untoward circumstances under which her relations with Jason began.
Accordingly, he showed in _The Guest Friend_ how Phryxus, obedient to
what he believed to be the will of the gods, bore the Golden Fleece to
Colchis, only to meet death at the hands of AEetes, the king of that
land, who coveted the precious token. Medea, the king's daughter, vainly
tries to prevent the crime, but sees herself included in the dying man's
curse; for she shares her father's desire for the treasure and is
appalled only by the sense of outraged hospitality, even to a haughty
intruder. When, in _The Argonauts,_ Jason comes to recover the Fleece,
Medea, still an Amazon and an enchantress, is determined with all her
arts to aid her father in repulsing the invaders. But the sight of the
handsome stranger soon touches her with an unwonted feeling. Against her
will she saves the life and furthers the enterprise of Jason; they
become partners in the theft of the Fleece; whereupon Jason, fascinated
by the dark-eyed barbarian and gratified with the sense of subjugating
an Amazon, assures her of his love and takes her and the Fleece in
triumph away from Colchis.

[Illustration: GRILLPARZER'S HOUSE IN THE SPIEGELGASSE]

Four years elapse before the action of _Medea_ commences. Medea has
borne two sons to Jason; as a husband and father he returns to Greece
with the object of his quest. But he is now received rather as the
husband of a sorceress than as the winner of the Fleece. Ostracism and
banishment accentuate the humiliation of marriage to a barbarian. Medea
has sacrificed all to serve him; without her aid his expedition would
have been fruitless, but with her he cannot live in the civilized
community where she has no place. She frantically endeavors to become a
Greek, but to no purpose. Jason strives to overcome a growing repugnance
and loyally makes common cause with her; but he cannot follow her in
banishment from Corinth, nor appreciate the feelings of the wife who
sees him about to marry Creusa, and of the mother who sees her children
prefer Creusa to herself. Then the barbarian in Medea reasserts herself
and the passion of a just revenge, stifling all other feeling, moves her
to the destruction of all her enemies and a final divorce from her
heartless husband. To Jason she can give no other words of comfort than
that he may be stronger in suffering than he has been in acting.

Such an eminently personal tragedy Grillparzer constructed on the