Medea and Other Plays: Alcestis / Medea / The Children of Heracles / Hippolytus

by Euripides, John Davie (Translator), Richard Rutherford (Introduction)

Alternate Cover for ISBN: 9780140449297

Previously published as Alcestis and Other Plays, the Penguin Classics edition of Euripides' Medea and Other Plays is translated by John Davie with introductions and notes by Richard Rutherford.

Four plays which exemplify his interest in flawed, characters who defy the expectations of Greek society

The four tragedies collected in this volume all focus on a central character, once powerful, brought down by betrayal, jealousy, guilt and hatred. The first playwright to depict suffering without reference to the gods, Euripides made his characters speak in human terms and face the consequences of their actions. In Medea, a woman rejected by her lover takes hideous revenge by murdering the children they both love, and Hecabe depicts the former queen of Troy, driven mad by the prospect of her daughter’s sacrifice to Achilles. Electra portrays a young woman planning to avenge the brutal death of her father at the hands of her mother, while in Heracles the hero seeks vengeance against the evil king who has caused bloodshed in his family. Philip Vellacott’s lucid translation is accompanied by an introduction, which discusses the literary background of Classical Athens and examines the distinction between instinctive and civilized behaviour.

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

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 429

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

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

[✨ Helena ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Medea is a QUEEN

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

General Introduction & Notes, by Richard Rutherford
Note on the Text
Further Reading
Chronological Table
Translator's Note

Preface to Alcestis
--Alcestis

Preface to Medea
--Medea

Preface to The Children of Heracles
--The Children of Heracles

Preface to Hippolytus
--Hippolytus

Notes
Bibliography
Glossary of Mythological and Geographical Names

[Halle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuck Jason, all my homies hate Jason

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always surprising how brutal and bloody Greek tragedies are
(but: never nihilistic! The one who wrongs will be pursued by the Gods, and usually the entire bloodline is cursed)

Medea:
Medea is angry that her husband Jason is taking a new wife, he wants to ban her from the city as she's dangerous, she plans revenge and murders the new wife as well as her own children - since that will hurt her husband more. She survives and escapes the city with the bodies of the children.

Hecabe:
Ex-queen of Troy, now slave, has to watch as her daughter is sacrificed by the Greeks looking for good omens to return; she also learns that her son was murdered earlier by a trusted friend, so she plots revenge on Polymestor, and traps him with her friends - they stab out his eyes and murder his children. Agamemnon sends the blind Polymestor away without more bloodshed: after all, he murdered his guest, it was his fault.

O stately royal palace! O once happy home!
O Priam, famed for boundless treasures; famed as father,
And I as aged mother, of children without peer! How we have come to nothing, stripped of our old pride!
And we – we paltry humans – swell with arrogance,
One for the wealth and luxury of his house, another
Because the citizens all call him a great man!
Such things mean nothing; careful schemes, the eloquence
Of boasters – all nothing! The man who day by day
Lives on, escaping misery – he is happiest.

Electra:
Former princess, now married away to a commoner after an usurper conspired with her mother to kill the king Agamemnon and take over the throne (it's also revenge of the mother for the earlier sacrifice of Iphigenia by Agamemnon at the start of the Trojan War - the same Iphigenia who survived in Goethe's play Iphigenia in Tauris, a Tragedy). Electra waits for her brother Orestes (the one who later shows up in The Oresteia), who traps the king and murders him, and both murder their mother. They suffer from their great crime of matricide, Orestes is instructed to leave and purge his soul (in a few sentences the story of the Oresteia is foretold).

Heracles:
Yet another usurper, yet another family in peril while the man (here Heracles) is away on adventures. Before the new king can murder the family (after all, young kids are future usurpers!) Heracles appears and kills the king. Since this is a Greek tragedy happy endings are not a good thing - so Madness personified has to appear (some old bloodlines curse or whatevs), Heracles turns mad and kills his sons and wife in a frenzy. His mind returns, and Theseus leads the broken man away.

I need to read more Greek tragedies!

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall 4****
Breakdown:

Medea: 5***** ”Surely, of all creatures that have life and will, we women are the most wretched.”

Medea is my favourite play by Euripides. It demonstrates the true plight of women in Ancient Greece and the inequality they face. She is a woman who knows she has been wronged and wants to take her vengeance, even if it means losing those dearest to her. I just love Medea- she has done everything for love, even the darkest of actions, and Jason seems to not give a fuck... she will make him pay.

Hecabe: 4**** ”A free man?- There’s no such thing! All men are slaves.”

I enjoyed this one as well. This is set after Troy has fallen and Hecabe and her daughters are now Trojan slaves. This covers the slaughter of Polyxena and the discovery of Polydorus’ death. This also covered the importance of guest-friend and the heavy penalties of breaking these sacred rules.

Electra: 4/4.5****

Orestes: “Would you be resolute to help him kill your mother?”

Electra: “I Would- with the same axe by which my father died... When I have shed her blood to requite this, then I can die content.”

This takes place after Agamemnon has been killed by Clytemnestra and the siblings, Orestes and Electra, have been parted for many years. This focuses on Orestes return to Argos to find Electra and kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus for killing his father. This was an interesting play as at first I find Electra annoying with her self-pity, but it’s interesting to see both of Orestes and Electra and their change of decisions and complex psychology taking place. It was also interesting to see the Ancient Greek attitudes to female behaviour- such as looking down on women talking to two young men outside without a male companion.

Heracles: 4****

Probably my least favourite of the collection- mainly as the others really delve into the vengefulness of the female characters (which I love!) whereas this one does feature some of Hera’s revenge but it’s not the main point.
This one covers Heracles madness, ordered by Hera, and his subsequent slaughtering of his wife (Megaera) and his three children.

I enjoyed this collection of plays the most- they all feature vengeful women and Euripides does this so well !! He describes their inequality, feelings and emotions, things that might be overlooked in a heavily male-dominated society.

[Kayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

nobody did it like the greeks

[Tommy Lefroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

love vengeful, murderous women !


-tess

[Luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Medea: Anything for Revenge. Reading progress update: I've read 138 out of 206 pages.
 
Medea: You will regret what you did to me, Jason!
Jason: I regretted it alright
 
How great can your anger be? To what extent are you ready to hurt those who hurt you? Would you kill your own children to appease a great offense?
Medea is ready to do anything it takes to hurt Jason. She takes his wife, his children, and his happiness.
 
What I find fascinating in this play is that I am still sympathetic to Medea after all she did. It feels wrong to be on her side as much as Jason’s side, but she advances reasons to her actions that makes one wonder if she is right (except of course for killing her children since that is unforgivable). She is clever with words, and she manipulates the others the way she pleases. One is tempted to think that she went through a lot and that she was not thinking right, and even that she was in the verge of insanity. But the truth is she was not. She knew what she was doing, and she carried her plan from A to Z for one reason and one only: Revenge.
So is revenge a valid reason to go to extremes to hurt Jason? She argues that letting these children live would doom them. She believes that nothing was right anymore the moment Jason decided to share the bed of another woman. At some point, she was about to cancel her plan, but she realized it was too late. It’s like if fate was working against her, but she managed to have it her own way at the end. She got what she wanted: Revenge.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hippolytus

Those Greeks and their myths. It started with Euripides in the fifth century. Hippolytus loved nothing better than to ride his horse (his name: the breaker of the horse).

Love, he had no interest, and jealous Aphrodite was so angry that she needed to teach him a lesson: she made his step mother Phaedra fall in love with Hippolytus.

The poor woman was beside herself. Phaedra was driven to her to own tragedy. When her husband, noble Theseus learned what happened, he turned on his own son. No questions asked. The weakness of humans: lust, anger, pride, resentment, treachery.

Double tragedy; more blood is spilled. The goddess Artemis intervenes. Humans be dammed because the gods can toy with them. Silly humans.

Great collection with excellent translations.

[beep ☀︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

43. Euripides I : Alcestis, The Medea, The Heracleidae, Hippolytus (The Complete Greek Tragedies)
published: 1955 (my copy is a 26th printing from 1993)
format: 224 page Paperback
acquired: May 30 from a Half-Price Books
read: July 5-9
rating: 4 stars

Each play had a different translator

Alcestis (481 bce) - translated by Lattimore, Richard c1955
The Medea (431 bce) - translated by David Grene c1944
The Heracleidae (circa 430 bce) - translated by Rex Warner c1955
Hippolytus (by 428 bce) - translated by Ralph Gladstone c1942

“Perhaps the most significant remark about Euripides and Sophocles is that supposed to have been made by Sophocles, that he himself showed men as they ought to be (or as one ought to show them) but Euripides showed them as they actually were.” - from Lattimore's introduction.

That is a bit of silly comment because no one stands and delivers long, uninterrupted dialogues about private thoughts which they don't actually want anyone to know about. But the statement does have some logic. Sophocles characters are higher, more heroic in statement and action. Euripides characters aren't. Even his heroes and gods speak very regularly. In translation, the works come in long inexorable monologues that don't appear to translate well to poetry, and that don't really strike the reader, or at least didn't strike this reader, until later on when you realize how terrible everything turned out and how terrible it was what they thought, said and did. They create what I like to think of as the build up of a quiet hidden energy, of a very dark sort. They also end almost suddenly, and certainly not in any satisfying manner.

These are the four oldest of Euripides plays. Each seems interesting in taking a very dark happening in the mythology, and dragging it out, putting words to these terrible things.

Alcestis

Before the opening of the play: Apollo was sentenced to serve Admetus, a king in Thessaly, for a year. Treated well, he rewards Admetus. He helps Admetus to do some impossible tasks to win the hand of Acestis as his wife. But, in the process, Admetus forget a critical sacrifice to Artemus, who plans to have him killed by snakes. Apollo miraculously negotiates with the Fates and gets Admetus's life an extension - but someone must volunteer to die in his place. No one would agree to this, not even his aging parents. Finally Alcestus agrees (making her, apparently, an ideal Ancient Greek wife.)

That all happens off the stage, and is never explained within the play. The play opens with Alcestic about to die, and Apollo negotiating for her life with death himself, Thanatos. Apollo, fails, but promises to send Heracles to make things right. Meanwhile, Alcestis has to die, and her husband, and children and servants must witness it. This tragedy is the heart of the play.

Heracles shows up, unaware of anything. The mourning is hid from Heracles, who proceeds to get drunk and happy and then get confused about why no one will join him. But, what is strange to me, is that even though Heracles does create a happy ending, the tragedy is what hangs around.

This was not Euripides first play. He had been writing for years. But this is the oldest we still have.

Medea

This seems to be Euripides most important play(??). Medea, a conflicted hero from Jason and the Argonauts, is, here, a fascinating character. She is the barbarian from the east (from the Black Sea), unstable, uncivilized, a ruthless personality and a sorceress. When she falls for Jason, part of how she saves him is till kill her own brother in a boat chase, cut him up into pieces and scatter the pieces, forcing her own kingdom's boats to stall and pick up the pieces. That was not her most brutal action. And her story is long.

Here in the play, Jason has spurned her and their children and become engaged to a princess of Corinth. He does this for political advantage (he's in a bad spot because of Medea's latest crimes). Medea explodes in a spectrum of emotions of anger, jealously, etc. And then she plots, and she acts, concealing her true emotions from the other actors, but not from the audience. She will manipulate a safe haven for herself in Athens, gift the princess with a poisoned dress, kill her own children to thoroughly ruin Jason, and then flee in her magic chariot of sorts. As Jason, who is thoroughly ruined, tries to confront her. But she, still fresh from killing her own children, rails at him with a prolonged bitter speech that has not even the slightest hint of remorse. Medea will carry on.

Heracleidae

This is apparently something of a rushed drama with a political point. In the real world context, Athens recently caught five foreign diplomats on a mission dangerous to Athens. They were summarily executed, without even being given a promised chance to make a public statement.

Here Heracles has died, and his sons are on the run under a protector. Their king, Eurystheus, treated Heracles so badly, that he feels he must kill the children to prevent their vengeance. The city of Athens agrees to protect the children and a war ensues. Later, Eurystheus is captured, and confronted with the mother of Heracles, Alcmene. She demands his death, immediately. But, in the process, loses her dignity in her rage, while the bad Eurystheus oddly establishes a dignity we didn't know he had.

Another key oddity here is the voluntary sacrifice of Macaria, a daughter of Heracles. For battle success, human sacrifice was considered essential, and she volunteers for the sake of her brothers.

Much to be uncomfortable with here. But, really, that is also true of the previous two plays too.

Hippolytus

This was my favorite because it didn't leave me so uncomfortable. But, still, it's tragic. Phaedra, wife of Theseus, king of Athens, has fallen in love with her stepson, Hippolytus. She collapses into a self-destructive depression. Her not-so-bright maid tries to help her, and finally pulls out of her this very private and terrible thing that is bothering her. Then the maid tells Hippolytus(!!)...and the tragedies ensues (in far excess of reason).

Phaedra is the main interest here, making a psychological study that is really interesting. But I also found it interesting to read an Ancient Greek playwright's description of an earthquake and consequence Tsunami.

overall

Euripides so far strives at making the viewer/reader uncomfortable. He is interesting, but he's not fun like Sophocles was. The reward is, well, unclear. The art is in the complexity of our response, one that seems fully molded, intentionally, by the playwright. I'll read more, but I won't anticipate them so much as brace myself for them.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hippolytus - the story felt rushed, to the point I kept thinking, "Does Euripides have a hot date after the show and he wants to wrap things up early?" Anyway, as was the custom, this is only one part of what would have been a four-play work of related themes... I don't know the accompanying plays, so perhaps this one is exactly the right speed and length for his purposes.

[Lily Mae ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ I would kill to see these performed

[Darcey O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Medea is a brilliant feminist the only mistake she made was to become psychotic and kill her little boys. THEY WERE CHILDREN YOU B*TCH HOW COULD YOU... anyway Jason is an ass and complete misogynist. Let's just say I was invested in the revenge plan. Good on ya babe.

[sonya m · Rating 5 out of 5]

probably the best greek tragedy i’ll ever read. this translation retains the richness, depth and complexity of euripides’ medea and allows for two actually genuinely exceptional monologues. jason is an insufferable misogynist and great sympathy is evoked for medea — different to her typical villification onwards. i loved! this tragedy. even the word love is an understatement; i am immediately propelled to read more euripidean plays!!!! genuinely masterful, genuinely brilliant, well worth a read.

[ada ☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

greek mythology is the best thing ever and nobody can convince me otherwise. these plays were thoroughly enjoyable and humorous while also packed with interesting knowledge about the surrounding myths. medea is an absolute badass and people do not give her enough credit!

[Tommi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Euripides’ tight focus on just a handful of characters – part and parcel of Greek tragedies – and the way he jumps right into action and pathos is refreshing for someone like me whose reading of drama revolves mainly around the English Renaissance with its customary abundance of, well, everything, including mandatory comic subplots. None of that is present in these four plays. However, the first play, Alcestis, resonates interestingly with The Winter’s Tale. Medea deserves its titular role in the collection, a devastating account of a woman taking revenge on a man, which in some part resembles a 21st-century feminist literary trend in its moral ambiguity and shockingness. The Children of Heracles and Hippolytus were not quite as strong, but this is chiefly due to reading four plays back-to back, i.e. over-exposure.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've reviewed the individual plays from this volume of Euripides' plays (the first of five volumes, all of which I have and will read in order) separately; they are the earliest surviving plays and include the well-known Medea as well as Hyppolytus, which aside from Medea stood out to me in this collection.

[Tilly Lodge · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favourite thing ive had to read for school so far

[Flannery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tbh if I was her I just would have gotten over it and been normal.

[Boadicea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Crash Course in Greek Tragedy

Reading a book of relatively modern plays recently proved my ignorance in the history of theatre. Whilst I have studied Shakespeare at some depth during my schoolgirl years and had seen several of his dramatisations, I knew little of anything earlier, let alone anything beyond the parochial English shores. I was struggling with mythological references at the very least as well as comprehension of the dramatic method of presentation of this archaic form of theatre.

So, by happenstance, I came across this book of 4 plays by Euripides, who's probably the most accessible, it would appear, of the 3 earliest Greek playwrights from around 405-455BC. The book is introduced by Richard Rutherford and translated by John Davie who's used previous translations from the 10th century AD. It had been collated around the 4th century AD when clearly there were concerns that the plays were changing over time. So the scholarship required to deduce the original plays has been impressive.

What has eventuated is a fascinating impression of an erudite dramatic Athenian culture enjoying drama as part of the festival of Dionysus. These plays were performed as trilogies in competition with up to 500 lay judges. There were only male actors, either 2 or 3, playing multiple parts but women made up the chorus, who appear to provide the emotional force of the play, or tragedy. The plays were action-packed with lots of telling as they were staged in large amphitheatres seating up to 14000 people. Killings, beatings and sacrifices stayed offstage so these plays moved quickly and performances would have lasted possibly under the hour for each individual play. Plots invariably revolved around the heavenly family of gods and goddesses, villains and tyrants interacting with the mortals and halfbreeds with epic consequences!

As my knowledge of Greek myths is scanty, this book is very well notated, referenced and with an extensive glossary. At no point did I feel a complete idiot despite my lack of knowledge, although as I discovered in "Alcestis", the basis of the original myth was hazy. The bibliography appears excellent for further research and the book was revised in 2003.

I have reviewed each individual play independently as they all revolve around different myths but I will quickly gloss over the 4 of them.

1. "Alcestis" is the earliest play. Here we see the King of Pherae, Admetus, required to find someone to sacrifice in his place as payback for upsetting the Furies. Well, who stands up for martyrdom but his wife, Alcestis! His/her parents(there is confusion in my mind as I think they're her parents, his in laws-see David Sarkie's comments on the actual backstory) refuse to offer themselves in his place so he falls out with them! Then there's Heracles on his way to perform another impossible quest who stops by to sample the hospitality but doesn't understand that there's been a death in the family etc. Only after he's enjoyed all the food and drink that he can put away, does he start to understand from a very unimpressed servant what catastrophe has just occurred.
So, what does this earthbound demigod do? I won't spoil the ending but just say that Admetus becomes very upset and an awful lot wiser after the loss of his wife! We see that his selfish behaviour may have secured his continued existence but grieving desperately for the loss of a saintly partner. A good 3.75*.

2. "Medea" is the title play and I was expecting it to be the best but it's short, has great speeches and heavy on the tragedy. Her soliloquy is possibly not original but what was present is full of melodrama. So, yes, as per the legend, she kills both her sons in response to Jason, he of the Argonauts fame, divorcing her. She comes across as quite the psychopath, with a track record of previous murders! However, she also takes revenge on his new wife and father-in-law just to double down on his betrayal and, even better, gets to emigrate elsewhere. What a woman! 4.5*

3. "The Children of Heracles" is another dose of revenge inflicted on the earlier mentioned Heracles' family. Basically, his nemesis, Eurystheus, is hunting down all his progeny for Heracles is dead, trying to stamp out his evil influence! Here we see the influence of the temple of Zeus and the importance of religion to the Athenians, as it's by this supplication for sanctuary that Iolaus, their protector, achieves their relief. Unfortunately, this requires a trade-off with the gods who demand a sacrifice of a person of noble blood. Surprise, surprise, another female steps up for martyrdom! 4*

4. "Hippolytus" is a more complex and longer play, it's quite surprisingly brilliant. It also won first prize when presented originally and it's easy to see why. Essentially, Hippolytus is a hunting shooting fishing kind of guy, has pledged his lot to Artemis, goddess of chastity, and offends Aphrodite, goddess of love. She 'gets the pip' in a big way and decides to take revenge on him by making his stepmother, Phaedra, fall in love with him whilst his father, Theseus, is otherwise employed elsewhere. So sparks smoulder rather than fly resulting in not just 1 death, but 2! It's really well written and paced, with the moral of the story, of course, being that one should never offend the heavenly family and always listen to the servants, but be careful what you divulge. 5*

So, what did I discover in this endeavour?

Essentially that Greek tragedy was a highly developed form of drama; exploited its myths to great theatrical effect and, apart from the murderous Medea, that you didn't want to be a woman in those days, when personal sacrifice wasn't just loss of employment but possibly death? I lie, of course, but it's fascinating looking back on something from 2500 years ago and seeing how entertaining it must have been to watch these performances!

Overall, a really good book which I recommend. 4.5 *

[WndyJW · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been feeling the ancient Greeks calling to me and when I heard Natalie Haynes say that Medea by Euripides was her favorite play of all time I couldn’t resist so I took a break from the International Booker and Desmond Elliott Prize lists and read the four plays in this volume: Medea, which is as good as Natalie Haynes said it is, in which Jason explains why he married a princess after Medea sacrificed everything for him and helped or rather won the challenges to set to him, and Medea explains why she committed the unthinkable crime for which she is famous; Hecabe which features Agamemnon and Odysseus dealing with a mother’s justified grief and anger; Electra, in which the question of revenge and justice is weighed when Electra and her brother Orestes discuss killing their mother to avenge their father; and Heracles (aka Hercules) which was surprisingly to me about faith in the existence of the gods.
All plays were brilliant and again I see why they are classics and why my dad loved them so much.

Highly recommended

[Chloe Sidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love women and their schemes!!!!

[A.D. Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

MEDEA!
Daughter of a King. Niece of nymph. Granddaughter of a god. Wife of a hero.
How many women have you known in any literary piece ever written, in all history of humanity, who incarnate all of these blessings together in one?
A fistful, maybe?
Killer of her own children! ( Ok. Now you are definitely left with ONE only.)
MEDEA!
A symbol. A metaphor. A precedent. A uniqueness. ONE and only in millennia. What else can one say.

[Marcos Augusto · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Euripides’ most powerful and best-known plays, Medea is a remarkable study of injustice and ruthless revenge. In Euripides’ retelling of the legend, the Colchian princess Medea has married the hero Jason. They have lived happily for some years at Corinth and have produced two sons. As the play’s action begins, Jason has decided to cast off Medea and to marry the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth.

[Lauren Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

Medea solos. Euripides is a feminist.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jewel]

dnf- i think im done w classics

[Kaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read the intro and 'Medea' and not the 'Other Plays.' This Penguin Classics edition is neat because there are detailed notes throughout the play (noted at the back) explaining all sorts of stuff: how the tragedy would've been presented on stage back then, the backstory of the mythology behind it all, the critical reactions to certain passages throughout history, etc. There is ALSO a glossary at the back that explains the whos, whats and wheres of all proper nouns listed throughout the plays. This all makes for a very easy and informative/enriching reading experience compared to just reading the play dry and going, "Huh? Who is AEGEUS?" Did you know that the word 'panic' comes from Pan - one of the Greek deities attributed to causing madness?

So Euripides, along with Sophocles and Aeschylus, are the 3 main tragedians of Ancient/Classical Greece (all 3 in Athens mostly) as my "Western Humanities" text book points out. They all wrote tons of plays but not many survived. They'd present their tragedies at the Festival of Dionysus. At each festival they'd present 4 plays- the first 3 were tragedies (sometimes a related trilogy, other times not) and the 4th play was a 'satyr play' which was comic and oftentimes raunchy and grotesque - it was like a little dessert for the audience at festival's end. The people of Athens declared Aeschylus and Sophocles winners of the festivals more times than Euripides but it sounds like they maybe just weren't ready yet for Euripides. I don't know - I've already forgotten what I read about him 3 days ago.

The story of 'Medea' is pretty awesome - I guess it's about as tragic as tragedy can get. There are some enjoyable passages about a woman's place in the world of men - a lot of stuff that is still relevant and funny and scathing. The basic plot is that Medea is the wife of Jason (the guy with the Argonauts) and he really dicks her over - I won't say how. And she then spends the whole play seeking revenge. There are some brutal elements here that reminded me of "Oldboy" - the Korean film from a couple of years ago - the one that churned my innards in ways like no movie has before. It was one of 3 films in the director's Vengeance Trilogy. Medea reminds me of a character in the movie - I won't say who - but it's got one of the best movie endings ever- TRULY turning things up to 11!!!!!!!!!

Here's my favorite passage from 'Medea.' It's towards the beginning, after we've learned about what Jason the A-hole has done. The nurse is one of the caretakers of Medea and Jason's children.

NURSE: "Inside with you, children, it will be all right, into the house! And you do all you can to keep them out of the way; don't let them near their mother while she's in this depression! I've already seen her glaring at them like a bull, as if she wanted to do something awful. I'm sure of one thing, that anger of hers won't die down until someone's felt the force of her thunderbolt. I pray her victims are enemies, not those who love her!"

This reminded me of a woman I know!