The Fatal Gifts of Medea1

Basic aspects of the relationship between parent and child are reflected in gift giving. We have examined some of the repetitive phenomena surrounding gifts, especially those between parents and children, in our patients. In doing so, we have been struck by the appearance in many patients of revivals of the primal experiences and relationships contained in the myth of Medea and in Euripides' dramatic version of it.2 We have focussed primarily in this communication on a certain kind of "poisonous" gift exemplified by the fatal gifts of Medea, and, secondarily, on some aspects of object relationships on various levels of libidinal and ego development as they are expressed by a much wider variety of gifts.

Euripides' Medea is perhaps the first psychological study of a witch. As such, her magical ability to endow those she loves with a portion of her omnipotence, and her parallel power to destroy those who thwart her desires, have been demonstrated repeatedly, long before she invokes the aid of her mentor, the evil goddess Hecate, to destroy Jason and his new alliances.

When Jason and the Argonauts come to Colchis to steal the golden fleece, Medea, the barbarian daughter of King Aetes of Colchis, falls in love with him under the spell of Aphrodite. She gives Jason her first gift, a wonderful ointment that makes him and his armour proof against weapons and fire for a day. He is thus able to fulfill Aetes' command to sow the dragon's teeth with a team of fire-breathing bronze bulls. She next helps him to steal the magic gift of the fleece. She flees with Jason in the Argo; when her father pursues them, she kills and dismembers her young brother Apsyrtus (Rose, 1959). Thus, before the play, she is established as a murderess capable of killing and mutilating her own flesh and blood.

Jason marries Medea, swearing "by all the Gods of Olympus to keep faith with Medea forever" (Graves, 1957), making his later actions those of a perjurer. On the Argonauts' perilous journe