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Character analysis

The Nurse

in Medea by Euripides

The Nurse is a nameless household slave who opens Euripides' Medea with the play's well-known prologue monologue, quickly setting the emotional and moral tone of the drama. She acts as Medea's closest attendant and confidante, having been part of her life journey from Colchis to Corinth. Her role is mainly to provide exposition and serve a choral function: she shares backstory, expresses dread, and acts as a moral compass for the audience.

From her first words, the Nurse laments that the Argo never sailed, portraying Jason's betrayal as a disaster that has shattered Medea's world. She is highly perceptive, sensing before anyone else that Medea's sorrow has morphed into something frightening — she warns that Medea's "great heart" won't endure humiliation silently and advises the children to keep their distance from their mother. This warning proves tragically prescient.

The Nurse is characterized by her loyalty, anxious pragmatism, and profound human compassion. Unlike the Chorus, she has no civic ties to Corinth; her concerns are entirely personal. She navigates the space between Medea's inner world and the outside, fetching the Tutor, sharing news, and trying to control access to her unstable mistress. Though she can't change the course of events, her fearful love for both Medea and the children makes her one of the play's most sympathetic characters. Her journey shifts from helpless foreboding to a silent, grief-stricken observer — a moral witness who anticipates the disaster yet remains powerless to prevent it.

About this character

Form
Play
Author
Euripides
First published
431

The person01–03

01·Who they are

Who is The Nurse?

The Nurse is a nameless household slave who opens Euripides' Medea with one of the most celebrated prologues in ancient drama. Her namelessness is significant; she is defined entirely by function and loyalty rather than by individual identity. Having accompanied Medea from Colchis to Iolcus and finally to Corinth, she occupies a rare position of intimate knowledge — closer to Medea's interior life than any other character in the play, yet structurally powerless to alter its trajectory. She is neither citizen nor free woman, and Euripides uses that marginality deliberately. The Nurse sees everything, understands everything, and can do nothing. This combination of perception and impotence makes her the play's most poignant moral witness.

02·Arc & motivation

What is The Nurse's arc and motivation?

The Nurse's arc moves from anxious foreboding to helpless grief. In the prologue she mourns the past — the Argo's voyage, Medea's sacrifice of family and homeland for Jason — and in doing so establishes her primary motivation: love for Medea bound up with terror of what that love now faces. Her fear is tangible. She reads Medea's silence and stillness as warning signs, recognizing that a woman of Medea's "great heart" will not absorb humiliation passively. When she urges the children to stay away from their mother, she acts on this intimate knowledge. As the play proceeds, the Nurse's active role diminishes — she fetches the Tutor, appeals to the Corinthian women, and attempts to manage access to Medea — but each action confirms the same motivation: to protect those she loves from a catastrophe she already senses is inevitable. By the play's end, she has no further lines; she recedes into the background as the machinery of tragedy takes over, her earlier warnings fulfilled in the most terrible way.

03·Key moments

What are The Nurse's key moments?

  • The prologue monologue is the Nurse's defining scene. Her famous wish that the Argo had never sailed frames the entire drama as the consequence of a single catastrophic voyage. She catalogs Medea's sacrifices — betrayal of father, murder of brother, uprooting from Colchis — and makes the audience feel the weight of Jason's ingratitude before Jason himself appears.
  • Her warning to the children (early in the play, before the Tutor enters) is among the most chilling moments of dramatic irony in classical theatre. Telling the boys to keep their distance from their mother, she unwittingly anticipates the infanticide. The audience who knows the myth understands the full horror of her words.
  • The exchange with the Tutor grounds the play's tragedy in the domestic sphere. Their conversation — two slaves comparing notes on a disaster neither caused nor can stop — shifts the perspective from heroic myth to anxious, ordinary human experience.
  • Summoning the Chorus: by calling in the Corinthian women and sharing her fears, the Nurse performs a dramaturgically vital function, transitioning the play from private prologue to public drama and handing the role of communal moral voice to the Chorus.

The cast04–05

04·Relationships

What are The Nurse's most important relationships?

With Medea, the Nurse's bond is the deepest and most contradictory in the play. Her love is genuine and long-standing, rooted in decades of shared experience, yet the prologue makes clear that love has curdled into fear. She knows Medea better than anyone, and it is precisely that knowledge that terrifies her. She is protector and prisoner simultaneously — unable to leave, unable to intervene.

With the Tutor, she shares the solidarity of the powerless. Their dialogue is the play's only sustained conversation between two enslaved people, creating a counter-perspective: while the aristocratic characters perform their passions, the servants absorb the consequences. Their mutual helplessness quietly indicts a social order that gives them full knowledge and zero agency.

Her relationship to Jason is entirely mediated through Medea's suffering. She never addresses him, yet her prologue is a sustained accusation. By cursing the day the Argo sailed, she holds Jason — not Medea — morally responsible for everything that follows, shaping how the audience receives all subsequent events.

05·Connected characters

How is The Nurse connected to the other characters?

Medea

The Nurse's primary bond and dramatic raison d'être. She has served Medea since before the voyage from Colchis and loves her deeply, yet her prologue and subsequent warnings reveal she fears Medea's wrath as much as she mourns her suffering. She acts as protector, observer, and ultimately helpless witness to Medea's destruction.

The Tutor (Paidagogos)

A fellow household slave with whom the Nurse shares anxious, low-status dialogue early in the play. Their exchange in the parodos scene grounds the domestic tragedy in the perspective of servants who are caught in the fallout of their masters' conflicts but have no power to intervene.

Jason

The Nurse holds Jason responsible for the catastrophe from her very first speech, cursing the day his ship arrived in Colchis. She never addresses him directly, but her prologue frames him as the betrayer whose remarriage has set every subsequent horror in motion.

The Chorus of Corinthian Women

The Nurse functions as a bridge between Medea's private anguish and the Chorus's public, civic perspective. She summons the Corinthian women and shares her fears with them, effectively handing off the role of moral commentator once the Chorus enters.

Glauce (Princess of Corinth)

Glauce is the indirect cause of the Nurse's anguish — Jason's new bride whose marriage displaces Medea. The Nurse never meets Glauce on stage, but Glauce's fate, reported by the Messenger, is the horrifying fulfillment of everything the Nurse feared from the moment the play began.

Study06–07

06·Questions

Questions readers ask about The Nurse

What is the Nurse's relationship with Medea?

The Nurse is Medea's closest attendant and confidante, having accompanied her from Colchis to Corinth through many shared experiences. Her bond with Medea is deep and genuine, yet contradictory: she cares for Medea while also fearing her wrath. This understanding of Medea's character leads to her terror when Jason's betrayal drives Medea toward something dangerous and uncontrollable.

What does the Nurse do in the prologue of Medea?

The Nurse begins the play with a significant monologue in which she wishes the Argo had never sailed to Colchis, framing Jason's betrayal as the catalyst for the ensuing disaster. She recounts Medea's sacrifices — her father, her brother, her homeland — allowing the audience to feel the full impact of Jason's ingratitude before he even appears on stage, effectively guiding the audience's sympathies from the very start.

Why does the Nurse warn the children to stay away from Medea?

The Nurse advises the children to keep their distance from Medea because her deep knowledge of Medea indicates that a woman of Medea's "great heart" will not accept humiliation quietly; her grief has turned into something frightening and volatile. This warning represents a moment of dramatic irony: the Nurse acts out of loyalty and protection, yet audiences familiar with the myth recognize that she is unknowingly anticipating the very infanticide she aims to prevent.

How does the Nurse view Jason's role in the tragedy?

The Nurse sees Jason as morally accountable for the unfolding events, even though she never speaks to him directly. By cursing the day the Argo set sail for Colchis in her initial speech, she frames Jason — not Medea — as the betrayer whose remarriage to Glauce initiates every subsequent horror. Her prologue essentially influences how the audience perceives Jason well before he has a chance to speak.

What is the Nurse's relationship with the Tutor?

The Nurse and the Tutor are fellow household slaves who engage in anxious, low-status dialogue early in the play, discussing a catastrophe they neither caused nor can prevent. Their conversation serves as the only sustained exchange between two enslaved characters, providing a domestic counter-perspective to the heroic actions occurring around them. Their shared helplessness quietly critiques a social structure that grants them insight into events but lacks the power to act.

What dramatic function does the Nurse serve beyond the prologue?

Beyond the prologue, the Nurse serves as a structural link between Medea's private suffering and the broader world of the play. She fetches the Tutor, tries to control access to Medea, and crucially summons the Corinthian women, passing the role of communal moral commentator to the Chorus. Each action reinforces her motivation — to protect those she loves — while her diminishing presence as the play progresses reflects her increasing inability to halt the tragedy.

Is the Nurse a sympathetic character in Medea?

The Nurse is often seen as one of the most sympathetic characters in the play. Her loyalty is sincere, her fear stems from compassion rather than self-interest, and she holds no civic stake in Corinth — her concerns are purely personal and humane. Unlike the Chorus, she does not fulfill a civic role; her connection is solely with Medea and the children, and she fears the impending events. Her clear perception coupled with total powerlessness makes her the play's most poignant moral witness.

Why is the Nurse nameless, and does it matter?

The Nurse is unnamed in the play, identified solely by her role and loyalty rather than an individual identity. Euripides' choice is intentional: her namelessness illustrates her status as an enslaved woman whose existence is intertwined with service to Medea. Paradoxically, this unnamed character delivers the play's opening speech and influences the audience's feelings about the tragedy. Her anonymity allows her to represent a universal figure of the powerless witness rather than a specific individual.

07·Essay angles

Use this in your essay

Tool · Essay angles

  • The Nurse as tragic chorus before the Chorus

    Argue that the Nurse's prologue performs the interpretive and moral functions usually assigned to the choral ode, and examine what it means that this role is given to an enslaved woman rather than a civic body.

  • Knowledge without power — the ethics of the enslaved witness

    Explore how Euripides uses the Nurse's social position to interrogate agency and culpability. Can a witness who predicts disaster but cannot prevent it be considered morally complicit?

  • Framing and sympathy — how the prologue controls the audience's allegiances

    Analyze how the Nurse's opening monologue pre-determines the audience's attitude toward Jason and Medea before either character appears.

  • Domesticity versus heroism

    Consider how the Nurse and Tutor scenes create a domestic register that throws Medea's mythic grandeur into relief, and what this juxtaposition reveals about the human cost of heroic passion.

  • The prophetic servant — dramatic irony and the warning to the children

    Build a thesis around the Nurse's warning as a moment of structural dramatic irony, examining how Euripides uses a lowly character's intuition to implicate the audience in the horror they are about to witness.

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