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The Collected Works of Euripides or Euripedes: PergamonMedia
This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works - the Œuvre - of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook - easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: • Medea
• The Bacchae
• The Tragedies
• The Trojan Women
• Hippolytus; The Bacchae
• The Electra
• The Trojan women
• Alcestis
• The Iphigenia in Tauris
• and His AgeGilbert Murray
• The Rhesus
• HECUBA.
• ORESTES.
• THE PHŒNICIAN VIRGINS.
• MEDEA.
• HIPPOLYTUS.
• ALCESTIS.
• THE BACCHÆ.
• THE HERACLIDÆ.
• IPHIGENIA IN AULIS.
• IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS.
• ELECTRA, by
• ALCESTIS, by
• THE CYCLOPS, by
• THE BACCHANALS, by
• etc.
• The Bacchae
• The Tragedies
• The Trojan Women
• Hippolytus; The Bacchae
• The Electra
• The Trojan women
• Alcestis
• The Iphigenia in Tauris
• and His AgeGilbert Murray
• The Rhesus
• HECUBA.
• ORESTES.
• THE PHŒNICIAN VIRGINS.
• MEDEA.
• HIPPOLYTUS.
• ALCESTIS.
• THE BACCHÆ.
• THE HERACLIDÆ.
• IPHIGENIA IN AULIS.
• IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS.
• ELECTRA, by
• ALCESTIS, by
• THE CYCLOPS, by
• THE BACCHANALS, by
• etc.
1817 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 8, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 15, 2018
The Delphi edition of Euripides' works has all the 19 surviving works in English, and also a separate section dedicated to the same plays in the original Greek, for those who'd be interested in checking the sources in that language, though they should be warned that the transcription needs improving.
The top ten plays I've rated and reviewed separately under the Paul Roche edition I read alongside Delphi's, so for here I'll go for the remaining nine, which I'd rate like this:
Heracleidae = 3 stars.
Andromache = 4 stars.
Hecuba = 4 stars.
The Suppliants = 3 stars.
Heracles = 3 stars.
Helen = 1 star.
Phoenician Women = 4.5 stars
Rhesus = 3 stars.
Cyclops = 3.5 stars.
To my taste, more than half of the plays were unremarkable, and not of much interest beyond the cultural value and the historical insight they provided. From the average-starred plays, the comedy Cyclops stood out because it was quite unique, the only surviving comedy by a tragedian of the Big Tree. Its plotline, a retelling of the episode from The Odyssey where Odysseus reaches the island of the cyclops Polyphemus and finds out he's not alone but has a gaggle of stranded satyrs with him, wasn't side-splittingly hilarious, but it did have some good banter lines and it gave a good sample of Euripides' sense of humour.
This edition also contained the only play I'm giving one star to. Whilst I can clearly see what Euripides was intending to do (redeem Helen from her culpable responsibility in the outbreak of the Trojan War by writing an allegorical plot on perception vs reality), I find he was neither convincing nor logical in his rationale. Helen went willingly with Paris, abandoning not only her husband but her daughter, and ditching her royal responsibilities. She was the Queen of Sparta, and had duties in that position, so she'd not be as stupid as to not imagine what would happen if she ran off with a lover. Even if her elopement was just an excuse for war, a much needed excuse for the Achaeans itching for a war with Troy, it's still on her head to have handed them that desired excuse on a gold platter. And it wasn't like Helen was a stranger to kidnapping, she had been abducted as a child (that time she was definitely innocent), and had to know what dire consequences there'd be if she was taken away another time and this time with her complicity. So, it's accountability what we're dealing with here, something I've already seen Euripides doesn't do well in other plays also. Here, he tries to exonerate Helen from responsibility by making it the gods' fault, and it's even more ridiculous when it's the gods who abduct her and leave her to pass the entire war in Egypt whilst the same gods create a "fake Helen" made of ghostly matter and place her in Troy so she won't be "defiled" by Paris.
Oh, please. It's not like there have never been any attempts to redeem Helen, in Classical Antiquity or modern times, but this is downright ridiculous. It merely strips her of control over herself, takes away her autonomy, and obliterates her self-determination, because bad as it was, to run off with Paris was still her independent decision as an adult woman. Is it redemption to make her a poor, helpless victim of the gods' connivance and pettiness? And what about how absurd it sounds that the motivation should be to not pollute her virtue? Easier for the gods to simply arrange "a lamentable accident" for Paris before he arrives in Sparta or something as sensible...
On the other corner, amongst the three plays that got the higher ratings from me, my favourite was Phoenician Women, which was Euripides' take on the legend of Oedipus. The plot of this drama mixes the arcs of Sophocles' Antigone with Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes, resulting in a very good story that you might want to read if only to see how Euripides fares at this tale. I did like it a lot, and at the same time I found it amusing that the stories we have versions of by all three great Greek tragedians are Electra and Oedipus, both names immortalised for giving "family intercourse" a meaning the proper Victorians that used the expression wouldn't find funny.
Hecuba was also excellent, and heartbreaking, as it's about the captive former Queen of Troy dealing with the treacherous murder of her last surviving child. Her vengeance is terrible, and some might say that she went overboard, but not even Agamemnon can fault her for this. Andromache was likewise extremely sad, but not so tragic. In this play, Hector's widow is now the concubine of Achilles' son, Neoptolemus, and has born him a son, Molossus (I seem to recall this is how Alexander the Great could claim he was a descendant of Achilles through his Molossian mother, Olympias), but this earns her the hatred of Neoptolemus' barren wife, Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Euripides goes for a like mother, like daughter plot, having Hermione behave so bitchy and murderous towards Andromache and her child, causing an impasse that drags Menelaus and Peleus into the mess, and eventually gets Neoptolemus murdered by Orestes, with whom Hermione elopes much in the fashion Helen did, though at least there were sounder motives here. Tyndareus just has no luck with daughters or granddaughters; first Helen, then Clytemnestra, then Hermione...
To conclude, I'd like to suggest that Delphi make an effort to include modern translations in their anthologies of classics. This one was all old 19th century translations, in old-fashioned language, full of thees and thous. It doesn't make their editions accessible to the general public, which are the ones more in need of them.
The top ten plays I've rated and reviewed separately under the Paul Roche edition I read alongside Delphi's, so for here I'll go for the remaining nine, which I'd rate like this:
Heracleidae = 3 stars.
Andromache = 4 stars.
Hecuba = 4 stars.
The Suppliants = 3 stars.
Heracles = 3 stars.
Helen = 1 star.
Phoenician Women = 4.5 stars
Rhesus = 3 stars.
Cyclops = 3.5 stars.
To my taste, more than half of the plays were unremarkable, and not of much interest beyond the cultural value and the historical insight they provided. From the average-starred plays, the comedy Cyclops stood out because it was quite unique, the only surviving comedy by a tragedian of the Big Tree. Its plotline, a retelling of the episode from The Odyssey where Odysseus reaches the island of the cyclops Polyphemus and finds out he's not alone but has a gaggle of stranded satyrs with him, wasn't side-splittingly hilarious, but it did have some good banter lines and it gave a good sample of Euripides' sense of humour.
This edition also contained the only play I'm giving one star to. Whilst I can clearly see what Euripides was intending to do (redeem Helen from her culpable responsibility in the outbreak of the Trojan War by writing an allegorical plot on perception vs reality), I find he was neither convincing nor logical in his rationale. Helen went willingly with Paris, abandoning not only her husband but her daughter, and ditching her royal responsibilities. She was the Queen of Sparta, and had duties in that position, so she'd not be as stupid as to not imagine what would happen if she ran off with a lover. Even if her elopement was just an excuse for war, a much needed excuse for the Achaeans itching for a war with Troy, it's still on her head to have handed them that desired excuse on a gold platter. And it wasn't like Helen was a stranger to kidnapping, she had been abducted as a child (that time she was definitely innocent), and had to know what dire consequences there'd be if she was taken away another time and this time with her complicity. So, it's accountability what we're dealing with here, something I've already seen Euripides doesn't do well in other plays also. Here, he tries to exonerate Helen from responsibility by making it the gods' fault, and it's even more ridiculous when it's the gods who abduct her and leave her to pass the entire war in Egypt whilst the same gods create a "fake Helen" made of ghostly matter and place her in Troy so she won't be "defiled" by Paris.
Oh, please. It's not like there have never been any attempts to redeem Helen, in Classical Antiquity or modern times, but this is downright ridiculous. It merely strips her of control over herself, takes away her autonomy, and obliterates her self-determination, because bad as it was, to run off with Paris was still her independent decision as an adult woman. Is it redemption to make her a poor, helpless victim of the gods' connivance and pettiness? And what about how absurd it sounds that the motivation should be to not pollute her virtue? Easier for the gods to simply arrange "a lamentable accident" for Paris before he arrives in Sparta or something as sensible...
On the other corner, amongst the three plays that got the higher ratings from me, my favourite was Phoenician Women, which was Euripides' take on the legend of Oedipus. The plot of this drama mixes the arcs of Sophocles' Antigone with Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes, resulting in a very good story that you might want to read if only to see how Euripides fares at this tale. I did like it a lot, and at the same time I found it amusing that the stories we have versions of by all three great Greek tragedians are Electra and Oedipus, both names immortalised for giving "family intercourse" a meaning the proper Victorians that used the expression wouldn't find funny.
Hecuba was also excellent, and heartbreaking, as it's about the captive former Queen of Troy dealing with the treacherous murder of her last surviving child. Her vengeance is terrible, and some might say that she went overboard, but not even Agamemnon can fault her for this. Andromache was likewise extremely sad, but not so tragic. In this play, Hector's widow is now the concubine of Achilles' son, Neoptolemus, and has born him a son, Molossus (I seem to recall this is how Alexander the Great could claim he was a descendant of Achilles through his Molossian mother, Olympias), but this earns her the hatred of Neoptolemus' barren wife, Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Euripides goes for a like mother, like daughter plot, having Hermione behave so bitchy and murderous towards Andromache and her child, causing an impasse that drags Menelaus and Peleus into the mess, and eventually gets Neoptolemus murdered by Orestes, with whom Hermione elopes much in the fashion Helen did, though at least there were sounder motives here. Tyndareus just has no luck with daughters or granddaughters; first Helen, then Clytemnestra, then Hermione...
To conclude, I'd like to suggest that Delphi make an effort to include modern translations in their anthologies of classics. This one was all old 19th century translations, in old-fashioned language, full of thees and thous. It doesn't make their editions accessible to the general public, which are the ones more in need of them.
August 4, 2023
Taken me a long time to read but I cannot rush the classics and this is one of the best.
July 25, 2022
(See review of ‘The Orestia’, and ‘The Complete Plays of Sophocles’). Read for my University Course on Greek Tragedy. An avid fan of the Iliad and the Odyssey, I found these ancient dramatic renditions of much-loved myths thoroughly enjoyable. Re-familiarising myself with the generational curse on the House of Atreus, the text picks up the tragic debris from the siege of Troy. where the siege of Troy. I was thrilled to encounter my childhood favourites from a fresh, un-Homeric perspective, their personalities and motives detailed with remarkable cogency on account of the dramatic form. I usually struggle to immerse myself in plays as I would a novel, yet the comfort of familiar names had me immediately invested. I excitedly await the coming term, enthusiastic to further my classical knowledge, and broaden my awareness of the characteristics of the tragic mode.
December 1, 2024
Re-reading these tragedies back-to-back after so many years (Oh Columbia's Humanities requirement!) was stimulating, instructive and rewarding. Most stiriking: through numerous, sharply drawn characters and various choruses, Euripedes constantly celebrates/advances Greek virtues of democracy, diplomacy, temperance, justice, peace and reason, even while the same characters, and action are usually driven by passions and in opposite directions, often thanks to the gods. (One great piece of dialogue: Achilles: "Reason can wrestle and overthrow terror." Clytemnestra: "My hopes are cold on that.")
Then too, and in the background mostly, Euripedes raises the question of: if the gods are to be as fickle ("callous, unjust and immoral") as humans, why do we sacrifce. submit to and worship them? Good question. And timeless too.
Then too, and in the background mostly, Euripedes raises the question of: if the gods are to be as fickle ("callous, unjust and immoral") as humans, why do we sacrifce. submit to and worship them? Good question. And timeless too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews