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Euripides II: Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliant Women, Electra
Euripides II contains the plays “Andromache,” translated by Deborah Roberts; “Hecuba,” translated by William Arrowsmith; “The Suppliant Women,” translated by Frank William Jones; and “Electra,” translated by Emily Townsend Vermeule.
Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.
In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.
In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.
Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.
In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.
In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 19, 2013
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About the author
Euripides
2,823 books1,975 followersEuripides (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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 13, 2024
For the most part I continue to enjoy the plays of Euripides. I especially like this University of Chicago series of translations. Before each play there is a brief introduction to when it was produced, the original myth (or differences with other versions of the story), the reception in ancient times as well as more modern reception.
I liked three of the plays in this edition, but am just indifferent to The Suppliant Women. I'll have to admit Euripides continues to surprise me with a variety of methods (and outcomes) of dealing with the same topics. In this version of Electra we get a huge info dump letting us know that the "real" Helen never went to Troy, but it was a duplicate. The outcome for Electra (and Orestes) is quite different than in other plays by both Euripides and other authors.
I'm going to stop with Euripides for now, and go back to reading the Greek plays in rough chronological order. This means a lot of Aristophanes for the moment.
I liked three of the plays in this edition, but am just indifferent to The Suppliant Women. I'll have to admit Euripides continues to surprise me with a variety of methods (and outcomes) of dealing with the same topics. In this version of Electra we get a huge info dump letting us know that the "real" Helen never went to Troy, but it was a duplicate. The outcome for Electra (and Orestes) is quite different than in other plays by both Euripides and other authors.
I'm going to stop with Euripides for now, and go back to reading the Greek plays in rough chronological order. This means a lot of Aristophanes for the moment.
July 11, 2021
“…neither earth nor ocean produces a creature as savage and as monstrous as woman. Any man who has ever met one will know that this is true” -Polymestor (Hecuba, 125).
May 11, 2022
Reading Euripides was a different experience and feel from Aeschylus or Sophocles. I found Euripides so much more subjective, involved and emotional than the others. His plays are so emotionally charged and surprisingly feminist. All the plays in this volume are about women: Andromache, The suppliant women, Electra and Hecuba. The plays approach daring topics surrounding the role and judgement of women in the legends of the Greeks.
I loved all the plays in the volumes especially Hecuba and Andromache. Quite untraditional and with an alternative twist, they were inspiring and heartbreaking.
Andromache (5/5)
A very inspiring motif in this play. It short, Andromache is now a slave to Achilles son for whom she bore a child. She is being despised for her position and sentenced to death by Menelaus and Hermione but she is saved last minute by old Peleus, father of Achilles. Euripides draws forward the unjust hate Andromache is faced with in such a powerful way, it made me grief for her and be on her side all the while despising Menelaus and Hermione for their cowardly and unnoble character. The implication of old Peleus is so heartwarming, bringing to light that wise, just, masculine power which strives to protect the good and banish the corrupt but its struggling due to a lack of authority caused by diminished physical strength. It puts in perspective the abuse of power and the wisdom of those who have been through hardship and how grief connects people to one another just as old Peleus felt soft for the Trojan slave carrying his great grandson.
Euripides characters mock the womanly traits such as being emotional and suffering greatly for their lost loved ones. I believe that this mockery is done to emphasize the prejudice against feminine behavior and to draw attention to the unfairness of these prejudices.
"It is natural for women to take some pleasure in evil circumstances by keeping them always on the lips and tongue."
"You speak too freely against your fellow women, forgivable in you, perhaps, but still, women should cover up other women’s failings."
The suppliant women (3/5)
This play is about the old mothers of the seven against Thebes, who beg Theseus, king of Athens, to redeem their sons dead bodies from Thebes for proper burial. Once again, the scene is one of suffering as grieving women are destroyed by their son's death, the brave warriors who marched against Thebes together with Polynices. Theseus is a wise, brave man but who also has a soft heart and raises an army against Thebes to order the return of the warriors bodies. He understand the importance of proper burial rites and he is not afraid to act for justice. Therefore, he proves that he understands the women's grieving and he is a well-balanced king, an example to all kings and a true leader.
Electra (4/5)
Interesting version of the revenge of Orestes. Electra is the wife of a peasant and dreams of the day her brother (Orestes) will return and kill their murderous mother and her lover. She is miserable, just as all the women in the former plays have been. Euripides shows no lack of suffering and grief, he just pours and pours misery and tears and unhappiness on every female character he builds. Electra develops throughout this play. She starts off as a miserable girl who's full of hatred and blame, with a strong victim mentality. But as soon as her mother (the source of all her unhappiness) is dead, she is full of remorse and even more miserable than before. This play is full of blows to the feminine character as well as feminist remarks. It is really amazing how Euripides managed and dared to expose how skewed gender norms are. This seem like such a modern concept but remember that this text was written c. 2400 years ago.
"Oh, women are fools for sex, deny it I shall not. Since this is in our nature, when our husbands choose to despise the bed they have, a woman is quite willing to imitate her man and find another lover. But then the dirty gossip puts us in the spotlight; the guilty ones, the men, are never blamed at all." Straight to the point about the double standards when it comes to adultery in men and women. Nothing really has changed, I could have read this on Twitter and wouldn’t have thought this is an ancient fragment.
"If Menelaus had been abducted from home on the sly, should I have had to kill Orestes so my sister’s husband could be rescued? You think your father would have borne it?" This is such an amusing line. Here, Clytemnestra (mother of Electra and wife of dead Agamemnon) puts into perspective how things would have been if the roles were reversed. If instead of Helen, Menelaus were abducted. Then should she (the sister of Helen) sacrifice her own son Orestes (instead of her daughter Iphigenia who was sacrificed at Aulis by Agamemnon in order for the ships to sail safely) ? This line highlights how ridiculous that would have been and that Agamemnon would have never allowed it; pointing out how unfair it is that the male offspring is deemed more valuable than the female (Orestes vs. Iphigenia)
"Now any woman who works on her beauty when her man is gone from home indicts herself as being a whore." Now I am not sure if this was meant as mockery or for real, to suggest either that it is ridiculous to presume a woman's beauty belongs to her husband or in turn to state just that.
Hecuba (5/5)
The most heart wrenching of all the plays, Hecuba is raw and beautiful and tackles betrayal. Hecuba is the wife of Priam, king of the doomed Troy. Now, after the destruction of Troy, she is just an old slave woman who is grieving the many children she has lost in the war. She hears the news that her daughter Polyxena was demanded as sacrifice for Achilles grave and she is heartbroken. We are reminded of the favor Hecuba has granted Odysseus once, when she spared his life as the great queen of Troy, but now in return Odysseus is not able (or willing) to spare Polyxena from slaughter; pointing out that the kindness that you do to others will not always return to you in your time of need.
We then follow the courage and nobleness of young Polyxena, walking on the altar and getting slain free willingly as a free woman, as the princess that she had once been. All the while Hecuba discovers that her son Polydorus was also killed by a trusted friend. The descriptions of pain and suffering are vivid and numerous. Euripides has an innate talent of painting dark pictures with words and make you live through the passages. Hecuba is utterly destroyed, not only after she had lost so much as the noble queen of great Troy and mother of many children who are now dead, but also trough being deprived of her remaining children who are slaughtered in cold blood for petty reasons. She contemplates the greatness of lost Troy and how easy it is to lose everything you have ever had.
Hecuba, with her last powers, takes revenge on the man who killed Polydorus by attacking him and his sons together with all the other Trojan women. She now feels relief in revenge and in the prophecy that she will die soon drowned in sea.
Overall, it found great delight in Euripides, it was less traditional than the other two great Greek tragedians (whom I also adored) and full of controversial topics that I did not expect to come across. I was surprised by how much he wrote about women and how bold his points were. I am mesmerized by how unchanged some social issues remain across thousands of years.
I loved all the plays in the volumes especially Hecuba and Andromache. Quite untraditional and with an alternative twist, they were inspiring and heartbreaking.
Andromache (5/5)
A very inspiring motif in this play. It short, Andromache is now a slave to Achilles son for whom she bore a child. She is being despised for her position and sentenced to death by Menelaus and Hermione but she is saved last minute by old Peleus, father of Achilles. Euripides draws forward the unjust hate Andromache is faced with in such a powerful way, it made me grief for her and be on her side all the while despising Menelaus and Hermione for their cowardly and unnoble character. The implication of old Peleus is so heartwarming, bringing to light that wise, just, masculine power which strives to protect the good and banish the corrupt but its struggling due to a lack of authority caused by diminished physical strength. It puts in perspective the abuse of power and the wisdom of those who have been through hardship and how grief connects people to one another just as old Peleus felt soft for the Trojan slave carrying his great grandson.
Euripides characters mock the womanly traits such as being emotional and suffering greatly for their lost loved ones. I believe that this mockery is done to emphasize the prejudice against feminine behavior and to draw attention to the unfairness of these prejudices.
"It is natural for women to take some pleasure in evil circumstances by keeping them always on the lips and tongue."
"You speak too freely against your fellow women, forgivable in you, perhaps, but still, women should cover up other women’s failings."
The suppliant women (3/5)
This play is about the old mothers of the seven against Thebes, who beg Theseus, king of Athens, to redeem their sons dead bodies from Thebes for proper burial. Once again, the scene is one of suffering as grieving women are destroyed by their son's death, the brave warriors who marched against Thebes together with Polynices. Theseus is a wise, brave man but who also has a soft heart and raises an army against Thebes to order the return of the warriors bodies. He understand the importance of proper burial rites and he is not afraid to act for justice. Therefore, he proves that he understands the women's grieving and he is a well-balanced king, an example to all kings and a true leader.
Electra (4/5)
Interesting version of the revenge of Orestes. Electra is the wife of a peasant and dreams of the day her brother (Orestes) will return and kill their murderous mother and her lover. She is miserable, just as all the women in the former plays have been. Euripides shows no lack of suffering and grief, he just pours and pours misery and tears and unhappiness on every female character he builds. Electra develops throughout this play. She starts off as a miserable girl who's full of hatred and blame, with a strong victim mentality. But as soon as her mother (the source of all her unhappiness) is dead, she is full of remorse and even more miserable than before. This play is full of blows to the feminine character as well as feminist remarks. It is really amazing how Euripides managed and dared to expose how skewed gender norms are. This seem like such a modern concept but remember that this text was written c. 2400 years ago.
"Oh, women are fools for sex, deny it I shall not. Since this is in our nature, when our husbands choose to despise the bed they have, a woman is quite willing to imitate her man and find another lover. But then the dirty gossip puts us in the spotlight; the guilty ones, the men, are never blamed at all." Straight to the point about the double standards when it comes to adultery in men and women. Nothing really has changed, I could have read this on Twitter and wouldn’t have thought this is an ancient fragment.
"If Menelaus had been abducted from home on the sly, should I have had to kill Orestes so my sister’s husband could be rescued? You think your father would have borne it?" This is such an amusing line. Here, Clytemnestra (mother of Electra and wife of dead Agamemnon) puts into perspective how things would have been if the roles were reversed. If instead of Helen, Menelaus were abducted. Then should she (the sister of Helen) sacrifice her own son Orestes (instead of her daughter Iphigenia who was sacrificed at Aulis by Agamemnon in order for the ships to sail safely) ? This line highlights how ridiculous that would have been and that Agamemnon would have never allowed it; pointing out how unfair it is that the male offspring is deemed more valuable than the female (Orestes vs. Iphigenia)
"Now any woman who works on her beauty when her man is gone from home indicts herself as being a whore." Now I am not sure if this was meant as mockery or for real, to suggest either that it is ridiculous to presume a woman's beauty belongs to her husband or in turn to state just that.
Hecuba (5/5)
The most heart wrenching of all the plays, Hecuba is raw and beautiful and tackles betrayal. Hecuba is the wife of Priam, king of the doomed Troy. Now, after the destruction of Troy, she is just an old slave woman who is grieving the many children she has lost in the war. She hears the news that her daughter Polyxena was demanded as sacrifice for Achilles grave and she is heartbroken. We are reminded of the favor Hecuba has granted Odysseus once, when she spared his life as the great queen of Troy, but now in return Odysseus is not able (or willing) to spare Polyxena from slaughter; pointing out that the kindness that you do to others will not always return to you in your time of need.
We then follow the courage and nobleness of young Polyxena, walking on the altar and getting slain free willingly as a free woman, as the princess that she had once been. All the while Hecuba discovers that her son Polydorus was also killed by a trusted friend. The descriptions of pain and suffering are vivid and numerous. Euripides has an innate talent of painting dark pictures with words and make you live through the passages. Hecuba is utterly destroyed, not only after she had lost so much as the noble queen of great Troy and mother of many children who are now dead, but also trough being deprived of her remaining children who are slaughtered in cold blood for petty reasons. She contemplates the greatness of lost Troy and how easy it is to lose everything you have ever had.
"O Ilium! O my country,
whose name men speak no more
among unfallen cities!
So dense a cloud of Greeks
came, spear on spear, destroying!
Your crown of towers shorn away,
and everywhere the staining smoke,
most pitiful. O Ilium,
whose streets I shall not walk again!"
Hecuba, with her last powers, takes revenge on the man who killed Polydorus by attacking him and his sons together with all the other Trojan women. She now feels relief in revenge and in the prophecy that she will die soon drowned in sea.
Overall, it found great delight in Euripides, it was less traditional than the other two great Greek tragedians (whom I also adored) and full of controversial topics that I did not expect to come across. I was surprised by how much he wrote about women and how bold his points were. I am mesmerized by how unchanged some social issues remain across thousands of years.
July 2, 2025
κλάρα πρὸς εὐριπίδη
ANDROMACHE is probably the most interesting play in this collection. i think it is really neat that first we focus on a love triangle with two women (hermione and andromache) and one man (neoptolemus) as if we are criticizing women for being crazy and jealous, and then instead we focus on a love triangle which is two men and a woman (helen). the moral of the story is don't do adultery, just do monogamy. i liked HECUBA also and it really got me when polyxena says she doesn't mind dying because she feels like she has no future. i like how hecuba worries about polyxena because my mom worries about me, too, only i don't get human sacrificed by invading armies (yet!). SUPPLIANT WOMEN is just sort of depressing. not sure how it works out when you invade thebes to establish that two wrongs don't make a right!! but i guess fighting just wars is not really a violation of religious rules, it just causes a lot of collateral damage. i like the line where the suppliant women say, we would have thought it was so terrible if we didn't get married, but we realize now that isn't true. hey me too!! (different reasons). i also like when adrastus advises, ἀλλὰ λήξαντες πόνων ἄστη φυλάσσεθ᾿ ἥσυχοι μεθ᾿ ἡσύχων (stop doing difficult things and become quiet people protecting your city with other quiet people) (this is my best effort). it reminds me of the world is quiet here. we should all just sit quietly together, that's a lot better than war. i haven't read ELECTRA in years, i'm having some trouble with my editions, but i have read electra.
ANDROMACHE is probably the most interesting play in this collection. i think it is really neat that first we focus on a love triangle with two women (hermione and andromache) and one man (neoptolemus) as if we are criticizing women for being crazy and jealous, and then instead we focus on a love triangle which is two men and a woman (helen). the moral of the story is don't do adultery, just do monogamy. i liked HECUBA also and it really got me when polyxena says she doesn't mind dying because she feels like she has no future. i like how hecuba worries about polyxena because my mom worries about me, too, only i don't get human sacrificed by invading armies (yet!). SUPPLIANT WOMEN is just sort of depressing. not sure how it works out when you invade thebes to establish that two wrongs don't make a right!! but i guess fighting just wars is not really a violation of religious rules, it just causes a lot of collateral damage. i like the line where the suppliant women say, we would have thought it was so terrible if we didn't get married, but we realize now that isn't true. hey me too!! (different reasons). i also like when adrastus advises, ἀλλὰ λήξαντες πόνων ἄστη φυλάσσεθ᾿ ἥσυχοι μεθ᾿ ἡσύχων (stop doing difficult things and become quiet people protecting your city with other quiet people) (this is my best effort). it reminds me of the world is quiet here. we should all just sit quietly together, that's a lot better than war. i haven't read ELECTRA in years, i'm having some trouble with my editions, but i have read electra.
December 17, 2022
Andromache was another interesting portrayal of a foreign woman receiving the sympathy of a Greek audience. Neoptolemus takes her as his concubine after the fall of Troy. His wife, Hermione, believes that Andromache is putting a spell on her to make her childless. Andromache keeps herself at the shrine to Thetis, so that Hermione cannot kill her. Andromache is seen as a woman of honor despite her status as a concubine and foreigner. It is a strange interpretation that, again, goes against the norms of the time.
June 28, 2024
Humans didn't change much, even if in profound drama, yet their liberties in Arete are much curtailed nowadays, they are incapable of expressing the heroic instinct, if such arises, it is dwindled and suffocated. I read the second volume of the modern Euripidean anthology for a cathartic purpose, it served me well - instructed, shared its wisdom in extreme human states, and made me wiser for that. I will gladly reach for the third volume.
December 16, 2024
I adore all of these so much. Andromache engages with the intersection of war slavery and family in such a direct way, Hecuba is just pathos on pathos, the Suppliant Women does the seven against Thebes better than the Seven Against Thebes, and Euripides' Electra focuses on Electra and Orestes' relationship with such force. That said, each of these also has a polemic against women that is less enjoyable to read, though I'm sure it ties in well to something or the other.
March 25, 2022
Another superb Revision-ary textbook of Euripides' works. These are wonderful translations, and the additional information is fabulous, if a bit scant. Still, the book isn't supposed to be an exhaustive tome on Greek Theater, so it serves its purpose more than adequately. Another volume to buy at a future date, and a nice comparative for other translations of the four plays included here.
September 17, 2025
I’ve read a plentiful number of Greek tragedies. Hecuba, The Suppliant Woman, and Electra were all amazing reads. However, this book gains five stars because of Andromache. Its plot ends a little differently from most Greek Tragedies but I found myself entranced by Andromache’s monologues.
God I love the Greeks.
God I love the Greeks.
April 15, 2022
It is easy to understand why Euripidies is undergoing a reappraisal. He is not the most obvious talent of the grear greek dramatists but there is an emotional integrity, bleakness and empathy that seems particularly well-suited to our times.
February 7, 2019
Very female-heavy. Electra was great like all the others. Andromache was hard to get through for me. My favorite of the bunch was Hecuba, and the absolute travesty of a mother who has lost her son and must now lose her daughter and other son.
March 21, 2020
read electra...interesting to contrast to sophocles
October 2, 2021
3.5 - Hecuba was my fave of the tragedies.
April 14, 2022
The only reason this is 3 stars is sometimes the introduction writes off the play which I think can influence ones opinion too much.
January 7, 2025
All the books deal with grief and you just sob through them all but especially Hecuba. Tortured past enduring? Some god destroying you for having once been happy???? Euripides gets it 🙄🚶♂️
February 13, 2017
This is lovely edition of Euripides' plays. Introductions are informative but not too long. Plays are presented in readable form - it is clear who is speaking now, verses are numbered. It was all readable and nice. I guess it's due to a good translator.
As for downsides: I'm not fan of putting plays by date of the first performance, I would rather choose order more concered with stories (e.g putting plays about the house of Agamemnon together...) and footnotes were uninteresting. I would prefer to have allusions explained rather than to read about long history of question "is this said by this or that character?".
Andromache 2.5/5
What is really unique about Euripides is that even his mediocore play survived. Andromache si good, nothing more nothing less. Just one part in neverending greek soap opera. It's nicely written as is usual with Euripides and some arguments were interesting, but generaly it was somehow boring.
Definitely one of my less favourite plays by this author
Hecuba 4/5
I've read this play in one breath. Yes, I read better plays, but this one was perhaps most successful in catching my attention. It's just one woman and horrors of her family, she tries to save as much as she can, but for most of the time all she can do is to beg more powerful men to help her.
Really great play, two tragedies that are coming together in order to ask for gloomy conclusion. Great discussion, strong monoloques and stuff like that, just cool, really cool.
The Suppliant Women 3/5
When I was reading Theban plays (including Euripides' plays on this theme) I omitted this one, since from synopsis it just looked like further dwelling in an issue of burials that has no significance for me and caused my boredom while reading Antigone.
But Euripides once again suprised me. Argumentation was somehow interesing. plot was well constructed. I especialy enjoy giving broader scope to the issue. Not just Polynices but bodies of whole army were at stake. And the character of Theseus was so charming. Really great play. But when it reach inevitable climax (battle happened, messenger told of glorious victory) it became just number pointless episodes to make it longer. Great pitty since it damaged overall impression of the play.
Electra 3/5
While I generaly prefer Euripides I must admit I liked Sophocles' Electra more. Better and richer plot there and even argumentation is deeper and more sophisticated in Sophocles which is suprising given the fact that Euripides' play are usually more orientated towards characters argumenting for their view.
It is not a bad play but it just felt that 'till murders of Clytemnestra and her lover nothing really happened. The finale was really awesome. Orestes' final doubts, argumentation between Electra and Clytemnestra... but until it happened it was just pointless. Not totaly dull, I liked Electra's marriage for example, but nothing really impressing.
Once again unbalanced play with totally great part and boring/lame part.
As for downsides: I'm not fan of putting plays by date of the first performance, I would rather choose order more concered with stories (e.g putting plays about the house of Agamemnon together...) and footnotes were uninteresting. I would prefer to have allusions explained rather than to read about long history of question "is this said by this or that character?".
Andromache 2.5/5
What is really unique about Euripides is that even his mediocore play survived. Andromache si good, nothing more nothing less. Just one part in neverending greek soap opera. It's nicely written as is usual with Euripides and some arguments were interesting, but generaly it was somehow boring.
Definitely one of my less favourite plays by this author
Hecuba 4/5
I've read this play in one breath. Yes, I read better plays, but this one was perhaps most successful in catching my attention. It's just one woman and horrors of her family, she tries to save as much as she can, but for most of the time all she can do is to beg more powerful men to help her.
Really great play, two tragedies that are coming together in order to ask for gloomy conclusion. Great discussion, strong monoloques and stuff like that, just cool, really cool.
The Suppliant Women 3/5
When I was reading Theban plays (including Euripides' plays on this theme) I omitted this one, since from synopsis it just looked like further dwelling in an issue of burials that has no significance for me and caused my boredom while reading Antigone.
But Euripides once again suprised me. Argumentation was somehow interesing. plot was well constructed. I especialy enjoy giving broader scope to the issue. Not just Polynices but bodies of whole army were at stake. And the character of Theseus was so charming. Really great play. But when it reach inevitable climax (battle happened, messenger told of glorious victory) it became just number pointless episodes to make it longer. Great pitty since it damaged overall impression of the play.
Electra 3/5
While I generaly prefer Euripides I must admit I liked Sophocles' Electra more. Better and richer plot there and even argumentation is deeper and more sophisticated in Sophocles which is suprising given the fact that Euripides' play are usually more orientated towards characters argumenting for their view.
It is not a bad play but it just felt that 'till murders of Clytemnestra and her lover nothing really happened. The finale was really awesome. Orestes' final doubts, argumentation between Electra and Clytemnestra... but until it happened it was just pointless. Not totaly dull, I liked Electra's marriage for example, but nothing really impressing.
Once again unbalanced play with totally great part and boring/lame part.
April 22, 2016
These works were slightly more interesting than the first volume; I found 'Hecuba' to be refreshing and I enjoyed the unusual differences in this version of 'Electra' compared to Sophocles and Aeschylus (a "Helen image"?! What?). Overall, I still find Euripides more difficult to read than the other two. Something about Euripides makes his writing so much more bland.
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