A review by maises
The Bacchae and Other Plays by Euripides

5.0

“My friend became my enemy, but the bond between us remained.”

Like many others new to Ancient Greek classics, I suppose, I was attracted to Euripides specifically because he was known for centering plays on interesting women. In his time, there was speculation of whether he actually abhorred women enough to continuously draw them in a certain light, and was the brunt of many jokes and satyr plays because of his non-traditional depiction of women as thinkers, provocateurs, or straight up batshit (the notorious favorites). I think my only insight to his position on writing women is swept into the points brought up by Richard Rutherford in the general introduction:

Between 480 and 430 BC some 500 tragedies would have been staged; a middle-aged man in his audience might have seen over two hundred. The Athenians, like any audience, enjoyed innovation: indeed, originality and novelty were at a premium in the second half of the fifth century BC, as new ideas and new literary styles made their appearance in Athens. Euripides was in part responding to audience demand […] When Aristotle wrote that Euripides was the most intensely tragic of the poets, he meant that he was the one who most powerfully evoked pity and fear, which Aristotle classically defined as the supremely tragic emotions. […] Ancient descriptions of the theatrical audience make clear that their reaction was not merely cerebral but strongly responsive to the claims made on them emotionally by the characters on stage.

I think that Euripides—considering also what any fifth century BCE man of his socioeconomic status thought of a woman’s place in society on a day to day basis (probably as one might expect)—just liked to make the most provocative choice on stage. And in his opinion, the existence of women and femininity contrasted easily to the brutality of the world of men, so to speak. The stark juxtaposition of Pentheus’s mother succumbing to madness and tearing apart her own son, the once-innocent Electra suggesting to kidnap and threaten Hermione to ensure her and her brother’s survival, even Jocasta slitting her throat over the bodies of her dead sons—these were all prime examples of Euripides conflating the existence of women in society as other, as something that is usually out of sight and mind, and why, in coming to the forefront in the most brutal of ways, it makes the Athenian audience during a Dionysia festival viscerally cringe. 

In any case, he used certain themes regarding love and madness and family as vehicles for this particular shock and awe, likely because they were done using recognizable evils, even if unapproachable in real life: these were all extremes of extremes, exploring vulgarities such as filicide, matricide, fratricide, suicide, cannibalism, and the ever-forbidden act of disrespecting a god. There are clear lines of thought that Euripides seemed to like writing about, which extended through the plays complied in this collection. There is the destruction of families by an unavoidable act (Iphigenia at Aulis, Orestes) and also pride itself as the destroyer (Phoenician Women, Bacchae). I can say that Rhesus didn’t resonate with me as much as the others simply because of the absence of these notes; the lack of shock value (or a strong one, for that matter) also felt non-Euripidean, which is probably a view shared by the scholars who estimate the work not to actually be his. 

I really enjoyed John Davie’s translation and the thoroughness of Rutherford’s notes. I think the reason it took so long to read this collection (three months!) was because of how much I would flip to the back, read the note, and do some Googling on my own time about whatever it was Rutherford was actually talking about. It’s given me a greater appreciation for historical context when regarding literature, and I definitely would like to read more of Davie’s translations once I get my hands on them.

Here is the segment where I gush on the writing and Davie’s translations alone. On familial betrayal:

POLYNEICES: Where will you take your stance before the gates?
ETEOCLES: Why do you ask me this?
POLYNEICES: I will station myself opposite in order to kill you.
ETEOCLES: I, too, long for this encounter!

(Phoenician Women, lines 621-624)

ORESTES: I am done for, Menelaus. Here comes Tyndareus towards me, and, after what I have done, he more than any other is the man whose eye I dread to meet. For when I was a baby, he was the one who brought me up, showing his love in many things he did, carrying me around in his arms as 'Agamemnon's son', with Leda at his side, and honouring me no less than the Sons of Zeus. O wretched heart and soul of mine, I have made them no honourable return! What veil of darkness can I use to mask my face? What cloud can I spread before me, to escape the old man's piercing eye?

(Orestes, lines 458-468)

DIONYSUS: My mother's sisters – they should have been the last ones to do this – claimed that Dionysus was no son of Zeus. Semele, they said, had been seduced by some mortal and was attributing to Zeus the loss of her virginity – a pretence they ascribed to Cadmus. Because of this lie she had told about her lover, they announced gloatingly, Zeus had killed her. For this reason I have spurred those same sisters to madness and driven them in distraction from their houses.

(Bacchae, lines 26-33)

IPHIGENIA: […] But the man who has fathered me in my misery is gone, Mother, o Mother; he has left me alone and forsaken! Oh what a wretch am I! How cursed, cursed was the day I set eyes on that monster, Helen! My blood is being spilled, I perish at my father’s hands – unholy the deed, unholy the doer! 

(Iphigenia at Aulis, lines 1310-13115)

I was very touched on the occasions where love prevailed, or at least showed face, despite the circumstances. I appreciated the moments more maybe because of the dire straits Euripides held everyone to at a constant gunpoint. The sibling-to-sibling, friend-to-friend, and parent-to-child conversations were very moving, as doomed as most of them were.

ANTIGONE: […] If only I could fly, a wind-swept cloud, through the air to my brother, and fling my arms at last around his beloved neck, the wretched exile! 

(Phoenician Women, lines 162-164)

OEDIPUS: Where do I place my old foot? Where carry my stick, child?
ANTIGONE: Here, here walk with me, here, here, place your foot, with the strength of a dream. 

(Phoenician Women, lines 1719-1721)

PYLADES: But I will care for you.
ORESTES: It is unpleasant for someone to touch a sick man.
PYLADES: Not when it is my hands that are laid on you.
[…]
ORESTES: Lead on, the pilot of my steps…
PYLADES: This service of care is one my heart gives freely.

(Orestes, lines 792-800)

ELECTRA: My dearest! O my beloved brother, how I delight in the name of your sister! We are one soul!
ORESTES: Oh, your words melt me! I want to answer your love with a loving embrace of my own. Why should I any longer feel shame at this, wretch that I am?

(Orestes, lines 1046-1050)

CHORUS-LEADER: Motherhood is a formidable thing, and it casts a powerful spell. All mothers possess this trait in common: they will endure any labour for their children’s sake.

(Iphigenia at Aulis, lines 916-918)

Personally, I almost equally enjoyed all the plays, but if I had to rank from most to least favorite from this collection alone: Orestes (shocked about how much I loved this one), Iphigenia at Aulis (I read everything out of order and began with this first), The Bacchae (seminal as the kind of crazy Euripidean writing that made me fall in love with his work), Phoenician Women (absolutely loved this one too, I might have to read Seven Against Thebes now), and finally Rhesus (remember in Spy Kids 3, where Elijah Wood played “The Guy” and died one minute later?).