Customer Reviews

Euripides V: Electra, The Phoenician Women, The Bacchae (The Complete Greek Tragedies) (Vol 5) (Vol 7)

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The three plays presented in "Euripides V" are all important works: Electra, The Phoenician Women, and The Bacchae.

The editors are David Grene (who translated and provided the Introduction to "The History" by Herodotus) and Richmond Lattimore. Both are well reputed scholars of the classics. Before each play, they provide useful context and critical evaluations of the work. Emily Townsend Vermeule provides a competent translation.

The works stand or fall on the basis of the original quality of the plays and the competence of the translation. As such, each of the plays is worthwhile. The editors do a nice job of providing critical analysis (note some of the comparisons between Sophocles and Euripides).

In the end, this is a useful version of the three plays and a nice entree to the work of one of the great Greek tragedians. The work closes with a nice chronology of the plays of Euripides. In the final analysis, well done.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this volume. It's the last of Euripides', perhaps, I thought, the place to stick all the plays that no one will ever get to. However, the 'Bacchae' was an especially enjoyable read, a great way to end my reading of Greek tragedy.

As usual, this volume presents excellent translations, but lacks proper footnotes to explain passing mythological references to the reader.

After reading the introduction to this series, I expected something much more fractured than what I encountered on the page; however, I found Euripides' style in this work to be very coherent. After reading Aeschylus, I noticed the aesthetic jump that Euripides had taken via the psychological subtext inherent in his characters. Whereas reading Aeschylus felt flat (although I enjoyed "Agamemnon"); there was too much exposition in Aeschylus; too much that did not expedite the forward motion of his plays. Whereas with Euripides, one is transported directly into the action that is happening in the present moment of the play, by means of the narrative, as well as the dialogue. Also noteworthy is Euripides' technique of having the characters exchange one-liners in dialogue. Although I immediately connected to all of the dramas in this edition, "The Bacchae" is a standout. It's a dark, crazy, absurd and even funny play; the highlight being the "Celebrity Death Match" between Pentheus and Dionysus. As grim as scenario of "The Bacchae" is, it often reads like a comedy (the scene with Pentheus "in drag" after having been hypnotized by Dionysus is hysterical). Euripides was ahead of his time, avant-garde; therefore of the great and / or known Greek playwrights, he was the one who garnered the fewest prizes. I'm looking forward to reading "Hippolytus" in Euripides I of this series.

Stephen C. Bird, author of "Hideous Exuberance: A Satire"

Euripides V contains some of the most popular and famous tragedies by the Greek playwrite Euripiedes. Electra, the first play, is a must for anyone studying or interested in mythology and tragedies. The Phoenician Women adn The Bacchae are also wonderful plays that prime examples of what Greek tragedies are all about. Even if this is your first time reading tragedies, as was mine, the introduction by Grene and Lattimore pave the road for the stories.

A readable translation of the plays of Euripides. Enough historical background is given in the foreword and the introductions to each play that the reader has a better grasp of the meaning of the play to those who viewed in antiquity. A bit conservative in the translation at times but nonetheless well done.

Well here it is, the last of the five-volume collection containing Electra, The Phoenician Women, and The Bacchae, and I am done with Euripides. After reading Aeschylus's Oresteia and Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy, and Euripides' Orestes, however, I was sort of fed up with the first two plays in this book since Electra is another take on Orestes and Electra's matricide, and The Phoenician Women reiterates much of Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes and takes place between Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. So all the dramatis personnae are a familiar cast for the Greek-tragedy-lovers, but apart from using the same material, they are good plays in themselves.

The Bacchae is a whole another play in itself and unique among the playwright's corpus (or in the whole of the extant Greek tragedies). Dionysus/Bacchus/Bromius, the god of booze and parties, is pissed (not in the British sense) at Thebes for dissing him, so he decides to make every woman of the city go mad and romping in the mountains with some ridiculous getup. Seeing public disorder at hand, Pentheus, the sober grandchild of Cadamus the founder of Thebes, tries to quell the orgies and revelries that threaten the city, and arrests the god, who drunkenly destroys the entire palace with lightening and thunder (precisely why the god of wine can summon thunder and lightening is only for the gods to know), then makes Pentheus crazy, dresses him in a woman's clothes, and goes a-romping to the mountain to just "reconnoiter" the field before launching squadrons of army against the drunken women reportedly having, well, a bacchanalian orgy. A host of miracles are reported, such as the women ripping cattle and bulls apart with their bare hands, flying over a river, butchering men, and other jolly carousing. Having taken Pentheus to the field, the god vanishes and orders the women to rip him apart with their bare hands, and this tragic sparagmos is done by the victim's mother and sisters. Coming home with a blinding hang-over and Pentheus's severed head on her thyrsus, the mother, Agave, insists that she captured a lion and sparagmosed it alright with her hands and proclaims how proud and happy she is, only to be awaken from the blinding hang-over and realize that it's actually her son's head that she's raving about and carrying on her staff. In a nutshell, an awesome play. Evohé!