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(A review only for this edition)
Although I am giving this a four stars, that is only because of how much I like Euripides' plays, and this has two of his best (Electra and Trojan Women if you're wondering), but the translation here is the definition of mediocre.
Euripides is not as lofty as Aeschylus, and thus I won't hold the translator to it for not translating it as verse; I concede that a prose dialogue translation of Euripides might be good. However, not only is the dialogue all prose, so are the songs themselves. The "beautiful poetry" of the songs, as the intro itself calls it, is thus reduced to exhausting and sheer walls of text that go on and on with no preoccupation for meter or even ease on the eyes since there wasn't even an attempt into making compelling poetry out of it.
Likewise the dialogue and songs both are... dull, for the most part, in wanting the Euripidean dialogue to feel "natural", it only turns it banal; in turning the songs to be prose, it removes their fundamental nature as sung laments, and turns them into long and rambling monologues done by multiple people.
I still give it four stars because, well, it's still Euripides - but I'd recommend you look for other translations, frankly.
Although I am giving this a four stars, that is only because of how much I like Euripides' plays, and this has two of his best (Electra and Trojan Women if you're wondering), but the translation here is the definition of mediocre.
Euripides is not as lofty as Aeschylus, and thus I won't hold the translator to it for not translating it as verse; I concede that a prose dialogue translation of Euripides might be good. However, not only is the dialogue all prose, so are the songs themselves. The "beautiful poetry" of the songs, as the intro itself calls it, is thus reduced to exhausting and sheer walls of text that go on and on with no preoccupation for meter or even ease on the eyes since there wasn't even an attempt into making compelling poetry out of it.
Likewise the dialogue and songs both are... dull, for the most part, in wanting the Euripidean dialogue to feel "natural", it only turns it banal; in turning the songs to be prose, it removes their fundamental nature as sung laments, and turns them into long and rambling monologues done by multiple people.
I still give it four stars because, well, it's still Euripides - but I'd recommend you look for other translations, frankly.