalls this painful experience.Footnote ²⁵ As she herself states, upon hearing Jason's wedding ceremony – which she had no idea about – she is gripped by intense fear, which freezes her heart, a typical symptom of fear (12.141–2): pertimui, nec adhuc tantum scelus esse putabam, / sed tamen in toto pectore frigus erat (‘I was terrified. I didn't yet believe such wickedness existed, but still my heart was all cold with fear’). To make things worse, while Medea is filled with sorrow (148: mens mea tristis erat), her own child is an eyewitness to his father's wedding (12.149–50): cum minor e pueris iussus studioque videndi / constitit ad geminae limina prima foris (‘My youngest boy, either just by chance or because he was keen to see, stood at the front door’). With genuine childish excitement, Medea's little son describes Jason's wedding ceremony without realizing its dire consequences. Her narrative is heart-rending as she quotes her son's words upon seeing his father leading the wedding procession (151–2): ‘hinc’ mihi ‘mater, abi! pompam pater’, inquit, ‘Iason / ducit et adiunctos aureus urget equos!’ (‘He said: “Mother, just come here! Father's leading a procession, dressed in gold and driving a chariot!”’). Medea's reaction to these words is wholly indicative of her emotional state (12.153–4): protinus abscissa planxi mea pectora veste / tuta nec a digitis ora fuere meis (‘Immediately I ripped my clothes and beat my breasts and scratched my face in grief’). She bursts out into extreme lamentation, with all its established gestures: she tears off her clothing, she beats her chest, and she rips her cheeks with her fingers.

For a woman in the ancient world, mourning was a socially accepted means of articulating anger, and is totally in line with the elegiac character of the Heroides. Medea's mourning is the first step towards revenge.Footnote ²⁶ Anger, sadness, and despair overwhelm Medea and urge her to throw herself amid the procession and disrupt the wedding, claiming Jason for herself. Only at the last moment does she manage to hold back (12.155–8):

The stunning event of Jason's new wedding, which Medea is watching live, so to speak, is the last straw, which mobilizes her to conceive a plan for revenge, especially when she thinks that her downfall will bring joy to those she had abandoned (Aeëtes, the Colchians, Absyrtus) (12.159–60): laese pater, gaude! Colchi gaudete relicti! / inferias umbrae fratris habete mei (‘I hope this delights the father I wronged, the Colchians I abandoned; let my brother's ghost accept this offering to him’). Medea's wounded pride turns into rage and spite. What makes things even worse for her is realizing that her magic powers can no longer help her and that she is unable to quench the flames of her love for Jason (12.163–8):Footnote ²⁷

Because of the emotional storm raging in her soul, Medea abhors the light of day and spends sleepless nights, typical symptoms of suffering. Her inability to sleep ironically comes in sharp contrast with her own feat of putting to sleep the sleepless dragon guard of the golden fleece (12.169–72):

Her rage is spurred on even more by the thought that she may have become the laughing stock in Jason's private talks with his new wife (12.175–9):

Medea's emotions at Jason's betrayal and abandonment – sadness, despair, and anger – set things in motion and push her to the point of no return. The tone of her letter becomes extremely menacing. She threatens Creusa with revenge and emphatically states that no enemy of hers will be left unpunished (12.180–2):

However, before proceeding to carry out her vengeful plan, Medea resorts to a final entreaty to Jason, urging him to return to her and their children. She invokes the gods and reminds Jason of his promises and her good services to him (12.183–206). While one perhaps would expect the letter to end with this supplication to Jason, she suddenly changes her mood once again, and moves from appeals for compassion to rage and threats. This abrupt transition is entirely indicative of her troubled psychological state (12.207–12):

Medea clearly foreshadows her imminent revenge, to which she is driven by her feelings of desertion and rage (quo feret ira sequar).Footnote ²⁸ She is fully conscious of her emotions and she openly states that her actions are dictated by anger, and that she is under the control of a certain god (viderit ista deus, qui nunc mea pectora versat), whom she does not name (Amor perhaps?). The last line of the letter, nescio quid certe mens mea maius agit, signals that something bad is about to happen. In a remarkably menacing tone, Medea suggests that the plan for her cruel revenge against Jason and Creusa has already started to form in her mind. What comes next is what unfolds in Euripides’ Medea; Medea's Ovidian letter ends at the point where the action in Euripides begins. The term maius carries metaliterary suggestiveness: it refers to tragedy, a genre higher than the humble elegy. After finishing her Ovidian letter, this elegiac Medea will enter the tragic stage and become the notorious infanticide.Footnote ²⁹

To conclude: the study of Medea's letter to Jason (Ov. Her. 12) from the point of view of emotions is conducted here for the first time. Although it is not lacking a certain logic of argumentation, the letter is fraught with emotions which succeed one another at a quick pace from beginning to end. Ovid's Medea, a letter-writer and not a character of epic or tragedy, appears as human as she can be. She is a character shaped by a wide range of emotions, which span her entire literary career. Ovid offers his Medea the opportunity to present her own truth, her own interpretation of things. Capitalizing upon the particular conventions and features of epistolography, she presents her thoughts and emotions and has the opportunity to speak in the first person about how she feels. Her emotions do not need to be deduced from her actions; she openly writes about them herself through the mediation of her creator, Ovid, who elaborates on Medea's changing generic identity within literary tradition and engages with his literary predecessors (Euripides, Apollonius, and Ennius).

The Ovidian Medea portrays herself as the innocent and naïve victim (33: nec notis ignibus arsi, ‘I burned with a fire new to me’; 89–90: puella simplex, ‘simple girl’) of a cunning and ruthless man, who first exploited her to achieve his goals and then abandoned her for the sake of a richer and politically more powerful new wife. These emotions are the motivating force for Medea: her instant love for Jason at Colchis causes her to fear for his fate and pushes her to help him carry out the deadly trials set by Aeëtes. Out of love for Jason, she sacrifices her brother, Absyrtus; she feels guilty and remorseful for her deed, but all too late: brotherly love succumbs to romantic love. After that, her betrayal and abandonment by Jason causes her suffering, pain, and sorrow, as well as fear for her own fate. These emotions quickly turn into anger and urge her to act against Jason and his new wife. Her anger and pain become a desire to inflict pain in retaliation. Medea will eventually get even with her treacherous ex-husband, after first undergoing a phase of lamentation, anger, and frustration. As a mourner, Medea is a potential revenger; although initially a victim, she will soon move from lamentation to revenge and make Jason pay for his betrayal.