Euripides I

Euripides I: Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heracles, Hippolytus

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I read this as part of the Online Great Books program. I found the five plays in this text to be quite accessible and quite interesting. The book has a glossary of names that is useful for keeping track of persons, places, and relationships.

What was fundamentally interesting to me was the fleshing out of Greek mythology. I know some of these myths up to the point where we assume “and they all lived happily ever after.” Apparently, Greeks did not put much stock in happy endings and loved putting their protagonists into no win situations.

Take “Medea,” for example. We knew that Medea fell in love with Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) and saved his bacon on numerous occasions. She cuts her ties with her family and homeland with extreme prejudice. She marries Jason and they have two sons.

So, does she get her happy ending? Not after Jason decides to marry the King's daughter and cut her and their sons off from his support. She naturally, but, perhaps, disproportionately, plots revenge against the king and Jason's new wife. When Jason proposes to take his sons to live with him because he loves them, Medea extends her revenge to include them, from which we get the term “Medean” for mothers who kill their children.

In Hippolytus, Aphrodite decides to get revenge on Theseus's son, Hippolytus, who favors Artemis, by stirring up passion in Theseus's wife, Hippolytus's step-mother, for Hippolytus. When her passion is rejected by Hyppolytus, in order to save herself from a disgrace that might result in her children being disinherited by Theseus, she kills herself in a way that frames Hippolytus. An enraged Theseus uses one of his three curses from his father, Poseidon, on his innocent son. After Hippolytus is killed, then and only then does Artemis share the truth with Theseus.

In Alcestis, King Admetus has been blessed by Appollo with the boon of putting off his death if, and only if, someone else is willing to take his place. Naturally, no one is willing to do this, except his wife, Alcestis, who recognizes that a dead King will mean that her children will be at risk.

Alcestis actually has what may pass for a happy ending in Greek theater as Heracles intervenes to manhandle Death into coughing up Alcestis for a happy if mysterious re-union with her louse of a husband. (She may not speak for three days....three days after her return from death!)

Finally, the Children of Heracles has a lot of drama and its own questionable happy ending. After Heracles is taken to heaven, his children are left defenseless against King Eurystheus, who fears that they will seek revenge against him for his tormenting their father. The children and their guardian, Iolaus, seek refuge in Athens. Athenians being good and noble, and where the plays were staged, agree, but the wrinkle is that a virgin sacrifice is required, which one daughter of Heracles nobly agrees to provide. There is a battle. Eurystheus is captured, and despite an agreement to spare him, Heracles's wife is delighted to obtain revenge against Eurystheus, proving that his insight about the wisdom of ending the line of Heracles was accurate all along.

There was a whole bunch here for ancient Greeks to chew over on long Greek nights. I can imagine them turning over and over the issues of fate, destiny, conflicting duties for which there is no answer, and the machinations of the gods who always seem to be somewhere behind these conundra.