PREFACE
Medea is traditionally remembered through what she does after Jason’s betrayal—the murderous Medea, the monstrous Medea, the sorceress.
Dean instead gives us the interior voice of the woman who says, in effect:
I once saw love in his eyes.
That doesn’t erase the later Medea. It makes her tragedy comprehensible.
The woman in Hell is surrounded by flowers, perfume, butterflies, Pan, satyrs, music and Paradise because that is what love once looked like to her.
But Hell remains Hell.
The final French line means that all the luxuriance we’ve just experienced is ultimately a moment recovered from an eternity of grief.