Ten Plays

by Euripides, Moses Hadas (Translator), John McLean (Translator)

The first playwright of democracy, Euripides wrote with enduring insight and biting satire about social and political problems of Athenian life.  In contrast to his contemporaries, he brought an exciting--and, to the Greeks, a stunning--realism to the "pure and noble form" of tragedy.  For the first time in history, heroes and heroines on the stage were not   as Sophocles himself said, Euripides shows people not as they ought to be, but as they actually are.

Genres: Classics, Plays, Drama, Fiction, Mythology, Poetry, Literature

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 409

About the author

Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This edition contains ten of the nineteen surviving plays & fragments by Euripides, all of which are his best tragedies (and one comedy). I'm aware that the translator for my edition, Paul Roche, has written in his own guesses and inventions to fill in the gaps where missing lines appear, but since I'm reading this alongside another edition of Euripides' complete plays for comparison, I won't be taking that into account and instead will review the plays themselves.

My ratings for each individual play go like this:

Alcestis = 3 stars.
Hyppolitus = 4 stars.
Ion = 3 stars.
Electra = 5 stars.
Iphigenia in Aulis = 4 stars.
Iphigenia amongst the Taurians = 3 stars.
Medea = 4 stars.
The Bacchae = 3 stars.
The Trojan Women = 5 stars.
Cyclops = 3 stars.

So five of the plays got 3 stars, three got 4 stars, and only two got 5 stars. I didn't like Euripides as much as I had believed I would from the plays I'd known before, and it had to do mainly with his style, but also with two things besides:
a. his propensity to abuse the Deus ex machina resource; for all that he likes to chalk up disgraces and bad outcomes to human foibles and human emotions instead of the gods, he is too fond of having the gods drop out of nowhere to "solve" the messes in the last scene. He's not the only one, of course, it's a feature of Greek drama; but because he advocates for human accountability, his too frequent resorting to the gods is contradictory and lessens his arguments for personal responsibility. At least, with the others that also use this technique, there's symmetry in having the gods own up to what they've led humans to do.

b. He's not always consistent thematically or with characterisation, especially when he deviates from the most accepted version of a story or invents new elements. The plays Electra and Medea, Trojan Women and Andromache, and the Iphigenia duology are perfect examples. More on that below.

ELECTRA and TROJAN WOMEN
My favourite plays, as you can see by the rating, were Electra and Trojan Women. I admire Euripides' guts in producing an anti-war tragedy in the middle of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was rushing headlong towards disaster, and I admire the Athenians for their tolerance and not having good old Euripides thrown to the dogs for it. At least Aristophanes' anti-war comedy could be excused on grounds of being a silly romp (with a very serious message), but Trojan Women doesn't make any effort to hide its seriousness, nor its poignant message on what war does to people on both sides, especially to women and children of the vanquished side, raped, starved, and sold as slaves. And the victor's side aren't unaffected either, with huge scores of old men and old women left childless and unattended at home, as well as helpless widows and orphans.

I also liked this rendition of Hecuba's tragic end instead of her being transformed into a she-dog to howl for her lost city and children, because of how dignified and regal she is while she receives blow after blow in each scene. Same for Andromache. As for Helen... heh, Euripides makes no secret of his loathing for the Spartan queen, in every single play that touches on the Trojan War or people involved in it he makes sure everyone's reminded of just how rotten she is. In this play, Helen tries to escape just punishment by arguing it's not her fault she eloped with Paris, but Priam's fault for not killing the infant, and then Aphrodite for promising her as a prize, that she tried to escape Troy, etc. The rebuke she gets from Hecuba and Menelaus is worth reading.

As for Electra's story. My opinion isn't exactly mainstream, as far as I can see, but I believe she had more reasons for wanting her mother dead than Clytemnestra had for murdering Agamemnon. I know the mainstream interpretation focuses on her love for her father (she had Freud name the Electra Complex after her for this very reason) and then rush to point out how undeserving Agamemnon is of this love for all he's done. To me, that's too narrow, and misses key points. Because, once it's seen through Electra's experiences, by putting oneself in her shoes and looking at it from her side, it makes sense. Let's see:

1. When Agamemnon left for Troy, Electra was a little girl. At this point, Agamemnon had done none of the things his wife argued for his murder, and by every account, even if he had done terrible things to Clytemnestra's former husband, he was a good father to his girls and was loved by them all, by Iphigenia in particular, his favourite. So, there was no reason for Electra to think poorly of her father, and that idealised image of him from her childhood had to persist.

2. The sacrifice of Iphigenia, the reason Clytemnestra has for killing her husband, isn't in The Iliad (surprise!). The legend is in other works, and has two outcomes, one in which the girl effectively dies on the altar, and another that has her surviving. Euripides chose the "she survived" version (and incurred into inconsistencies I'll comment on later), and Clytemnestra knows of it. What's more, Iphigenia herself begs her mother not to hate her father for this, since the sacrifice is god-ordained and not of his own devising and it's for the good of Greece (She'll change her tune in another play, another inconsistency). Electra seems to be aware of the sacrifice and the reasons for it happening, but I didn't see anywhere it's said she knows Iphigenia's destiny.

3. Cassandra is no reason to affect his daughters' opinion of Agamemnon. She's a prisoner of war, a slave, and as such can't choose what is done with her; it's a common practice of the time period and wouldn't reflect on someone's character to possess such captives. It'd be different if it were a free person in an affair with a married person, as is the case for Clytemnestra's lover.

4. After the murder, Clytemnestra allowed her lover, Aegisthus, to usurp the throne. Thus allowing her adulterous love to steal her children's inheritance. Electra was made to work like a slave in Aeschylus and Sophocles' plays, and is married off to a pauperised peasant in Euripides' play. In other words, her mother allowed her children to be robbed of their possessions and allowed her daughter to be enslaved. How's that for hating Clytemnestra?

5. Similarly, Clytemnestra allowed her lover to persecute and try to kill her son, Orestes. Why else would there be a need for the baby to be snatched from the palace and sent abroad to save his life? In some versions, it was Electra who saved her brother, in Euripides' it was the boy's tutor. So, if Clytemnestra allows her children to be dispossessed, allows a murder attempt on her son, and allows the mistreatment, enslavement and humiliating marriage of her daughter, all that gives the lie to her supposed maternal love and her vaunted maternal love for Iphigenia being the reason to kill her husband. It's just an excuse.

As you see, I do think Electra wasn't crazy. Yes, Agamemnon is still a questionable fellow, to say the least, but there's his image for his children and there's his image for his wife, and in this case, his daughter would be judging from what is done to her and her brother. Her mother was the Devil she knew, up close and personal, doing harm to her at home. Her absent father could live in her idealised remembrances; she doesn't have the omniscient view of an outside observer.

IPHIGENIA IN AULIS and IPHIGENIA AMONGST THE TAURIANS
It's interesting to see a couple Biblical parallels with these two plays, namely the Genesis story of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, to test his loyalty and faith; and upon obeying the command, a ram appears in Isaac's stead. Then there's the Judges story of Israelite leader Jephthah promising God that in exchange for victory he'd give up the first thing that'd come to greet him on his return home, and voilà, his only daughter comes to greet him.

Similarly, King Agamemnon foolishly promised the goddess Artemis his most precious and most loved possession, and then is told by a seer it has to be his favourite daughter. He balks at the suggestion, calling it monstrous, but his brother and the troops strong-arm him into accepting the sacrifice. employing a rather cruel ruse to lure his daughter and wife to Aulis for the sacrifice. He's found out, and quarrels ensue with his recalcitrant wife and weepy daughter. Only Achilles agrees to champion Iphigenia and save her from the sacrifice, though he later participates in the rituals on the altar, so I'd not be awarding him brownie points so quickly. Finally, Agamemnon is saved from carrying out this sacrifice by Artemis whisking the girl off and leaving a hind in her stead.

I have a problem with this version. A big problem: inconsistency. If Euripides chose this version instead of the one that has Iphigenia dying like Aeschylus and Sophocles did, how in the name of Hades is he going to make sense with the argument of his Electra play, where he has Clytemnestra saying explicitly that she hates her husband for what he did to Iphigenia? And it's not like she doesn't know, because in this very play she is told and is relieved that Iphigenia was saved even if she's disappeared. What's more, her daughter told her not to do what she eventually did. In any case, it takes away gravitas and negates the pathos of the motive for Agamemnon's murder.

Not to mention there's again the irritating Deus ex machina where it's not needed!

Then there's the continuation, Iphigenia amongst the Taurians, which to me is not only a mediocre play but also even more inconsistent than the former. For a start, Iphigenia's character has the stability of a yo-yo. Can you guess what she's doing amongst the Taurians? Hint: Artemis. Another hint: human sacrifice.

That's so. Sweet Iphigenia, who cried, begged, and eventually gave a grand oh-so-noble speech about sacrificing herself for the good of Hellas and living forever in legend, is a priestess for Artemis and performs human sacrifices. Sure, she justifies herself with that it's not she who is doing the sacrifices, she merely cleans and consecrates the human victims, so it's all right. What? But that's exactly what Agamemnon did, he wasn't going to execute her on the altar by his own hand, a priest would, yet she hates her dad with a passion now. What happened to noble feelings, forgiveness, and giving one's life for Hellas?

And it's only Greeks who are sacrificed, not the locals. She justifies this with her having come close to being victimised herself, so it's all right they're sacrificed. But the moment a couple of shipwrecked Greeks arrive to Tauris, she goes from I hate all Greeks, hate them so much, my dad especially to Hooray! Take me back home to Hellas, brother, I wanna go home.

I'm not inclined to believe Euripides was playing with irony here. He's done irony and paradox in other plays, and better than this. It's just poor characterisation.

HIPPOLYTUS and MEDEA
The first of these plays shows what Euripides can do with ironic plot twists. The story is about Theseus' bastard son, Hippolytus, an extremely handsome youngster that kindles the insane passion of his stepmother, Phaedra. Problem is, Hyppolytus must be the first asexual male in Western literature, because he has absolutely zero interest in coupling with women. And no, it's not because he prefers men instead. It's because he really, really doesn't have any interest of a sexual or romantic nature, and he's dedicated his chastity to a goddess.

And since this is Greek drama and you can't have people approaching unrequited love with a mature attitude (what would we be reading if so?), Phaedra wastes away pining for Hot Stepson. Her nurse tries to "cure" her by suggesting to Hippolytus that he reciprocate. Talk about stupid ideas. Hippolytus chews her out, not only because he has no sexual interest but because the woman is suggesting he betray his father by shagging his wife. Phaedra learns of the betrayal of his confidante, and hangs herself in fear that Theseus will find out. But not before she writes a suicide note in which she lies that her stepson tried to rape her. See? False accusations of rape are as old as time.

I liked the play for the plot, not for the characters, which aren't likable. There's other versions of the story, all of which make Theseus the biggest fool and the most unjust, and in which Phaedra is more malicious than she is here. Euripides has "softened" it by making her more a weak and rather foolish girl than a vindictive harpy, and it works well enough, for the outcome is the same.

Medea is another play that shows how to weave a great story with horrible people in the leading role. Medea and Jason "deserve each other," as the saying goes, and it's a pity that the innocent are the only real victims.

I am not sure I suscribe to the interpretation that this is about the mistreatment of women in marriage, because if that was Euripides' intention, then he blew his case up to the stratosphere by choosing Medea as his mouthpiece, and by introducing what's believed his own invention: the killing of her sons by her own hand. For a start, Medea is no simple downtrodden girl married off against her will to some old dodderer, and has no choice but to obey him, keep the house, and pop out babies. She's a powerful witch, daughter of a god, and chose Jason of her own volition. Nobody forced her to elope with him. Nobody married her to him because of an arrangement by her parents. She chose, regardless of the excuse that it was Hera who told Aphrodite to make her fall in love with Jason (an excuse Euripides himself mocked in another play).

So, poster gal for feminine oppression, Medea isn't. In the Argonautica, she is painted as a very unstable woman, prone to violent mood swings, so violent she prefers to commit suicide because she can't handle her "love" for Jason, wishes he'd never come to her island, wishes him dead and herself dead, etc. In such a very manic and unstable woman, it's no wonder her "love" would be a pathological obsession. And Jason is no innocent, either, because he used her for getting the Golden Fleece, promised her marriage, and went on with the promise even after witnessing with his own eyes the revolting crimes Medea was capable of for "love" of him.

I mean, "the things I do for love" sounds nice and all. But if there's more red flags in your relationship than in a Soviet Union victory parade, then what right do you have to be surprised that your beloved turned out to stab you in the back? Accountability is something Euripides isn't doing well here. You should own up to making a bad choice of mate, and not victimise yourself because the liar and cheater you slept with (fully knowing he was a liar and cheater) left you pregnant and washed his hands of you. Then there's the fact that Jason wasn't even cheating on her, he chose to cast her aside to make a more advantageous political marriage, something common for ruling classes throughout history, and her reaction is . . . to kill the innocent Glauke, who unlike Medea is coming to this marriage because it's arranged and not of her free choice. How's that for injustice?

Killing her sons is just more of the same. And a bigger injustice. Euripides chooses to make her not pay for her crimes but conveniently flee for refuge to Athens. At least in the versions where she isn't responsible for the deaths of her sons or of Glauke there's a point to her seeking refuge, and seeing herself as a victim makes more sense. But not in this play. She's simply not right in the head, never was, and the husband she took for herself worsened her insane behaviour.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm doing a project where I'm discussing each of the surviving Greek plays in a Youtube video (at https://www.youtube.com/c/TheatreofPhil). I'll be rereading these plays as I move through making the videos, and I'll write new reviews here with the links to the videos beneath them. My overview video about Euripides is at: https://youtu.be/Z-352-0g6ZQ

Alcestis: This is almost a kind of comedy, but it's definitely a black comedy. The structure moves more like comedy in that things descend into sadness but are then restored to "happiness" at the end, but this happiness is suspect at best. Part of what Euripides seems to be trying to do here is raise questions about happy endings as such, especially for stories that involve great suffering.
Basically, Apollo has gotten his friend Admetus a deal where Admetus can cheat death if someone else is willing to take his place, and the only one willing to do so is his wife Alcestis. The first half of the play revolves around her dying and Admetus alternately admiring her, pitying himself, and wishing he were dying instead (an irony he seems at best only partly aware of). Then Alcestis dies, and during the funeral Heracles shows up at the house. When he finds Admetus in mourning he wants to stay with someone else, but Admetus insists that Heracles accept his hospitality, even lying to the demigod that the funeral is for a distant friend. When Heracles finds out that it was Alcestis, he goes to the grave and wrestles Death, winning back Alcestis from the dead. Returning with a shrouded woman, Heracles admonishes Admetus for deceiving him before (ironically) deceiving Admetus about who the woman is, before finally revealing that it is Alcestis brought back from the dead.
The layers of irony here and the problem of Admetus' selfish hypocrisy about letting Alcestis die for him problematize the "happy ending" of the spousal reunion. A problematization that is compounded by the fact that Alcestis is not allowed to speak to Admetus for three days in order to purge the underworld's claim on her. So the play ends with Alcestis unable to express herself or her view on the husband who let her die to save himself.
https://youtu.be/-rwYr4k5k68

Hippolytus: This is probably one of the best examples of the "hubris is punished" formula in all of the extant Greek tragedies. The entire plot of Hippolytus revolves around Aphrodite's destruction of Hippolytus because the young prince refused to honor or even acknowledge her. Hippolytus is a strident devotee of the virgin goddess Artemis, and to punish his arrogant dismissal of her power, Aphrodite causes his stepmother Phaedra to fall deeply in love with him. Phaedra plans to kill herself rather than either go on suffering or (even worse in her estimation) reveal her love to her stepson, but Phaedra's nurse convinces her to let the nurse tell him--which goes over like a lead balloon. Basically, Hippolytus is disgusted and threatens to denounce Phaedra to Theseus, his father and her husband. To escape this, Phaedra hangs herself, but before she does she writes a suicide note claiming that Hippolytus raped her. This is probably the least well explained element in the play (a rare lapse for Euripides, who is generally pretty good at explaining people's motives). Theseus returns and finding the note prays to his father Poseidon to destroy Hippolytus, then banishes his son from the city. Shortly after, Artemis shows up and tells Theseus that he was wrong to banish Hippolytus and pray for his destruction because actually Hippolytus was innocent of rape--the whole thing was engineered by Aphrodite. And while both Artemis and Poseidon think Theseus made a mistake, Poseidon was obligated to carry out Theseus' wishes because of an obligation to grant three favors to his son. So the play ends with the innocent Hippolytus, broken and dying, brought back on stage to forgive his father.
Basically, we've got two cycles of hubris punished here: the large scale one where Hippolytus is punished for his arrogant denial of Aphrodite's power, and the smaller scale one where Theseus curses his son impiously (which the Chorus points out). Hippolytus is brutally killed when Poseidon sends a bull from the sea to spook Hippolytus' chariot horses, who then drag him along the rocky seashore to a slow and painful death. Theseus' punishment is obviously that he curses his innocent son who then dies horribly.
https://youtu.be/0AM0p_hb03k
Version two: https://youtu.be/pBCQYbztZMU

Ion: This is likely one of the plays that gave Euripides a reputation as impious, if not an outright critic of the gods. Apollo doesn't come across particularly well in this play, particularly to modern audiences/readers for whom rape is a more serious thing than it likely was for the ancient Greeks. The play's action begins because Apollo had raped Cruesa, who had and then exposed his baby, which was taken by Hermes to be raised at Apollo's temple at Delphi. Years later, Cruesa and her husband Xuthus come to the oracle because they are childless, and Apollo gives the boy to Xuthus to be his son--a son whom Xuthus names Ion. Cruesa is outraged that after raping her Apollo would give her husband a child and deny her one, so she resolves to poison Ion. After the plot fails, Ion leads a posse of Delphians to throw Cruesa from a cliff, but she takes refuge at Apollo's shrine. The oracle herself comes from the temple to give Ion the basket and tokens with which he was abandoned, and from these tokens Cruesa recognizes her son, precipitating the reunion of mother and son. The play ends with Athena coming and basically making Apollo's excuses (he didn't want either Cruesa or Ion to criticize him, so he didn't come in person) before confirming that the are parent and child and that Ion should go back to Athens where he will become an important king.
https://youtu.be/UftMxkja5AQ

Electra: This is an especially interesting play because more plays about the Electra/Orestes myth survive than on any other theme, so we can see how Euripides approaches the story differently than Aeschylus (in the Oresteia, specifically The Libation Bearers) and Sophocles (in Electra). Euripides' version is more gritty and cynical than the other versions--though Sophocles is quite overt about how every charge Electra lays against Clytemnestra also applies to herself, a point Euripides brings up less centrally. But Euripides' version makes several major changes, one of which is that Electra has been married off the a peasant (who is a noble, good hearted dude), and so the action of revenge takes place away from the palace, which makes a lot of sense because the palace of a couple of paranoid rulers would in reality be swarming with guards. So Aegisthus is killed in a field while he's making sacrifices to nymphs, and Clytemnestra is lured to Electra's cottage with the news that she's had a baby; then Electra and Orestes kill her in the cottage. From a practical, not-having-to-fight-a-ton-of-guards perspective, this makes a lot more sense.
But Euripides is also a bit more cynical than the previous versions, especially the Aeschylus. For one thing, Euripides mocks the famous recognition scene from The Libation Bearers. Orestes actually hangs out with Electra for a long time without revealing his identity (a decision that seems entirely pointless), and then the recognition scene is pretty absurd. In Aeschylus, Electra recognizes a lock of Orestes' hair that he's left on Agamemnon's tomb and fits her foot into his footprint, there's also a recognition by some cloth that Electra had woven and given to the baby Orestes. In Euripides, the old tutor who had saved Orestes tries to get Electra to do these tests but she quite rightly points out that 1) a man's hair exposed to the elements wouldn't look the same as a woman's hair carefully protected, 2) lots of unrelated people have similar hair, 3) a man's foot would generally be larger than a woman's, 4) she was just a child herself when Orestes left, so she wouldn't have been weaving anything, and 5) if she had given him a piece of clothing as a baby it wouldn't fit him as an adult. Then the tutor sees Orestes (who is still pretending to be someone else) and recognizes him from a scar he supposedly has on his forehead, though Electra says she can't see any scar. But even though she doesn't see the scar the tutor claims proves this is Orestes, she accepts that it's her brother anyway.
https://youtu.be/vg_R84iDtaU

Iphigenia at Aulis: This play is interesting because it shows Euripides perhaps at the peak of his cynicism. Everyone in this play, apart from Iphigenia, is rather contemptible. But, interestingly enough, that are not merely contemptible, but they also have moments of complexity where they are sympathetic. This is perhaps most evident with Achilles, who initially seems like a pompous rich kid concerned more about how Agamemnon used his name without permission to lure Iphigenia to the camp than he is about the fact that she is literally going to be sacrificed. He is a self-centered showoff. But when Iphigenia reveals herself as truly noble, he pledges to defend her at the altar if she changes her mind and wants to be spared, even though it would upset the entire army.
Iphigenia, again, is the exception to this general rule. She nobly accepts her death, even asking to be sacrificed as the means for the Greeks to defeat the Trojans. Of course, to a modern audience this is potentially problematic (especially her apparent bloodthirsty desire to be a sacker of cities, and her statement that it's right for Greeks to rule over barbarians), but for the Greeks this would have been right in line with a heroic tradition.
The other thing I find interesting about this play is how many complications it introduces into the general Atreidae myth cycle. The big one is probably that at the end of this play (which Paul Roche, translator of this edition, thinks is likely written by Euripides' son rather than Euripides himself because the playwright died without finishing it), a messenger comes in and tells Clytemnestra that when the priest cut Iphigenia's throat, the girl was miraculously replaced by a deer and Artemis spared (but took) Iphigenia. This is, of course, a major premise of Iphigenia Among the Taurians, but if Clytemnestra knows immediately after the event that Iphigenia hasn't been killed, it doesn't make any real sense that she later murders Agamemnon in revenge for him killing Iphigenia. There's also the general issue of Orestes' age, which is a consistent problem in Aeschylus' Oresteia and both Sophocles' and Euripides' Electra plays. In this play, Orestes shows up as a baby, which makes sense because Agamemnon hasn't been gone that long, but plays later in the cycle consistently say that he was a baby when Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon after he returns from the Trojan war. This would require that Orestes be a baby for over a decade.
https://youtu.be/RaMrFq_50QA

Iphigenia Among the Taurians: This is another romance, rather than a tragedy, in which Iphigenia is rescued from her service in the temple of Artemis among the Taurian barbarians following Agamemnon's attempt to sacrifice her (as dramatized in Iphigenia in Aulis). Orestes has been sent among the Taurians by Apollo to steal a statue of Artemis and bring it back to Athens, and while there the siblings realize who one another are and they resolve to escape together. However, the Taurians figure out what's going on and are about to stop the Greeks' flight when Athena shows up (in a deus ex machina) to save the day by commanding the Taurian king to let them go.
https://youtu.be/oUXvV0ujzfA

Medea: This play is a tough one for me because I want to buy into the feminist readings of Medea as a (proto-)feminist asserting her value against an unfaithful man who treats her as a disposable object. She has a great speech at the beginning of the play where she indicts patriarchal Greek society. But at the same time, she murders Glauke--another woman--who likely had very little control over the arranged marriage between herself and Jason, so we don't get a great deal of solidarity with other women. And Medea murders her children so Jason cannot have them, which is morally problematic at the least. So it's hard for me to see Medea as just a victim of patriarchy carrying out retributive justice. Both Glauke and the children seem more like innocent bystanders or pawns than they do like the actual targets of Medea's semi-feminist rage (i.e., Jason and Creon). Some scholars have argued that this is a play of two halves, with Medea as the victim in the first half and Jason as the victim in the second. And I'm not sure I find that structure rewarding.
https://youtu.be/oEUKF1hCgj4

The Bacchae: This is a play heavily driven by the "hubris is punished" approach to Greek tragedy. Pentheus, king of Thebes, refuses to recognize the divinity of Dionysus who comes to spread his cult in his birth city. Pentheus tries to repress the Menaeds (Dionysus' followers) and even attempts to arrest Dionysus. As a punishment, Dionysus basically hypnotizes Pentheus and convinces him to dress as a woman to go out to the woods and spy on the Menaeds, who mis-identify him as a wild animal and tear him apart with their bare hands and consume some of his raw flesh. This violence is lead by Agave, Pentheus' mother, who tears off her son's head. Dionysus had hypnotized the Menaeds, so this is essentially the god not only punishing Pentheus (who dies horribly) but also punishing Agave (who brutally murders her son) and the rest of Pentheus' family, including people like Cadmus who actually embraced the god's worship. And then Dionysus follows this up by basically exiling and punishing both Agave and Cadmus, furthering the punishment for Pentheus' family members, even though those other family members had joined in worshiping Dionysus.
https://youtu.be/2_MfR-qsds4

The Trojan Women: This is a play in four parts. Basically, the structure of the play is a series of lamentations, with each quarter being characterized by the slight possibility of hope and then that hope immediately being dashed. Basically, the play is set in the ruins of Troy at the end of the Trojan War, focusing on Hecuba and the female Trojan survivors who are waiting to be dispersed as slaves to the Greek victors. This play is essentially an extended lamentation.
https://youtu.be/6gg7PheZTJo

The Cyclops: This is one of the most important Greek plays because it is the only extant example of a satyr play, so it gives us our most complete info about the genre. Satyr plays followed the three tragedies a tragedian would enter for the City Dionysia competition, and they kind of lightened the mood after a set of tragedies. Basically, satyr plays were drawn from the same kind of mythic material as tragedies, but treated it from a carnivalesque perspective, with a focus on food, alcohol, sexuality, etc.
https://youtu.be/ejZ4JsWOPjs

[Caroline]

This seems like a good edition to use in combination with others. Moses Hadas and John McLean have rendered literal prose translations that convey both the basic sense of the plays, and, in their intermittent lyrical prose sections, a good sense of the poetic spirit, I think. But the dramatic movement and power of a verse play are missing. Subsequent reading of a poet's translation would supply something of the original experience, tempered by a sense of how far it was from the original meaning, to the extent a modern reader can enter the mind of an ancient Greek spectator.

The plays themselves differ in appeal. I found 'Ion' (due to its irony), 'The Trojan Women,' and 'Iphegenia among the Taurians' to be the three plays I want to pursue. I found them the most interesting of Euripides explorations of the role of the gods. But I happen to have a translation of 'Medea' by Robin Robertson, one of my favorite poets, so I will start by seeing what he has made of this very Greek tragedy.

The biggest drawback to this edition is its minimalist presentation. It was obviously intended as a budget-friendly compilation. The general introduction by Hadas is good, but each play has only a page of introduction, and essentially no notes.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

—Read Hippolytus, Medea and the Bacchae for SJC Weekend Classics 5/7-8

[Karl H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A word about the translation: Paul Roche does a great job, with a few caveats. These translations seem to be made for stage productions of Euripides, so they tend to spell everything out. In some cases this is nice, like during scenes where the staging is crucial to understanding the action. In some cases, like when he completely makes up parts of a play that are missing, it can be bad. He notes when he thinks the play is not reputable or when he has to fill in the gaps, so I’m inclined to think he simply wanted to provide something for people putting these plays into production. Heed these warnings for maximum enjoyment: Don’t read the introductions, which will spoil the plays on a first reading. You can also dispense with the stage directions at the beginning of scenes as they sometimes spoil what is about to happen, and the “setting” portion at the beginning of the play which is usually explained by the opening scene anyway. Otherwise you’re good to go.

ADMETUS
Once upon a time, Admetus made a deal with Apollo. He wouldn’t have to die if someone would agree to lay down their life instead. His parents (shockingly) do not take him up on this generous offer so he lets his wife bite the bullet for him instead, and then for the rest of the play mopes about how hard he has it. Got to say, I empathize with the parents here. I probably wouldn’t die for such a selfish jerk either. The translator thinks Euripides is endorsing this kind of behavior but I don’t see how Admetus complaining about how terrible it is now that he has to live alone and exclaiming “I wish I were dead!” is anything but massively ironic. A deeply ironic dark comedy- it had me laughing out loud at parts. 5/5

HIPPOLYTUS
Phaedra falls in love with her stepson (Hippolytus) because he’s celibate for no apparent reason and that makes Aphrodite upset. Phaedra and her Nurse argue a little bit about what course of action is ethical in this situation, but I have to say that what Phaedra wound up doing was a hell of a lot more immoral than anything the Nurse suggests. If only they had bothered to listen to the Nurse at any point, things would’ve gone smoother. I guess the moral is “Don’t be too hasty” but what I took away was “Don’t piss off Aphrodite.” 4/5

ION
I’m beginning to sense a suffering woman theme here. Apollo rapes a woman, she conceives a son named Ion and then Apollo decides to pull an ol’ switcheroo on the mom who is now infertile. Not terribly divine of him. As Ion says, “If the day ever comes (I know the notion is absurd) when you gods must pay the price to human beings for all your rapings and whorings [Apollo] and Poseidon and, yes Zeus himself will bankrupt every temple to fit the bill.” And after all his naughty behavior, Apollo doesn’t even have the balls to show up in the play. Creusa, get that low down dog to pay child support! Euripides kind of backpedals in the end but I guess he didn’t want to be too critical of all-powerful beings, particularly ones backed up by mob justice. 5/5

ELECTRA
Euripides tells the story of Orestes and Electra avenging their father who was murdered by their mother. The Libation Bearers was the weakest of the Oresteia, and this version of the story is improved. There’s a cheeky bit in here where Euripides takes a shot at the idea of Electra identifying her brother by comparing hair and looking at footprints, so no doubt he read Aeschylus’s version too. The view of feminine subservience isn’t much better here, but at least it’s less obnoxious. Euripides gets our sympathies more successfully on the side of the children of Agamemnon. The character of Electra in particular is beefed up, showing shades of Macbeth’s wife half way through the play. The only confusing bit is when Euripides tries to shoehorn in a lesson about how wealth isn’t everything… doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the play. 4/5

IPHIGENIA AT AULIS
This is the story of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to gain favorable winds for Troy. This play doesn’t mesh with the traditional portrait of these characters- it’s kind of an iconoclastic interpretation. Agamemnon isn’t a hyper-ambitious man willing to sacrifice his daughter for glory, he’s kind of a bumbling figure boxed in to a bad situation. Odysseus is no longer a draft-dodger who pretended to be crazy to avoid going to Troy, now he’s a blood thirsty demagogue. And so on. This origin of the Trojan War reminds me quite a bit of the rush to war in World War I. There’s no one figure to pin the blame on- there’s just a general war fever on the part of the public. The ‘heroes’ are just along for the ride. Iphigenia gains most of our sympathies- but not for the reasons you might think. The ending to this play is hilariously bad but Euripides didn’t write it, so I’m going to cut him some slack on that one. 5/5

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS
If Euripides died after he wrote Iphigenia at Aulis, then how could he write this sequel? Well, he wrote this one first, as we can tell because things don’t match up between the two plays at all. Iphigenia and Orestes meet up in some barbarian land but, tee hee, don’t know they’re related. Expect to wait until half way through the play before they figure that one out. At no part of this play does anything surprising or interesting happen. The end sucks too. The only lousy play of the bunch so far. 2/5

MEDEA
Do not believe the false advertising in the title. This is NOT a light hearted Tyler Perry comedy. I can empathize with Medea. If your husband cheated on you after you killed your family and betrayed your homeland to be with him, I can see how revenge might be the first thing on your mind. But it’s not so far-fetched to say that some of her revenge is also for the insult to her pride- particularly after the line he gives saying cheating on her was for her benefit. She’ll show Jason what it means to mess with Medea, even if she has to scheme and kill and cut off her own nose to do it. Just how far did I say I empathized with Medea again? 5/5

BACCHUS
Bacchus is the new kid on the block- the god of wine and revelry trying to get widespread acceptance. You would think if anything, people would be thrilled to have a god of partying. But no, some people like repressed ol’ king Pentheus are just a bunch of meanies who want to bring everyone down. This type of divine party-pooping is called “hubris” and as we all know, the gods have a talent for punishing this sort of thing. Tiresias has the right idea- you’ve got to cut loose and act a fool every once in a while or you’ll wind up half crazy running around the woods in women’s clothes. And that won’t even be the worst of it. When God says party, you party- or else. 4/5

TROJAN WOMEN
After the war in Troy ended, all that was left was to split the spoils of war. This included slaves, like Hecuba, the former queen of Troy, whom Trojan Women follows. This play is an utterly devastating indictment of war. In the introduction, it is clear the gods aren’t satisfied with the bloodletting at Troy and plan for more slaughter. Hecuba is forced to endure the destruction of all she loves- her children taken from her, her country enslaved, her home burned to the ground, her faith in the gods shattered, and the woman responsible for it all goes unpunished. Do the dead have it any better? Not by a long shot. Cassandra points out that though the war is over the Greeks have hardly won a happy fate. The Greeks have won back Helen, whom they hate, and have paid the price of countless casualties and years of hardship away from their homes. On the way back to Greece many more will die in storms, Agamemnon will be murdered, and Odysseus will endure another ten years of tribulation. The most nihilistic play I have ever read. 5/5

CYCLOPS
This irreverent play is a humorous interpretation of Odysseus’ encounter with the Cyclops. It’s crude, rude and pretty funny. It reminds me of Looney Tunes, if Looney Tunes didn’t shy away from jokes about getting drunk and having sex. Silenus plays Bugs Bunny, and Odysseus is the straight man.
4/5

[Vicki M. Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Euripides is one of the most progressive and prolific playwrights of Antiquity. His work marks him as a feminist in a heavily-patriarchal society, and a free-thinker in a long-standing religious civilization.

Despite the complaints that addition of stage directions and other details make the plays less authentic, I needed them. There are typos and mistakes, but overall, I have no major criticisms for the translations (I'm an amateur when it comes to these kind of texts, though).

Alcestis - 3/5

Let her know that she die glorious, the best woman under the sun by far.

Alcetis, wife of Admetus, dies in his place so that he can live forever. The perfect spouse? More like the perfect platform for Euripides to comment on the anti-feminist culture in Greek society.


Medea - 4/5

'And yet you slew them.'
'I did, to hurt you.'

Everyone is loco. Medea's husband cheats on her. To get vengeance, Medea literally kills everyone. Medea, in comparison to Alcestis, provides the contrasting view of marriage and feminism in a male-dominated society. This play also debates themes of love versus duty, vengeance versus violent wrath, sacrifice versus pride.


Hippolytus - 4/5

I don't like deities who are marvelous after dark.

And with that quote, Hippolytus has doomed himself. As a follower of Artemis, Hippolytus rejects women. Aphrodite, in her jealousy, makes Hippolytus' stepmother Phaedra fall in love with him. There is conflict between goddesses and conflict between father and son, all stemming from blindness of rage.


Andromache - 2/5

Never shall I approve of two loves for one man.... It means strife in the home, and enmity and pain.

Andromache, the widow of Hector, has been taken from Troy following the Trojan War, and now serves as a slave and concubine to Neoptolemus, Achille's son. Hermione, Neoptolemus' wife and daughter of Helen and Menelaus, is very jealous. What a cast of characters! In this way, Andromache is kind of confusing and circular - there is no main protagonist, but instead a bunch of characters shouting at each other in their household. The underlying theme features the idea of 'Greeks versus others'. And the Greeks always come out on top.


Ion - 3/5

One can no longer blame men for imitating the splendid conduct of the gods; blame those who set us the example.

Apollo rapes Creusa, but she suffers the consequences. Here, Euripides is criticizing Apollo and the other gods who can act upon their whim without considering the consequences; of course, immortal beings do not care much about human lives. The theme of parenthood is explored and commended, resulting in many tender moments. In the end, piety still reigns supreme.


The Trojan Woman - 4/5

The mortal is mad who sacks cities and desolates temples and tombs...; his own doom is only delayed.

In the aftermath of the Trojan War, the inhabitants of Troy are either dead or are assigned as slaves and concubines to the Achaeans. The Trojan women, including Hecuba and Andromache, grieve for their losses, the deaths of their family, and their post-war future. This play (i.e., giving women a voice after countless male-centred stories about the Trojan War) was pretty novel.


Electra - 4/5

My girl, it has always been your nature to love your father. So it goes; some are fond of their male parent, others love their mothers more than their fathers.

Electra has been married out to a poor peasant after her mother, Clytemnestra, kills her father, Agamemnon, and marries her lover, Aegisthus. When her brother, Orestes, returns from exile (both children having been kicked far away from their royal home), she instigates matricide. Electra, in looking for justice for her father and in conspiring with her brother to murder their mother, is given a lot of screen time to portray her anger, sorrow, and guilt in a realistic way. This was an interesting play, chock-full of imagery; Electra herself is a multi-dimensional character with convoluted familial relationships (talk about the Electra complex).


Iphigenia Among the Taurians - 4/5

One thing alone can cause a man sorrow: when he is ruined, not by his folly, but because he has trusted words of prophecy - as one man was ruined, whom those that know know.

Iphigenia, the daughter sacrificed by Agamemnon to Artemis in order to set sail for the Trojan War, is actually not dead! Instead, she has been living in a temple of Artemis in Tauris, sacrificing foreigners who land on the shores. She doesn't know that it's her brother, Orestes, that just arrived, in a classic example of dramatic irony. When mutual recognition finally hits, they devise a scheme to leave together, ending with a deus ex machina. Although their circumstances are far from ideal, this play is both tragic and comedic.


The Bacchants - 3/5

Props for being probably the most impious play to ever be written for a religious festival.


Iphigenia at Aulis - 4/5

No mortal knows real prosperity or happiness; never has one been born free from sorrow.

Iphigenia is sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon, so that the Hellenes can leave to fight in the Trojan War. Steeped in tragic irony, characters are faced with moral dilemmas; some characters are heroic while others are written as bumbling fools. Questionable ending, but it probably wasn't written by Euripides.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

ALCESTIS
If you were married and you knew your spouse was going to die and you also knew you could put yourself in his or her stead, would you? If the answer is yes, are you a good spouse? Would people honor you and revere your decision? Should you be able to ask your spouse to not remarry after you are gone?

On the opposite side, if your spouse chose to, would you allow your spouse to die for you? If the answer is yes, are you a good spouse? Would people honor you and revere your decision? Would it be right for another to die in your stead when it is your appointed time to die? Could you expect your parents who are elderly to step up? Should they offer themselves because they are old and have already lived life?

This scenario is reality in this play. I would not categorize this play as a tragedy. Usually in a tragedy people are left to suffer situations they have no control over, but while one character in this play has the power to stop the tragedy and chooses not to, another in the end saves the day after all hope has been abandoned. This ‘tragedy’ has a happy ending that leaves ethical questions in the mind of the reader.

HIPPOLYTUS
“Virtue is pitted against virtue, and by a twist of fate virtue is betrayed by virtue.” (Euripides Ten Plays, by Paul Roche, pg. 47)

It is interesting to note that you should never cross a god. For when they are angry they destroy anything and everything for revenge. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, has been spurned by Hippolytus and means to destroy him. She will do this knowing it will also destroy Theseus and Phaedra who revere Aphrodite.

Aphrodite: “Phaedra, therefore, has to die,
Though she saves her good name.
Yes, she must die.
Her present agonies are not enough
To outweigh the penalty I must exact
From those who do me wrong.”

Phaedra, the step-mother of Hippolytus, is hopelessly in love with him, but is determined to die rather to “give it rein” or let it be known:

Phaedra: “The moment love smote me
I cast about for a way to handle it.
I determined to keep quiet and hide my sickness.
One cannot trust the tongue:
So glib at bringing others to heel,
So bad at coping with troubles of its own.
Next, I made up my mind to master this madness
Through sheer self-control.
Thirdly, when this attempt to quell love’s power failed,
I began to see that death was the only way out –
None can deny it.
I would rather have my virtue than my shame
Blazoned forth for all to see.
For the scandal, I knew, would be just as great
To own the passion as to give it rein.
Besides, I realized that as a woman
I was the ready butt for hate by all.”

Given she failed at not loving him and is determined not to cause any problems I find it reprehensible Aphrodite would use her to get to Hippolytus. I also find the Nurse detestable. She promises Phaedra she will not tell Hippolytus, but then goes and does just that. Hippolytus is shocked and disgusted by the news. His response tells us just how much he despises the idea of love:

Hippolytus: “Great Zeus,
Why ever did you give a place to women under the sun:
That pestilent tribe, that curse to man?
….
Woman is a plague, and here’s the evidence.
The father who begets her and brings her up
Then pays a gross dowry to get her out of the house
And be rid of the baggage.
The man who takes home this noxious package
Is then thrilled to bedeck his idol with every kind of frippery.
He dolls her up in expensive gowns.
He fritters away – poor fool! – his heritage...
The luckiest man is he who wins a nobody for a wife,
A brainless nincompoop who just sits at home.
A brainy woman I abhor,
And in my house, at least, I hope there’ll never be
A woman of above-average brains.
It’s the clever ones that go in for Aphrodite’s fun and games.
The dullards are kept in check by their own ineptitude...
As it is,
Worthless women hatch their plots in closets
And their maids broadcast them abroad.”

What he says is not beautiful, but he says it beautifully. Euripides says so much in so few words. I wonder how the ancient Greeks took this speech. Was it meant to be funny? Sadly, there is enough truth behind it to make it humorous. The rest of the play reads fast for as the reader I was anticipating how Aphrodite was to bring about her purpose.

ION
When a god bears a child from a mortal what happens to that child? What happens to the mother who bore the child? Ion is such a child. We see through the course of the play what is done by the God Apollo to steer the fate of his own son.

The chorus ends the play with the following:

Chorus: “Praised be Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto.
Those whom misfortune undermines
Should reverence the gods and take courage.
The virtuous in the end will win,
The wicked, by their nature, not:
Because of sin.”

This seems to me a departure from the average theme of most tragedies – that men suffer in this life and we just have to deal. This exit chorus is a little more positive.

ELECTRA
Find my review of Electra in my review of "Electra and other plays by Euripides".

IPHIGENIA AT AULIS
It was Euripides last play and was unfinished at his death. It is thought that his son finished the play and produced it in Athens a short time later. This whole play has major similarities to the story of Abraham and Isaac. I wonder how much, if any, influence the Jewish traditions had on the people of ancient Greece.

First, in the story of Abraham he is commanded to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham doesn’t want to because he loves his son, but follows the commandment of the Lord. In Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon is told a virgin needs to be sacrificed in order for the army to sail to Troy. He sends word to his wife to bring Iphigenia and waffles back and forth between stopping them or letting them come. In the end he is convinced by Menelaus his daughter must die.

Second, Isaac willingly allows his father to lie him on the stone having full knowledge he is about to die. Iphigenia learns what Agamemnon plans and also willingly goes to the sacrificial altar.

“‘Father, here I am,’ she said, ‘as you bid me.
Of my own free will I bequeath my body
for my state and for the whole of Hellas.
So lead me to the altar of sacrifice –
If that is the decision.
May it help you, if that is in my power.
May you be awarded victory
And return a winner to your native land.
Let no Argive lay his hand on me.
Silent, unflinching, I bare my throat.’”

Third, as Abraham is striking down with his weapon, an angel stops him. A ram is provided in a nearby bush as a substitute and Isaac is saved. In Iphigenia at Aulis, the priest took the final stroke, but Iphigenia had vanished and in her place was a deer.

“There is no doubt your child was wafted to the gods,
So cease from grief and resentment against your consort.
Mysterious to us mortals are the ways of the gods.
Those they love, they save:
This day has seen your child dead and alive.”

This play was interesting to read after reading all the Electra plays because Clytemnestra always used the sacrifice of their daughter as her reasoning for murdering Agamemnon. So after reading an account of what happened, is this enough justification for Clytemnestra to murder Agamemnon? There was no evidence of death, no body of Iphigenia, but her daughter was gone. Clytemnestra never saw her again. Did she believe the army lied to her? That the story of the deer was just that – a story? If she really believed Iphigenia was taken by Artemis would she have hated Agamemnon? Does it matter that Iphigenia willingly went to die? Should that take away the motive of Clytemnestra? Or, did she use this occurrence as an excuse to gain power and keep a lover?

A lot of commentary suggests Euripides was a type of feminist in his time because more than half of his plays are about women. I agree that his portrayal of the woes and trials of womankind are heartfelt and are probably accurate, but there are always the little sentences that undermine this theory. The following is from Iphigenia when she is telling her mother she will go with Agamemnon:

“It is unthinkable that this man [Achilles]
Should pit himself against the whole of Argos
For a woman’s sake.
A single man is worthier
To look upon the light than ten thousand women.”

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS
This play gives closure to both Iphigenia at Aulis and the story of Orestes. We find out Iphigenia was saved from sacrifice to serve in a foreign land in one of Artemis’ temples. Her main purpose is to prepare the victims for sacrifice. Iphigenia has an interesting perspective on her job:

“I am not impressed with Artemis’ subtleties.
She won’t let anyone come near her altar
Who has touched blood or a woman in childbirth or a corpse,
Because they are tainted,
Yet takes delight in human sacrifice.
No, I cannot bring myself to think
That Leto, Zeus’s wife, could generate such absurdity.
Not do I believe what is said of Tantalus,
That he gave a banquet to the gods,
Regaling them with children’s flesh.
No, I believe that the people of this land
Being murderers themselves
Have foisted their murderous instincts on the goddess.
I refuse to think that any god is evil.”

Orestes, in his mad travels, finds himself in the same foreign land and becomes at the mercy of the people who want to sacrifice him to the goddess. When Orestes is taken to the temple he meets his sister. The sentiment above is juxtaposed with the following from Orestes:

Iphigenia: Dreams, dreams, goodbye! You were all a lie.
Orestes: And so are the gods – no better than dreams on wings,
And yet they say so wise!
Confusion reigns among the deities
Just as it does among us mortals.
The only thing one should regret
Is being ruined not by one’s own folly
But by following some crackpot prophecy:
A ruin that exactly happened to someone
Whom those in the know know.”

Little does Orestes know that by the end of the day he will be on his way to being free from the Furies and saved by Pallas Athena.

MEDEA
“Revenge is sweet, sweeter than life itself – so say fools.” Seriously, this play is messed up. At most it portrays how one bent on revenge can ruin her own life; at the least it is a sadistic and shocking read.

Medea: “Of all creatures that can feel and think,
We women are the worst-treated things alive.
To begin with,
We bid the highest price in dowries
Just to buy some man
To be dictator of our bodies.
How that compounds the wrong!
Then there is the terrifying risk:
Shall we get a good man or a bad?
Divorce is a disgrace
(at least for women),
To repudiate a man, not possible.
So, plunged into habits new to her,
Conventions she has never known at home,
She has to guess like some clairvoyant
How to handle the one who shares her bed.
And if we learn our lesson well
In this exacting role,
And our husband does not kick against the marriage yoke,
Oh, ours is an enviable life!
Otherwise we are better dead.
When a man gets bored with wife and home,
He simply roams abroad to relieve the tedium of his spirit,
Turns to a friend or finds his cronies.
We women, on the other hand,
Turn only to a single man.
We live safe at home, they say.
They do battle with the spear.
How shallow!
I had rather stand my ground three times in battle
Than face a childbirth once….
Woman, on the whole, is a timid thing:
The din of war, the flash of steel, unnerves her;
But wronged in love, there is no heart more murderous.”

Medea is justified in thinking this because she learned her husband, Jason, has taken another wife. Not just any wife, the daughter of the King. This explains her motive, but after this rant Medea goes wrong. She plans and executes the murder of Jason’s new wife and also the murders of her two sons. The end is heartbreaking, but also genius. Euripides has shown himself to be a master in ‘agon’, where “violent emotion is channeled into formal argumentation: these interludes provide a sharper and sometimes chilling intellectual pleasure as callous acts are justified with alarming articulacy.” (Euripides: Electra and Other Plays by Penguin Classics, pg. xxxvii) The following argument between Medea and Jason is so believable and real:

MEDEA: “Zeus the Father knows
Exactly what you got from me and how you then behaved.
I refused to let you or your royal princess
Set our wedded life aside and make me cheap
So that you could live in bliss;
Or let that match-arranger, Creon,
Dismiss me from the land without a fight.
So call me lioness, if you like,
Or a Scylla haunting the Tyrrhenian shore,
I have done what I ought:
Wounded you to the very core.
JASON: [wheeling around to face her]
You are in agony too.
You share my broken life.
MEDEA: It is worth the suffering since you cannot sneer.
JASON: Poor children, what a monster fate gave you for a mother!
MEDEA: Poor sons, what a disaster your selfish father was!
JASON: It was not his right hand that struck them down.
MEDEA: No, it was his pride and lust for his new mate.
JASON: You think it right to murder just for a thwarted bed?
MEDEA: And do you think that a thwarted bed is trifling to a woman?
JASON: To a modest woman, yes, but you are sunk in vice.
MEDEA: [pointing to the two dead boys]
See, they are no more. I’ve stung you to the heart.”

THE BACCHAE
This play is advertized as Euripides finest work. This play is definitely the most violent, the most horrific, and the most tragic. In my opinion it is not my favorite, but when is being popular taken into account when deciding what constitutes a masterpiece? This play demonstrates the power of the Gods, particularly Dionysus.

“The Bacchae asks the question: is there an equation between faith and reason, religion and fact, freedom of spirit and law-and-order? Euripides’ conclusion seems to be that too much law-and-order leads to social tyranny… , too much freedom of spirit to chaos, too much religion to fanaticism. In the play, the young King Pentheus, who is the same age as Dionysus (Bacchus), believes that law-and-order is the sole end of the state. For him freedom of spirit is tantamount to anarchy. So he goes out to suppress the new cult coming from the Orient promoting Dionysus. In the process he becomes a fanatic, and as fanaticism does with life, so it does with him – tears him to pieces. Dionysus tries to save him: make him see that there are many levels to life and that law-and-order is only one of them – Dionysus himself being both a constructive and destructive force, like a law of nature, against which it is perilous to hurl oneself.” (Euripides Ten Plays A New Translation by Paul Roche pg. 393-394)

I really liked this chorus verse:
“The braggart’s unbridled tongue,
The anarchical folly of fools
Leads to untimely demise,
But unshaken abides
The life of the quietly wise,
Holding the home together.
For the gods in the faraway skies
Still look upon men.
Mere cleverness is not wise.
Given immortal airs
Life quickens and dies. A man in pursuit
Of mere grand desires misses his time.
Oh that is the way of fanatically
Willful men, I surmise.”

THE TROJAN WOMEN
Find my review of The Trojan Women in my review of "Electra and other plays by Euripides".

THE CYCLOPS
This is a satyr play and is purported to be a comedy. It definitely is more crude, but funny? Maybe you have to be an ancient Greek to get the jokes.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because my friend was going to see the Bakkhai and I wanted to talk to her about it, plus I've always wanted to read the Iphigenia plays, Medea, Electra, and The Trojan Women, and while I was reading six of the plays in the book I might as well read the other four. This turned out to be varyingly good for me.

General comments: Roche is kind of a weird translator. Some of the plays (most notably the Bakkhai) have noticable gaps in the text, and he's flat out made up segments of verse to fill in these gaps. I'm not sure how I feel about that, although he's very conscientious about pointing out where he's made up things and where he's made questionable or just disputed choices in the translation. He also includes a number of introductions to the plays that I'd just skip, since they're spoilery and kind of tell you what to think. His glossary of people, places, and names at the end of the book was much appreciated, though. I'm more than passingly familiar with Greek mythology and there were definitely some references that evaded me.

Also, Euripides is very, very sympathetic to his female characters. Almost shockingly so if you know anything about ancient Greek culture. Just wanted to put that out there.


Alcestis: Admetus, king of Pherae, has wrested a promise from Death that he can live past his ordained time of death if someone else will die in his place. Unfortunately for him, the only volunteer is his beloved wife Alcestis. While she's dying, Hercules pops up and after behaving like a fratboy for most of the play, eventually goes down to the Underworld and brings her back. I really only have a few impressions, namely that gee, Admetus, what a huge shocker that your parents don't want to die in your place. This may be a cultural difference, but he seemed to be a huge ungrateful little shit about his parents not wanting to die for him. Also, Hercules is a fratboy and Alcestis doesn't get much to say at all. Kind of a meh play over all.

Hippolytus: I went into this thinking it was about an entirely different subject, so for those of you wondering, no, it isn't about any Amazons, alas. It is about Phaedra (Minos's daughter), who marries Theseus and falls in love with her stepson. Her nurse tells her to tell said stepson (the titular Hippolytus), and when she refuses, the nurse tells him anyway. Hippolytus reacts like a little shit, which results in Phaedra killing herself and claiming Hippolytus tried to rape her (??), which somehow ends up in his death and everyone beating their breasts about it. Also pretty meh, with bonus why the fuck did any of this happen at all.

Ion: I had the least idea what was going on here. Ion is the son of Apollo by a mortal woman he raped and left at his father's temple but ends up being adopted by his mother's husband as that man's bastard son...? And then his mother tries to kill him, for which he tries to kill her right back, but then it's revealed that she's his mother and everything's hunky-dory? IDEK, guys. Skip it.

Electra: This is where the plays started to get interesting. Electra is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemenstra. Those of you who know Greek mythology know that Agamemnon was killed by Clytemenstra for sacrificing their other daughter, Iphigenia, in order to get to Troy. Clytemenstra also had a lover in here somewhere, who forced Electra to marry a peasant (who is, of course, chivalrous and kind and too aware of his class to touch Electra at all). Electra eventually runs into her brother, Orestes, who had been banished by the aforesaid lover, and together they conspire to kill both the lover and Clytemenstra. This play is particularly notable for allowing both Electra and Clytemenstra to speak their piece, and for allowing both of them to be deeply sympathetic.

Iphigenia at Aulis: The play where Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia. He lured her to Aulis under the pretext of becoming Achilles's bride, which is hilarious because Achilles a) is already married and b) is head over heels in love with his boyfriend Patroclus. He does try to rescue Iphigenia once he figures out what's going on, but he gets overruled by pretty much every other man in the play. Notable because Iphigenia eventually allows herself to be sacrificed and sees it as a heroic, if tragic, action. Also notable because Euripides really did not like Odysseus and it shows.

Iphigenia Among the Taurians: At the end of the last play, Iphigenia was stolen away by Artemis and replaced with a white hind. She was then transported to Taurus, where she became priestess of Artemis's temple there and was given the responsibility of preparing for sacrifice all the Greeks who end up in Taurus. Why is never explained. Orestes shows up with a friend, in an attempt to cure the madness inflicted on him for killing his mother, and after a back and forth in which neither one of them recognizes the other (it's important to note that Orestes was a baby when Iphigenia was supposedly sacrificed, so this isn't as stupid as it sounds), they recognize each other and make plans to escape. Iphigenia is very different here than she is in the previous play; she seems to have turned against her father for sacrificing her and now just hates pretty much everyone. Can't blame her, though. Bonus points for Iphigenia giving her brother's friend a letter to her brother, at which point the friend turns around and gives it to Orestes. I laughed.

Medea: This is an amazing play. Amazing. It's told almost completely from Medea's point of view, is completely sympathetic to her plight, and treats Jason as the jackass he is, although it doesn't condone Medea's actions. Basically, Medea saved Jason's ass at the expense of her family ties, for which he brought her home and married her and had two sons with her. Recently, he's decided to discard her and marry someone else. On top of that, the new wife's father insists that Medea be expelled from her country. Medea sends the new wife a poisoned dress and crown, which kills her and her father, then kills both her children by Jason and books it to a prearranged sanctuary. Lesson learned: don't be a douchebag to your wife and then blame it on her when she's hurt and unhappy. But seriously, great play.

The Bakkhai (spelled Bacchae here): Dionysus is a new god, just getting his worship set up. He's pretty well established in what the play calls Asia (basically Turkey), and is now trying to set up in Thebes, the home of his mother, Semele. Incidentally, there's a truly gross story about Dionysus' birth that I won't tell here but you should look up. So, he returns to Thebes and finds that the current king, Pentheus, has banned his worship and even mocks him to his face. Horrible things happen. I had two quibbles with this play: first, what did Cadmus even do to deserve being turned into a snake, and second, what did Agave even do? Oh, okay, three things: what the hell was with the epilogue? I think this would be better on stage and look forward to discussing it with my friend.

The Trojan Women: Also a powerful, amazing play. It's the aftermath of the destruction of Troy, told mostly through Hecuba's eyes, but with cameos from other notable Trojan women, including Cassandra, Andromache, and Helen. It's brutal, and doesn't shy away from the reality of what happens to the people of a captured city (hint: nothing good). It's also almost entirely female, with one Greek man and a few nameless Greek soldiers who do the horrible things and act embarrassed about their orders, but don't try to stop it. The women all get their chance to speak, including Helen, and though they're pretty hateful toward each other, you get the feeling that the playwright at least wishes them all well. At least two people die over the course of the play. Cassandra predicts her own rape and murder, as well as the death of her mother. Troy is utterly destroyed. It's pretty damn heartrending. Also displays Euripides's hate-on for Odysseus, even though he doesn't show up.

The Cyclops: This, on the other hand, is a plain old bawdy play with a random rape joke and grossness from Odysseus. I wouldn't even bother.


So! Overall I'm glad I read it; I learned things about Greek mythology and got to read several plays I've been wanting to. Still, if I were to do it again, I'd skip Ion and Hippolytus, and I'd definitely skip The Cyclops. I'd love to see at least four of these plays staged, though. Maybe closer to six. I mean, I really want to see the Trojan Women now. A lot.

[Isabella Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

fuckin love euripides man

"Eros. Eros, clouding our eyes/With a mist of yearning when you sweeten the hearts/Of those against whom you plan your attack./Please never show yourself to wound me./Please never turn everything upside down...." (from Hippolytus)
"NURSE: I'll never let go. PHAEDRA: Then, poor woman, you'll have to share my doom. NURSE: What doom could be worse than losing you?" (from Hippolytus)
"CHORUS: ...Where can Decency show her face? Where has Virtue hidden?" (from Iphigenia at Aulis)

[Kristen (belles_bookshelves) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Beauty is a joy forever." [The Bacchae]

So I previously read Electra and Other Plays and two of those plays (Electra and The Trojan Women) were contained in both editions, so I skipped them here. The other eight were as follows, with brief overviews:

1. Alcestis: Alcestis has to die for her husband
2. Hippolytus: Hippolytus spurns Aphrodite and she's out for revenge
3. Ion: basically the life story about Ion, who has a child with a god
4. Iphigenia at Aulis: Agamemnon is told that his daughter must be sacrificed in order for victory is the Trojan War
5. Iphigenia among the Taurians: A continuation of the previous play where we find out what happens to Iphigenia
6. Medea: Jason wants to marry another ad Medea go crazy
7. The Bacchae: Dionysus returns to his home town
8. The Cyclops: A comedy about a satyr, a cyclops, and Odysseus

By far Medea was both my favorite and my least favorite. It was the most enthralling for me, but I also hated Medea. She's legitimately crazy. Jason wants to marry another woman and Medea is justifiably pissed off. But her levels of revenge are ... well EXTREME is too tame a word. She's nuts.

"Many the forms of divine intervention
Many the marvels the gods entertain.
What was expected was never perfected
And God found a way for the unexpected.
So ends this story today."

[Danny Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

READ ION. THATS IT. THATS THE REVIEW.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

so fun! Not sure if this was the best translation, but the drama shines regardless.

[rowan mcclure · Rating 3 out of 5]

lowkey medea my girl but idk why she didn't just take her kids with her idk I guess that's why I'm not a greek poet

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hoping to find a simple copy of the classic The Bacchae but instead stumbled across this wonderful collection of ten Euripides plays. This English translation is easy to read and though there isn't much in the way of footnotes or long introductions, the text speaks for itself and rarely leaves you confused. Each play has a simple single-page introduction with an illustration and helps develop any historical background (ie, how old was Euripides when he made this particular play, was Greece starting a new military campaign that he was scorning with this play, etc). Other collections of Euripides plays focus solely on his tragedies, however this work is a mix of plays that end tragically or happily.

Euripides follows the common pattern of the Greek dramatists in picking a familiar myth or epic and either re-tells a portion of it or re-casts its characters into an original story. These dramatists are then able to inject perspective and raw emotion into what would otherwise be a fairly obscure bard's hymn, and Euripides in particular is quite skilled at finding story where one might not expect to find it. In the story of Iphigenia he is able to develop motive for Agamemnon's choice that make the audience empathize with him though those familiar with the back-story, if told, would have found it utterly impossible to do so. Similarly, in the stories of the Women of Troy, Andromache, and Iphigenia at Taurians, some fairly mundane setting is made fairly interesting with a few interesting dramatic tricks.

I had a mixed feeling overall on the quality of these plays, some being mediocre, a couple being outstanding, and one in particular I felt was a sheer masterpiece. Ion, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Hippolytus all showed the height of Euripides situational "cleverness", and Alcestis was an unexpectedly moving display of romantic attachment between a husband and wife (something atypical for Greek culture from what I've read so far). That play in particular was very quotable, full of poetic exclamations of a man's love for his wife and on how short and sweet life is. One element of the story caught my attention, when Heracles - after rescuing Alcestis from death and back to the world of the living - is asked by the husband why she cannot speak, is told that her consecration to the powers below takes three days to pass, and she can be heard again.

The gem of this book though was The Bacchae, which is the story of Dionysus homecoming to Greece and marvelously depicts the conflict between man's intolerant fear of the irrational and uninhibited against his instinct and attempt to lose himself in ecstatic passion. Euripides draws on a Homeric theme in the Gods appearing in disguise and being overlooked or abused by the foolish, and on arriving in Greece, Dionysus finds himself an unrecognized, unacknowledged, and unwelcome guest by the city's stubborn king. The king embodies man's resistance to the passions, to any slight hint of inner effeminacy, and his unflinching iron grip on tradition. Though given numerous opportunities by Dionysus to change, he refuses and finds himself a tragic victim of the great god's power. Unlike some of Euripides plays that get by on sheer cleverness, this story has much more to it. At times it is sheer hilarity, at others tragically moving, but always it shows a keen awareness of human psychology symbolized in myth and story. It's even hard not see a precursor (and possibly heavy influence on) the gospel writings about Jesus that followed five centuries later.

Euripides strength is that he is clever, and he creates a drama where characters follow an inevitable logical unfolding of actions enforced on them by the rules of the particular story. His characters aren't superbly developed, his endings usually seem rough, he's no poet, and he often lacks the strength to emotionally move the reader the way Sophocles does. In Euripides plays, the logic of the story and the pattern it is to follow seems to be the central focus, and its characters are simply the tools he uses to communicate his thoughts. Euripides is able to make a good drama by sculpting an interesting story and possesses great insight on the human psyche.

[Stone Fields · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only read Hippolytus and the Bacchae in this collection.

Hippolytus, by Euripides is a very short but poignant play that centers around Phaedra, the new wife of Theseus, son of Aegeus, and her sudden infatuation and love of Hippolytus, Theseus’ bastard son.

I really enjoyed this play because I believe it really uses Aphrodite (less so Artemis) to great effect. The gods, in my eyes, are the concrete forms of human vice and virtue. Playing with such abstract concepts as real people allows the establishment of motives and nuance - why not talk about deeply human qualities by simply viewing these things as innately human themselves?

As such, Aphrodite is a very prideful god and does not like people disrespecting the infinite power of love, which is what Hippolytus dies from. Love is portrayed as one of the most powerful forces in this play, it affects animals, humans, docile and severe alike, and even the gods themselves. It can be thought that love interweaves all virtue and vice, and in some sense is more powerful than all of them.

Love is conveyed as a very sweet, yet bitter prospect, of which I have, no doubt, partaken of. Some of the happiest and most sorrowful moments in my life are predicated by the presence of some type of love, both directly and indirectly. There is the pain of love that exists when you feel it for someone, when a friend or acquaintance has unintentionally (or sometimes, intentionally) placed you under the spell of love, with a lack of reciprocation on the part of Phaedra. Unrequited love is very painful, as I’m sure the reader of this review has no doubt about. Love can be likened to death in some way, the death of who you might formerly be, the death of who you were while you were single. The death of the person you loved (or at least, the person you thought they were.)

It is important to note, however, that there is not just pain on the side of the unrequited, the unreceived. Hippolytus is also in pain too, and arguably suffers a worse fate than Phaedra did. Those who are the recipients of love, but are unable, or perhaps, do not desire to reciprocate such love suffer as well too. Being forced to hurt someone, to completely decimate a world that was created and lives vividly inside of their brain.

Having to potentially tear apart the other world, that of friendship, apart; Perhaps even risking never seeing the person again and being estranged from someone who otherwise might be of great amicable worth.

Needless to say, I do not like Hippolytus. Though lustful people are not my cup of tea, overly-pious and condescending individuals like Hippolytus are in themselves bad. Though he did do the right thing, Hippolytus embodies this vice to the utmost degree, and perhaps even represents the common attitudes towards sex at the time. Maybe he is a critique of the overly pious men who lie about enjoying sex. Maybe he isn’t really that nuanced, but still. His fate is unfortunate, yes, but the man was of vice too. To have 7 generations of virgins herald his death and wish him to elysium is a bit much.
Another tidbit I really enjoyed was the Nurse being a machiavellian devil. There was no way out of the fate, so she knew it was time to put something to action, for better or for worse.


The Bacchae

Another masterful play by Euripides. The Bacchae is a gory, disgusting tale in which Pentheus, King of Thebes, is no match for Dionysus. This tale depicts what it means for a man to revile a god, for a man to resist god, even, for a man to resist his nature.

The play is not super airtight, but there are a lot of themes and callbacks that exist across the play. Ideas like Cadmus’ advice at the beginning to obey tradition, the frenzied flame, or the inevitability of succumbing to Bacchus’ spell. This play also uses a ton of dithyrambic measures. They are incredibly erratic and wild sounding, with a lot of the verses sounding borderline manic whenever you say them out loud.

It is fitting that this sort of measure was invented by Arion, the man who road the backs of dolphins and generally was just a pretty crazy harp player. The measure is perfect in its place as the hymn style for Dionysus, but it is even more perfect in this set of plays too. The idea of a fire closing in on the city of Thebes in tandem with this choral type creates a very frantic and erratic atmosphere. Dionysus himself is like fire, burning bright and putting his looks and shenanigans on full display. Of course, the climax is insane too. If it’s going to be a book or play about Dionysus, it has to have these effects that engulf the reader in the flames.

I’m not really sure if Euripides believed in the gods or not. It seems to me that he was like an Iranian director trying to avoid censorship. I believe he elevates the idea of “godhood” to be something more human, more abstract in nature. Dionysus I believe embodies the idea of alcoholism, or you could even think more generally that he is the embodiment of vice. The main conflict being detailed in this story is Pentheus’ resistance to such a force.

Pentheus is very stubborn and refuses to allow Dionysus to practice his Bacchic orgiastic rituals, but more than that, he denounces the very idea of Dionysus being a god in the first place. If it’s one thing gods don’t like, it’s not being acknowledged that they are one. Pentheus is a metaphor for ourselves and our relationship to vice: the more we deny the fact that we do wrong, the more stigma we assign to wrongdoing, the more we alienate ourselves.

But there is also a darker side to this denial of vice. I think Euripides touches on something slightly controversial: people who work to alleviate the idea that they aren’t something might actually be that something. You can probably extrapolate this to some more specific cases.
Things take a turn for the worse with Pentheus when Dionysus finally has had enough of his stubbornness and he dresses him up as a woman and has him devoured by his own mother.
But in all actuality, it seems that Pentheus was wanting to be a part of the rites all along. Was his resistance due to shame? Was it because he felt inadequate when a member of his family was a god and he not? I’m not too sure, but if I had to pick one, it’s that he truly wanted to be a follower of Bacchus. The people who try to put their puritanism on display might be in fact that people who are the most depraved.

After this book, I will not construe the idea of Dionysus as a nice guy. There are several allusions to motifs of “the flame” infecting people who were under the spell of Dionysus: that of the frenzied flame. It plays on this idea of alcohol and lust being like a flame, it being a passion. Dionysus is more generally the god of passion, hence a lot of allusions to Dionysus being similar to Aphrodite in the play itself.

A general word of advice that comes with the play's the following (which I don’t really agree with, but is interesting nonetheless) - it is better to abide by tradition than to rebel against culture, to rebel against godhood. But I think Euripides alludes to this in order to show that this advice too can be foolish, because in the end even those who sit by and allow the status quo to propagate might in the end die too.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the edition I'd recommend to buy. Well, if you have a Kindle. (It's only like $6 for Kindle.) I hate Signet editions in paper - they're cheap - but the advantage to this one is it's one of the few collections of all the major plays in one volume, and Roche's translation is...it's okay.

The collection contains:
Hippolytos (five stars; no distinct review)
Medea (five stars)
Trojan Women (four)
Alcestis (four)
The Bacchae (four)
Iphigenia at Taurus (four)
Cyclops (three)
Ion
Electra
Iphigenia at Aulis (five)

Personal note: leave Hekabe for when Anne Carson's Grief Lessons get released for Kindle in August. Elektra or Orestes is next.

Other Euripides Plays
Heracleidae
Andromache
Hecuba
The Suppliants (Suppliant Women)
Herakles
Helen
Phoenician Women
Orestes
Rhesus

You may also be interested in: my opinions about the best of the ancient Greek plays from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes.

[Lillian Wheeler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Roche's translations are very good: readable and often preserving elements of the original Greek. Pay attention to his footnotes, though, since that is where he notes problem lines and/or his own interpolations (in particular in the Bacchae).
I found his introductions not particularly useful, and the stage directions he inserted too heavy-handed and not allowing the reader to bring enough of his/her imagination to the text (not to mention that there aren't stage directions in the Greek). After reading one or two of the plays I simply skipped over them.
A final point is that the lack of line numbers makes these translations extremely hard to discuss or reference.
Overall, I enjoyed the translations themselves and thought they were well done, but I had some trouble with other aspects of the book.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed these plays...I read the 6 recommended by Clifton Fadiman - Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, The Trojan Women, Electra, The Bacchants. All were highly readable. My favorites were the last 3.

This is book 7 of 133 books in Clifton Fadiman's The New Lifetime Reading Plan.

[MisterAle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Euripides guy is going places for sure

[Justice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read five of these plays for my Greek and Roman Mythology Class, and being me, I decided to finish this collection. I really, really enjoyed these plays, and I'm surprised some of them (like Ion or The Bacchae) aren't more popular nowadays. I would love to read more retellings or movie versions of them.

Alcestis - 3 stars

I read this third in my class, after The Bacchae and Hippolytus. It's much funnier - or at least, ironic and exaggerated - than those. Heracles is funny, he's such a dude bro in it.

Hippolytus - 3 stars

Tragic, but none of the characters were 'good.' Phaedra couldn't control her emotions (though was it her fault, or Aphrodites'?), the nurse was a meddler, Hippolytus was largely innocent but hated love like an edgy middle schooler, and the father was impulsive and hot headed.

Ion - 4 stars

This play explores structures of power and how they silence victims, especially victims of sexual violence. There's a line where Ion (I believe) says, "There cannot be an Oracle against the god of oracles" - if Apollo is the one committing the crime and also the one revealing crimes through his oracles, then, of course, the crime will never be revealed. Why is this play not more popular nowadays?? I can't believe there are no movie adaptations or novelizations about this play.

Electra - 3.5

Aw, I feel bad for her. She's left with nothing but hate and bitterness, and doesn't want to accept that her mother may be similarly powerless. It's interesting reading this before reading "Iphigenia at Aulis," because as a reader, I'm uncovering Clytemnestra's side of the story only once she speaks. I feel like Electra would have been happiest staying with her friend, the peasant man, and moving on that way.

Iphigenia at Aulis - 3 stars

Poor Iphigenia. This really shows Clytemnestra's side of the story that's hinted at in "Electra" (although she was happily married to Tantalus...).

Iphigenia Among the Taurians - 3 stars

This takes place after "Iphigenia at Aulis" and "Electra," although I'm not sure how concerned Euripides was with making them direct sequels and being sure the details all lined up. I liked the other two better, but I'm glad the family gets a bit of a happy ending.

Medea - 4 stars

My reactions as reading:
- Why do I feel so bad for a woman who wants to kill her kids??
- Oh shit. The death of the father and daughter is... rough.
- She lives??
It's very... feminist overall, but like, not condoning her actions. It really shows how she's driven to desperation.

The Bacchae - 4 stars

This was so creepy. I'd never understood Dionysus before (I blame Percy Jackson for that), but see now why The Secret History can be so creepy when using a bacchanal. The threat of Dionysus there in disguise while Pentheus trashes him, the madness at the end... I really want to see a well-done horror movie based on this.

The Trojan Women - 3 stars

This play is pretty sad. All the women are powerless, and none of the other characters are sympathetic towards them. They're like "We need to kill your kid just get over it." My professor was saying that a group of refugee women put on this play recently, and that would have been a super powerful performance to see. I will say when reading it, though, I felt like there was a lot more of the translator's notes or decisions put into the stage directions that wasn't necessarily there in the text, which wasn't my favorite.

The Cyclops - 2 stars

This is the only satyr play in the collection. I'm def more of a fan of the tragedies.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I'd known this copy was a reprint of an outdated translation from the 1960s, I would've skipped out.

Listen, there is NO reason to include the word "car" when you're translating any text from before the 1880s. Why am I reading about these tragic characters getting into "cars" when the words "carriage" "chariot", hell even "cart" already exist and make infinitely more sense for the time period and culture.

The names here are also weirdly translated sometimes. I had never heard of the name Loxias being used as another name for Apollo before; literally, in all my Greek and Roman courses it didn't show up, never, not even once. Apollo was Apollo, Greek or Roman. Of course there were nicknames and epithets for the gods but there are some that are more widely circulated. Leto's son, I understand. The Pythian oracle, I understand. Phoebus, I understand. Hell, sometimes they use Helios for Apollo because they're both sun deities even though Helios was a Titan. I had to look up why Loxias was used for Apollo, and apparently it's an epithet that has to do with his work in "intricate and ambiguous" oracles and the "interpreter" of prophecy. Which, alright. Apollo's got a lot of things under his jurisdiction. It was odd to find this though.

Speaking of rarely used epithets, Cypris is used here multiple times for Aphrodite, as she was born on the island of Cyprus. Granted, this epithet was easier to understand, as there's a one letter difference and the context was easier to grasp. Still, ruined my enjoyment a bit. (This also led to me looking up epithets for Aphrodite, and damn I didn't realise she had so many.)

A lot of characters are called by their relations instead of their actual names ("son of Atreus", "Tyndarid", "child of Thetis", "Maia's youth", ) which is typical for the ancient Greeks, but it was so overdone here I wonder if the translators just wanted to make readers' lives more difficult.

The word "ni**ardly" is also in this translation of the play Ion and for obvious reason I think it shouldn't be there at all.

For some reason "Troyland" was written for the city of Troy in Andromache. Just, why? Why Troyland? Troy is shorter, and the actual name of the city. It only appears once, but once is enough for it to be weird.


That being said, here's my short reviews of the actual plays:

Alcestis: Admetus does not deserve his wife (we know that going in), but his father is worse.

Medea: always a riot to read. The lovers-to-enemies dynamic here is top notch. Medea is the OG problematic girlboss.

Hippolytus: mostly meh. Phaedra didn't deserve any of that, but the gods punish people in roundabout ways and that screws everyone up. I think I prefer Racine's version.

Andromache: Andromache just tries her hardest to survive after surviving a fucking war. For some reason Orestes shows up, which made me annoyed.

Ion: if it weren't for the translation issues, this would be so damn great. Considering what Apollo did to her, I'm not judging Creusa too harshly. And considering how much he is a central character to the story, it is ironic and very telling of his shame that Apollo doesn't show his face at all.

The Trojan Women: my god so much angst and PTSD. And murder.

Electra: did not like Electra or Orestes.

Iphigenia Among The Taurians: liked the first half, not the second.

The Bacchants: I was unashamedly rooting for Dionysus the whole time.

Iphigenia At Aulis: the most fragmented, and thus, weakest of the plays here. The sequence of events was entirely off and confusing.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first encounter with ancient Greek theater. Only about 30 plays survive from antiquity out of thousands lost. Theater in the ancient Greek world, especially in Athens, served as a form of civil religion - a means by which all members of the community witnessed to the stories and themes that bound them together as a community. This collection, translated by Paul Roche, is a great introduction to the genre. Roche helpfully adds stage directions and some commentary to help the reader more fully envision these as pieces to be performed.

The collection contains ten works: "Alcestis," "Hippolytus," "Ion," "Electra," "Iphigenia at Aulis," "Iphigenia among the Taurians," "Medea," "The Bacchae," "The Trojan Women," and "The Cyclops." My favorites in the collection were "Iphigenia at Aulis," "The Bacchae," and "The Trojan Women." All three have been influential on the development of Western theater. They are also really, really good! I found myself genuinely moved by the "The Trojan Women," horrified by "The Bacchae," and on the edge of my seat reading "Iphigenia at Aulis.

[Jerry Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this volume a while back while perusing my book shelves. It was a text used in a class that I took in the development of drama. From all the underlining and notes that I added (which can be quite illuminating as well as embarrassing looked back upon after a decade or so), I can say that I was quite impressed by the dramas the class read: Alcestes, Medea, Hippolytus, Electra, and The Bacchants. What is surprising, is that we didn't read and discuss The Trojan Women, something I will do in the near future.

Euripides was the youngest of the big three and was not appreciated during his lifetime (which ended by being torn to pieces by hounds in his adopted country of Macedonia) only to become the most popular after his death. For what it's worth, according to one of my notes Euripides has more in common with Ibsen than he does with the Elizabethans.

And as some wag remarked: "Euripides, Eumenides,"

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read The Trojan Woman, and I really enjoyed it. I liked that it looked at what the women had to put up with after the fall of Troy. I don't know that I ever thought of that much. It was a terrible place to be and deep agony when Andromache's child is taken away from her to his death. That part was hard and touching. I thought Euripides was incredibly tender towards the situation of the women and that he was a man. I also appreciated the anger felt towards Helen and that that was played out amongst the women. It seemed to me to be a wise take on all aspects of the women's situation in the aftermath.

I appreciated reading this and will look forward to reading more ancient plays. Something I never thought I would say!

[Joe Halliday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly, the translation by Paul Roche is solid -no complaints there - and the short summaries before each play are useful and informative.
The plays themselves, however, don't grab you like those of Sophocles, nor do they have the gravitas or wisdom (in this idiot's view) of Aeschylus. The Trojan Women and Iphigenia in Aulis have value in fleshing out the Homeric/Trojan/Epic Cycle. Several of the others are forgettable though, or just a bit silly (like Medea), and the final satyric play is very, very silly (and not really in a good way).
Overall, I'd say Euripides is more interesting to read about (anti-gods, pro-women, anti-war, etc.) than to actually read.

[Joe Von · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read (so far) both plays with Iphigenia (Agamemnon & Clytemnestra's daughter). "Iphigenia at Aulis" was the standout play. Here, Euripedes pulls out some absolutely beautiful lines and writing. It is introspective and solemn and you can feel the weight of not only the looming war with the Trojans but of the sacrifice that Agamemnon must make. It weighs heavily on the family of Atreus and others, sagging them down and down throughout the play. Iphigenia especially who somehow manages to make the best of her condemned and short life. It was a wonderful and moving play.

Will be reading the others within soon.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

some variations among the reviews as to the edition, mine contains:

alcestis
medea
hippolytus
andromache
io0n
trojan women
electra
iphigenia among the taurians
the bacchants
iphigenia at aulis

i had already read trojan women, hippolytus and medea, so i did the other seven this time around. iphigenia among the taurians was probably the highlight for me but i really enjoyed all of them. a definitive edition would probably contain the complete works plus the fragments so the search continues

[Michael Patton · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my notes, I see that I may have only read "The Bacchae". Well, no matter--I wanted to praise this translation. Not that I'm an expert on translation, but if a translated work can chill me to the bone, I'll say, "Well done!" Euripides tells us: don't try to go against the gods. Not because they're as crazy as we are. No, they have no logic, no feelings. They are energies, not beings. And as happens in "The Bacchae", when we try to go against one of these forces, there's hell to pay.

[rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Required text for a World Literature class, however, the plays in this book are actually really good. Written by the Greeks, they are full of drama and scandals. I love how every situation was taken to extremes. My favorite was the play about Medea. There are lessons to be learned in these plays and important themes such as religion, love, loyalty, and revenge. The plays are actually pretty easy to understand. Would recommend to theatre and drama readers/lovers and actors.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I didn't actually read this translation. I read Moses Hadas' translation, but I'm not reviewing the translation per se. I'm more interested in the plays themselves. They are fantastic. I can really see why Euripedes was so popular. I loved how he told so many stories about the same people but from different perspectives at different times. He's sunny and witty and has a sense of the historic. I mean as a group, and as a body of work, I really thought these were a lot of fun.