In Medea's first speech to the
Corinthian women, I can't help seeing this modern scene before me:
A group of women are sitting on a stoop and hear the cries and lamentations of this forlorn woman. In hearing them talk about her, she quickly shows herself outside to her audience of women, who she feels will sympathize with her.
The first thing she does is equate herself with them, she is not "overproud" (217) to be seen and discuss her hardhsips.
Her next tactic is to assure her audience that even though she is a foreigner she is not a savage (I'd not approve of even a fellow countryman who...offends his neighbors) (223-224)
She then tells of her broken heart, and 'what woman could resist that?' (in quotes to show that this is historical thinking, not my own). She berates her husband and refers to her wrongs as wrongs to 'we' "we women are most unfortunate creatures" (231) and tells of the harships that women must suffer as a whole such as, no say in who to marry (234-235) and the pains of childbirth (250-251).
When that argument has run it's course, she turns to getting sympathy by reminding her audience that she is from another land, and she is now alone in a strange land with no family and no friends(251-).
With all her arguments for sympathy laid out, she then reels her captive audience in to what she begs of them: (258-263)
"This...is the service I would beg from you: If I can find the means...to pay my husband back...just to keep silent...."
And they agree, perhaps not realizing what mayhem she might be planning, because they underestimate the seriousness of her emotion, claiming that they are not suprised that she is "sad" (267-268), rather than "angry" or "vengeful"