THE EMOTIONS OF MEDEA THE LETTER-WRITER (OVID, HEROIDES 12)

Andreas N Michalopoulos

doi:10.1017/s0017383520000248

Abstract

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.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’).

Highlights

I owe special thanks to the organizers, Damien Nelis and Douglas Cairns, for their kind invitation to participate in the colloquium
Ovid places the letter of his Medea at a pivotal point in her mythical career.[7]
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’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.[11]