Great plays! All very riveting with their action and messed-up characters. Medea is psycho.

This is the edition with prose translations by Moses Hadas and John McLean. I read five of the ten plays: Alcestis, Medea, Trojan Women, Electra and The Bacchants.

These tragic plays by Euripides (~400 BC) are less well-known than those by the elder Sophocles, or his contemporary Aristophanes. However he was supposedly a favorite of Socrates (as well as by George Bernard Shaw in much later times). Some memorable lines from his plays: "You are not satisfied with what you have; it takes absence to make your heart grow fonder." (Hippolytus); "You follow your whims without a second thought; this is wicked. One can no longer blame men for imitating the splendid conduct of the gods; blame those who set us the example." (Ion); and lastly, "But wealth does nothing more than keep you company for a short time. Character, not money, is the stable thing. For character abides forever, and banishes evil. But wealth is unjust and keeps company with boors, and it flits out of the house when it has bloomed for a short while." (Electra).

Ok, didn't read all ten, just Madea and Bacchae, the famous ones. Maybe I'll read the others someday.

But duuuuuude. Paul Roche. Translator guy. SHUT. THE FUCK. UP. I don't want to read your stupid stage directions that aren't in the original. I don't want to read your damn footnotes about how John Keats knew his Euripides! What joy! I SERIOUSLY don't need you adding entire passages and choral odes just because they're missing in the manuscript but there must have been some there. I came here for Euripides, not your bullshit.

Fun plays but ruined by a buttmunch translator intruding all over the place.

Nice to have so many plays together; clear and readable.

This book contributed to my supreme dickery first and foremost because it's probably what made me say, "You know what...I think I'll give this playwriting racket a try." It also helped that Euripides was kind of a dick himself. There's something very modern, particularly in this translation, about Euripides. At the time it was a rule that tragedy was to show men as they should be, the best of men and comedy should show the worst. Euripides made Theseus a dumbass in  Hippolytus, and Jason is similarly stupid and on top of that sniveling and petulant in  Medea. It was often the women that steal the show in his plays. They're so emotionally complex that it's hard to tell if Euripedes was a misogynist or a proto-feminist.

For igniting my interest in playwriting and my obsession with crazy, rage-filled bitches that also could very probably kick your ass, Euripides takes a place of honor in forming my dickery.

I only read Hippolytus, but I thought it was a beautiful translation and not too difficult to read. The fact that the footnotes were often in Greek did not help me that much.

Ten Plays Euripides, translated by Moses Hadas and John Mclean, gives a solidly satisfying experience of the works of the Greek playwright. Euripides is often considered the least significant of the three great tragedians of Athens in the 5th century BC, behind Aeschylus and Sophocles, and of the time that was undoubtedly true he did not win as much praise. However there happens to be more surviving plays from Euripides than there are from other two combined (17 compared to 14). This book has the translations of ten of the seventeen.

I have never read Euripides before this, so I can’t compare this to another translation. It is an interesting one, more concerned with accuracy to what was stated than of trying to emulate Greek poetic meter (as for Instance Electra and other Plays, which was my first foray into the ancient Greek theater, was more going for). The more notable tragedies include "Electra", "Medea", and the posthumous completed "Iphigenia at Aulis". Among the standouts for me of the Euripides’ works are "Ion", "Alcestis", and "Electra" (though I prefer the Sophocles version of the last).

My personal favorite of them all is "The Trojan Women". It takes place the field of Troy just after the epic war’s conclusion, the city burnt down and many legends having been killed on both sides. Survivors of the conquered city, set to be slaves or concubines for the Greeks, are led off by the men to the ships to be taken away forever from their land. Among these captives are the widows of the late King Priam and Hector—Hecuba and Cassandra—and also Helen, wife of Menelaus, the woman whose going to Troy was the catalyst of the war. Though this was written by a Greek for Greeks, the sympathy is primarily with the Trojans who suffer, grieve, and in one notable case go mad from emotional hardship, while the Greeks sort of come off as pompous victors. But at its heart it is a set of entertaining and emotional interactions, occasionally grisly and disturbing as these tragedies tend to be (though this isn’t the most depressing story of the bunch) in the conflicts dealing with great moral issues about what a war’s aftermath, the relationship of conqueror and conquered, should be.

Overall if you want a first foray into Euripides this should be a good read. If you’re looking for something that tries to emulate the style of the original dramas, then you might be a little disappointed, but it’s an interesting read none-the-less. There were one or two of the tragedies that were a bit of a slog, but most of them quite engaged me for their duration.

lent itself surprisingly well to transatlantic travel

This translation is very easy to read. Roche uses some modernish slang that I think captures some of the comedic parts in the plays well.

ALCESTIS: Admetus's love for his wife is sweet, but Pheres is so real for that rant. Heracles is very...convenient. Idk why but Heracles gives big himbo energy.

HIPPOLYTUS: Hippolytus: raging misogynist, diehard virgin, honorable bastard. He got one of the worst endings just for existing. Sure he spurns love or whatever but like. It's not really his fault. He's basically just asexual. Aphrodite is honestly the most evil goddess. She's like, "Well why should I care that Hippolytus likes Artemis more than me? I'm still gonna punish him though." And then he dies horribly.

ION: Cute! Athena shows up out of nowhere...conveniently. Hermes does the intro and then doesn't show up again. Apollo is just looming in the background the whole time. Ion is as slow as Oedipus in figuring things out despite the obvious and eerily "coincidental" story he hears.

ELECTRA: I think I love Orestes. Also this ends bitterly but Iphigenia Among the Taurians leaves us with a happier ending for these characters.

IPHIGENIA AT AULIS: It's great but the deus ex machina at the end is also particularly noticeable in this one. I guess Euripides didn't write that ending.

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS: I love this one. It's cute. Everyone in here is sweet and everything works out in the end. Iphigenia and Orestes and Pylades are all so lovable.

MEDEA: Medea is terribly brutal. Jason deserved it. The kids did not. And Creon finally meets his end!! I feel like the only winner in this play is Aegeus. I was waiting for something bad to happen to him lol, for him to mess up the prophecy.

THE BACCHAE: Shockingly grisly, though this is about Dionysus, after all.

THE TROJAN WOMEN: Devastating portrayal of the aftermath of war and a complex discussion of the cause of it that seems to indicate a change from Euripides' opinions expressed in the earlier Helen.

THE CYCLOPS: Funny. I wonder what "gang-bang fuck" is in Ancient Greek.

Reading it for class. I'm running short on time, so I'm faced with having to SparkNote half of it...But...yeah...