It is said that women in Greek mythology, and by extension Greek art and epic and tragic poetry, play leading roles of great importance and highly charged with meaning. By contrast, the position of the women in Greek society doe not seem to correspond historically with that occupied by the brilliant and outstanding female figures of legend. Two significant figures in Greek mythology, Sappho and Medea, hold great importance in the realm of tragedy and share a number of attributes that warrant a further comparison of the two characters.
Sappho of Lesbos was a lyric poet whose work was so popular in ancient Greece, and beyond, that she was honored in statuary and praised by figures such as Solon and Plato. Very little is known of her life and of the nine volumes of her work, which were widely read in antiquity of now which only fragments survive. A romantic interest in women is evident from her poetry but most scholars advise against reading her works biographically. In the same way that poets through the ages have written works expressing a persona not their own, so too could Sappho have composed her poems. The intimacy and depth of feeling would seem to suggest that Sappho was lesbian but that does not mean she was. While it is possible, then, that Sappho was a lesbian, it is equally possible that she wrote on many subjects but that her works…show more content… She is a sorceress who helped her later husband Jason in completing his quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Daughter of King Aeetes and granddaughter of the sun god Helios, Medea was a divine descent and had the gift of prophecy. In Euripedes’ Medea, Jason abandons Medea in hopes to advance his station by marrying the King of Corinth’s Daughter, Glauce. Whilst plotting revenge, the rest of the story plays out with accounts of how Medea cunningly picks apart and tries to kill most of the cast due to her bitterness against