“You gave birth to your own slaughter.”

Nu m-a încântat așa de mult.


"BĂTRÎNUL: Copilul meu, norocul ți-e potrivnic: tu n-ai nici un prieten. E rar prilejul de-a găsi pe cineva care să-mpartă nu doar binele cu noi, ci, la nevoie, răul."

"ELEKTRA: Acestea toate sînt nimic, nu-s ale noastre decît pentru scurtă vreme. Doar caracterul este trainic, bogăția nu. Doar caracterul pururi dăinuie și biruie nenorocirile. Belșugul, dacă e nedrept și-n mîinile unor mișei, își ia din case zborul; numai cîteva clipe strălucește."

they were rlly just out here committing matricide and then saying oopsie time to atone

I like that they go on a whole monologue of explaining themselves and the other dude will just go mmmmm nah

This might be my favorite play by Euripides. It reaches Aeschylus levels of gravity with its beautiful language; the dark elegies of Electra are at the level of Sophocles; yet the play is pure Euripides. If the gods do exist then they are absent and any interaction with humanity is full of spite. I don’t know how serious to take the Dioscuri’s claim that Helen never went to Troy -- that Zeus sent a hologram of her just to cause so much death -- but that shit blew my mind!

Euripides continues his “campaign against Apollo” that is for sure, but here the god doesn’t even make an appearance, his oracles are said to be lies, April Fool’s jokes that made two children murder their mother. Any satisfaction from the revenge wrought on their father’s murderers is rendered useless as the Furies make their appearance off-stage and only at the very end.

What a contrast to the Oresteia’s pacifying ending. At the end of The Eumenides the blazing mind of Orestes, a son given a curse from the Lord of Fate to kill his mother, is ultimately cooled when he goes to Athens to stand trial. Here, however, his fate in court will literally be determined by a roll of the dice. He’s at the mercy of the brutal Apollo, God of Sevens. Euripides' use of the House of Atreus myth here, the inversion and subversion of the elements of revenge, his portrayal of the ugliness of justice and the eloquent commentary on the insignificance of wealth next to man’s character; all of these attributes make this play in my eyes a masterpiece.

این تراژدی ماجرای الکترا و برادرش (اورستس) است که انتقام قتل پدر خود (آگاممنون) را از مادرشان (کلوتایمنسترا) می گیرند
سه نمایشنامه نویس مطرح یونان یعنی اوریپید، آیسخولوس و سوفوکل، یکی از نمایشنامه های خود را به طور کامل به الکترا اختصاص داده اند

« Vous ne pouviez agir sinon ensemble.
Vous n’avez qu’un destin.
Une malediction unique vous a tous deux broyés. »

این کتاب شروع خوانش من از اسطوره‌ها بود و در حدی جذابیت‌هایی داشت که داستان‌های بعدی رو هم بخونم

یه مقدار ترجمه ش سخت بود ولی عجب تراژدی قوی ای بود

▪︎ خوندن یه فانتزی ۷۷۷ صفحه‌ای به خدا که برای من آسون تر از خوندن نمایش‌نامه کلاسیک ۷۷ صفحه‌ایه!

Jaka epoka, taka "Sukcesja".

Tragedy of weakness

An uneventful drama that is carried by its writing, at least in the Raeburn translation.

You may find a fascinating case study in artistic approach when you compare the Libation Bearers of Aeschylus and the Electra plays of Sophocles and Euripides. The three great Greek tragedians all wrote a play about the same story: Orestes’s and Electra’s revenge on their mother Clytemnestra for the murder of their father Agamemnon. The format and general outline is the same in all three plays; yet the effect is unique to the playwright.
tt
Aeschylus’s play is resonant with mythical symbolism. This is exemplified in the recognition scene between Electra and Orestes: Electra recognizes Orestes from a lock of hair he leaves on Agamemnon’s tomb. It seems unlikely to us that a person would be able to recognize a long-lost relative from a single lock of hair; but leaving hair on a tomb was a ritualistic act, only performed by people close to the deceased—such as a son. Aeschylus’s worldview is also fundamentally irrational. Orestes is duty-bound to punish his mother; yet doing so invokes the punishment of the Furies, who pursue him for his evil deed. Somehow, the killing of Clytemnestra is simultaneously good and evil, honorable and shameful, in the eyes of the gods.
tt
Euripides’s version can be seen as the rational and realistic version of Aeschylus’s play. Euripides invites this reading himself, when he parodies the recognition scene between Electra and Orestes: the suggestion that Electra could recognize her brother from a single strand of hair makes her laugh with contempt. Additionally, in Euripides, as in Aeschylus, the killing of Clytemnestra is morally ambiguous; but this ambiguity results not from the will of the gods, but from the emotional complexity of the characters.
tt
Sophocles’s version differs from both Aeschylus's and Euripides's in matter and form. For one, the particulars of the plot are all different. But the most striking difference is Sophocles’s treatment of morality. In his play, the killing of Clytemnestra is triumphant, glorious. It evokes neither pity from the characters nor the wrath of the gods. It seems that Sophocles had a more clear-cut conception of right and wrong; this, in fact, is what makes his portrayal of Antigone so compelling—she is noble and right, and her enemies are ignoble and wrong.

I really have no conclusion to draw from this discussion, other than the obvious: there isn’t just one way to produce great art.