This a great, well-curated collection. Consistently smooth, poetic translation. Can't say enough good things about it.

Only read "The Bacchae."

This is an excellent collection of tragedies, with wonderful translations and great commentary in the introductions. My favourite has to be The Bacchae - it's unmatched in its raw ferocity, its wildness, its blatant violrnce and horror, and yet it is such a thrill to read. Out of the remaining two, I have a fondness for Electra. She is a tormented soul, thrust into an unhappy situation. I sympathized with both Electra and Clytemnestra, and my heart went out to both of them. Really, these are a delight to read. I look forward to reading more Euripides!

Interesting to note how things barely change through the years. Gotta wonder if we evolve at all

Good--

Well here it is, the last of the five-volume collection containing Electra, The Phoenician Women, and The Bacchae, and I am done with Euripides. After reading Aeschylus's Oresteia and Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy, and Euripides' Orestes, however, I was sort of fed up with the first two plays in this book since Electra is another take on Orestes and Electra's matricide, and The Phoenician Women reiterates much of Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes and takes place between Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. So all the dramatis personnae are a familiar cast for the Greek-tragedy-lovers, but apart from using the same material, they are good plays in themselves.

The Bacchae is a whole another play in itself and unique among the playwright's corpus (or in the whole of the extant Greek tragedies). Dionysus/Bacchus/Bromius, the god of booze and parties, is pissed (not in the British sense) at Thebes for dissing him, so he decides to make every woman of the city mad and as a result, the women go romping in the mountains with some ridiculous getup.

Seeing public disorder at hand, Pentheus, the sober grandchild of Cadamus the founder of Thebes, tries to quell the orgies and revelries that threaten the city, and arrests the god, who drunkenly destroys the entire palace with lightening and thunder (precisely why the god of wine can summon thunder and lightening is only for the gods to know), then makes Pentheus mad and dresses him in a woman's clothes and goes a-romping with Pentheus to the mountain to "check out" the field before letting him unleash squadrons of army against the drunken women who are reportedly having, well, a bacchanalian orgy. A host of miracles are reported, including, but not remotely limited to, women ripping cattle and bulls apart with their bare hands, flying over rivers, butchering men, and other jolly carousing.

Having taken Pentheus to the field, the god vanishes and orders the women to rip him apart with their bare hands, and this tragic sparagmos is done by the victim's mother and sisters. Coming home with a blinding hang-over and Pentheus's severed head on her thyrsus, the mother, Agave, insists that she has captured a lion and sparagmosed it alright with her hands and proclaims how proud and happy she is, only to be awaken from the blinding hang-over and realize that it's actually her son's head that she's raving about and carrying on her staff. In a nutshell, an awesome play. Evohé!

Very awesome very cool big fan crazy ending will definitely read again some day I love Euripides

I liked the treatment of the Electra myth that Euripides gives, it's an interesting look into self-involved characters. Orestes and Electra are more spoiled brats, rather than slighted children out to avenge their father. Otherwise, the translation of the Bacchae is a strong one, but not my favorite (I prefer Woodruff's). Two of Euripides' better plays both in one volume.

Bacantele, Electra

Bloody murders, incest, hubris! Who doesn't love a good dose of Greek drama?

Read it in highschool and have loved it ever since. Electra is one of my favorite stories.

"The Bacchae" is one of my all-time favorite plays. I've read several adaptations of it, as well, and it just always seems to hold up to time.

I found the other plays in this volume quite enjoyable, also. "The Phoenician Women" offers a take on the Antigone story that I hadn't encountered before.

Euripides is probably my favorite of the Greek playwrights.

Read The Bacchae portion; there are many problems with Arrowsmith's translation, but even in his rendition the play shines through. Most surprising to me were the incestuous & homoerotic themes.