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A review by badgalnat
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides by Euripides
3.0
3 stars. I have a feeling that Anne Carson is on the way to becoming one of my favourite authors. Euripides however, I don’t care much for. I enjoyed reading Anne’s prefaces more than the plays themselves. she’s poetic, she’s insightful, she derives meaning from these plays that feels genuinely human, rather than just ‘analytical’.
anyways, here’s some of my favourite parts:
(Preface) Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.
(Preface) He was also concerned with people as people — with what it’s like to be a human being in a family, in a fantasy, in a longing, in a mistake. (UGH I love this one)
AMPHITYON: Be calm. Wipe their tears and soothe them with stories, a bit of make believe. Even catastrophes grow weary, no wind can keep blasting all the time.
THESEUS: There is no cloud so black it could hide your misfortune. Why do you wave me off? You fear to pollute me? I don’t care about that. I’ll share your bad luck — I shared your good luck once, when you brought me from the dead world back to life. Hateful to me is a gratitude that grows old. A friend who enjoys your prosperity but refuses to sail with your grief.
THESEUS: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend.
HERAKLES: I fear to stain your clothes with blood.
THESEUS: Stain them, I don’t care.
(UGHHHHH THIS ONE KILLS ME IN EVERY GOOD WAY POSSIBLE)
HERAKLES: Whoever values wealth or strength more than friends is mad.
HEKABE: (talking about his wife) This one is my joy. This one is my forgetting of evils. She comforts my soul.
(Preface) I suppose his intention is to pray for a life of consistent purity from beginning to end. But what beginning, what end? Whose life can end as it began, as if it were a thing apart from time, as if flesh did not change.
PHAIDRA: What is this thing they call falling in love?
NURSE: Something absolutely sweet and absolutely bitter at the same time.
NURSE: Perfection is not for mortals.
anyways, here’s some of my favourite parts:
(Preface) Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.
(Preface) He was also concerned with people as people — with what it’s like to be a human being in a family, in a fantasy, in a longing, in a mistake. (UGH I love this one)
AMPHITYON: Be calm. Wipe their tears and soothe them with stories, a bit of make believe. Even catastrophes grow weary, no wind can keep blasting all the time.
THESEUS: There is no cloud so black it could hide your misfortune. Why do you wave me off? You fear to pollute me? I don’t care about that. I’ll share your bad luck — I shared your good luck once, when you brought me from the dead world back to life. Hateful to me is a gratitude that grows old. A friend who enjoys your prosperity but refuses to sail with your grief.
THESEUS: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend.
HERAKLES: I fear to stain your clothes with blood.
THESEUS: Stain them, I don’t care.
(UGHHHHH THIS ONE KILLS ME IN EVERY GOOD WAY POSSIBLE)
HERAKLES: Whoever values wealth or strength more than friends is mad.
HEKABE: (talking about his wife) This one is my joy. This one is my forgetting of evils. She comforts my soul.
(Preface) I suppose his intention is to pray for a life of consistent purity from beginning to end. But what beginning, what end? Whose life can end as it began, as if it were a thing apart from time, as if flesh did not change.
PHAIDRA: What is this thing they call falling in love?
NURSE: Something absolutely sweet and absolutely bitter at the same time.
NURSE: Perfection is not for mortals.