Euripides' Electra

Pity is found not in ill-bred ignorance but only in the wise. (294-5)

The oracles of Loxias are unfailing, though I dismiss the divination of mortal men. (399-400)

I am confident: otherwise we must no longer believe in the gods if injustice is triumphant over justice. (583-4)

Once on a time a tender lamb taken from its mother
in the Argive mountains
(so runs the tale in our age-old legends)
did Pan, warder of the fields,
breathing sweet-voiced music
on well-joined reeds,
bring forth, a lamb with lovely fleece of gold. (699-706)

That is the story men tell, but the credit
it receives from me is but slight,
that the gold-visaged sun should turn,
altering its torrid station
to cause mortals grief
for the punishment of their wrongdoing.
But fearful tales benefit mortals,
making them worship the gods,
the gods you forgot, kinswoman of glorious brothers,
when you murdered your husband. (737-746)

When we were inside the house, he [Aegisthus] said, "Someone quickly bring purifying water for the guests [xenois]so that they may stand around the altar next to the lustral basins." But Orestes said, "We have but recently been cleansed by a pure bath in the running streams of a river. So if it is right for strangers [xenous]to help citizens at a sacrifice, Aegisthus, we are ready and do not refuse, my lord." (790-6)

Regard the gods first, Electra, as the authors of this turn of fate, and thereafter praise me also, the servant of the gods of fate. I arrive having killed Aegisthus, not in word but in deed: and in order to add to your clear knowledge of this, I bring you the dead man himself. You may, if you like, expose him as food for the wild beasts or spit him on a crag as spoil for birds, the children of the air. (890-7)

And among the Argives this was said of you, "The man belongs to his wife, not she to him." Yet it is a disgrace for the woman, rather than the man, to be the head of a house. I loathe any child who derives his name in the city not from his father but from his mother. For when a man marries a wife of greater eminence than himself, no account is taken of the man but only of his wife. (930-37)

The temples of the gods are adorned with Trojan spoils, and I have acquired for my house these slaves, pick of the land of Troy, a small badge of honor but a fine one, to replace the daughter I lost. (1000-10003)

The treatment she received was just, but the act that you did was not. And Phoebus, Phoebus - but no, since he is my lord I hold my peace. Still, wise god though he is, his oracle to you was not wise. (1244-6)

For Helen has left Egypt and the house of Proteus behind and come home. She never went to Troy. Rather, in order to cause strife and the slaying of mortals, Zeus sent an image of Helen to Troy. (1280-1283)

Select Bibliography:
*W. Geoffrey Arnott, 'Double the Vision: A Reading of Euripides' Electra,' Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1981) 179-192.*

D. J. Conacher, 'Tiptoeing through the Corpses: Euripides' Electra, Apollonius, and the Bouphonia,' Greek, Roman and Byzantime Studies, Vol. 31 (1990) 255-80.

Judith Fletcher, 'Women and Oaths in Euripides,' Theatre Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, Ancient Theatre (Mar., 2003) 29-44.

David Kovacs, 'Castor in Euripides' Electra (El. 307-13 and 1292-1307),' The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2 (1985) 306-314.

*Masaaki Kubo, 'The Norm of Myth: Euripides' Electra,' Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 71. (1967), pp. 15-31.*

Michael Lloyd, 'Realism and Character in Euripides' Electra,' Phoenix, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Spring, 1986) 1-19.

Emily A. McDermott, 'Double Meaning and Mythic Novelty in Euripides' Plays,' Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 121, (1991), 123-132.

Gilbert Murray, Euripides and his Age, Oxford: OUP, 1946.

Michael J. O'Brien, 'Orestes and the Gorgon: Euripides' Electra,' The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jan., 1964) 13-39.

David Raeburn, 'The Significance of Stage Properties in Euripides' Electra,' Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., Vol. 47, No. 2 (Oct., 2000) 149-168.

*Vincent J. Rosivach, 'The "Golden Lamb" Ode in Euripides' Electra,' Classical Philology, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), 189-199.*

Froma I. Zeitlin, 'The Argive Festival of Hera and Euripides' Electra,' Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 101, (1970) 645-669.

*Articles mentioned in class*

Euripides' Medea

Oaths and Supplication

Medea: O mighty Themis and my lady Artemis, do you see what I suffer, I who I have bound my accursed husband with mighty oaths (orkois)? May I one day see him and his new bride ground to destruction, and their whole house with them, so terrible are the unprovoked wrongs they dare to commit against me! O father, O my native city, from you I was parted in shame, having killed my brother! (160-7)

Chorus: I have heard her loud groans, the shrill accusations she utters against the husband who betrayed her bed. Having suffered wrong she raises her cry to Zeus's daughter, Themis, goddess of oaths (orkian), the goddess who brought her to Hellas across the sea through the dark saltwater over the briny gateway of the Black Sea, a gateway few traverse. (205-212)

Medea: Do not [exile me], I beg you by your knees and by your newly wedded daughter!

Creon: You waste your words. You will never win me over.

Medea: But will you banish me without the regard due a suppliant?

Creon: Yes: I do not love you more than my own house. (324-7)

Medea (to Jason): Respect for your oaths (orkon) is gone, and I cannot tell whether you think that the gods of old no longer rule or that new ordinances have now been set up for mortals, since you are surely aware that you have not kept your oath (euorkos) to me. O right hand of mine, which you often grasped together with my knees, how profitless was the suppliant grasp upon me of a knave, and how I have been cheated of my hopes! (492-8)

Medea (to Aegeus): But I beg you by your beard and by your knees and I make myself your suppiant: have pity, have pity on an unfortunate woman, and do not allow me to be cast into exile without a friend, but receive me into your land and your house as a suppliant. (709-713)

Medea (to Aegeus): I trust you. But Pelias' house is hostile to me, and Creon as well. If you are bound by an oath (orkioisi), you will not give me up to them when they come to take me out of the country. (734-6)

Chorus (to Medea): Think on the slaying of your children, think what slaughter you are committing! Do not, we beseech you by your knees and in every way we can, do not kill your children!

How will you summon up the strength of purpose or the courage of hand and heart to dare this dreadful deed? When you have turned your eyes upon your children, how will you behold their fate with tearless eye? When your children fall as suppliants at your feet, you will not be hardhearted enough to drench your hand in their blood. (851-865)

Philoi (Friends) & Ekthoi (Enemies)

Nurse. “Now all is hatred: love [‘philtata’: beloved things] is sickness-stricken.” (16)

Pedagogus. “Old bonds of love are aye outrun by feet / Of new: – no friend [philos] is he unto this house.” (76-7)

Nurse. “…to his friends [philous] he stands convicted of baseness.” (84)

Pedagogus. “…no man loves [philei] his neighbour as himself…” (86)

Nurse. “To foes [‘ekthrous’: enemies] may she work ill, and not to friends [‘philous’: beloved ones]!” (95)

Medea to Chorus. “Thine is this city, thine a father’s home, / Thine bliss of life and fellowship of friends [philos]; / But I, lone, cityless, and outraged thus / Of him who kidnapped me from foreign shores, / Mother nor brother have I, kinsman none, / For port of refuge from calamity.” (252-8)

Upon Creon’s pronouncement of her banishment – “Nay, – by thy knees, and by the bride, thy child!” (324)

Medea to Jason. “Out on this right hand, which thou oft wouldst clasp, – / These knees! – I was polluted by the touch / Of a base man, thus frustrate of mine hopes! Come, as a friend [philos] will I commune with thee – …/…/…thus it is – a foe [ekthra] am I become / To mine own house [‘oikothen philois’ my friends at home]: no quarrel I had with those / With whom I have now a death-feud for thy sake.” (496-9 & 506-8)

Jason’s to Medea. “ - for I know full well / How all friends [‘philos’] from the poor man stand aloof, - ” (560-1)

Medea. “No profit is there in a villain’s gifts.” (618)

Medea to Aegeus, “But I beseech thee, lo, thy beard I touch, – / I clasp thy knees, thy suppliant am I now –” (710-11) This becomes a kind of contract in friendship. She promises him children in return for protection from enemies ‘ekthrois’ (750) and then enforces it as a bond, “were oath-pledge given for this / To me, then had I all I would of thee.” (731-2)

Medea to Chorus. “…unendurable are mocks of foes [‘ekthros’]” (795)

Medea to Chorus. “Let none account me impotent, nor weak, / Nor spiritless! – O nay, in other sort, / Grim to my foes [ekthrois], and kindly to my friends [philoisis].” (807-10)

Medea to Chorus. “Over my foes triumphant now, my friends [philai], / Shall we become: our feet are on the path / Now is there hope of vengeance [dike] on my foes [ekthrous].” (1116-7)

Jason to Glauke [Messenger reporting] “Nay, be not hostile to thy friends: / Cease from thine anger, turn thine head again, / Accounting friends whomso thy spouse accounts.” (1151-3)

Select Bibliography:

Shirley A. Barlow, 'Stereotype and Reversal in Euripides' Medea,' Greece & Rome 2nd Ser., Vol.36, No. 2 (1989) 158-171.

Deborah Boedeker, 'Euripides' Medea and the Vanity of Logoi,' Classical Philology Vol. 86, No. 2 (1991) 95-112.

Elizabeth Bongie, 'Heroic Elements in the Medea of Euripides,' Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. 107 (1977) 27-56.

Anne Burnett, 'Medea and the Tragedy of Revenge,' Classical Philology Vol. 68, No. 1 (May 1973) 1-24.

Malcolm Davies, 'Deianeira and Medea: a Foot-note to the Pre-history of Two Myths,'Mnemosyne 4th Ser., Vol. 42 (1989) 469-472.

Helene Foley, 'Medea's Divided Self,' Classical Antiquity Vol. 8, No. 1 (1989) 61-85.

Helene Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Ingrid E. Holmberg, "Mhtis and Gender in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica," Transactions of the American Philological Association 128 (1998) 135.

David Kovacs, 'On Medea's Great Monologue (E. Med. 1021-80),' Classical Quarterly Vol. 36, No. 2 (1986) 343-352.

David Kovacs, 'Zeus in Euripides' Medea,' American Journal of Philology, Vol. 114, No. 1 (Spring 1993) 45-70.

C. A. E. Luschnig, 'Interiors: Imaginary Spaces in Alcestis and Medea,' Mnemosyne, 4th Ser., Vol. 45 (1992) 19-44.

Emily A. McDermott, Euripides' Medea: the Incarnation of Disorder, London, PA: Penn State University Press, 1989.

Jennifer March, 'Euripides the Misogynist?' in Anton Powell, ed., Euripides, Women, and Sexuality, London: Routledge, 1990, 32-75.

S. P. Mills, 'The Sorrows of Medea,' Classical Philology, Vol. 75, No. 4 (1980) 289-296.

Robert B. Palmer, 'An Apology for Jason: A Study of Euripides' Medea,' Classical Journal, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Nov. 1957) 49-55.

M. D. Reeve, 'Euripides' Medea 1021-1080,' Classical Quarterly, New Ser. Vol. 22, No. 1 (May 1972) 51-61.

Margaret Visser, 'Medea: Daughter, Sister, Wife, and Mother. Natal Family versus Conjugal Family in Greek and Roman Myths About Women,' in Cropp, Fantham, & Scully, eds. Greek Tragedy and its Legacy: Essays Presented to D. J. Conacher, Calgari, Alberta: University of Calgari Press, 1986, 149-165.

Margaret Williamson, 'A Woman's Place in Euripides' Medea,' in Anton Powell, Euripides, Women, and Sexuality, London: Routledge, 1990, 16-31.

Ian Worthington, 'The Ending of Euripides' Medea,' Hermes, Vol. 118, No. 4 (1990) 502-505.

Euripides' Heracles

So keep calm and with the charm of speech still your sons' tears, and though it is but a pitiful deception, yet deceive them with your stories. (98-100)

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

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

---------------------------------& 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

Cretan Bull--------------------[Taurus]

Select Bibliography:
W. Arrowsmith. 'Introduction to Heracles,' in D. Grene and R. Lattimore eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies: Euripides, Vol. 2 (Chicago, 1956) 44-59.

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.

Lee, K.H. 'The Iris-Lyssa Scene in Euripides' Heracles,' Antichthon 16 (1982) 44-53.

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).

Mark Padilla. 'The Gorgonic Archer: Danger of Sight in Euripides' Heracles,' Classical World, vol. 86 (1992) 1-20.

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.

Sophocles' Trachiniae

Bibliography:

Articles:

Conacher, D. J. ‘Sophocles' Trachiniae: Some Observations,’ The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 118, No. 1. (Spring, 1997), pp. 21-34.

Cuffel, Victoria ‘The Classical Greek Concept of Slavery,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 27, No. 3, (Summer 1966), 323-342.

Fairbanks, Arthur ‘The Ethical Teaching of Sophokles,’ International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Oct., 1891), 77-92.

Hoey, Thomas F. ‘Causality and the Trachiniae,’ The Classical Journal, Vol. 68, No. 4. (April – May, 1973), 306-9.

Kirkwood, Gordon M. ‘The Dramatic Unity of Sophocles' Trachiniae,’ Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 72. (1941), pp. 203-211.

McCall, Marsh ‘The Trachiniae: Structure, Focus, and Heracles,’ The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 93, No. 1, Studies in Honor of Henry T. Rowell. (Jan., 1972), pp. 142-163.

Zeitlin, Froma I. ‘Playing the Other: Theatre, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama,’Representations, No. 11, (Summer, 1985), 63-94.

Chapters in:

Kitto, H.D.F. Form and Meaning in Drama (London: Methuen, 1960).

Knox, Bernard Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1964).

Segal, Charles. Tragedy and Civilization: an interpretation of Sophocles. (Oklahoma: U of Oklahoma P, 1999).

Stinton, T. C. W. ‘The Scope and Limits of Allusion in Greek Tragedy,’ in Greek Tragedy and its Legacy, eds. Cropp, Fantham & Scully. (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1986).

Whitman, Cedric Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951).

---, The Heroic Paradox: Essays on Homer, Sophocles and Aristophanes (London: Cornell UP, 1982).

Williams, Bernard ‘The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics,’ Robert B. Louden & Paul Schollmeier, eds. The Greeks and Us: Essays in Honour of Arthur W. H. Adkins (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997).

Wilson, Edmund The Wound and the Bow (London: W. H. Allen, 1952).