This is great drama with passion, gods, plot complications, and difficult family relationships. But what else would you expect from Euripides, whose dramas have lasted for thousands of years and have inspired great dramatists well into our current times.

This classic volume of four plays, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, includes Medea, Hippolytus, Alcestis, and The Children of Heracles. There are few dramas that demonstrate passion in the way that Medea does. When her husband Jason leaves her for adventure and other women Medea plots to exact a revenge that raises the question whether she is exacting justice or merely mad.

In Hippolytus it is the relationships among the characters that stood out for me amidst a complicated plot influenced by rivalry among the gods (Aphrodite and Artemis). The drama highlights the relationship between Hippolytus and his father Theseus, but also brings in to play the importance of the Nurse and her relationship with Phaedra. This is notable because Euripides, unlike his predecessor Aeschylus, included characters that were lower-class working people.

Throughout these plays the influence of the gods is important in determining the fate of the characters leading to questions about the nature of fate and destiny. Just as important are large questions about justice and honor as when Athens protects the children of Heracles when they seek asylum. This example also demonstrates how relevant these plays are to our life today and explains, in part, why they have been so influential over the centuries. We are indebted to Euripides for his examination of the nature of humanity with both its flaws and greatness. I would recommend these plays to all who want to understand what it means to be human.

This short Greek tragedy leaves me breathless and pained. Since the beginning we face the moral dilemma of Medea — the desire to bring avenge to Jason’s betrayal of oath and her children’s lives. Medea in an extreme situation, facing exile and homelessness without friend, has enormous pressure to make a decision. Medea, the alien in Corinth, has to be her own agency. The chorus in the play are as if the voice in the audience’s head, commenting on Medea’s decision, switching from sympathizing with Medea to appalled warning against her killing of her own children. Children, especially sons, are especially crucial to the Greeks as they claim heritage to the household. As important as sons to their fathers, the chorus makes a comment on how children could be burdens for women, which is quite a radical position at that age. But Medea, the “barbarian” in words of Jason and the Greeks, struggles against the moral expectation on women. (My heart bleed in grief as the reader even though I anticipated the ending.) In Greek mythology, there’s a inclination of sons killing father, yet fewer instance there is for infanticides. Euripides uses drama as a media to present with the unconventional and stretch the audience morality into an inquiry, and violence is what brings the audience close to the matter.
The ending closes with Medea in the gold chariots, unpunished, and even more glorified as if emancipated from her suffering. She breaks the chain upon moral conduct and yet has not received punishment. Where is the role of gods in this story? Zeus and the gods are often mentioned for praying justice, yet they seemed aloof. The chaos of the social morality attributes to the wars and social change in Euripides time.
I’m still trying to catch a breath and take a step back from the play that leaves me gasping for air. But that probably means Euripides did a great job. :-)

love vengeful, murderous women !

I love this dude, but the translation was meh. Yet it feels wrong to give Euripides a rating on good reads?

this was a book full of gossip, telenovelas be like

Euripides I: Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heracles, Hippolytus

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

I read this as part of the Online Great Books program. I found the five plays in this text to be quite accessible and quite interesting. The book has a glossary of names that is useful for keeping track of persons, places, and relationships.

What was fundamentally interesting to me was the fleshing out of Greek mythology. I know some of these myths up to the point where we assume "and they all lived happily ever after." Apparently, Greeks did not put much stock in happy endings and loved putting their protagonists into no win situations.

Take "Medea," for example. We knew that Medea fell in love with Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) and saved his bacon on numerous occasions. She cuts her ties with her family and homeland with extreme prejudice. She marries Jason and they have two sons.

So, does she get her happy ending? Not after Jason decides to marry the King's daughter and cut her and their sons off from his support. She naturally, but, perhaps, disproportionately, plots revenge against the king and Jason's new wife. When Jason proposes to take his sons to live with him because he loves them, Medea extends her revenge to include them, from which we get the term "Medean" for mothers who kill their children.

In Hippolytus, Aphrodite decides to get revenge on Theseus's son, Hippolytus, who favors Artemis, by stirring up passion in Theseus's wife, Hippolytus's step-mother, for Hippolytus. When her passion is rejected by Hyppolytus, in order to save herself from a disgrace that might result in her children being disinherited by Theseus, she kills herself in a way that frames Hippolytus. An enraged Theseus uses one of his three curses from his father, Poseidon, on his innocent son. After Hippolytus is killed, then and only then does Artemis share the truth with Theseus.

In Alcestis, King Admetus has been blessed by Appollo with the boon of putting off his death if, and only if, someone else is willing to take his place. Naturally, no one is willing to do this, except his wife, Alcestis, who recognizes that a dead King will mean that her children will be at risk.

Alcestis actually has what may pass for a happy ending in Greek theater as Heracles intervenes to manhandle Death into coughing up Alcestis for a happy if mysterious re-union with her louse of a husband. (She may not speak for three days....three days after her return from death!)

Finally, the Children of Heracles has a lot of drama and its own questionable happy ending. After Heracles is taken to heaven, his children are left defenseless against King Eurystheus, who fears that they will seek revenge against him for his tormenting their father. The children and their guardian, Iolaus, seek refuge in Athens. Athenians being good and noble, and where the plays were staged, agree, but the wrinkle is that a virgin sacrifice is required, which one daughter of Heracles nobly agrees to provide. There is a battle. Eurystheus is captured, and despite an agreement to spare him, Heracles's wife is delighted to obtain revenge against Eurystheus, proving that his insight about the wisdom of ending the line of Heracles was accurate all along.

There was a whole bunch here for ancient Greeks to chew over on long Greek nights. I can imagine them turning over and over the issues of fate, destiny, conflicting duties for which there is no answer, and the machinations of the gods who always seem to be somewhere behind these conundra.

dnf- i think im done w classics

I didn't know what I was getting into when I found this book, but it was surprisingly easy to read. Euripides has a very enjoyable way of telling his stories.

i love BETRAYAL and MURDER and TRAGEDY

i support all of medea’s rights and all of medea’s wrongs

Medea solos. Euripides is a feminist.

Euripides’ tight focus on just a handful of characters – part and parcel of Greek tragedies – and the way he jumps right into action and pathos is refreshing for someone like me whose reading of drama revolves mainly around the English Renaissance with its customary abundance of, well, everything, including mandatory comic subplots. None of that is present in these four plays. However, the first play, Alcestis, resonates interestingly with The Winter’s Tale. Medea deserves its titular role in the collection, a devastating account of a woman taking revenge on a man, which in some part resembles a 21st-century feminist literary trend in its moral ambiguity and shockingness. The Children of Heracles and Hippolytus were not quite as strong, but this is chiefly due to reading four plays back-to back, i.e. over-exposure.

The Goodreads listing has different plays listed, but this collection contains Medea, Hippolytus, Electra and Helen.

I spoke about Helen on TikTok and have woken up to comments about 'fixit fics' ever since, which is hilarious and has made me realise that Greek mythology and its retellings and remixes really scratches the same part of my brain that fanfic did when I partook. The more you know about yourself.