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Medea on childbirth and battle

431 BCE, Athens (Theatre of Dionysus). Medea speaking, in Euripides’ play.

Where and when

431 BCEAthens (Theatre of Dionysus)

2,456 years ago

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Euripides

, Athens (Theatre of Dionysus)Medea speaking, in Euripides’ play

In plain words, ours

People say women live safe at home while men go to war. That is a poor argument: I would rather stand in battle three times than give birth once.

And yet they say we live secure at home, while they are at the wars, with their sorry reasoning, for I would gladly take my stand in battle array three times o’er, than once give birth.

Euripides, Medea lines 249–250Translated by E. P. Coleridge (1906)Read the full passage (Euripides, Medea lines 249–250, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

In Euripides' play, Medea is speaking about the hard lot of a wife. A foreigner with no city or family, scorned by her husband, she will ask her listeners to keep silent while she plots revenge on him.

Checked claim by claim against: the passage around the quote.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. 431 BCESame year Thebans attack Plataea and the war begins Same years
  2. 431 BCEThis momentMedea on childbirth and battle
  3. 431 BCESame year Medea's Nurse on moderation Same passage
  4. 431 BCESame year The Chorus in Medea on a world reversed More from Euripides
  5. 431 BCESame year Medea on being too clever More from Euripides
  6. 431 BCESame year Medea on the lot of women Same passageMore from Euripides
  7. 431 BCE, written laterSame year Thucydides opens his history of the war Also in Athens
  8. 431 BCE0.10000000000002274 years later Spartan army invades Attica Same years
  9. 430 BCE1 year later Plague breaks out in Athens Same years
  10. 431/430 BCEBegins this year Athens holds a public funeral for its first war dead Same years
  11. 430 BCE, written later1 year later Thucydides on the plague he caught Also in Athens
  12. 430 BCE, written later1 year later Thucydides on the plague in Athens Also in Athens
  13. 429 BCE2 years later Pericles dies Same years
  14. c. 430–425 BCEabout 4 years later Herodotus on Egypt's reversed customs Also about women
  15. c. 431–411 BCEBegins this year Socrates on guardians sharing wives and children Also about women

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

Medea: For divorce is discreditable to women, nor can we disown our lords. Next must the wife, coming as she does to ways and customs new, since she hath not learnt the lesson in her home, have a diviner’s eye to see how best to treat the partner of her life. If haply we perform these tasks with thoroughness and tact, and the husband live with us, without resenting the yoke, our life is a happy one; if not, ’twere best to die. But when a man is vexed with what he finds indoors, he goeth forth and rids his soul of its disgust, betaking him to some friend or comrade of like age; whilst we must needs regard his single self.

The quote: Medea: And yet they say we live secure at home, while they are at the wars, with their sorry reasoning, for I would gladly take my stand in battle array three times o’er, than once give birth.

Medea: But enough! this language suits not thee as it does me; thou hast a city here, a father’s house, some joy in life, and friends to share thy thoughts, but I am destitute, without a city, and therefore scorned by my husband, a captive I from a foreign shore, with no mother, brother, or kinsman in whom to find a new haven of refuge from this calamity. Wherefore this one boon and only this I wish to win from thee,— thy silence, if haply I can some way or means devise to avenge me on my husband for this cruel treatment, and on the man who gave to him his daughter, and on her who is his wife.

Euripides, Medea lines 235–260Translated by E. P. Coleridge (1906)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
431 BCE. Medea was first staged at the City Dionysia in 431 BCE.
Whose words
Medea speaking, in Euripides’ play.
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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