The Complete Euripides, Volume V: Medea and Other Plays

by Alan Shapiro, Peter H. Burian (Editor), Alan Shapiro (Editor)

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals.
This volume collects Euripides' Alcestis (translated by William Arrowsmith), a subtle drama about Alcestis and her husband Admetos, which is the oldest surviving work by the dramatist; Medea (Michael Collier and Georgia Machemer), a moving vengeance story and an excellent example of the prominence and complexity that Euripides gave to female characters; Helen (Peter Burian), a genre breaking play based on the myth of Helen in Egypt; and Cyclops (Heather McHugh and David Konstan), a highly lyrical drama based on a celebrated episode from the Odyssey. This volume retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.

Genres: Classics, Poetry, Plays

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Alan Shapiro (born 1952) is an American poet and professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of nine poetry books, including Tantalus in Love, Song and Dance, and The Dead Alive and Busy.

In addition to poetry, Alan Shapiro has also published two personal memoirs, Vigil and The Last Happy Occasion.
(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Sasha]

The most complete rundown of which Euripides plays I've read can be found here. There's also a thing I wrote called Greek Playwrights 101 or something like that.

These editions are nicely done with good translators, but they're in five editions, which makes it sortof a pain in the ass for anyone who doesn't want the complete works of Euripides in five volumes on their shelves, which is pretty much everyone. They're not economically a great decision.

Anyway. You read enough of the Greeks and you end up with a confused impression that all plays are about Orestes and no one knows if Iphigenia's dead or not.

Anyway, Medea's cool. Euripides was younger than Sophocles, and controversial; in Medea he upends the Jason myth, casting Jason as a philandering, prevaricating dickwad and Medea as a hell of a lot of fury.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of Helen, translated by Peter Burian.

This is a marvelous play, both for the radical premise - that the Helen Paris stole away to Troy was a phantom, while the real Helen waited for seventeen years in Egypt - and for the wordplay and dramatic irony that Euripides works into Helen’s speeches and those of other characters. The premise is a powerful renunciation of the core myth of the Trojan War, and implicitly of the stupid code of macho violence and honor that underpinned it. When the killing over Helen is made hollow, what’s left is loss and tragedy as a divine whim: Zeus wanted to kill off a bunch of Greeks and reveal Achilles’ prowess. And the effect for Helen is that everyone, Greek and Trojan, despises her, even though in fact she’s behaved blamelessly. It’s only through clever lying and deception that she can save her husband and herself. It’s in doing so, ironically, that she restores her reputation and dignity in others’ eyes.

There’s another possible layer to the play. I read that all female parts in ancient Greek plays were played by men. Even so, I wonder what courage it must have taken to write and produce a play where a central character is the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Was this part played by an especially beautiful actor? And if so, when the character Helen laments the curse of her beauty, or describes herself as wholly hated and distrusted for her beauty, would an audience have heard a second layer of meaning in the lines as they applied not just to the character, but also to the actor playing the role?

If one chooses to go with the Homeric version, where Helen was in Troy for the whole war, one could also interpret the play - though I doubt Euripides meant it this way - as an acute psychological study of how Helen and Menelaus could possibly reconcile - after such knowledge, what forgiveness? The answer: with her help, he’ll decide that she’s not the same person, not the woman who betrayed him, that was a phantom, an eidolon, who has now vanished, carrying her blame with her. And even then, they aren’t really safely back together until they commit another act of violence, slaughtering the sailors and attendants the King of Egypt has sent with them so Helen can conduct ‘memorial services’ for Menelaus at sea. That violence, however small against the calamity of the Trojan War, displaces the larger conflict in memory. If one takes this interpretation, it surely helps that Menelaus is not a deep thinker.

[Eliza Orlic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection. I finally finished it after quite sometime. My favorite is by far Medea. I lookup to and love Medea in so many ways and her story always captivates me. It also always intrigues me on which version I am going to get. I think the real version of Medea is one of the strongest women in literature and she doesn't get acknowledged enough as such. My second favorite was Helen. I will not spoil it for anyone that has not read it, but I was quite surprised by the ending. Medea was on a completely different wavelength. I will probably revisit in some time.

[Mike Gardiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Medea is astounding. Beautiful and brutal. Don’t take it for granted!

Alcestis is beautiful. Direct connection to Albee’s Lady from Dubuque. Death personified!

Cyclopes— a bit of a let down. I wish I enjoyed the only surviving satyr play more.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

four stories for the price of one and 3/4 are female hero led 👏🏼

[Searnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

The other plays contained in this volume are: Alcestis, Helen, and Cyclops. Oxford U Press compiled this volume in 2011. Each play holds a different copyright year and translator. Each play has an extensive introduction (i.e. dense with information and small in print); 2 are written by the play's translator and two are written by a different classical scholar. Additionally, in depth explanatory notes accompany each play and there is a Glossary and a Further Reading List at the end of the book.