Thebes is not in its right mind, it suffers from civil strife and bad counsel. Otherwise it would never have taken you for a master. You have destroyed this country and you now rule it, but Heracles, who did it great service, does not get his reward. (270-274)
Zeus,... I have not abandoned the children of Heracles. But you, though you know well enough how to slip secretly into bed and take other men's wives when no one has given you permission, do not know how to save the lives of your nearest and dearest. Either you are a fool of a god or there is no justice in your nature. (339, 343-7)
And all the Thebans I find ungrateful for my good treatment of them I shall vanquish with this club of mine. Others I shall shoot with my feathered arrows, fill the whole Ismenus River with the gore of dead bodies, and redden the clear spring of Dirce with blood. (568-573)
Let go of my clothing, all of you! I have no wings and will not run from my family! Ah me, these children do not let me go but grasp my garments all the harder! Were you in such great danger as that? Well, I will take these tow boats in by the hand and like a ship drag them after me. (626-32)
May I never live a Muse-less life!
Ever may I go garlanded!
Old singer that I am I still
sing the praise of Mnemosyne [mother of the muses]
still hymn Heracles'
glorious victory (676-681)
Look, why am I sitting here, my vigorous chest and arms moored like a ship to this half-defaced stonework, with corpses for neighbors? Scattered on the ground are my bow and feathered arrows, stout allies ere now to these arms of mine, allies who saved my skin while I took care of them. Surely I have not gone down to Hades again after coming back from there on the return leg of Eurystheus' errand? No, I do not see Sisyphus' rock nor Pluto nor yet the sceptre of Persephone. I am utterly astonished. Where can I be that I am so perplexed?
Ho there! Who of my friends, nearby or at a distance, can cure my ignorance? For I do not recognize clearly any of my usual circumstances. (1094-1108)
But no mortal is untainted by fortune, and no god either, if the poets' stories are true. Have they not lain with each other in unlawful unions? Have they not dishonored their fathers with chains in order to become king? But for all that they continue to live on Olympus and endure their sinful state. But what will your defense be if you, a mortal, find fault so excessively with your fortune while the gods do not? (1315-1321)
Ah me! This is, to be sure, a diversion from my misfortunes, but I do not think, have never believed, and will never be convinced that the gods have illicit love affairs or bind each other with chains or that one is master of another. A god, if he is truly a god, needs nothing. These are the wretched tales of the poets. (1341-6)
Ah! How I wish I might here and now become a rock, insensible to calamity! (1397-8)
Two friends in harness, one of them in ruin. Old father, such is the friend one ought to make. (1403-4)
Labours of Heracles
in Sophocles (1089-1100)----Constellations-----in Euripides
1. Nemean Lion------------------Leo-----------------1. Lion 359-63
2. Learnean Hydra--------------Hydra-------------10. Hydra 419-22
3. Centaurs -------------------Sagittarius-----------2. Centaurs 364-74
& Cerynithian Hind-------------------------------& 3. Hind 375-9
1. Nemean Lion------------------Leo-----------------1. Lion 359-63
2. Learnean Hydra--------------Hydra-------------10. Hydra 419-22
3. Centaurs -------------------Sagittarius-----------2. Centaurs 364-74
& Cerynithian Hind-------------------------------& 3. Hind 375-9
4. Erymanthian Boar--------------------------------4. Mares of Diomedes (380-88)
-----------------------------------------------------------5. Cycnus 389-93
5. Cerberus-------------------Canis Major---------12. Cerberus 425-9
6. Garden of Hesperides---Draco [Ladon]
---------------------------------& Corona Borealis---6. Apples 394-99
-----------------------------------------------------------5. Cycnus 389-93
5. Cerberus-------------------Canis Major---------12. Cerberus 425-9
6. Garden of Hesperides---Draco [Ladon]
---------------------------------& Corona Borealis---6. Apples 394-99
---------------------------------& Bootes = Atlas-----8. Atlas 403-7
-----------------------------------------------------------7. Clearing of the sea? 400-402
-----------------------------------------------------------9. Hippolyta’s girdle 408-17
-----------------------------------------------------------11. Cattle of Geryon 423-4
Other Labours not mentioned in either play…
Stables of Augeas.
Stymphalian birds
-----------------------------------------------------------7. Clearing of the sea? 400-402
-----------------------------------------------------------9. Hippolyta’s girdle 408-17
-----------------------------------------------------------11. Cattle of Geryon 423-4
Other Labours not mentioned in either play…
Stables of Augeas.
Stymphalian birds
Cretan Bull--------------------[Taurus]
Select Bibliography:
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Shirley A. Barlow. 'Structure and Dramatic Realism in Euripides' Heracles.’ Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., Vol. 29, No. 2 (Oct., 1982), 115-125.
A.L. Brown. 'Wretched Tales of the Poets: Euripides' Heracles 1340-6,' Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 204 (1978) 22-30.
H. Chalk. 'Aretê and Bia in Euripides' Herakles,' Journal of Hellenic Studies82 (1962) 7-18.
Francis M. Dunn. Tragedy's End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
J. Peter Euben, ed. Greek Tragedy and Political Theory. (London : University of California P., 1986).
G. J. Fitzgerald. 'The Euripidean Heracles: An Intellectual and a Coward?' Mnemosyne 4th Ser. 44 (1991) 85-95.
D. Furely. 'Euripides on the Sanity of Herakles,' in J.H. Betts, J.T. Hooker, and J.R. Green eds., Studies in Honour of T.B.L. Webster, vol. 1 (Bristol, 1986) 102-13.
Elise P. Garrison. Groaning Tears: Ethical and Dramatic Aspects of Suicide in Greek Tragedy. New York: Kinderhook, 1995.
Elise P. Garrison. 'Attitudes Toward Suicide in Ancient Greece,' Transactions of the American Philological Association. 121 (1991) 1-34.
George, D.P. 'Euripides' Heracles 140-325: Staging and the Stage Iconography of Heracles' Bow,' Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 35 (1994) 145-58.
Justina Gregory. 'Euripides' Heracles,' Yale Classical Studies 25 (1977) 259-75.
Justina Gregory. Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians. (Michigan: Ann Arbor; University of Michigan P., 1991).
Michael Halleran. 'Rhetoric, Irony, and the Ending of Euripides' Herakles,' Classical Antiquity 5, No. 2 (1986) 171-81.
Richard Hamilton. 'Slings and Arrows: The Debate with Lycus in theHeracles,' Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 115 (1985) 19-25.
Karelisa Hartigan, 'Euripidean Madness: Herakles and Orestes,' Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser. 34 No. 2 (1987) 126-35.
J.C. Kamerbeek. 'The Unity and Meaning of Euripides' Heracles,' Mnemosyne 4th Ser. 19 (1966) 1-16.
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R.E. Meagher. Herakles Gone Mad: Rethinking Heroism in an Age of Endless War. Northampton, 2006.
Christian Meier. The Political Art of Greek Tragedy. Trans. Andrew Webber. (Cambridge: Polity, 1993).
Jon D. Mikalson. 'Zeus the Father and Heracles the Son in Tragedy,' Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 116 (1986) 89-98.
Ruth Padel. Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).
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T. Papadopoulou. Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy. Cambridge and New York, 2005.
Hugh Parry. 'The Second Stasimon of Euripides' Heracles (637-700),' American Journal of Philology, Vol. 86 (1965) 363-74.
P. Pucci. The Violence of Pity in Euripides' Medea (Ithaca, 1980), pp. 175-87.
M.S. Silk. 'Heracles and Greek Tragedy,' Greece & Rome 32 (1985) 1-22.
T.A. Tarkow. 'The Glorification of Athens in Euripides' Heracles,' Helios 5 (1977) 27-33.
C. W. Willink. 'Sleep after Labour in Euripides' Heracles,' Classical Quarterly 38 (1988) 86-97.
