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A review by cono44
Medea and Other Plays: Medea / Hecabe / Electra / Heracles by Philip Vellacott, Euripides
5.0
Medea is the only one of these plays I had already read. It was as good as it was last time
Of the others I think Heracles was the one I was most surprised by: I had been expecting to find it just fine but I thought that (especially by the end) it was an incredibly effective portrait of grief.
Hecabe was fantastic. Some moments genuinely gave me goosebumps: when Hecabe is begging to be sacrificed along with her daughter:
H: I must, I will die with her.
O: I was not aware
That I must take your orders.
H: I will cling to her
Like ivy to the oak.
O: Not if you take the advice
Of one who is wiser.
H: I will never let her go.
Electra was great as well. I love how Electra, in swearing to kill her mother instead becomes her: she is determined and bloodthirsty and terrifying in her desire for revenge.
Of the others I think Heracles was the one I was most surprised by: I had been expecting to find it just fine but I thought that (especially by the end) it was an incredibly effective portrait of grief.
Hecabe was fantastic. Some moments genuinely gave me goosebumps: when Hecabe is begging to be sacrificed along with her daughter:
H: I must, I will die with her.
O: I was not aware
That I must take your orders.
H: I will cling to her
Like ivy to the oak.
O: Not if you take the advice
Of one who is wiser.
H: I will never let her go.
Electra was great as well. I love how Electra, in swearing to kill her mother instead becomes her: she is determined and bloodthirsty and terrifying in her desire for revenge.