Euripides

Peter Burian

The Helen of this play never goes to Troy, but is carried to Egypt, where she remains during and after the Trojan War, waiting faithfully for her husband Menelaus to rescue her. Meanwhile, Helen of Troy - a mere phantom fashioned by the gods - has blighted the real Helen's life with undeserved hatred, since she cannot escape blame for destruction and death in which she had no part, or rather a part in name only. In Euripides' hands this premise suggests a world in which nothing is precisely what it seems. Helen plays with the confusion of appearance and reality in ways that are by turns amusing and disturbing, playful and full of serious quandaries. Whether understood as tragedy or (as some critics prefer) something more like philosophical divertissement or romantic comedy, Helen has increasingly been recognized as an intellectually challenging and emotionally satisfying dramatic masterpiece.

Helen

Colin Leach

James Michie

Transcending the literal bounds of genre, Euripides' Helen has been characterized as both a comedy and a tragedy. In this evocative translation by James Michie and Colin Leach, Euripides' delicate balance--in all its subtlety of texture and tone--is beautifully captured. The reader encounters myriad reversals, worlds--real/ideal, tragic/comic--surprisingly juxtaposed and, as in any story of Helen, the pathos of the impossible, all allowing Euripides to comment of the futility of war and the difficult distinction between appearance and reality.

Gemma Langella

Medea

Rebecca Moraglia

A man, when he is vexed by those at home,

goes out to ease the disquiet in his heart.

And they say of us that we're never at risk,

sheltered at home, while they fight with spears.

How wrong they are: I'd rather three times over

stand behind a shield than give birth once.

Bacchae

The gods gaze down on us from their huge height and know that cleverness is not wisdom, that overreaching mortals simply shorten their lives. Life is brief enough as it is, so hold it all to hand. Wild ambition is a kind of madness: Stretch too hard for the summit and you will fail and fall and plummet back to land. (Lines 391-402)

Euripides I contains the plays “Alcestis,” translated by Richmond Lattimore; “Medea,” translated by Oliver Taplin; “The Children of Heracles,” translated by Mark Griffith; and “Hippolytus,” translated by David Grene. Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century. In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays. In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.

Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heracles, Hippolytus

Euripides I

Samuel Barnes

Read until you are demented / your great thick books whose substance is as smoke.

Once again, Euripides single-handedly trying to salvage women's rep in ancient Greece. 

Bakkhai

Alba Ramos

the bakkhai are so im just a girl coded, gossiping? sure, laying on the grass drinking wine all day? even better, dismembering men who try to assault them? do you even have to ask?

Kendall McClain

I like Medea more, though this was super ironic and funny. This in play form would be so good so I can see why mr Euripides won!!

Hunty

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

Anushka Saha

Bloody, gruesome. Loved the unbridled feminine rage and revenge vibes. A good book to accompany you when you're going absolutely feral alone in your room.

Anne Carson

Anne Carson writes, "Euripides was a playwright of the fifth century BC who reinvented Greek tragedy, setting it on a path that leads straight to reality TV. His plays broke all the rules, upended convention and outraged conservative critics. The Bakkhai is his most subversive play, telling the story of a man who cannot admit he would rather live in the skin of a woman, and a god who seems to combine all sexualities into a single ruinous demand for adoration. Dionysos is the god of intoxication. Once you fall under his influence, there is no telling where you will end up."

The Bakkhai

Pentheus asking himself, the audience, a god whether he's posing correctly with his dress in front of the mirror is not an image I thought I'd be crying myself to sleep to tonight.  

anarh

Michael Collier

Georgia Machemer

Euripides was one of the most popular and controversial of all the Greek tragedians, and his plays are marked by an independence of thought, ingenious dramatic devices, and a subtle variety of register and mood. Medea, is an excellent example of the prominence and complexity that Euripides gave to female characters. This new translation does full justice to the lyricism of Euripides original work, while a new introduction provides a guide to the play, complete with interesting details about the traditions and social issues that influenced Euripides's world.

Fran Lewis

olivia musick

3.75/5

a fantastic translation but the introduction was a bit much

World premiere of a new version of Euripides’ classic Medea. Plays in London as part of the Almeida’s Greek Season. Medea’s marriage is breaking up. And so is everything else. Testing the limits of revenge and liberty, Euripides’ seminal play cuts to the heart of gender politics and asks what it means to be a woman and a wife. One of world drama's most infamous characters is brought to controversial new life by Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold (The Merchant of Venice, King Charles III, American Psycho) and award-winning writer Rachel Cusk (Outline, Aftermath).

eden

Charlotte J. Ruth

A 3 might be a little low, but after all the hell I went through in English class, I no longer like this play. My original rating would be around a 3.5

Antonia Folch

the moment agave realized what she had done........ and her being the last to know.......

dana

euripides said fuck men! let women murder and get revenge and be insane!

Alaia

“That Death will come, with his casual, careless hand, and knock them off the world. Yet we persist — in search of love, or heirs, or some brief brilliant proof that we exist — and the fruit of all this anxious love is grief.”

Move aside, William. Euripides is where it’s AT.

4.5 stars.

Samantha Bass

I read this play for my History of Theatre class and I didn’t hate it but it didn’t stand out to me. Sorry Euripides!

Nikki Sojkowski

*i did not read this exact translation, but this story by Euripides

Medea was great. Her Rhesis where she tears in Jason and discusses the plights of all women was amazing and I was living for her revenge.

This edition of Euripides' Hecuba was first published in 1946 and is suitable for late school and early university students. The introduction covers the development of tragedy, the ancient Greek theatre, play production, the differences between ancient and modern tragedy, Euripides' life, works and reputation, and finally the Hecuba itself. The Greek text is accompanied by extensive notes and a vocabulary.

Euripides: Hecuba

*i did not read this exact translation, but this story by Euripides

Richard Rutherford

Translated by John Davie with an Introduction and Notes by Richard Rutherford.

Medea and Other Plays

Nikki Fowler 

I've only read Medea no other stories from this book, because that's all we had to read for my English Class. 
Also Medea you are one extreme lady

Gabriela Roxana 

A feminist play in a mysoginistic society it's a miracle in itself.

The Bacchae

Euripides,

If there's a God, which at the moment I DOUBT, I want you to curse him. If there's any justice, I want them - both of them - in a car crash. Her husband's gone and her future isn't bright. Imprisoned in her marital home, Medea can't work, can't sleep and increasingly can't cope. While her child plays, she plots her revenge. This startlingly modern version of Euripides' classic tragedy explores the private fury bubbling under public behaviour and how in today's world a mother, fuelled by anger at her husband's infidelity, might be driven to commit the worst possible crime. The production is written and directed by one of the UK's most exciting and in-demand writers, Mike Bartlett, who has received critical acclaim for his plays including Earthquakes in London; Cock (Olivier Award), a new stage version of Chariots of Fire, and Love Love Love. This programme text coincides with a run at the Headlong Theatre in London from the 27th of September to the 1st of December 2012.

Helen

Reviews

Highlights