Medea Tattoo Meaning

Betrayal, vengeance, sorcery, and a love repaid past forgiveness.

Medea is the sorceress whose total love became total ruin — the granddaughter of the sun who betrayed her home and kin for Jason, gave up everything for him, and when he cast her aside for advantage, answered the betrayal of an absolute love with a vengeance beyond all forgiveness. To carry Medea is to carry betrayal, vengeance, sorcery, and a love repaid past forgiveness — the sorceress who sacrificed all for love, the figure at the extreme limit of what betrayal produces, the exile who burned every bridge and was left with nothing.

In Greek myth, Medea is one of the most powerful and terrible of figures: Medea is the granddaughter of Helios and the niece of Circe — a sorceress of extraordinary power who betrayed her country and her father to help Jason win the Golden Fleece, followed him to Greece, was abandoned for a politically advantageous marriage, and killed their children. Of divine descent and immense magical power, Medea fell in love with the hero Jason when he came seeking the Golden Fleece, and for his sake she betrayed everything — her father, her homeland, her own people — using her sorcery to help him win the Fleece and escape, even killing for him.

She followed Jason to Greece as his wife, having given up her entire world for him. But Jason then abandoned her, casting her aside to marry a princess in a politically advantageous match. Medea, betrayed after all she had sacrificed, took a vengeance of unspeakable horror: she destroyed Jason's new bride, and then — in the act that makes her story so terrible and unforgettable — killed her own children, the children she had borne to Jason, to wound him past all bearing. The Greek Medea is thus the sorceress betrayed — the woman of extraordinary power who gave up everything for Jason and, abandoned, took a vengeance beyond all measure. Medea, sorceress and granddaughter of Helios, sacrificed everything for Jason, and when abandoned took a terrible vengeance, killing their children. The Greek Medea is the sorceress betrayed — Medea is the granddaughter of Helios and niece of Circe, a sorceress of extraordinary power who betrayed her country and father to help Jason win the Golden Fleece, followed him to Greece, was abandoned for a politically advantageous marriage, and killed their children; of divine descent and immense magical power, falling in love with Jason when he came seeking the Fleece and for his sake betraying everything (her father, homeland, and people, using her sorcery to help him win and escape, even killing for him), following him to Greece as his wife having given up her entire world — but Jason then abandoning her, casting her aside to marry a princess in an advantageous match, and Medea, betrayed after all she had sacrificed, taking a vengeance of unspeakable horror (destroying Jason's new bride and then, in the act that makes her story so terrible, killing her own children to wound him past all bearing).

Medea is among the most debated figures in Greek tragedy. Euripides' Medea (431 BCE) is the definitive treatment — but Euripides may have invented the infanticide, which did not appear in earlier versions of the myth. Before Euripides, the children were killed accidentally or by the Corinthians, not by Medea herself. Euripides gave her the act that made her unforgettable and unforgivable simultaneously. The scholarly debate about Medea's interiority — whether she is a villain, a victim, a figure of female rage, a barbarian Other constructed by Greek xenophobia — has continued without resolution for 2,500 years because the character resists reduction. She is a sorceress, a foreigner, a wife, a mother, a murderer, a figure of divine lineage. She escapes in a dragon chariot at the end — unpunished, unreachable, driven away by the same gods whose hospitality she violated.

Medea across cultures

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