Speeches Flashcards
(38 cards)
Medea: Medea’s first speech (poor women)
- says how she is heart broken and done all that she can to fit into this land.
- women are most wretched creatures. take masters to their body. divorce brings them shame but men can do what they want. Women must stay at home.
- rather stand three times in battle than bear one child
- this is challenging for the exclusively male audience of the athenian theatre.
- says how she is alone. no family. suggests the danger of women who are wronged in their marriage bed. theme of sexually slighted women
Medea - nurse speech 1
- Wishes jason had not journeyed with the argonauts so then Medea would not have presuaded daughters of Pelias to kill their father (suggests her murderous behaviour)
- says how jason has betrayed her and the children by marrying creon’s daughter. emphasises how medea is alone in foreign country. friends try to give her advice (sympathy. friends love her).
- Europedes establishes an unheroic domestic realism at start of the tragedy.
Medea second speech. (after Creon. The plan)
- This speech comes after Creon says she is exiled but gives her one day.
- Medea calls him stupid in her speech and says how in this day she will “make three of my enemies corpses”
- says she will use poison which suggests her witchcraft
- Says how women are helpless with good to be done, but clever when bad deeds to be done (contrast to previous feminine speech)
Jason and Medea first encounter
J: smug views about passions being destructive. He doesn’t mind she is being banished. Says he is thinking about her in marrying princess and the children.
M: calls him traitor. saved him by killing dragon, betraying her own father and having pelias killed. Says she bore him children so theres no excuse to leave her. Asks where she can turn now. calls to Zeus to help distinguish bad men
J: “escape the wearisome storm of your words”. Says she should be thankful cuz no longer living in barbarian country. Reassures that he did not hate sleeping with her. just wanted to bring up children in a worthy manner. Human race should get kids another way and women should not exist. “mankind would be free from every evil”.
M: “a bad man’s gift can bring no good”.
Medea third speech (after Aegeus; the new plan in depth)
This is after fighting with jason, and now aegeus has offered his home in exile if she gives him kids. She will ask Jason (pretending to be nice) to let kids stay. send kids holding gifts for princess which will poison her and freon. then kill own children. calls herself “a woman of a very different kind”
tells chorus to say nothing.
Medea 4th speech after tutor states the children can stay
weeps for children. in vain she suffered birth pangs. trusted they would care for her when she was old. children look with loving eyes. she cannot do it, but then says she’s a coward and must. loves the children’s “sweet embrace”
messenger speech Medea
boys arrived. servants kissed them. Princess was disgusted by them but then saw gifts and could not resist. then she collapsed howling crown went on fire melting her flesh. father arrived and threw hands on corpse. body stuck to mangled flesh and he too died. “they lay there corpses, the girl and her old father”.
Aphrodite speech Hip
Hates mortals who are arrogant to her. Hippolytus “spurns sex and keeps clear of marriage”. She will take revenge. cursed Phaedra to love him. his father will kill him. Phaedra will die with her honour safe.
Hip first speech to Artemis
My mistress. brings her gifts, says he alone among mortals can do this. hopes to finish life as he begun it.
Phaedra first speech to women of Trozen
says she is wounded by love. first tries to endure it. and conquer it. but if she fails she will die. says she is a “woman - an object of loathing to all men”.
says women should never shame their marriage beds. she hates those women. Says how parents reputation effects their children.
Nurse first speech to Phaedra (after she says about being in love)
Nurse says this is nothing extraordinary. cypris roams the air. Says she must go through with it. other mortals fall in love. She has a love charm… ambiguous
Hippolytus second speech: speech about women
why did zeus create women? get children through another means (jason). women is a great evil. hate clever women (medea). Women should live with animals. horrified about his fathers wife wanting to make a match of him (incest hints). Hip says he will stay silent and not break oath.
Phaedra final speech about what she will do
calls to earth and light (like hip). what shall she do? calls herself a victim. ill fated woman (medea). hates on the nurse. must make new plans. Fears Hippolytus will tell people and fill her with shame. Makes the women of Trozen swear silence (swear to artemis). She says she will die and bring “calamity to another”. calls Hip arrogant.
Theseus speech after Phaedra’s death
why gates not opened for my reatus? (realised something is wrong). first worries death of children. Says Phaedra’s death is the ruin of his life. Vanished “like a bird” from him (link to chorus song. he says Phaedra is delicate). Theseus laments wishing it was he who died. starts using direct address to her asking why she killed herself. Calls her “the light of the sun”. reads tabled and asks Zeus to “destroy my son”. says he will banish him.
Messenger speech Hippolytus death
Hipollytus was weeping in exile. Says he must obey fathers orders. the earth rumbled and a wave crashed forward from the sea and released a bull. Hip fell and crashed his head against the rocks
Artemis speech to theseus
Says “you killed your son”. said wife was lying. she wants to give him pain. she will give him honour in death. says it was cypress who sickened wives heart. it was a trick she wrote about Hippolytus on the tablet. Says how theseus faulted in not waiting to find out truth from proof or prophet, but recklessly cursed son. The gods do not rejoice when pious men die .
Antigone prologos: opening speech to ismene
Reflects on the griefs of Oedipus. States a decree has just been declared giving doom to one they love (ismene asks what it was saying how they have just been robbed of their brothers)
Antigone states that they are outside the gates. says how Creon will bury one brother but not the other. left for the birds to feast on. Creon said death will come to the one who buries him. asks Ismene to help her bury.
Ismene first speech. Response to antigone asking to share the labour
Reflects on the terrible death of their father and compares. lists the death of their family members and their common destiny. they are only two left. they will have horrible death if they violate the laws. we are women so must submit. this act would be madness.
Antigone: Creon first speech to men of Thebes
ship of state is safe. Says how he now possesses the throne after the death of the two brothers. States how he is a clear politician and his view on protecting country. states his law about keeping Polynices unburied.
Antigone: First messenger speech
Not winded for running, thought he was going to his death delivering this message. states first how he is innocent then goes on to say someone has buried the body. there was no spade or axe nor earth turned up (gives a list of missing clues - suggesting it was the gods? trying to scare Creon?)
states how then every man was manic to defend themselves. then how he had to come and tell Creon .
(leader then follows speech asking if it was gods)
Antigone: Creon speech in response to first messenger
furious at the suggestion that it was the gods. says the gods don’t care for that body. don’t celebrate traitors. Says it was one of the men who were against him being king. thinks men were bribed to do it. they will pay the price. says to sentry that if they don’t find the man then they will be killed
Antigone: Second messenger speech
brings Antigone saying she buried the body. They went back to the slimy corpse and removed the burying dirt from it. then hid to see who came (hiding also from smell of corpse). suddenly a whirlwind came ripping leaves from trees (suggesting again the supernatural). then saw the girl screaming at the uncovered body. she began burying again and they grabbed her. she denied nothing of the offence.
Said it made him feel sad but didn’t matter cuz meant he was safe of accusation
Antigone speech to Creon after being seized
States how she did. Zeus did not make the law against his burial, nor hades or justice. a meer mortal has no right to make such a law. cannot break the unshaken traditions. “die i must”. says how she doesn’t mind cuz got nothing to live for. could not allow brother to rot.
Creon speech to antigone after she confesses
says she will bend to his rule. “spirited horses” can be broken (talking about citizens like animals…tyranny). She has broken the law and will be punished. states that even tho she is his sisters child, he will not change his views. then accuses Ismene and calls for her.
