Greek Tragedies 2: Aeschylus: The Libation Bearers; Sophocles: Electra; Euripides

Iphigenia among the Taurians, Electra, The Trojan Women

Mark Griffith, Glenn W. Most, David Grene, Richmond Lattimore, Mark Griffith, David Grene, Richmond Lattimore, Richmond Lattimore

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780226035628
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Greek Tragedies, Volume II contains Aeschylus's "The Libation Bearers, " translated by Richmond Lattimore; Sophocles's "Electra, " translated by David Grene; Euripides's "Iphigenia among the Taurians, " translated by Anne Carson; Euripides's "Electra, " translated by Emily Townsend Vermeule; and Euripides's "The Trojan Women, " translated by Richmond Lattimore. Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century. In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides' Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles's satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays. In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.

ELECTRA

SOPHOCLES

Translated by David Grene

INTRODUCTION TO SOPHOCLES’ ELECTRA

There is no external evidence for the date of this play. Most scholars tend to put it late in the career of Sophocles, on stylistic grounds. But there is no certainty.

Sophocles’ Electra tells the same story as The Libation Bearers of Aeschylus and the Electra of Euripides. That Sophocles’ play is named after the heroine, rather than the hero or chorus, is not without significance. Electra does not disappear halfway through the action, as in Aeschylus; she is the main character. Like Sophocles’ Antigone, she is given a cautious sister to be a foil to her resolute spirit of resistance; and she is there at the end, spurring her brother on to his murderous work. Another clue to the spirit of the play is found in the instructions of Apollo, quoted by Orestes, near the beginning (lines 37–38):

… take not help of shields nor host; instead,
by myself perform the slaughter, stealthily,
with just but crafty hand.

For “stealthily” we ...