Medea — chapter by chapter
All 7 scenes summarized — one day in Corinth, end to end.
Medea is structured around four confrontations and three songs. Scene 1 is the Nurse's prologue — the audience learning what has happened before the play began. Scene 2 brings the Chorus on. Scenes 3, 4, 5, 6 are the four meetings: with Creon, with Jason, with Aegeus, with Jason again. Scene 7 is the messenger's report and what Medea does with it. Most of the action is outside the house. The killings are offstage. The children's voices are heard through the door.
Scenes 1–2 · Before she comes out
The Nurse alone, then the Chorus arriving, while Medea's voice cries from inside the house.
Scene 1
An old slave outside a closed door, telling the audience what has already happened. The Argo, the Golden Fleece, the murder of Pelias, the long exile to Corinth, and now Jason's new marriage to the king's daughter. Inside the house Medea is fasting and weeping. The Attendant brings the boys home from play with a rumour from the agora — Creon will expel them today. The two slaves agree to keep it from her. Medea's voice cries out, cursing the children. The Nurse hurries them inside, afraid of what her mistress is becoming.
Appears: The Nurse · The Attendant · The children · Medea (voice within)
Scene 2
The women of Corinth arrive at the door, drawn by Medea's screaming. The Nurse tells them what has happened: the husband has taken a prouder bed, the mistress will hear no comfort. From within, Medea calls on Zeus and Earth and the goddesses who witness sworn oaths. The Chorus answer her gently — do not call on death, the sin is on his head — and ask the Nurse to bring her out. They close with a song about the silence of the old poets on women's grief.
Appears: The Chorus · The Nurse · Medea (voice within)
Scenes 3–6 · The four confrontations
Creon, Jason, Aegeus, Jason again. Each one gives her what she needs.
Scene 3
Medea comes out and gives the famous speech on a woman's life — the dowry, the master, the new laws, the husband free to leave. Creon arrives to expel her, plain about why: he is afraid of her. She gets one extra day from him on her knees, framed as concern for the boys. He grants it knowing he should not. Alone with the Chorus, she drops the supplication and runs through the options. She chooses poison. The escape route is the one piece she still does not have.
Appears: Medea · The Chorus · Creon
Scene 4
Jason arrives offering money and letters of introduction for the exile. Medea answers with the long speech of grievances — the bulls, the serpent, the murder of Pelias — and refuses everything. He leaves with nothing. Then Aegeus, king of Athens, passes through on his way home from Delphi, where he has been asking the oracle about his childlessness. She offers him knowledge of certain herbs in exchange for sanctuary. He swears the oath she dictates and goes. The play has reached its centre. She now has the day, the weapon, and the place to go after.
Appears: Medea · Jason · The Chorus · Aegeus
Scene 5
Medea, alone with the Chorus, allows herself the speech she has been holding back. The plan in full. The false reconciliation. The poisoned robe and golden crown sent to the bride in the children's hands. And then the killing of her own two sons, to leave Jason without a future. The Chorus break in — you cannot kill the fruit of your own body. She answers that she can if it pains the man she hates more. She sends the Nurse to fetch Jason.
Appears: Medea · The Chorus · The Nurse
Scene 6
Jason returns; Medea performs repentance with care. She apologises, calls the children out to embrace him, asks him to plead with the bride to let the boys stay. He agrees. She produces the gifts — robe and crown — and presses him to take them. He hesitates and accepts. He leaves with the Attendant and the boys for the palace. The Attendant returns with good news: the bride accepted them gladly. Medea breaks. Then she calls the boys back out and works through the killing as a deliberation, kissing their hands, telling herself she will not, telling herself she must.
Appears: Medea · Jason · The children · The Attendant · The Chorus
Scene 7 · What she does
The messenger's report, the children offstage, the chariot.
Scene 7
A messenger runs from the palace with one of the famous speeches in Greek tragedy: the bride consumed in the poisoned robe and crown, her father destroyed in the act of trying to embrace her. Medea hears it with calm pleasure and goes inside. The boys' voices come through the barred door. The Chorus cannot open it. Jason arrives too late; the Leader tells him his sons are dead. Medea appears above the house on the Sun's chariot drawn by dragons, the bodies in it with her. She refuses him even the bodies and names his future. The chariot moves away.
Appears: The Messenger · Medea · The Chorus · The children · Jason
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