Reviews

Medea by Euripides

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meghaha's review against another edition

5.0

After having read Medea, I'm going to go ahead and say that Euripides is now my favorite playwright of all time. Perhaps I'm being overhasty with this judgement, since I'm not at all well-read with regard to plays, and out of the triad of most-renowned Greek tragedians, I haven't read any Sophocles yet. Still, it feels right to pronounce it now. I don't remember being so won over by Aeschylus' Oresteia when I read it (though maybe it was partly due to the translation or my mindset back then). The fact remains though, that I've never been so captivated by a play as I have been reading Euripides' The Bacchae and now, Medea .

The translation I read of Medea is by Phillip Vellacott. Vellacott's translation seemed much better than several other versions I previewed the first few pages of, though I would just term his translation as decent, not inspired. Especially when I think about Lattimore's translation of The Bacchae, because his version possessed a thrilling sensitivity to Euripides' lyricism and beats that I glimpsed only occasionally, as through a silk veil of time and translation, in Vellacott's Medusa.

Once again I couldn't help but be enthralled by the searing intensity of Euripedes' tragedy; the blood-thirst, thorough revenge, and array of murders. Medea--the same woman who killed and then cut her brother into tiny pieces so she and Jason could outpace her father in a ship-chase, aka the completely twisted character that shocked me so terribly, when as a mere kiddo, I first read a book of Greek Myths-- is back for her grand finale! Spoilers (ok but not really), her revenge plot includes killing the princess (Jason's new wife), the king of Corinth (Jason's new father-in-law), and most shockingly, her two sons by Jason. All because that idiot Jason has spurned her, embarrassed her, and now he's going to rue the day he ever thought he could get away with insulting her like this. I gotta say, Medea does revenge like no other. She'll murder everyone you love in a horribly painful and violent way, once you're on her bad side.

About here is where I'd put lines/stanzas I liked the most, but almost everything I highlighted last night on the pdf has disappeared, whoops.

Still, I did like the utter pessimism of this verse enough to remember where it was situated in the play. I'll leave you with this cheery pronouncement about life to chew over:

Happiness is a thing no man possesses. Fortune
May come now to one man, now to another, as
Prosperity increases; happiness never.

celhausske's review against another edition

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5.0

holy f*cking sh*t !!!!!

juller's review against another edition

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3.0

This was the first time I had read a classic Greek play. It was kind of neat to experience the chorus and the other traditional elements.
At first I felt a little bit sorry for Medea, even though she betrayed her family. Jason was such a condescending jerk. But then when she said she would kill her children as part of her plan for revenge...no more sympathy from me.