#medeia

The other king halo-lings

Ramblings about them 👇

In 2025 I spent most of summer very worried about some health issues of my twin brother and my grandmother. I remember going to sleep at late night hours because of praying for the recovery of my beloved ones. At certain moment I thought "you should try doing something more than just asking for help". So I designed a ritual inspired by those of Medea rejuvenating Aeson. When the night came, I had a bubbling cauldron filled with healing herbs, a special incantantion and two woolen effigies with hair of my relatives weaved into them. I showered and purified my body, unbinded my hair, made a libation of wine and other of milk mixed with honey, burnt incense, offered some food and erected an altar to Hekate, Kirke and Medeia. I will not describe every detail of ritual, but my grandma and brother recovered before ending summer. Even when the doctors didn't have a lot of hope in the diagnosis, even when week after week it seemed like neither my grandmother nor my brother improved; She heared my plea and demonstrated her power.

IO HEKATE SOTEIRA IO HEKATE KOUROTROPHOS IO HEKATE PAMMETOR

IO KIRKE POLYPHARMAKOS IO MEDEIA POLYPHARMAKOS

We know that family is not always indicative of someone's nature - just consider that Zeus has children by three of the Pleiades and only his son with Maia is a god - so it could go either way. It's definitely possible for them to be deities though. In Hesiod's Theogony (albeit in a part of the poem that probably doesn't belong to Hesiod himself) Medea is listed among the goddesses who bore offspring to mortal men:

„Now Olympian Muses, sweet-voiced daughters of Zeus the aegis-bearer, make the theme of your song the immortal goddesses who shared the beds of mortals and bore them children with divine looks. Radiant Demeter, a goddess, and Iasion, a hero, coupled with passion on a field plowed three times, in the rich soil of Crete; … Harmonia, daughter of golden Aphrodite, bore to Kadmos Ino and Semele and fair-cheeked Agaue; Autonoe, too, … and then, Polydoros—all in turret-crowned Thebes. Kallirhoe, Ocean’s daughter, spell-bound by golden Aphrodite, coupled in love with stout-hearted Chrysaor and bore a son surpassing all men in strength, Geryones, whom brawny Herakles slew in sea-stroked Erytheia, … To Tithonos Eos bore bronze-geared Memnon, king of the Ethiopians, and also lord Emathion. The blossom of her love for Kephalos was a splendid son, high-honored Phaethon, a man of godlike beauty; … Then Jason, through the decrees of the undying gods, took as his bride the daughter of Aietes, the Zeus-cherished king, after he had accomplished many grim labors on orders from Pelias, the great and brazen king, whose deeds were shameless folly. These done, Jason suffered no few hardshipsand then on a swift ship sailed to Iolkos, whence he brought a bright-eyed maiden who became his buxom wife. And Jason, shepherd of the people, made her submit to his passion, and she bore Medeios, a son fostered on the mountains by Philyra’s son, Cheiron, and great Zeus’s design was fulfilled. Then come the daughters of Nereus, old man of the sea: the exalted goddess Psamathe, incited by golden Aphrodite, lay with Aiakos in love and gave birth to Phokos; and then Thetis, the silver-sandaled goddess, became the wife of Peleus and bore lion-hearted Achilleus, breaker of men. Fair-wreathed Kythereia gave birth to Aineias, after she and the hero Anchises tenderly coupled on the wind-swept peaks of many-folded Ida. And Kirke, daughter of Helios Hyperionides, took as her lover Odysseus, whose resolve never flagged, and bore him Agrios and the blameless and stout Latinos, and also Telegonos, under the spell of golden Aphrodite. … Kalypso, the radiant goddess, came to know the charm of Odysseus’s love, and bore him Nausithoos and Nausinoos. These are the immortal goddesses who shared the beds of mortal men and gave them godlike children. But now, O sweet-singing Olympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, sing of mortal women.”

✨main characters in my working thesis on Greek tragedy: there’s a murder in the oikos✨

You might recognise Shaw from Killing Eve or playing the Therapist in Fleabag (in fact Phoebe Waller-Bridge described Shaw as her "muse" ever since she saw her as Medea when she was 16)

The translation is by Kenneth Mcleish and Frederic Raphael, who with others translated (though sadly I think it's out of print) the entire corpus of greek tragedies adapted to the modern stage. I include it below for those who might want to read along (or just read it). I personally think it's reeeally good (and, though I can only guess by comparing it to other translations, quite faithful to the original greek).