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A review by sydsnot71
Medea and Other Plays by Euripides
3.0
Euripedes wrote more than 100 plays. Only 17 of them survive. This volume contains Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Hercules and Hippolytus. Medea is probably the best known of the four. Hence it gets top billing in the title. It is the best of the four plays too I think. It is as dark as you'd expect based on the subject matter.
There is a good general introduction by Richard Rutherford and a short introduction to each play, which - with the notes - really helps contextualise what you are reading. It also helps identifies missing text and issues of comprehension. The past, as a writer whose name escapes me, is like a foreign country. They do things differently there.
Women - bad women - are often at the centre of Euripedes' plays. It was noted even near his time. Aristophanes takes the piss out of him for his hostility to women. Hippolytus gets a long speech railing against women that ends:
"I curse you all! Never will I have my fill of hating women, even though they say I never cease to speak of them. Do they ever cease from sinning? Let someone teach them to control their desires or leave me to trample them underfoot for ever!"
Which makes Hippolytus sound like a prototype incel.
However, the men in these plays are mostly proud, belligerent and - in Jason's case particularly - utter pricks. I mean Medea's response to Jason is utterly mad but Jason has run off with a younger woman, demands Medea leave their children with him and wants her banished from the city. Whether those crimes deserve the punishment Medea meats out to him is moot. Hippolytus is a prig, Theseus curses his son in a moment of rage and doesn't bother to check facts and Phaedra's 'love' for Hippolytus is triggered by a goddess with a grudge. There are victims of the Gods everywhere. Sometimes they hubristically bring it on themselves. But sometimes the punishments don't seem to fit the crime. Greek Gods are sensitive sorts who will bear a grudge.
These were an interesting read. I'd say Medea and Hippolytus are essential reading. Both as plays themselves and as long term influences on drama. Hippolytus begat Racine's Phaedra, which is a play often mentioned in Proust's "In Search of Lost Time."
See, it's all one book.
Glad I read them. I'd really like to see Medea live now.
There is a good general introduction by Richard Rutherford and a short introduction to each play, which - with the notes - really helps contextualise what you are reading. It also helps identifies missing text and issues of comprehension. The past, as a writer whose name escapes me, is like a foreign country. They do things differently there.
Women - bad women - are often at the centre of Euripedes' plays. It was noted even near his time. Aristophanes takes the piss out of him for his hostility to women. Hippolytus gets a long speech railing against women that ends:
"I curse you all! Never will I have my fill of hating women, even though they say I never cease to speak of them. Do they ever cease from sinning? Let someone teach them to control their desires or leave me to trample them underfoot for ever!"
Which makes Hippolytus sound like a prototype incel.
However, the men in these plays are mostly proud, belligerent and - in Jason's case particularly - utter pricks. I mean Medea's response to Jason is utterly mad but Jason has run off with a younger woman, demands Medea leave their children with him and wants her banished from the city. Whether those crimes deserve the punishment Medea meats out to him is moot. Hippolytus is a prig, Theseus curses his son in a moment of rage and doesn't bother to check facts and Phaedra's 'love' for Hippolytus is triggered by a goddess with a grudge. There are victims of the Gods everywhere. Sometimes they hubristically bring it on themselves. But sometimes the punishments don't seem to fit the crime. Greek Gods are sensitive sorts who will bear a grudge.
These were an interesting read. I'd say Medea and Hippolytus are essential reading. Both as plays themselves and as long term influences on drama. Hippolytus begat Racine's Phaedra, which is a play often mentioned in Proust's "In Search of Lost Time."
See, it's all one book.
Glad I read them. I'd really like to see Medea live now.