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A review by paigeweb
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides by Euripides
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
5.0
Euripides situates his plays in a terrifyingly bleak universe where gods are petty and humans are playthings; one lopsidedly characterized by an absence of divine reward, shortage of divine favor, and excess of divine punishment. Sorrow and suffering are the only constants. You can do everything right, play by the gods’ rulebook, and still be struck down.
The only agency afforded his human characters — the sole means of defiance allowed — is verbal. When the damage is done and the dust has settled on ravaged lives, they cry their protest to deaf ears in the sky. His wife and children dead, Herakles declares “Gods are stubborn. So am I.” And when cautioned by Theseus against this sacrilege, responds wryly, “I am stuffed with evils - nowhere to put more.” Sensing the approach of death after being dealt a fatal injury, Hippolytus protests in two tenses at the injustice of his undeserving end: “I am a good man. I was a good man.” He grows increasingly bold as he breathes his last (what more can be taken from him now?): “If only mortal men could lay a curse on divine beings!” In his own story Admetos notes the same cruel irony, saying “They look, they see us suffering. We did no harm to gods and yet you die.”
But throughout these tales of human misfortune and divine indifference run touching threads of friendship and shared grief. Slaves to the same unfeeling twists of fate, we must rely on each other for empathy and grace. Examples from the text are numerous and often follow the same formulas: “I’ll share your bad luck.” … “I came to share his grief.” … “Give me your hand. I am your friend.” … “No I will not give up on you.” … “I, as friend for friend, will bear this grief with you.” … “Your suffering I see… Your pain I understand.” If there is any salvation to be found in Euripides’ world, here is where it lies.
“The way gods care for us, when I think of it, lifts my pain, gives me secret hope, but then I look at the swings and swerves of mortal fate and I falter.”
“We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing (whatever it is) that glitters on the earth — we call it life.”
The only agency afforded his human characters — the sole means of defiance allowed — is verbal. When the damage is done and the dust has settled on ravaged lives, they cry their protest to deaf ears in the sky. His wife and children dead, Herakles declares “Gods are stubborn. So am I.” And when cautioned by Theseus against this sacrilege, responds wryly, “I am stuffed with evils - nowhere to put more.” Sensing the approach of death after being dealt a fatal injury, Hippolytus protests in two tenses at the injustice of his undeserving end: “I am a good man. I was a good man.” He grows increasingly bold as he breathes his last (what more can be taken from him now?): “If only mortal men could lay a curse on divine beings!” In his own story Admetos notes the same cruel irony, saying “They look, they see us suffering. We did no harm to gods and yet you die.”
But throughout these tales of human misfortune and divine indifference run touching threads of friendship and shared grief. Slaves to the same unfeeling twists of fate, we must rely on each other for empathy and grace. Examples from the text are numerous and often follow the same formulas: “I’ll share your bad luck.” … “I came to share his grief.” … “Give me your hand. I am your friend.” … “No I will not give up on you.” … “I, as friend for friend, will bear this grief with you.” … “Your suffering I see… Your pain I understand.” If there is any salvation to be found in Euripides’ world, here is where it lies.
“The way gods care for us, when I think of it, lifts my pain, gives me secret hope, but then I look at the swings and swerves of mortal fate and I falter.”
“We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing (whatever it is) that glitters on the earth — we call it life.”