PART
4 –
Ch.XXVI.8
Prehistoric
monuments of metallurgic art in
(Chryseion Koas – The Golden Fleece)
XXVI.8.
Medea in Romanian traditional songs.
In a series of heroic songs of the Romanian people, Medea, the daughter of Aietes, appears
under the name of Nedea.
According to Greek legends, Medea had been the most famous
of all enchantresses (Suidas).
Her mother Idyia
(Hecate) had taught her all the secrets of the magic arts (Diodorus Siculus, lib. IV. c. 46. 1).
In Romanian traditions, Medea
excels not only for her unequalled beauty, and for her costume “only gold and
silver, from head to toe”, but she appears at the same time as the most
renowned singer of the ancient times
[1]
[1.
Marienescu, Balade, I. p. 12; Alecsandri, Poesii pop. p.24; Teodorescu, Poesii pop. p. 627, 632; Bibicescu, Poesii poporale din
Transilvania, p. 320, 323;Tocilescu,
Materialuri folkl.
Proud moon and starts rise at her singing, and all nature
moves. Nedea in Romanian folk poetry
is a "young lass”, “a white beauty”, the girlfriend of young and handsome
hero Ghita Catanuta, Hercules of legendary times, the first
leader of the Argonautic expedition, according to some traditions [2].
[2.
In Romanian songs Nedea also appears
as a young “wife” of Ghita Catanuta.
The historian Timonax tells us in
his Book I about the Scythians that Iason had married Medea while still in
the country of the Colchi, she given to him by king Aietes himself (Fragm.
Hist. graec. IV. 522)].
The hero, Ghita Catanuta, strolls with Nedea, his beautiful
lover, on the top of the hill, and asks her to sing for him a little song. But
she answers that her voice is powerful when singing, it can be heard far away,
and that if she started to sing:
The
sky will bathe in tears,
Deep
valleys will echo,
Mountains
will tremble,
High
banks will crumble,
Ravines
will tumble,
Stones
will crack,
Great
waters will cloud,
Cold
fountains will block,
The
fords will dry out,
The
trees will break,
The
forests will shake,
The
orchards will be flattened,
The
vultures will gather,
The
stars will come out,
Proud
moon will appear,
Outlaws
will wake up,
and she will be taken by the Peacock of the Woods, the
strongmen’s strongman, Gruia Capitan, Gruia Pazavan Codrean. Finally, Nedea
consents to the pleas of Ghita Catanuta, and when she starts singing with her
fiery voice:
Green woods shook,
Deep
valleys echoed,
Mountains
quaked,
High
banks crumbled,
The
wind stopped in its way,
The
trees jolted,
The
stones broke,
Springs
clouded,
Orchards
shivered,
Leaves
fluttered,
Flowers
gathered together,
The
green grass withered,
The
sky in tears bathed,
All
the stars came out,
Proud
moon rose.
But lo, and behold, the Peacock of the Woods, or according
to other versions Gruia Capitan, hears the sweet and enchanting song of Nedea,
as the woods and the valleys echoing with it. He appears in front of Ghita
Catanuta, to steal this seductive woman, who had troubled his heart ever since
she was little.
In the ensuing battle between these two heroes, Nedea
behaves perfidiously towards Ghita Catanuta. But he manages to defeat his
rival, after which he punishes Nedea with death for her unfaithfulness. Finally
Ghita Catanuta departs on the hill of Ardel,
on the path of the strongmen, towards the Hungarian country, there to be an
outlaw.
In the entire mythological and poetical literature of the
antiquity, there is no mention of Medea as a wonderful singer, except with Ovid. In book VII of his Metamorphoses
(v.191-204), the Roman poet exiled at Tomis, presents Medea saying the
following words:
“You stars, which together with the golden moon abate the
burning fire of the day, you songs and
magical crafts, you earth, which produce the strong herbs for witches, you
sweet breezes and winds, rivers and lakes, you, all the divinities of the woods
and of the night, stand by me;
with your help, at my will, I will make the rivers to turn
back to their sources, so that their banks will be astonished; with my songs I calm down the agitated fords
and stir the stagnant waters; I scatter the clouds and turn them back, I drive
and turn back the winds, move the live rocks, uproot the trees, make the
mountains shake, the earth howl, and forefathers emerge from their graves” [3].
[3.
In the original Latin verses, the word cantus
has its original meaning of song (TN – cantec), not of magical incantations, as
it is also true in Ovid’s Heroidae (XII, v. 167).
In
some Romanian versions, Medea
appears under the name of Vida
(Vidra, Vidrusca), this being a confusion with the name of her mother, Idyia (‘Iduia), a daughter of
Oceanos or Istru].
All the ideas, the images, expressed by Ovid in these
verses, have an original folk character. They are natural verses, instinctive,
full of life and harmony, not artificial. They mirror the mores and rustic life
of the Pelasgian nation, scenes with which we are met even today in the
Carpathians, when late in the dusk of the evening, in moonlight, the valleys
and woods echo far in the distance with the sweet, sentimental songs of the
girls and wives, who return in groups towards their homes, from the work of the
field.
Ovid’s verses about Medea, who with her songs calms down the
agitated waves, clouds the stagnant waters, drives and turns around the clouds,
moves the rocks, uproots the trees, shakes the mountain, are basically just
simple extracts from the heroic poetry of the Lower Istru. But Ovid introduces
them in Medea’s legend only in a fragmented way, without connection to the
episodes that precede or follow them, without a natural connection in the text,
without any logical explanation, so that they remain simple poetical
constructions, beautiful, but without meaning. Ovid, as we know, had made
during his exile at Tomis, the last revision of his Metamorphoses and he had
taken advantage of the folk songs of the Getae, to add to the Greek
mythologies.
Nedea, the famous singer of the Romanian heroic poems is
Medea, the enchantress of the Argonautic times [4].
[4.
In the traditional songs about Nedea
we also find a geographical reminiscence
from the old legend of the Argonauts.
According
to Diodorus Siculus (IV. 48), the
woods or the renowned pastures of the god Mars, where the golden fleece was
hung, were not far from the royal residence called
The
hero Ghita Catanuta, according to
one of these versions, crosses together with Nedea, the hill of Ardel, the