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The Complete Greek Tragedies: Euripides

euripides david grene richmond lattimore

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The Grene and Lattimore edition of the Greek tragedies has been among the most widely acclaimed and successful publications of the University of Chicago Press. On the occasion of the Centennial of the University of Chicago and its Press, we take pleasure in reissuing this complete work in a handsome four-volume slipcased edition as well as in redesigned versions of the familiar paperbacks.
For the Centennial Edition two of the original translations have been replaced. In the original publication David Grene translated only one of the three Theban plays, "Oedipus the King." Now he has added his own translations of the remaining two, "Oedipus at Colonus" and "Antigone," thus bringing a new unity of tone and style to this group. Grene has also revised his earlier translation of "Prometheus Bound" and rendered some of the former prose sections in verse. These new translations replace the originals included in the paperback volumes "Sophocles I" (which contains all three Theban plays), "Aeschylus II, Greek Tragedies, Volume I, "and "Greek Tragedies, Volume III," all of which are now being published in second editions.
All other volumes contain the translations of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides for the most part from the original versions first published in the 1940s and 1950s. These translations have been the choice of generations of teachers and students, selling in the past forty years over three million copies.

672 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1,1992

This edition

Format
672 pages, Hardcover
Published
August 1, 1992 by University of Chicago Press
ISBN
9780226307664
ASIN
0226307662
Language
English

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euripides

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Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

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Rating(3.8 / 5.0, 11 votes)
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LisaMarie12314
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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To my mind, Euripides isn't quite on the level of Aeschylus or Sophocles, but that is a very high standard to match. Euripides typically did not follow the classic three-act format for tragedy, and sometimes ended his plays with a happy or pat ending which seems both contrary to tenor of the play and anticlimactic. Still, the plays contain much to be admired. Alcestis agreeing to die for her husband when he would not accept his fate, the vicious anger of the witch Medea at being cast aside by Jason, the struggle of the elderly Iolaus to save Heracles' family in The Heracleidae, the broad humor and underlying intelligence of Cyclops (not really a tragedy but what scholars call a "satyr play"), Helen, possibly the first play in history to follow the format of the modern romantic comedy, The Trojan Women, which is accessible to modern audiences via a film starring Katherine Hepburn and a host of others - there is no shortage of drama and innovation in Euripides.
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tembrook
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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This book made me think about the true importance of romantic love. Medea fell inlove with a man because she was the victim of the arrow of Eros. She would have never even looked at him in the first place if she hadn't been under this spell. However, she did so many things for that love, she killed a lot of people, sacrified her own kids for that man, and in the end it was all futile because the man only sought his own good and dismised her as if she were trash. Sometimes we fall inlove, madly inlove, and do unthinkable things for that love. But what if it is just a false love, such as that of Medea, that was caused by a godess and her son. What if we only are under a spell, maby the hormone spell, and those things that we see as the great objects of love are mere illusions. We need to be very careful when we are going to do things or give up things for these emotions. That can be very tricky. From Hippolytus: Euripides is different from Sophocles and Aeschylus. He has a lot of gods to appear as characters in his plays. To Euripides, gods are vengeful, petty and cruel.
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overlordcrouton
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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Interesting reads, liked them.
I had status updates about the 8 plays I've read. My favourites are Andromaché, Helene, The Trojan Women and Hecuba. I hated Iphigenia in Tauris.
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TheBiscuitMan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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So happy I was able to finish this collection this year!

Ion --> reminded me of The Sibyl by Par Lagerkvist, and made me want to re-read that book.
Rhesus --> the first half is pretty hysterical. The conversation between Aeneas and Hector is 10/10. The scenes with Odysseus and Diomedes are so much fun. Buuuut... It quickly became boring at the end, but maybe that's just me?
The Suppliant Women --> I enjoyed. It's not one of my favourites, but I liked it.
Orestes --> Gods, I loved this play. I love crazy Orestes and mad Electra though. The deus ex machina> would annoy many modern readers, but I've read enough Aristophanes to be used to it in a Greek play.
Iphigenia at Aulis --> Super inspiring for the Menelaus story I've been working on.
Electra --> I wanted to like this. I did. Especially because it's one of like three plays that's actually written by a woman. But I did not. I found it boring and emotionally I just was. not. invested. And I found most of the plot unbelievable, which is saying something since there is a lot of belief suspension involved in Greek tragedy that I usually don't have a problem with.
The Phoenician Women --> I liked this more than I expected (and it's also translated by a lady!) but it's probably not one of my favs.
The Bacchae --> I read this every year for the Liberalia. Ugh. I love reading it outloud. This year I read the voices as Scottish, English, and Southern and it was So Much Fun.
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Asuna_10
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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can't believe the alexandrian librarians robbed us of more god-given satyr plays
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lethargilistic
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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Alcestis **** – What a strange story. Admetus knows he’s going to die (it’s never explained how or why) but Apollo has enabled him to find someone to die in his place. His mother and father refuse, but his wife, Alcestis, agrees. She is rescued from Death by Heracles, and everyone is happy. But really? How does one live with someone who (almost) willingly died for you? How does one face one’s parents after their refusal? How does Admetus look himself in the mirror? The play ends with this strange dissonance beneath the happy denouement. It’s made more odd and tantalizing by Alcestis’ temporary inability to speak at the end after returning from death. There’s an excellent speech by Heracles about the capriciousness of life around line 781. Quite moving. (06/18)


Medea **** -- This is a very good telling of “a woman scorned” and the resulting fiery wrath. Euripides paints an interesting picture of Jason as obsessed with profit, wealth and status – so obsessed he’s willing to throw aside his family to grab it. It’s not something Euripides builds on a lot (probably because the focus is so much on Medea), but it is an interesting to consider how Jason is portrayed in other works that could lead to this ending.

Medea, though, is magnificent. Treated disgracefully and shamefully, she rises to a white hot rage that destroys everything around her. Yet she lives on at the end.

I love these lines by the Nurse:

“It is right, I think, to consider
Both stupid and lacking in foresight
Those poets of old who wrote songs
For revels and dinners and banquets,
Pleasant sounds for men living at ease;
But none of them all has discovered
How to put an end with their singing
Or musical instruments grief,
Bitter grief, from which death and disaster
Cheat the hopes of a house. Yet how good
If music could cure men of this!” (lines 190-200) (06/18)


The Cyclops ***** – This is an irreverent and bawdy take on the Odysseus’ battle with the one-eyed monster, complete with phallus-wearing satyrs. (How much of the stage directions are from the original plays, and how much from the editors? I never know that.) It’s a very entertaining play with much that a modern audience would enjoy. I could easily see something like this performed today at a “fringe” theater show. (05/13)


Heracles***** – This is a bitter take on the world and on the gods. In a series of three reversals, Heracles’ life is ruined, and his only comfort – his only refuge -- is in the hands of his fellow men. The gods, capricious, cold and enigmatic, only complicate human life and cause more misery. No one can depend on them. This University of Chicago translation is beautifully done. (05/13)


Electra *** – Euripides offers his interpretation of this Atreus family tragedy. There is a realism to this telling that Sophocles or Aeschylus lack. Electra is married to a commoner, and he is the most compelling and honorable character in the play. The maudlin, incessant complaining from Sophocles is missing.
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