Books by Euripides

This translation of the play includes a commentary which deals with textual problems, and wherever possible the editor has sought to explain the text adopted before discussing the reasons for its adoption. There is also an analysis of the lyric metres, and a discussion of the play's subject matter.

Includes translations of: "Ion", "Children of Heracles", "The Madness of Heracles", "Iphigenia in Tauris", and "Orestes".

What man would murder his daughter to help a fleet get out to sea, or give his wife over to death in his stead? The tragedies in this Penn Greek Drama Series volume are filled with such dramatic conflicts.

Includes translations of "Hippolytus", "Suppliant Women", "Helen", "Electra", and "Cyclops".

The modern reader may have difficulty conceiving of Iphigeneia in Tauris as tragedy, for the term in our sense is associated with downfall, death, and disaster. But to the ancient Greeks, the use of heroic legend, the tragic diction and meters, and the tragic actors would have defined it as pure tragedy, the happy ending notwithstanding. While not one of his "deep" dramatic works, the play is Euripidean in many respects, above all in its recurrent theme ofescape, symbolized in the rescue of Iphigeneia by Artemis, to whom she was about to be sacrificed. Richmond LattimoreΓÇöwho has been called the dean of American translatorsΓÇöhas translated Iphigeneia in Tauris with skill and subtlety, revealing it as one of the most delicately written and beautifully contrived of the Euripidean "romances."

The story of a futile quest for knowledge, this ancient anti-war drama is one of the neglected plays within the corpus of Greek tragedy. Euripides'' shortest tragic work, Rhesos is unique in lacking a prologue, provoking some scholars to the conclusion that the beginning of the play has been lost. In this exciting translation, Rhesos is no longer treated as a derivative Euripidean work, but rather as the tightly-knit tragedy of knowledge it really is. A drama in which profound problems of fate and free will come alive, Rhesos is also an exploration of the perversion of values that come as the result of war. Charged with a striking immediacy, this play is contemporary in the questions it raises, and eternal in its quest for truth.

One of the shortest plays in Greek drama, The Children of Herakles offers enough action for two or three plays of normal length. But this very richness and complexity have made the play elusive, subject to dismissive readings, and extraordinarily difficult to translate; in consequence, it has suffered from neglect over the ages. This vibrant new translation makes clear that The Children of Herakles is actually a wonderfully well-crafted work ofart, a play offering a wealth of rewards to the modern reader. It is a play about war and the effects of war within the state. Herakles, the legendary hero cursed from birth, was never permitted a triumphant homecoming. Here, his descendants continue the effort to return home, seeking asylum from the persecution of the king who had imposed on Herakles the famous twelve labors. While it pursues concepts of deep moral grandeur, it ends with a denouement of astonishing physical and ethical brutality, and affords Euripides a severe comment on what hebelieved was the decline of the Athenian character.

Euripides' version of the Ancient Greek myth of revenge on a murdering parent. In the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Peter Burian and Brian Swann re-create Euripides' controversial play in a new translation accompanied by critical introductions, stage directions, a glossary of mythical Greek terms, and a commentary on difficult passages.

The first modern, full-length commentary of Hecuba suitable for classroom use, this edition also contains material directed to more advanced students and to scholars. It includes an introduction, appendix on lyric meters, bibliography, and index.

Electra

The Greek Tragedy in New Translations series is based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves, or who work in collaboration with poets, can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of the great Greek writers. These new translations are more than faithful to the original text, going beyond the literal meaning in order to evoke the poetic intensity and rich metaphorical texture of the Greek language. 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 a story of betrayal and vengeance. Medea, incensed that her husband Jason would leave her for another after the many sacrifices she has made for him, murders both his new bride and their own children in revenge. It 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.

Professor Diggle has examined all the manuscript evidence and offers many decipherments. He gives a text of the play and of the hypothesis, a commentary and appendices, and he discusses the treatment of the Phaethon myth in classical literature. He also attempts a reconstruction of the plot of the play.

This up-to-date edition makes Euripides' most famous and influential play accessible to students of Greek reading their first tragedy as well as to more advanced students. The introduction analyzes Medea as a revenge-plot, evaluates the strands of motivation that lead to her tragic insistence on killing her own children, and assesses the potential sympathy of a Greek audience for a character triply marked as other (barbarian, witch, woman). A unique feature of this book is the introduction to tragic language and style. The text, revised for this edition, is accompanied by an abbreviated critical apparatus. The commentary provides morphological and syntactic help for inexperienced students and more advanced observations on vocabulary, rhetoric, dramatic techniques, stage action, and details of interpretation, from the famous debate of Medea and Jason to the 'unmotivated' entrance of Aegeus and the controversial monologue of Medea.

Treating ancient plays as living drama.

This text is the second of three volumes of a prose translation, with introduction and notes, of Euripides' popular plays. The first three tragedies in this volume illustrate Euripides' dramatic range. "Rhesus", probably the work of another playwright, deals with an event in the Trojan war.

In "Herakles", Euripides reveals with subtlety and complexity the often brutal underpinnings of our social arrangements. The play depicts Herakles being driven mad by Hera, the wife of Zeus. Hera hates Herakles because he is one of Zeus' children born of adultery.

The work of these three Athenian playwrights became the touchstone for drama for the next two and a half thousand years. This volume contains the earliest surviving Greek tragedy, an archtype of the human condition, a jealous wife's mistake, a moral debate, an anti-war play and a play of paradoxes.

Text, Notes and Preface in Latin.

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the editorship of Herbert Golder and the late William Arrowsmith, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. Produced more frequently on the ancient stage than any other tragedy, Orestes retells with striking innovations the story of the young man who kills his mother to avenge her murder of his father. Though eventually exonerated, Orestes becomes a fugitive from the Furies (avenging spirits) of his mother's blood. On the brink of destruction, he is saved in the end by Apollo, who had commanded the matricide. Powerful and gripping, Orestes sweeps us along with a momentum that starting slowly, builds inevitably to one of the most spectacular climaxes in all Greek tragedy.

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding. Bacchae was first performed in Athens in 405 BC. At the whim of Dionysos, a son is torn to pieces by his own mother during the famous women-only Bacchanalian ritual. The story of revenge by the half-man half-god on Pentheus, King of Thebes, and all his people.

Written during the long battles with Sparta that were to ultimately destroy ancient Athens, these six plays by Euripides brilliantly utilize traditional legends to illustrate the futility of war. The Children of Heracles holds a mirror up to contemporary Athens, while Andromache considers the position of women in Greek wartime society. In The Suppliant Women, the difference between just and unjust battle is explored, while Phoenician Women describes the brutal rivalry of the sons of King Oedipus, and the compelling Orestes depicts guilt caused by vengeful murder. Finally, Iphigenia in Aulis, Euripides' last play, contemplates religious sacrifice and the insanity of war. Together, the plays offer a moral and political statement that is at once unique to the ancient world, and prophetically relevant to our own.

Including a comprehensive discussion of the play's background and an incisive assessment of its dramatic structure, this edition makes an outstanding contribution to Euripides scholarship.

Medea/Hecabe/Electra/HeraclesFour devastating Greek tragedies showing the powerful brought down by betrayal, jealousy, guilt and hatredThe first playwright to depict suffering without reference to the gods, Euripides made his characters speak in human terms and face the consequences of their actions. In Medea, a woman rejected by her lover takes hideous revenge by murdering the children they both love, and Hecabe depicts the former queen of Troy, driven mad by the prospect of her daughter's sacrifice to Achilles. Electra portrays a young woman planning to avenge the brutal death of her father at the hands of her mother, while in Heracles the hero seeks vengeance against the evil king who has caused bloodshed in his family.Translated with an Introduction by PHILIP VELLACOTT

One of the greatest playwrights of Ancient Greece, the works of Euripides (484-406 BC) were revolutionary in their depiction of tragic events caused by flawed humanity, and in their use of the gods as symbols of human nature. The three plays in this collection show his abilities as the sceptical questioner of his age. Alcestis, an early drama, tells the tale of a queen who offers her own life in exchange for that of her husband; cast as a tragedy, it contains passages of satire and comedy. The tragicomedy Iphigenia in Tauris melodramatically reunites the ill-fated children of Agamemnon, while the pure tragedy of Hippolytus shows the fatal impact of Phaedra's unreasoning passion for her chaste stepson. All three plays explore a deep gulf that separates man from woman, and all depict a world dominated by amoral forces beyond human control.

A translation of Euripides's Orestes by Peck, a poet, and Nisetich, a classicist, with introduction, glossary, and full stage directions.

One of Euripides' late plays, Ion is a complex enactment of mortals' attempts to understand the actions of the gods and their own conflicted natures. The play's beauty and violence, its lyrical delicacy and nearly tragic action, offer a compelling view of the human condition.