The introduction of the murder of Iphigenia allows for the blatant distruction of female characters that Homer consistently portrays to be fixed. Clytemnestra becomes an actual human being, no longer just one of the vessels to spite men of their living for something as ‘insignificant’ as bringing in his rape victim to their shared household. The multiple murders of Clymenstra’s kin by Agamemnon is the motivation we had all been waiting for, hatred nurtured throughout the years of war. Additionally, Odysseus being a leader of the advocation of Iphigenia only furthered to highlight the disingenuous nature of Homer’s ability to write women in anything beyond an object to focus the male rage upon. Therefore, f men. Euripides can be be spared if he so wishes.

what an engrossing set of plays.

phoenician women:

- was surprised by how much i enjoyed this. the tragedy of the house of oedipus has never been a favorite of mine, but i found the exploration being justice and self ambition to be engaging. interwoven with conversation over patriotism, or lack there of, and the divine show of fate adds depth to a plot concerning an attempted coup. is thebes just a place to rule or conquer? does family come before city? and what of the gods? are they just spectators or the perpetrators of this suffering?

orestes:

- orestes, electra, and pylades justify matricide using the power of friendship. (and thinly veiled homosexuality). this was my favorite of the collection due to the psychological journey we see overcome our main trio. the thought process (or descent into madness) from guilt and trying to reconcile with the murder of clytemnestra to pivoting to kill helen and kidnap her daughter as revenge for menelaus’ inaction towards orestes and electra’s executions was so engrossing to read. i cannot imagine how gripping this play would be on the stage. the exploration of the emphasis on friendship and upholding familial duty was intriguing displayed against this particular set of characters. in comparison to the orestia, i find the change of having the furies being an apparition of orestes' tormented conscious to be rather fascinating than having them appear as supernatural beings. it makes for orestes’ suffering at the beginning to come across as more vulnerable and human. as a reader, and even more so as an audience member, you empathize with him more, even despite knowing his crime and the grave consequences he has endowed not just on himself but on electra. anyways. menelaus is a BITCH. helen is rather grating. electra is conniving and witty and i love her. orestes? he’s a character. (i mean this is in a positive way) and pylades? the realest. i fucking LOVE this play.

the bacchae
so this play was the reason i bought this in the first place and that is due to my dear friend nietzsche and his writing on the birth of tragedy. i had been reading an article on the exploration of the dionysian self versus the apollonian ideal, thus finding myself in this rabbit hole. not to go without honorable mention is the secret history, my introduction to the frenzied fantastical world of bacchanals and the cult of dionysus. dionysus is a god that has always been special to me. (i have a replica of a coin with his face on it that i wear as a necklace). he speaks, or perhaps it is his fruit of vine, to the unrestrained primal spirit that is lurking beneath my skin. lets just say, if i was a woman in Ancient Greece, I’d be a maenad frolicking about during the dionysian mysteries. the bacchae is a tale exploring the nature of pluralities. male vs the feminine. logic vs irrationality. city vs nature. man vs god. it depicts the consequences of restricting the primal self in favor of the rigidity of human design. it shows the danger of suppressing the “feminine” in favor of masculine power. dionysus is wonderfully androgynous, striking the balance between repression and liberation. he is the voice and hand that guides us towards the elusive reality of ourselves that is hampered by reason. it is a tale of how human pride will always falter against the machinations of the unseen universe, displayed through the undermining of a man by a god’s fluctuating wrath. this was my second favorite. perhaps the most i have to say about any. i adore it. a stroke of brilliance.

iphigenia at aulis
this wrenched my heart out. parts faltered due to the questions of authorship. (some parts are clearly not crafted by euripides) but others, such as the speech by clytemnestra to agememnon had the most gorgeous writing in any of these plays. the question of honor is one not unfamiliar to those who have read homer, and euripides take is no less interesting. reading about agememnon’s moral turmoil over the sacrifice of his daughter was difficult and emotional. honor was such a crucial virtue to the greeks, so even if his plight seemed as if it had an obvious outcome, the modern reader can try and understand his positioning. he is a distressed man, burdened not just by the weight of appeasing his fatherly instincts and love but also the entirety of the Greek army. on top of having to satisfy the goddess artemis. the conflict between the brothers atreus is riveting and the whole play is rife with foreshadowing. perhaps or perhaps not it was meant to be tongue in cheek to the audience, but i enjoyed highlighting dialogue lines with the double meaning eluding towards the bloodied future. (achilles’ and clytemnestra’s deaths especially.) the anger of agememnon having to kill his own daughter just to rescue his brother’s wife, whom nobody seems to even particularly like was palpable from all parties, further adding dimensions of complexity to an already morally nebulous situation. just wow. the trojan war is not about the godlike men who search for glory and honor on the battlefield, but about the women that started it, and as seen in the iliad with the mourning of hector, the women who finish it.

rhesus

wowwww easily the worst one and saved only by the fact it is a retelling of one my favorite parts of the Iliad. (when the greeks’ favorite duo steals trojan horses and kills a king). i love odysseus. i love diomedes. i love it when they are together wrecking shit up for the Trojans. the prose and verses was inferior compared to the others, which makes sense considering that it is most likely this wasn’t written by euripides at all. i loved how much the trojans were obsessing over how intelligent and cunning and strong my man odysseus is. like there is a whole paragraph where they are inadvertently spouting pro odysseus propaganda and i for one am here for it. #odysseusisthebestgreekhero

Ion
This is the first Greek play I read

what if we kissed at the bacchanalia…haha jk…unless…

I read Bacchae out of this book, not the entire book. I am going to see the play performed, and I had never read it before. I have never seen a classical Greek play performed either, so it will be interesting to see it. I liked Orestes better than this play.
Dionysus comes to Thebes to gather worshippers. The women go frolic in the glades. Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and Tiresias, a blind prophet, also go along, so as not to offend the new god. Cadmus' grandson, Pentheus, is the king of Thebes and decides to fight this new god and stop the women from following him. It's a tragedy, so you can imagine ( or read ) the rest.

Phoenician Women: 3.7*
Orestes 4*
The Bacchae 4.2*
Iphigenia at Aulis 4.5*
Rhesus 2*

What a wild ride. "The Bacchae" is one of Euripides most famous plays, as it examines the brutal revenge of Dionysus onto his family. It looks at very interesting sociological elements, but also very important political ones. While it is clearly meant to be a lesson on divine worship, it can be applied to many modern instances.

Dionysus is a very interesting character in this story. He takes many forms, and is often depicted as a divinely beautiful being regardless of his appearance. Through his disguise, he works his magic of trickery and revenge. By completely deceiving his cousin Pentheus, he is able to trick him and eventually lead him to his brutal death at the hands of his own mother; who is blissfully unaware of her own actions. Although the play is extremely unforgiving at most times, it comes with many important lessons that were relevant to the era it was written in. Such as don't disrespect a God, or they will have your mother brutally rip you to pieces, and then her sisters will play catch with chunks of your flesh.

I thoroughly enjoyed Pentheus's character even though I was often wanting to bang my book against the table and yell at him for being so resistant to the one thing that could save him. He is definitely not a morally sound character, but his flaws and characteristics make him very enjoyable to read. After his talks with the disguised Dionysus, we see a new side of him. Before, he was a rigid King who was dead set on abolishing all belief of Dionysus from Thebes. But, curiosity got hold of him and dragged him to his doom. I found him to be incredibly voyeuristic, as he took an immense amount of pleasure in watching the bacchants indulge in bliss, wine, and well... orgies. But this indulgence was what brought him to his downfall, "curiosity killed the cat"-ed him if you must.

The ending of this tragedy was nothing short of a tragedy, and was filled with such raw emotion from Agave and Cadmus as they recognized the weight of their actions through dealing with this new God. Agave was completely ruined when she came to realize that she had brutally murdered and dismembered her only son, destroying her family's lineage. Cadmus was unable to live with the weight of disgrace his family, specifically his daughters had brought him, and swore himself into exile to escape it all.

All well being gruesome and just crazy, this play was extremely enjoyable and I would happily read it again!

“Gods should be exempt from human passions,” says Cadmus, but such is not the case for Dionysus in one of the goriest Greek tragedies. Dionysus seeks revenge on Cadmus’s grandson Pentheus, a Theban king who has tried to quash the Bacchus cult in Thebes. Dionysus seduces Pentheus into witnessing a Bacchanalian orgy, where he is torn to pieces by the revelers, including his own mother.

Bill bought me this book before we went and saw Alan Cumming in the play so I would be familiar with the story. At first I found it very strange. I don’t know much about ancient Greece, picking up references here and there. Years ago in high school I took a mythology class (which was mainly Greek and Roman) and attempted the Odyssey and the Iliad. I read the play before we saw it, and I think I enjoyed it more for knowing the story and being able to recognise certain lines of dialogue. It helped me visualise the purpose of the chorus better for the rest of the plays in the book. It also seemed to be one of the most self contained stories, the others seemed to be very much snippets of life from within a greater story, the closest similarity I could find for this was the Three Kingdoms stories, where bits of the greater tale were played out individually against a great war. There were two things that really struck me about the book. The first was the myth of “the history of western civilisation”. They seemed like such a strange and foreign civilisation to me. It was strange to see how very warlike they were, the debates about proper roles in society, the fear of the army, and the ultimate supremacy of the gods. Very, very different to anything I read before. The other thing that struck me was how very human the tragedies and the feelings of the characters were. I remember as a child reading about the man who had to sacrifice his daughter because she was the first thing he saw when he came home, and thinking how terrible and petty that was. I think it was always explained away as “well that’s just what happened in cultures where there was sacrifice”. But I think Euripides showed this was clearly not the case. In Ipegenia he portrayed the father as terrified and conflicted and doomed, a man who feared for the life of his family, who had no other choice. In this play it was not the gods who were the most dangerous, but the army who demanded what the profit said. It was interesting to see the characters in the play completely de-mystifying the Trojan War. The men did not wish to go, they did not wish to fight for what they considered a worthless woman, and they definitely didn’t want to sacrifice a good woman for the sake of a bad one. A theme that came up time and time again seemed to be about gender relations, the men acted because they wanted to remind women of their place, and couldn’t let the ones who acted out get away with it as then all women would start acting that way. It was interesting to see how fragile the men thought their position was, and what great lengths they went to reinforce it. I think the Bacchae was my favourite of the plays (and not just because of Alan Cumming’s nudity). There seem to be two interpretations of the story, the danger of what happens when you let your women run wild, and the danger of what happens when you repress them. It was good to see a god so pivotal to the story, taking his place and acting among the humans. There was so much going on in the play, so many different ideas about religion, drinking and women, (my three favourite topics) that it was easy to see why it has been such a favourite for so long. I read it first and afterwards the other plays didn’t seem quite so good. The fact that the gods only intervened at the end to save the day and put things right seemed a bit contrived. But I did enjoy most of the other plays. Orestes I liked, partially because of being reminded of Sandman, but also because of the very human drama (or melodrama) of it. I enjoyed the debates within it. It also had a terribly dramatic ending with Oresetes threatening to burn down the city and kill everyone. Iphigenia at Aulis I mentioned earlier and I felt was the most human of the stories. I even almost felt sorry for Achilles in it. There he was the greatest hero of the age, and he wasn’t able to save the girl from the will of the army. Phoenician Women has some rather memorable moments, though according to the preface my favourite moment of the girl watching the army from the roof may actually not have been written by Euripides, but it was the story I was least familiar with and so was more confusing. Rhesus I found TERRIBLY dull. I quickly skimmed to the end. It was the only story without female characters, and their seemed to be no human drama; rather there was just a retelling of an event in the Trojan War. After I’d just about given up I went back to read the introduction for it, which said that many scholars were unsure if it was his work as it was of a much lower quality, or they thought perhaps it was just an earlier work. Either way I was glad to see that my opinion of it wasn’t the only one. It was nice and a little bit strange to read something where I wasn’t concerned with the notes or the textual origins. Not worrying quite so much about which parts were the author and which were later editions was rather strange but freeing. It was an interesting read, once I got over the culture and stylistic differences it was really interesting to see the human drama play out, which is undoubtedly why it has been so popular for so long. I do not find Ancient Greece nearly as interesting as China but it is good to visit every now and then, and if I can find more good translations, I will probably read some more at some point.

possibly fave tragedy i’ve read so far ???

I read The Bacchae in this translation after reading Anne Carson's translation of that play. Vellacott's translation is more complete, and therefore fuller and somewhat richer. The introduction in this book is also excellent.

Carson's translation ("Bakkhai") is inventive, modern, and has a stronger and more powerful voice. Vellocott's, in contrast, gives you a deeper picture of the conflict between Pentheus and Dionysus, and its ironies. It's also generally more lyrical. Added bonus: The Chorus' odes are written in rhyming iambic pentameter, which makes them really fun.

I would read a more traditional translation like Vellacott's first, then read Carson for a fun re-interpretation.

In the end, though, the message of both versions is the same: Don't have that fifth negroni!

I reeeeeeally liked it!!! Seriously, greek tragicans were the ancient drama queens.
It's also really funny, how basically anything and erverything modern movies books or whatever make a subject of discussion, was already thematized in greek tragedies.

Sibling rivalry resulting into them killing each other? Check.
Son gone mad by killing the mother so he ends up conspiring with his sister and best friend in taking the wife and daughter of the uncle, who refuses to help him from being killed/driven into exile, hostage? Check. (That was a really long and shitty summarizing, I'm sorry)
A dude helping his enemy (who is his enemy, because he refuses to acknowledge the dude being a god) dress up as a woman, so he can get his enemies mum to kill her own son? Check. (ALSO really shitty summarizing)
A dad offering his daughter as sacrifice because he feels an obligation to bring back his little (dick) bros wife back home? Check.
Intrigues and spionage in combination with a conspiring bitch resulting in killing a big ass boss (lol)? Check.

Summarizing all the plays made me realise how INSANE Euripides plots sound and I LOVE IT. I mean, why would you read Thrillers or watch horror movies when you can just enjoy one of his plays? I can promise you, you will see no plot twist coming (well maybe bit, 'cause his plays mostly have a similair structure and climax). But seriously, if you think about it, the guy lived about 500 b.c. and we still adore his writing nowadays? THE POWER.

I earnestly recommend reading this to anyone who is interested in greek mythology, murder, suicide, human sacrifices, incest, mudering your own family or other nice things..
It took me a while to get trough this but I never got bored and I learned a lot (with the help of the notes at the end of the texts, they are great!!!).
So my boy Euripides, even approximately 2500 years later, I can tell, you are still game.