4 stars

This one took me a bit longer to read and it might have been a little boring at times but overall I liked it. Ever since learning about Iphigenia's fate in school, I want to learn more and Orestea hasn't given it to me. This book did. I liked reading about her and especially about her relationship with Clytamneistra. It is sweet to see that even in the Ancient Greece parents valued and loved their children so much.

helen isn’t a slut :(

Even at the end of his life, Euripides was great tragedian. I really enjoyed this one.
Like with Creon's son in Phoenican Women there's issue of killing your child because it is necessary in order for your army to suceed.

But unlike Phoenican Women, here it's not only one episode in play but central issue that is discussed through whole play. Discussed from many sides. I think that description of Agamemnon's inner strugle was extraordinary well-writte. And even though there is so many affected characters, Euripides described well all of them. There is lot of great argumenatation, great monoloques inviting into minds of characters, thrilling dialoques were issu is discussed and despite the fact than it's whole long play about one question (to sacrifice or to not sacrifice her) one is never bored and whole play seems really action-packed.

In his final (posthumously produced) play Euripides shows all skills he get during his productive live. For me it's one of the greatest masterpieces of greek tragedy.

I worry that it is a reflection on my middlebrow approach to literature that this was one of my favorite plays (and if I were left to my own devices I would rate it above Oedipus Rex). It feels very contemporary: the plot mostly advances through dialog, there are a number of twists and turns, the chorus plays a minimal role, there is no deus ex machina, and relatively minimal intrusions of exposition. In other ways it feels very much like a Greek tragedy as characters wrestle with moral dilemmas that (tautologically) have no good answers.

This is the 14th Greek play I've read set in the world of the Trojan War (I didn't set out to read all of them, it was more of a binge read where one led to another, and at this point only Rhesus is left so I might as well read this). Plus I've read the Iliad, Odyssey, other fictional treatments, and more. And this is the very first time that Agamemnon seemed sympathetic and interesting, instead of various combinations of arrogant, stubborn and aloof. Iphigenia at Aulis begins with his second thoughts about sacrificing his daughter and what is ultimately a ham-handed effort to stop it. He then argues with his brother Menelaus and you can feel for his balancing of an absolutely horrific act with his broader responsibility (and self interest). Menelaus is also more human than he is elsewhere, eventually persuaded by his brother that his niece shouldn't be sacrificed.

The drama really is an action-oriented one, even a melodrama. Clytemnestra shows up having believed the ruse that Iphigenia is going to be married to Achilles, she is excited about it after Achilles is described to him (which itself is fascinating since she didn't previously know him so he is described to the reader from scratch). Achilles himself is among the less interesting characters, much less interesting than the rage character that dominates the Iliad, instead he feels young, inexperienced, and his impulse to defend Iphigenia feels laudable but also naive and possibly more about his vanity than morality.

The least satisfying part was Iphigenia's abrupt and unexplained conversion to the accepting saintly victim who accepts her own sacrifice without trying to use Achilles to escape from it. She even tells her mother not to blame her father, which evidently didn't work out that well.

It's possible that this play does not repay repeated readings in the way that so many of the others do, I've only read it once so I'll tell you when I read it again in a decade or so. But for a first read it was a real page turner, made me think, and I don't think I'll forget the way these characters grapple with their fates or maybe their choices.

n  IFIGÉNIA: ver esta luz do dia é o que há de mais doce;
e debaixo da terra é o nada; é louco quem anseia morrer.
Melhor é viver mal que bem morrer.n

— Mito
Ifigénia foi sacrificada, em prol da GUERRA, pelo pai, Agamémnon, para que bons ventos levassem os barcos de Áulide para Tróia.

— Realidade
Carlos Alberto Pais de Almeida, aluno distinto de Filologia Clássica da Faculdade de Letras de Coimbra, no ano lectivo 1968-1969, estudou, traduziu e comentou esta peça como tese de licenciatura. Não a chegou a apresentar porque foi chamado ao serviço militar, morrendo, na GUERRA, em Moçambique.


[Mark Rothko, Sacrifice of Iphigenia, (1942)]

Agamemnon is just a silly, undecided teenage girlypop

This is a very weak play, much like his Orestes and Helen. It may well be that the original play is by now more or less lost by the countless additions and incisions made over the years, but the general structure and weak ending is I think too similar a pattern throughout his later work to be dismissed as entirely non-Euripidean. Euripidies' Clytemnestra is a pale, drab corpse compared to the fiery dominatrix that reigns in Aeschylus. More and more, he seems to me a bit of a one-hit-wonder; none of his other plays, excepting Medea perhaps, approach the zenith of the Bacchae, and remain actually very far below it.

banger

Honestly svo skemmtilegt plot, mjög áhugaverðar heimspekilegar pælingar og djúpstæðar persónur eeeeen full langt. Allavegna miðað við öll hin.

One cannot fight the will of the gods. Ultimately they will win. This is an important lesson for Greeks citizenry from plebians to patricians. The gods require allegiance even as they make no promises to be kind to the citizenry. In this spirit, Euripides wrote/started this play for public celebration and remembrance.

Reading this play, I can see the long arm of influence this play had on Shakespeare when writing the history plays, particularly Henry V where a strong king serves the good of the commonwealth and where sometimes a young woman must be sacrificed. Menelaus is swapped and altered as Henry V while Iphigenia is swapped and altered as Joan la Pucelle. . . .possibly. . . .

None of mortals is prosperous or happy to the last, for none was ever born to a painless life.

Written between 408 and 406 BC, the play revolves around Agamemnon's decision to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis in order to be able to set sail and fight against Troy.

Iphigenia will forever hold the title of the most tragic Greek character, and Euripides' new ending cannot change my mind. This would have been a five, it could have so easily been a five, if he hadn't turned it into an Agamemnon apologist play. He managed to write Iphigenia's innocence so well, her youthful naivety that makes her death that much sadder, but then he decides that Iphigenia sacrifices herself willingly, for the greater good, and turns Agamemnon into a good guy. It also makes absolutely no sense to me why Chalcas would think that Artemis, the patron goddess of maidens, would want the Greeks to sacrifice a maiden in her name. I do think it is like the goddess to save Iphigenia, however I do feel it minimizes the effect of the tragedy.