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quinaraAWESOME PEOPLE OF COLOUR ARE AWESOME
Alas, I haven't been struck by many of the prompts on this meme, but I did answer![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vassilissa's: Greek Mythology, Medea, survival. (Though this is resolutely Seneca's Medea, because I love her and my rant about Euripides' being too often (IMO) held up anachronistically as a 'strong female character', when she's actually chockablock with skeevy stereotypes, is a rant for another day. It's not that Seneca fares much better than Euripides on that front, but he isn't quite so valorised for doing it. Not that this is Medea's fault, of course.)
Blood of My Blood.
It's the second child that's killing her. Late and heavy, it tortures her for hours as she lies screaming, her legs spreadeagled as her midwife plies her trade. The whole affair drags on like a reminder of Jason's slow but steady abandonment, the dinners at the palace that began three months ago, the way she has lain for a month untouched by his hands.
Creusa is too young to be married yet - though Medea remembers such facts are never so fixed as one might assume, there is for the moment no danger to her house. Still, all the while she screams and screams to be delivered from her pain, her callous husband does not come. Not to see the birth of his second son. Not to see the death of his wife, all too imminent.
There is blood on her thighs, hot and wet and flowing from her, but it's not enough to ease the baby's passage. She is dying, she knows she is, and though her body is enamelled with sweat her hands feel dry as bone.
It feels wrong, that she should die like this. Grown men have lain in pieces beneath her hands, yet here she is being ripped apart by a mere infant? How can this... How?
As Medea slips into unconsciousness, forcing the child's shoulders out into the world, she vows she will survive this, that she will never be this weak again. It is only when the vow is fully formed inside her that she allows her mind release.
The nurse calls her a witch when she wakes up alive; Medea laughs it off, a smile on her face.
Alas, I haven't been struck by many of the prompts on this meme, but I did answer
vassilissa's: Greek Mythology, Medea, survival. (Though this is resolutely Seneca's Medea, because I love her and my rant about Euripides' being too often (IMO) held up anachronistically as a 'strong female character', when she's actually chockablock with skeevy stereotypes, is a rant for another day. It's not that Seneca fares much better than Euripides on that front, but he isn't quite so valorised for doing it. Not that this is Medea's fault, of course.)Blood of My Blood.
It's the second child that's killing her. Late and heavy, it tortures her for hours as she lies screaming, her legs spreadeagled as her midwife plies her trade. The whole affair drags on like a reminder of Jason's slow but steady abandonment, the dinners at the palace that began three months ago, the way she has lain for a month untouched by his hands.
Creusa is too young to be married yet - though Medea remembers such facts are never so fixed as one might assume, there is for the moment no danger to her house. Still, all the while she screams and screams to be delivered from her pain, her callous husband does not come. Not to see the birth of his second son. Not to see the death of his wife, all too imminent.
There is blood on her thighs, hot and wet and flowing from her, but it's not enough to ease the baby's passage. She is dying, she knows she is, and though her body is enamelled with sweat her hands feel dry as bone.
It feels wrong, that she should die like this. Grown men have lain in pieces beneath her hands, yet here she is being ripped apart by a mere infant? How can this... How?
As Medea slips into unconsciousness, forcing the child's shoulders out into the world, she vows she will survive this, that she will never be this weak again. It is only when the vow is fully formed inside her that she allows her mind release.
The nurse calls her a witch when she wakes up alive; Medea laughs it off, a smile on her face.
(no subject)
Date: 18/08/2010 02:33 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 18/08/2010 08:01 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/09/2010 13:27 (UTC)though her body is enamelled with sweat her hands feel dry as bone
This seems somehow particularly Senecan - the emphasis on the material, the glee in the precious. And all the things hands are doing in this piece as well, argh. Good stuff!
(no subject)
Date: 14/09/2010 14:13 (UTC)And I'm dead thrilled that line seems Senecan to you - I really wanted to invoke some of his physicality, but since Medea couldn't actually die/be ripped apart this proved tricky!
(no subject)
Date: 14/09/2010 15:39 (UTC)Heh. IT IS TRUE THAT KIND OF THING IS PRETTY INTRINSIC TO SENECAN PHYSICALITY!