“The woman seemed too clever, he thought, and too cheeky. But above all, there was something eery and uncanny about her. She was, how shall I say, too much woman, that also colored her thinking. She thinks that thoughts had evolved from feelings and should not lose that connection. Antiquated naturally, outmoded. Dull vagueness, that’s what I called it. And she: creative source.
Night after night she stood beside me on the terrace of my observation tower and explained to me the astronomy that the women of Colchis engaged in, based on the phases of the moon, and she asked me how we name the zodiac, and I had to describe to her their path and the conclusions that I would gather from their movements and constellations for our own fate.
We listened to the music of the spheres, a crystal-clear sound, for which our ears are not tuned but which they, in rare moments of utter concentration, could still perceive. Medea was the first woman who heard this tone the same moment as I did. As if a mighty bow would sweep on a vibrating cord, she said. It was exactly like that. In that night this experience shook me more intensely than usually, and in a different way.
That she did not intend to follow my predictions that I had concluded from the constellations hurt me. For we have in Corinth an age-old astrological tradition, the line of my predecessors is long and their names are held in high esteem, and even if I allow myself to speculate outside the set rules I do still wish to join this venerable line."
Christa Wolf, ‘Medea - Stimmen’, 1996 (translation C.C.)
Christa Wolf (1929-2011), German writer