I only read Electra, which was interesting but ehhh wordy translation

Euripides is one of the most progressive and prolific playwrights of Antiquity. His work marks him as a feminist in a heavily-patriarchal society, and a free-thinker in a long-standing religious civilization.

Despite the complaints that addition of stage directions and other details make the plays less authentic, I needed them. There are typos and mistakes, but overall, I have no major criticisms for the translations (I'm an amateur when it comes to these kind of texts, though).

n  Alcestisn - 3/5

n  Let her know that she die glorious, the best woman under the sun by far.n

Alcetis, wife of Admetus, dies in his place so that he can live forever. The perfect spouse? More like the perfect platform for Euripides to comment on the anti-feminist culture in Greek society.


n  Medean - 4/5

n  'And yet you slew them.'
'I did, to hurt you.'n

Everyone is loco. Medea's husband cheats on her. To get vengeance, Medea literally kills everyone. Medea, in comparison to Alcestis, provides the contrasting view of marriage and feminism in a male-dominated society. This play also debates themes of love versus duty, vengeance versus violent wrath, sacrifice versus pride.


n  Hippolytusn - 4/5

n  I don't like deities who are marvelous after dark.n

And with that quote, Hippolytus has doomed himself. As a follower of Artemis, Hippolytus rejects women. Aphrodite, in her jealousy, makes Hippolytus' stepmother Phaedra fall in love with him. There is conflict between goddesses and conflict between father and son, all stemming from blindness of rage.


n  Andromachen - 2/5

n  Never shall I approve of two loves for one man.... It means strife in the home, and enmity and pain.n

Andromache, the widow of Hector, has been taken from Troy following the Trojan War, and now serves as a slave and concubine to Neoptolemus, Achille's son. Hermione, Neoptolemus' wife and daughter of Helen and Menelaus, is very jealous. What a cast of characters! In this way, Andromache is kind of confusing and circular - there is no main protagonist, but instead a bunch of characters shouting at each other in their household. The underlying theme features the idea of 'Greeks versus others'. And the Greeks always come out on top.


n  Ionn - 3/5

n  One can no longer blame men for imitating the splendid conduct of the gods; blame those who set us the example.n

Apollo rapes Creusa, but she suffers the consequences. Here, Euripides is criticizing Apollo and the other gods who can act upon their whim without considering the consequences; of course, immortal beings do not care much about human lives. The theme of parenthood is explored and commended, resulting in many tender moments. In the end, piety still reigns supreme.


n  The Trojan Womann - 4/5

n  The mortal is mad who sacks cities and desolates temples and tombs...; his own doom is only delayed.n

In the aftermath of the Trojan War, the inhabitants of Troy are either dead or are assigned as slaves and concubines to the Achaeans. The Trojan women, including Hecuba and Andromache, grieve for their losses, the deaths of their family, and their post-war future. This play (i.e., giving women a voice after countless male-centred stories about the Trojan War) was pretty novel.


n  Electran - 4/5

n  My girl, it has always been your nature to love your father. So it goes; some are fond of their male parent, others love their mothers more than their fathers.n

Electra has been married out to a poor peasant after her mother, Clytemnestra, kills her father, Agamemnon, and marries her lover, Aegisthus. When her brother, Orestes, returns from exile (both children having been kicked far away from their royal home), she instigates matricide. Electra, in looking for justice for her father and in conspiring with her brother to murder their mother, is given a lot of screen time to portray her anger, sorrow, and guilt in a realistic way. This was an interesting play, chock-full of imagery; Electra herself is a multi-dimensional character with convoluted familial relationships (talk about the Electra complex).


n  Iphigenia Among the Tauriansn - 4/5

n  One thing alone can cause a man sorrow: when he is ruined, not by his folly, but because he has trusted words of prophecy - as one man was ruined, whom those that know know.n

Iphigenia, the daughter sacrificed by Agamemnon to Artemis in order to set sail for the Trojan War, is actually not dead! Instead, she has been living in a temple of Artemis in Tauris, sacrificing foreigners who land on the shores. She doesn't know that it's her brother, Orestes, that just arrived, in a classic example of dramatic irony. When mutual recognition finally hits, they devise a scheme to leave together, ending with a deus ex machina. Although their circumstances are far from ideal, this play is both tragic and comedic.


n  The Bacchantsn - 3/5

n  n

Props for being probably the most impious play to ever be written for a religious festival.


n  Iphigenia at Aulisn - 4/5

n  No mortal knows real prosperity or happiness; never has one been born free from sorrow.n

Iphigenia is sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon, so that the Hellenes can leave to fight in the Trojan War. Steeped in tragic irony, characters are faced with moral dilemmas; some characters are heroic while others are written as bumbling fools. Questionable ending, but it probably wasn't written by Euripides.

I enjoyed these plays...I read the 6 recommended by Clifton Fadiman - Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, The Trojan Women, Electra, The Bacchants. All were highly readable. My favorites were the last 3.

This is book 7 of 133 books in Clifton Fadiman's The New Lifetime Reading Plan.

—Read Hippolytus, Medea and the Bacchae for SJC Weekend Classics 5/7-8

Required text for a World Literature class, however, the plays in this book are actually really good. Written by the Greeks, they are full of drama and scandals. I love how every situation was taken to extremes. My favorite was the play about Medea. There are lessons to be learned in these plays and important themes such as religion, love, loyalty, and revenge. The plays are actually pretty easy to understand. Would recommend to theatre and drama readers/lovers and actors.

From my notes, I see that I may have only read "The Bacchae". Well, no matter--I wanted to praise this translation. Not that I'm an expert on translation, but if a translated work can chill me to the bone, I'll say, "Well done!" Euripides tells us: don't try to go against the gods. Not because they're as crazy as we are. No, they have no logic, no feelings. They are energies, not beings. And as happens in "The Bacchae", when we try to go against one of these forces, there's hell to pay.

I'm doing a project where I'm discussing each of the surviving Greek plays in a Youtube video (at https://www.youtube.com/c/TheatreofPhil). I'll be rereading these plays as I move through making the videos, and I'll write new reviews here with the links to the videos beneath them. My overview video about Euripides is at: https://youtu.be/Z-352-0g6ZQ

Alcestis: This is almost a kind of comedy, but it's definitely a black comedy. The structure moves more like comedy in that things descend into sadness but are then restored to "happiness" at the end, but this happiness is suspect at best. Part of what Euripides seems to be trying to do here is raise questions about happy endings as such, especially for stories that involve great suffering.
Basically, Apollo has gotten his friend Admetus a deal where Admetus can cheat death if someone else is willing to take his place, and the only one willing to do so is his wife Alcestis. The first half of the play revolves around her dying and Admetus alternately admiring her, pitying himself, and wishing he were dying instead (an irony he seems at best only partly aware of). Then Alcestis dies, and during the funeral Heracles shows up at the house. When he finds Admetus in mourning he wants to stay with someone else, but Admetus insists that Heracles accept his hospitality, even lying to the demigod that the funeral is for a distant friend. When Heracles finds out that it was Alcestis, he goes to the grave and wrestles Death, winning back Alcestis from the dead. Returning with a shrouded woman, Heracles admonishes Admetus for deceiving him before (ironically) deceiving Admetus about who the woman is, before finally revealing that it is Alcestis brought back from the dead.
The layers of irony here and the problem of Admetus' selfish hypocrisy about letting Alcestis die for him problematize the "happy ending" of the spousal reunion. A problematization that is compounded by the fact that Alcestis is not allowed to speak to Admetus for three days in order to purge the underworld's claim on her. So the play ends with Alcestis unable to express herself or her view on the husband who let her die to save himself.
https://youtu.be/-rwYr4k5k68

Hippolytus: This is probably one of the best examples of the "hubris is punished" formula in all of the extant Greek tragedies. The entire plot of Hippolytus revolves around Aphrodite's destruction of Hippolytus because the young prince refused to honor or even acknowledge her. Hippolytus is a strident devotee of the virgin goddess Artemis, and to punish his arrogant dismissal of her power, Aphrodite causes his stepmother Phaedra to fall deeply in love with him. Phaedra plans to kill herself rather than either go on suffering or (even worse in her estimation) reveal her love to her stepson, but Phaedra's nurse convinces her to let the nurse tell him--which goes over like a lead balloon. Basically, Hippolytus is disgusted and threatens to denounce Phaedra to Theseus, his father and her husband. To escape this, Phaedra hangs herself, but before she does she writes a suicide note claiming that Hippolytus raped her. This is probably the least well explained element in the play (a rare lapse for Euripides, who is generally pretty good at explaining people's motives). Theseus returns and finding the note prays to his father Poseidon to destroy Hippolytus, then banishes his son from the city. Shortly after, Artemis shows up and tells Theseus that he was wrong to banish Hippolytus and pray for his destruction because actually Hippolytus was innocent of rape--the whole thing was engineered by Aphrodite. And while both Artemis and Poseidon think Theseus made a mistake, Poseidon was obligated to carry out Theseus' wishes because of an obligation to grant three favors to his son. So the play ends with the innocent Hippolytus, broken and dying, brought back on stage to forgive his father.
Basically, we've got two cycles of hubris punished here: the large scale one where Hippolytus is punished for his arrogant denial of Aphrodite's power, and the smaller scale one where Theseus curses his son impiously (which the Chorus points out). Hippolytus is brutally killed when Poseidon sends a bull from the sea to spook Hippolytus' chariot horses, who then drag him along the rocky seashore to a slow and painful death. Theseus' punishment is obviously that he curses his innocent son who then dies horribly.
https://youtu.be/0AM0p_hb03k

Ion: This is likely one of the plays that gave Euripides a reputation as impious, if not an outright critic of the gods. Apollo doesn't come across particularly well in this play, particularly to modern audiences/readers for whom rape is a more serious thing than it likely was for the ancient Greeks. The play's action begins because Apollo had raped Cruesa, who had and then exposed his baby, which was taken by Hermes to be raised at Apollo's temple at Delphi. Years later, Cruesa and her husband Xuthus come to the oracle because they are childless, and Apollo gives the boy to Xuthus to be his son--a son whom Xuthus names Ion. Cruesa is outraged that after raping her Apollo would give her husband a child and deny her one, so she resolves to poison Ion. After the plot fails, Ion leads a posse of Delphians to throw Cruesa from a cliff, but she takes refuge at Apollo's shrine. The oracle herself comes from the temple to give Ion the basket and tokens with which he was abandoned, and from these tokens Cruesa recognizes her son, precipitating the reunion of mother and son. The play ends with Athena coming and basically making Apollo's excuses (he didn't want either Cruesa or Ion to criticize him, so he didn't come in person) before confirming that the are parent and child and that Ion should go back to Athens where he will become an important king.
https://youtu.be/UftMxkja5AQ

Electra: This is an especially interesting play because more plays about the Electra/Orestes myth survive than on any other theme, so we can see how Euripides approaches the story differently than Aeschylus (in the Oresteia, specifically The Libation Bearers) and Sophocles (in Electra). Euripides' version is more gritty and cynical than the other versions--though Sophocles is quite overt about how every charge Electra lays against Clytemnestra also applies to herself, a point Euripides brings up less centrally. But Euripides' version makes several major changes, one of which is that Electra has been married off the a peasant (who is a noble, good hearted dude), and so the action of revenge takes place away from the palace, which makes a lot of sense because the palace of a couple of paranoid rulers would in reality be swarming with guards. So Aegisthus is killed in a field while he's making sacrifices to nymphs, and Clytemnestra is lured to Electra's cottage with the news that she's had a baby; then Electra and Orestes kill her in the cottage. From a practical, not-having-to-fight-a-ton-of-guards perspective, this makes a lot more sense.
But Euripides is also a bit more cynical than the previous versions, especially the Aeschylus. For one thing, Euripides mocks the famous recognition scene from The Libation Bearers. Orestes actually hangs out with Electra for a long time without revealing his identity (a decision that seems entirely pointless), and then the recognition scene is pretty absurd. In Aeschylus, Electra recognizes a lock of Orestes' hair that he's left on Agamemnon's tomb and fits her foot into his footprint, there's also a recognition by some cloth that Electra had woven and given to the baby Orestes. In Euripides, the old tutor who had saved Orestes tries to get Electra to do these tests but she quite rightly points out that 1) a man's hair exposed to the elements wouldn't look the same as a woman's hair carefully protected, 2) lots of unrelated people have similar hair, 3) a man's foot would generally be larger than a woman's, 4) she was just a child herself when Orestes left, so she wouldn't have been weaving anything, and 5) if she had given him a piece of clothing as a baby it wouldn't fit him as an adult. Then the tutor sees Orestes (who is still pretending to be someone else) and recognizes him from a scar he supposedly has on his forehead, though Electra says she can't see any scar. But even though she doesn't see the scar the tutor claims proves this is Orestes, she accepts that it's her brother anyway.
https://youtu.be/vg_R84iDtaU

Iphigenia at Aulis: This play is interesting because it shows Euripides perhaps at the peak of his cynicism. Everyone in this play, apart from Iphigenia, is rather contemptible. But, interestingly enough, that are not merely contemptible, but they also have moments of complexity where they are sympathetic. This is perhaps most evident with Achilles, who initially seems like a pompous rich kid concerned more about how Agamemnon used his name without permission to lure Iphigenia to the camp than he is about the fact that she is literally going to be sacrificed. He is a self-centered showoff. But when Iphigenia reveals herself as truly noble, he pledges to defend her at the altar if she changes her mind and wants to be spared, even though it would upset the entire army.
Iphigenia, again, is the exception to this general rule. She nobly accepts her death, even asking to be sacrificed as the means for the Greeks to defeat the Trojans. Of course, to a modern audience this is potentially problematic (especially her apparent bloodthirsty desire to be a sacker of cities, and her statement that it's right for Greeks to rule over barbarians), but for the Greeks this would have been right in line with a heroic tradition.
The other thing I find interesting about this play is how many complications it introduces into the general Atreidae myth cycle. The big one is probably that at the end of this play (which Paul Roche, translator of this edition, thinks is likely written by Euripides' son rather than Euripides himself because the playwright died without finishing it), a messenger comes in and tells Clytemnestra that when the priest cut Iphigenia's throat, the girl was miraculously replaced by a deer and Artemis spared (but took) Iphigenia. This is, of course, a major premise of Iphigenia Among the Taurians, but if Clytemnestra knows immediately after the event that Iphigenia hasn't been killed, it doesn't make any real sense that she later murders Agamemnon in revenge for him killing Iphigenia. There's also the general issue of Orestes' age, which is a consistent problem in Aeschylus' Oresteia and both Sophocles' and Euripides' Electra plays. In this play, Orestes shows up as a baby, which makes sense because Agamemnon hasn't been gone that long, but plays later in the cycle consistently say that he was a baby when Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon after he returns from the Trojan war. This would require that Orestes be a baby for over a decade.
https://youtu.be/RaMrFq_50QA

Iphigenia Among the Taurians: This is another romance, rather than a tragedy, in which Iphigenia is rescued from her service in the temple of Artemis among the Taurian barbarians following Agamemnon's attempt to sacrifice her (as dramatized in Iphigenia in Aulis). Orestes has been sent among the Taurians by Apollo to steal a statue of Artemis and bring it back to Athens, and while there the siblings realize who one another are and they resolve to escape together. However, the Taurians figure out what's going on and are about to stop the Greeks' flight when Athena shows up (in a deus ex machina) to save the day by commanding the Taurian king to let them go.
https://youtu.be/oUXvV0ujzfA

Medea: This play is a tough one for me because I want to buy into the feminist readings of Medea as a (proto-)feminist asserting her value against an unfaithful man who treats her as a disposable object. She has a great speech at the beginning of the play where she indicts patriarchal Greek society. But at the same time, she murders Glauke--another woman--who likely had very little control over the arranged marriage between herself and Jason, so we don't get a great deal of solidarity with other women. And Medea murders her children so Jason cannot have them, which is morally problematic at the least. So it's hard for me to see Medea as just a victim of patriarchy carrying out retributive justice. Both Glauke and the children seem more like innocent bystanders or pawns than they do like the actual targets of Medea's semi-feminist rage (i.e., Jason and Creon). Some scholars have argued that this is a play of two halves, with Medea as the victim in the first half and Jason as the victim in the second. And I'm not sure I find that structure rewarding.
https://youtu.be/oEUKF1hCgj4

The Bacchae: This is a play heavily driven by the "hubris is punished" approach to Greek tragedy. Pentheus, king of Thebes, refuses to recognize the divinity of Dionysus who comes to spread his cult in his birth city. Pentheus tries to repress the Menaeds (Dionysus' followers) and even attempts to arrest Dionysus. As a punishment, Dionysus basically hypnotizes Pentheus and convinces him to dress as a woman to go out to the woods and spy on the Menaeds, who mis-identify him as a wild animal and tear him apart with their bare hands and consume some of his raw flesh. This violence is lead by Agave, Pentheus' mother, who tears off her son's head. Dionysus had hypnotized the Menaeds, so this is essentially the god not only punishing Pentheus (who dies horribly) but also punishing Agave (who brutally murders her son) and the rest of Pentheus' family, including people like Cadmus who actually embraced the god's worship. And then Dionysus follows this up by basically exiling and punishing both Agave and Cadmus, furthering the punishment for Pentheus' family members, even though those other family members had joined in worshiping Dionysus.
https://youtu.be/2_MfR-qsds4

The Trojan Women: This is a play in four parts. Basically, the structure of the play is a series of lamentations, with each quarter being characterized by the slight possibility of hope and then that hope immediately being dashed. Basically, the play is set in the ruins of Troy at the end of the Trojan War, focusing on Hecuba and the female Trojan survivors who are waiting to be dispersed as slaves to the Greek victors. This play is essentially an extended lamentation.
https://youtu.be/6gg7PheZTJo

The Cyclops: This is one of the most important Greek plays because it is the only extant example of a satyr play, so it gives us our most complete info about the genre. Satyr plays followed the three tragedies a tragedian would enter for the City Dionysia competition, and they kind of lightened the mood after a set of tragedies. Basically, satyr plays were drawn from the same kind of mythic material as tragedies, but treated it from a carnivalesque perspective, with a focus on food, alcohol, sexuality, etc.
https://youtu.be/ejZ4JsWOPjs

This took me months to read, and I completely forgot I read the second play, but that is not a reflection on the quality of the work, just on my impatience. This had everything I love in Greek mythology interpretations: dynamic characters, dialogue that is not clunky or hard to follow, and asides pointing out anachronisms and everything lost in translation.

A word about the translation: Paul Roche does a great job, with a few caveats. These translations seem to be made for stage productions of Euripides, so they tend to spell everything out. In some cases this is nice, like during scenes where the staging is crucial to understanding the action. In some cases, like when he completely makes up parts of a play that are missing, it can be bad. He notes when he thinks the play is not reputable or when he has to fill in the gaps, so I’m inclined to think he simply wanted to provide something for people putting these plays into production. Heed these warnings for maximum enjoyment: Don’t read the introductions, which will spoil the plays on a first reading. You can also dispense with the stage directions at the beginning of scenes as they sometimes spoil what is about to happen, and the “setting” portion at the beginning of the play which is usually explained by the opening scene anyway. Otherwise you’re good to go.

ADMETUS
Once upon a time, Admetus made a deal with Apollo. He wouldn’t have to die if someone would agree to lay down their life instead. His parents (shockingly) do not take him up on this generous offer so he lets his wife bite the bullet for him instead, and then for the rest of the play mopes about how hard he has it. Got to say, I empathize with the parents here. I probably wouldn’t die for such a selfish jerk either. The translator thinks Euripides is endorsing this kind of behavior but I don’t see how Admetus complaining about how terrible it is now that he has to live alone and exclaiming “I wish I were dead!” is anything but massively ironic. A deeply ironic dark comedy- it had me laughing out loud at parts. 5/5

HIPPOLYTUS
Phaedra falls in love with her stepson (Hippolytus) because he’s celibate for no apparent reason and that makes Aphrodite upset. Phaedra and her Nurse argue a little bit about what course of action is ethical in this situation, but I have to say that what Phaedra wound up doing was a hell of a lot more immoral than anything the Nurse suggests. If only they had bothered to listen to the Nurse at any point, things would’ve gone smoother. I guess the moral is “Don’t be too hasty” but what I took away was “Don’t piss off Aphrodite.” 4/5

ION
I’m beginning to sense a suffering woman theme here. Apollo rapes a woman, she conceives a son named Ion and then Apollo decides to pull an ol’ switcheroo on the mom who is now infertile. Not terribly divine of him. As Ion says, “If the day ever comes (I know the notion is absurd) when you gods must pay the price to human beings for all your rapings and whorings [Apollo] and Poseidon and, yes Zeus himself will bankrupt every temple to fit the bill.” And after all his naughty behavior, Apollo doesn’t even have the balls to show up in the play. Creusa, get that low down dog to pay child support! Euripides kind of backpedals in the end but I guess he didn’t want to be too critical of all-powerful beings, particularly ones backed up by mob justice. 5/5

ELECTRA
Euripides tells the story of Orestes and Electra avenging their father who was murdered by their mother. The Libation Bearers was the weakest of the Oresteia, and this version of the story is improved. There’s a cheeky bit in here where Euripides takes a shot at the idea of Electra identifying her brother by comparing hair and looking at footprints, so no doubt he read Aeschylus’s version too. The view of feminine subservience isn’t much better here, but at least it’s less obnoxious. Euripides gets our sympathies more successfully on the side of the children of Agamemnon. The character of Electra in particular is beefed up, showing shades of Macbeth’s wife half way through the play. The only confusing bit is when Euripides tries to shoehorn in a lesson about how wealth isn’t everything… doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the play. 4/5

IPHIGENIA AT AULIS
This is the story of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to gain favorable winds for Troy. This play doesn’t mesh with the traditional portrait of these characters- it’s kind of an iconoclastic interpretation. Agamemnon isn’t a hyper-ambitious man willing to sacrifice his daughter for glory, he’s kind of a bumbling figure boxed in to a bad situation. Odysseus is no longer a draft-dodger who pretended to be crazy to avoid going to Troy, now he’s a blood thirsty demagogue. And so on. This origin of the Trojan War reminds me quite a bit of the rush to war in World War I. There’s no one figure to pin the blame on- there’s just a general war fever on the part of the public. The ‘heroes’ are just along for the ride. Iphigenia gains most of our sympathies- but not for the reasons you might think. The ending to this play is hilariously bad but Euripides didn’t write it, so I’m going to cut him some slack on that one. 5/5

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS
If Euripides died after he wrote Iphigenia at Aulis, then how could he write this sequel? Well, he wrote this one first, as we can tell because things don’t match up between the two plays at all. Iphigenia and Orestes meet up in some barbarian land but, tee hee, don’t know they’re related. Expect to wait until half way through the play before they figure that one out. At no part of this play does anything surprising or interesting happen. The end sucks too. The only lousy play of the bunch so far. 2/5

MEDEA
Do not believe the false advertising in the title. This is NOT a light hearted Tyler Perry comedy. I can empathize with Medea. If your husband cheated on you after you killed your family and betrayed your homeland to be with him, I can see how revenge might be the first thing on your mind. But it’s not so far-fetched to say that some of her revenge is also for the insult to her pride- particularly after the line he gives saying cheating on her was for her benefit. She’ll show Jason what it means to mess with Medea, even if she has to scheme and kill and cut off her own nose to do it. Just how far did I say I empathized with Medea again? 5/5

BACCHUS
Bacchus is the new kid on the block- the god of wine and revelry trying to get widespread acceptance. You would think if anything, people would be thrilled to have a god of partying. But no, some people like repressed ol’ king Pentheus are just a bunch of meanies who want to bring everyone down. This type of divine party-pooping is called “hubris” and as we all know, the gods have a talent for punishing this sort of thing. Tiresias has the right idea- you’ve got to cut loose and act a fool every once in a while or you’ll wind up half crazy running around the woods in women’s clothes. And that won’t even be the worst of it. When God says party, you party- or else. 4/5

TROJAN WOMEN
After the war in Troy ended, all that was left was to split the spoils of war. This included slaves, like Hecuba, the former queen of Troy, whom Trojan Women follows. This play is an utterly devastating indictment of war. In the introduction, it is clear the gods aren’t satisfied with the bloodletting at Troy and plan for more slaughter. Hecuba is forced to endure the destruction of all she loves- her children taken from her, her country enslaved, her home burned to the ground, her faith in the gods shattered, and the woman responsible for it all goes unpunished. Do the dead have it any better? Not by a long shot. Cassandra points out that though the war is over the Greeks have hardly won a happy fate. The Greeks have won back Helen, whom they hate, and have paid the price of countless casualties and years of hardship away from their homes. On the way back to Greece many more will die in storms, Agamemnon will be murdered, and Odysseus will endure another ten years of tribulation. The most nihilistic play I have ever read. 5/5

CYCLOPS
This irreverent play is a humorous interpretation of Odysseus’ encounter with the Cyclops. It’s crude, rude and pretty funny. It reminds me of Looney Tunes, if Looney Tunes didn’t shy away from jokes about getting drunk and having sex. Silenus plays Bugs Bunny, and Odysseus is the straight man.
4/5

I was hoping to find a simple copy of the classic The Bacchae but instead stumbled across this wonderful collection of ten Euripides plays. This English translation is easy to read and though there isn't much in the way of footnotes or long introductions, the text speaks for itself and rarely leaves you confused. Each play has a simple single-page introduction with an illustration and helps develop any historical background (ie, how old was Euripides when he made this particular play, was Greece starting a new military campaign that he was scorning with this play, etc). Other collections of Euripides plays focus solely on his tragedies, however this work is a mix of plays that end tragically or happily.

Euripides follows the common pattern of the Greek dramatists in picking a familiar myth or epic and either re-tells a portion of it or re-casts its characters into an original story. These dramatists are then able to inject perspective and raw emotion into what would otherwise be a fairly obscure bard's hymn, and Euripides in particular is quite skilled at finding story where one might not expect to find it. In the story of Iphigenia he is able to develop motive for Agamemnon's choice that make the audience empathize with him though those familiar with the back-story, if told, would have found it utterly impossible to do so. Similarly, in the stories of the Women of Troy, Andromache, and Iphigenia at Taurians, some fairly mundane setting is made fairly interesting with a few interesting dramatic tricks.

I had a mixed feeling overall on the quality of these plays, some being mediocre, a couple being outstanding, and one in particular I felt was a sheer masterpiece. Ion, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Hippolytus all showed the height of Euripides situational "cleverness", and Alcestis was an unexpectedly moving display of romantic attachment between a husband and wife (something atypical for Greek culture from what I've read so far). That play in particular was very quotable, full of poetic exclamations of a man's love for his wife and on how short and sweet life is. One element of the story caught my attention, when Heracles - after rescuing Alcestis from death and back to the world of the living - is asked by the husband why she cannot speak, is told that her consecration to the powers below takes three days to pass, and she can be heard again.

The gem of this book though was The Bacchae, which is the story of Dionysus homecoming to Greece and marvelously depicts the conflict between man's intolerant fear of the irrational and uninhibited against his instinct and attempt to lose himself in ecstatic passion. Euripides draws on a Homeric theme in the Gods appearing in disguise and being overlooked or abused by the foolish, and on arriving in Greece, Dionysus finds himself an unrecognized, unacknowledged, and unwelcome guest by the city's stubborn king. The king embodies man's resistance to the passions, to any slight hint of inner effeminacy, and his unflinching iron grip on tradition. Though given numerous opportunities by Dionysus to change, he refuses and finds himself a tragic victim of the great god's power. Unlike some of Euripides plays that get by on sheer cleverness, this story has much more to it. At times it is sheer hilarity, at others tragically moving, but always it shows a keen awareness of human psychology symbolized in myth and story. It's even hard not see a precursor (and possibly heavy influence on) the gospel writings about Jesus that followed five centuries later.

Euripides strength is that he is clever, and he creates a drama where characters follow an inevitable logical unfolding of actions enforced on them by the rules of the particular story. His characters aren't superbly developed, his endings usually seem rough, he's no poet, and he often lacks the strength to emotionally move the reader the way Sophocles does. In Euripides plays, the logic of the story and the pattern it is to follow seems to be the central focus, and its characters are simply the tools he uses to communicate his thoughts. Euripides is able to make a good drama by sculpting an interesting story and possesses great insight on the human psyche.

This edition contains ten of the nineteen surviving plays & fragments by Euripides, all of which are his best tragedies (and one comedy). I'm aware that the translator for my edition, Paul Roche, has written in his own guesses and inventions to fill in the gaps where missing lines appear, but since I'm reading this alongside another edition of Euripides' complete plays for comparison, I won't be taking that into account and instead will review the plays themselves.

My ratings for each individual play go like this:

Alcestis = 3 stars.
Hyppolitus = 4 stars.
Ion = 3 stars.
Electra = 5 stars.
Iphigenia in Aulis = 4 stars.
Iphigenia amongst the Taurians = 3 stars.
Medea = 4 stars.
The Bacchae = 3 stars.
The Trojan Women = 5 stars.
Cyclops = 3 stars.

So five of the plays got 3 stars, three got 4 stars, and only two got 5 stars. I didn't like Euripides as much as I had believed I would from the plays I'd known before, and it had to do mainly with his style, but also with two things besides:
a. his propensity to abuse the Deus ex machina resource; for all that he likes to chalk up disgraces and bad outcomes to human foibles and human emotions instead of the gods, he is too fond of having the gods drop out of nowhere to "solve" the messes in the last scene. He's not the only one, of course, it's a feature of Greek drama; but because he advocates for human accountability, his too frequent resorting to the gods is contradictory and lessens his arguments for personal responsibility. At least, with the others that also use this technique, there's symmetry in having the gods own up to what they've led humans to do.

b. He's not always consistent thematically or with characterisation, especially when he deviates from the most accepted version of a story or invents new elements. The plays Electra and Medea, Trojan Women and Andromache, and the Iphigenia duology are perfect examples. More on that below.

ELECTRA and TROJAN WOMEN
My favourite plays, as you can see by the rating, were Electra and Trojan Women. I admire Euripides' guts in producing an anti-war tragedy in the middle of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was rushing headlong towards disaster, and I admire the Athenians for their tolerance and not having good old Euripides thrown to the dogs for it. At least Aristophanes' anti-war comedy could be excused on grounds of being a silly romp (with a very serious message), but Trojan Women doesn't make any effort to hide its seriousness, nor its poignant message on what war does to people on both sides, especially to women and children of the vanquished side, raped, starved, and sold as slaves. And the victor's side aren't unaffected either, with huge scores of old men and old women left childless and unattended at home, as well as helpless widows and orphans.

I also liked this rendition of Hecuba's tragic end instead of her being transformed into a she-dog to howl for her lost city and children, because of how dignified and regal she is while she receives blow after blow in each scene. Same for Andromache. As for Helen... heh, Euripides makes no secret of his loathing for the Spartan queen, in every single play that touches on the Trojan War or people involved in it he makes sure everyone's reminded of just how rotten she is. In this play, Helen tries to escape just punishment by arguing it's not her fault she eloped with Paris, but Priam's fault for not killing the infant, and then Aphrodite for promising her as a prize, that she tried to escape Troy, etc. The rebuke she gets from Hecuba and Menelaus is worth reading.

As for Electra's story. My opinion isn't exactly mainstream, as far as I can see, but I believe she had more reasons for wanting her mother dead than Clytemnestra had for murdering Agamemnon. I know the mainstream interpretation focuses on her love for her father (she had Freud name the Electra Complex after her for this very reason) and then rush to point out how undeserving Agamemnon is of this love for all he's done. To me, that's too narrow, and misses key points. Because, once it's seen through Electra's experiences, by putting oneself in her shoes and looking at it from her side, it makes sense. Let's see:

1. When Agamemnon left for Troy, Electra was a little girl. At this point, Agamemnon had done none of the things his wife argued for his murder, and by every account, even if he had done terrible things to Clytemnestra's former husband, he was a good father to his girls and was loved by them all, by Iphigenia in particular, his favourite. So, there was no reason for Electra to think poorly of her father, and that idealised image of him from her childhood had to persist.

2. The sacrifice of Iphigenia, the reason Clytemnestra has for killing her husband, isn't in The Iliad (surprise!). The legend is in other works, and has two outcomes, one in which the girl effectively dies on the altar, and another that has her surviving. Euripides chose the "she survived" version (and incurred into inconsistencies I'll comment on later), and Clytemnestra knows of it. What's more, Iphigenia herself begs her mother not to hate her father for this, since the sacrifice is god-ordained and not of his own devising and it's for the good of Greece (She'll change her tune in another play, another inconsistency). Electra seems to be aware of the sacrifice and the reasons for it happening, but I didn't see anywhere it's said she knows Iphigenia's destiny.

3. Cassandra is no reason to affect his daughters' opinion of Agamemnon. She's a prisoner of war, a slave, and as such can't choose what is done with her; it's a common practice of the time period and wouldn't reflect on someone's character to possess such captives. It'd be different if it were a free person in an affair with a married person, as is the case for Clytemnestra's lover.

4. After the murder, Clytemnestra allowed her lover, Aegisthus, to usurp the throne. Thus allowing her adulterous love to steal her children's inheritance. Electra was made to work like a slave in Aeschylus and Sophocles' plays, and is married off to a pauperised peasant in Euripides' play. In other words, her mother allowed her children to be robbed of their possessions and allowed her daughter to be enslaved. How's that for hating Clytemnestra?

5. Similarly, Clytemnestra allowed her lover to persecute and try to kill her son, Orestes. Why else would there be a need for the baby to be snatched from the palace and sent abroad to save his life? In some versions, it was Electra who saved her brother, in Euripides' it was the boy's tutor. So, if Clytemnestra allows her children to be dispossessed, allows a murder attempt on her son, and allows the mistreatment, enslavement and humiliating marriage of her daughter, all that gives the lie to her supposed maternal love and her vaunted maternal love for Iphigenia being the reason to kill her husband. It's just an excuse.

As you see, I do think Electra wasn't crazy. Yes, Agamemnon is still a questionable fellow, to say the least, but there's his image for his children and there's his image for his wife, and in this case, his daughter would be judging from what is done to her and her brother. Her mother was the Devil she knew, up close and personal, doing harm to her at home. Her absent father could live in her idealised remembrances; she doesn't have the omniscient view of an outside observer.

IPHIGENIA IN AULIS and IPHIGENIA AMONGST THE TAURIANS
It's interesting to see a couple Biblical parallels with these two plays, namely the Genesis story of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, to test his loyalty and faith; and upon obeying the command, a ram appears in Isaac's stead. Then there's the Judges story of Israelite leader Jephthah promising God that in exchange for victory he'd give up the first thing that'd come to greet him on his return home, and voilà, his only daughter comes to greet him.

Similarly, King Agamemnon foolishly promised the goddess Artemis his most precious and most loved possession, and then is told by a seer it has to be his favourite daughter. He balks at the suggestion, calling it monstrous, but his brother and the troops strong-arm him into accepting the sacrifice. employing a rather cruel ruse to lure his daughter and wife to Aulis for the sacrifice. He's found out, and quarrels ensue with his recalcitrant wife and weepy daughter. Only Achilles agrees to champion Iphigenia and save her from the sacrifice, though he later participates in the rituals on the altar, so I'd not be awarding him brownie points so quickly. Finally, Agamemnon is saved from carrying out this sacrifice by Artemis whisking the girl off and leaving a hind in her stead.

I have a problem with this version. A big problem: inconsistency. If Euripides chose this version instead of the one that has Iphigenia dying like Aeschylus and Sophocles did, how in the name of Hades is he going to make sense with the argument of his Electra play, where he has Clytemnestra saying explicitly that she hates her husband for what he did to Iphigenia? And it's not like she doesn't know, because in this very play she is told and is relieved that Iphigenia was saved even if she's disappeared. What's more, her daughter told her not to do what she eventually did. In any case, it takes away gravitas and negates the pathos of the motive for Agamemnon's murder.

Not to mention there's again the irritating Deus ex machina where it's not needed!

Then there's the continuation, Iphigenia amongst the Taurians, which to me is not only a mediocre play but also even more inconsistent than the former. For a start, Iphigenia's character has the stability of a yo-yo. Can you guess what she's doing amongst the Taurians? Hint: Artemis. Another hint: human sacrifice.

That's so. Sweet Iphigenia, who cried, begged, and eventually gave a grand oh-so-noble speech about sacrificing herself for the good of Hellas and living forever in legend, is a priestess for Artemis and performs human sacrifices. Sure, she justifies herself with that it's not she who is doing the sacrifices, she merely cleans and consecrates the human victims, so it's all right. What? But that's exactly what Agamemnon did, he wasn't going to execute her on the altar by his own hand, a priest would, yet she hates her dad with a passion now. What happened to noble feelings, forgiveness, and giving one's life for Hellas?

And it's only Greeks who are sacrificed, not the locals. She justifies this with her having come close to being victimised herself, so it's all right they're sacrificed. But the moment a couple of shipwrecked Greeks arrive to Tauris, she goes from I hate all Greeks, hate them so much, my dad especially to Hooray! Take me back home to Hellas, brother, I wanna go home.

I'm not inclined to believe Euripides was playing with irony here. He's done irony and paradox in other plays, and better than this. It's just poor characterisation.

HIPPOLYTUS and MEDEA
The first of these plays shows what Euripides can do with ironic plot twists. The story is about Theseus' bastard son, Hippolytus, an extremely handsome youngster that kindles the insane passion of his stepmother, Phaedra. Problem is, Hyppolytus must be the first asexual male in Western literature, because he has absolutely zero interest in coupling with women. And no, it's not because he prefers men instead. It's because he really, really doesn't have any interest of a sexual or romantic nature, and he's dedicated his chastity to a goddess.

And since this is Greek drama and you can't have people approaching unrequited love with a mature attitude (what would we be reading if so?), Phaedra wastes away pining for Hot Stepson. Her nurse tries to "cure" her by suggesting to Hippolytus that he reciprocate. Talk about stupid ideas. Hippolytus chews her out, not only because he has no sexual interest but because the woman is suggesting he betray his father by shagging his wife. Phaedra learns of the betrayal of his confidante, and hangs herself in fear that Theseus will find out. But not before she writes a suicide note in which she lies that her stepson tried to rape her. See? False accusations of rape are as old as time.

I liked the play for the plot, not for the characters, which aren't likable. There's other versions of the story, all of which make Theseus the biggest fool and the most unjust, and in which Phaedra is more malicious than she is here. Euripides has "softened" it by making her more a weak and rather foolish girl than a vindictive harpy, and it works well enough, for the outcome is the same.

Medea is another play that shows how to weave a great story with horrible people in the leading role. Medea and Jason "deserve each other," as the saying goes, and it's a pity that the innocent are the only real victims.

I am not sure I suscribe to the interpretation that this is about the mistreatment of women in marriage, because if that was Euripides' intention, then he blew his case up to the stratosphere by choosing Medea as his mouthpiece, and by introducing what's believed his own invention: the killing of her sons by her own hand. For a start, Medea is no simple downtrodden girl married off against her will to some old dodderer, and has no choice but to obey him, keep the house, and pop out babies. She's a powerful witch, daughter of a god, and chose Jason of her own volition. Nobody forced her to elope with him. Nobody married her to him because of an arrangement by her parents. She chose, regardless of the excuse that it was Hera who told Aphrodite to make her fall in love with Jason (an excuse Euripides himself mocked in another play).

So, poster gal for feminine oppression, Medea isn't. In the Argonautica, she is painted as a very unstable woman, prone to violent mood swings, so violent she prefers to commit suicide because she can't handle her "love" for Jason, wishes he'd never come to her island, wishes him dead and herself dead, etc. In such a very manic and unstable woman, it's no wonder her "love" would be a pathological obsession. And Jason is no innocent, either, because he used her for getting the Golden Fleece, promised her marriage, and went on with the promise even after witnessing with his own eyes the revolting crimes Medea was capable of for "love" of him.

I mean, "the things I do for love" sounds nice and all. But if there's more red flags in your relationship than in a Soviet Union victory parade, then what right do you have to be surprised that your beloved turned out to stab you in the back? Accountability is something Euripides isn't doing well here. You should own up to making a bad choice of mate, and not victimise yourself because the liar and cheater you slept with (fully knowing he was a liar and cheater) left you pregnant and washed his hands of you. Then there's the fact that Jason wasn't even cheating on her, he chose to cast her aside to make a more advantageous political marriage, something common for ruling classes throughout history, and her reaction is . . . to kill the innocent Glauke, who unlike Medea is coming to this marriage because it's arranged and not of her free choice. How's that for injustice?

Killing her sons is just more of the same. And a bigger injustice. Euripides chooses to make her not pay for her crimes but conveniently flee for refuge to Athens. At least in the versions where she isn't responsible for the deaths of her sons or of Glauke there's a point to her seeking refuge, and seeing herself as a victim makes more sense. But not in this play. She's simply not right in the head, never was, and the husband she took for herself worsened her insane behaviour.

I had to read five of these plays for my Greek and Roman Mythology Class, and being me, I decided to finish this collection. I really, really enjoyed these plays, and I'm surprised some of them (like Ion or The Bacchae) aren't more popular nowadays. I would love to read more retellings or movie versions of them.

Alcestis - 3 stars

I read this third in my class, after The Bacchae and Hippolytus. It's much funnier - or at least, ironic and exaggerated - than those. Heracles is funny, he's such a dude bro in it.

Hippolytus - 3 stars

Tragic, but none of the characters were 'good.' Phaedra couldn't control her emotions (though was it her fault, or Aphrodites'?), the nurse was a meddler, Hippolytus was largely innocent but hated love like an edgy middle schooler, and the father was impulsive and hot headed.

Ion - 4 stars

This play explores structures of power and how they silence victims, especially victims of sexual violence. There's a line where Ion (I believe) says, "There cannot be an Oracle against the god of oracles" - if Apollo is the one committing the crime and also the one revealing crimes through his oracles, then, of course, the crime will never be revealed. Why is this play not more popular nowadays?? I can't believe there are no movie adaptations or novelizations about this play.

Electra - 3.5

Aw, I feel bad for her. She's left with nothing but hate and bitterness, and doesn't want to accept that her mother may be similarly powerless. It's interesting reading this before reading "Iphigenia at Aulis," because as a reader, I'm uncovering Clytemnestra's side of the story only once she speaks. I feel like Electra would have been happiest staying with her friend, the peasant man, and moving on that way.

Iphigenia at Aulis - 3 stars

Poor Iphigenia. This really shows Clytemnestra's side of the story that's hinted at in "Electra" (although she was happily married to Tantalus...).

Iphigenia Among the Taurians - 3 stars

This takes place after "Iphigenia at Aulis" and "Electra," although I'm not sure how concerned Euripides was with making them direct sequels and being sure the details all lined up. I liked the other two better, but I'm glad the family gets a bit of a happy ending.

Medea - 4 stars

My reactions as reading:
- Why do I feel so bad for a woman who wants to kill her kids??
- Oh shit. The death of the father and daughter is... rough.
- She lives??
It's very... feminist overall, but like, not condoning her actions. It really shows how she's driven to desperation.

The Bacchae - 4 stars

This was so creepy. I'd never understood Dionysus before (I blame Percy Jackson for that), but see now why The Secret History can be so creepy when using a bacchanal. The threat of Dionysus there in disguise while Pentheus trashes him, the madness at the end... I really want to see a well-done horror movie based on this.

The Trojan Women - 3 stars

This play is pretty sad. All the women are powerless, and none of the other characters are sympathetic towards them. They're like "We need to kill your kid just get over it." My professor was saying that a group of refugee women put on this play recently, and that would have been a super powerful performance to see. I will say when reading it, though, I felt like there was a lot more of the translator's notes or decisions put into the stage directions that wasn't necessarily there in the text, which wasn't my favorite.

The Cyclops - 2 stars

This is the only satyr play in the collection. I'm def more of a fan of the tragedies.