The murderers who dress to kill

The poisoned dress holds a special place in the folklore and mythology of a variety of cultures. Fear of betrayal, of being duped, of a gift bringing not joy but sorrow and death, the poisoned dress embodies our fears with its tales and legends of poisoning our bodies. The Greek dramatist Euripides, with his play Medea, told a gift-to-beware-of tale as early as 431BC, with a wrathful poisoner as the title character. Medea, jilted by her husband Jason (of the Argonauts) in favour of the King of Corinth’s daughter Glauce, soon decides to take revenge on king, husband, and princess:* ‘Best the straight route in which I am most skilled – to take them off with poisons.’