Euripides, Volume II (Loeb Classical Library)

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THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY T. E. E.

CAPPS,

PAGE,

PH.D., LL.D.

LiTT.D.

W. H.

D.

EURIPIDES II

ROUSE,

litt.d.

EURIPIDES WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY

ARTHUR

WAY,

S.

D.Lir.

IN FOUR VOLUMES II

ELEOTRA ORESTES IPHIGENEIA IN TAURICA ANDROMACHE UYCLOPS

LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK :

:

MCMXXIX

First printed

m2

Heprinted, 1916, 1919, 1924, 192

PRIKTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

CONTENTS PAGE

KLEOTRA

1

ORESTES

121

IPHIGENEIA IN TAURICA

279

ANDROMACHB

411

0YCL0P3

515

2234661

INTRODUCTION The

of Euripides coincides with the most stren-

life

uous and most triumphant period of Athenian history, strenuous and triumphant not only in action, but in

thought, a

poetry,

480

period of

daring enterprise,

conquest and

material

development^ and

and philosophic speculation.

in

in art,

He was bom

in

Thermopylae and Salamis.

the year of

B.C.,

alike

Athens was at the height of her glory and power, and was year by year becoming more and more the City Beautiful,

forty

when

before

years

Expedition was mortis,

his genius

He had been

of creation.

tragedy

the

enacted

was

;

in its first flush

writing for more than of

and, felix

the

Sicilian

opportunitate

he was spared the knowledge of the shameful

sequel

of

Arginusae,

Aegospotami, the Athens.

He

last

the

miserable

disaster

of

lingering agony of famished

died more than a year before these

calamities befell. vii

INTRODUCTION His father was named Mnesarchides,

They must have been wealthy,

Kleito.

his

mothei

for their son

possessed not only considerable property (he had at least

once

discharge

to

a

" liturgy,"

^

and

was

" proxenus," or consul, for Magnesia, costly duties also,

what was especially rare then, a

valuable library.

His family must have been well-

but

both),

born, for certain

mean

He when

it is

on record that he took part as a boy

festivals

birth

of Apollo, for which

would have been

ineligible.

appeared in the dramatic arena at a time it

was thronged with competitoi's, and when

must have been most

difficult for

a

being before the public for 45 years for ten

write for

fifty

new

it

writer to

Aeschylus had just died, after

achieve a position.

been

in

any one of

:

Sophocles had

the front rank, and was to

years in

years longer, while there were others,

forgotten now, but good enough to wrest the victory fi'om these at half the at least.

to achieve excellence his predecessors

His genius was

Perhaps the expense, or

war-ship. viii

new poet was not content along the lines laid down by

and already marked with the stamp

of public approval. *

annual dramatic competitions

Moreover, the

original,

and he

part expense, of equipping

a.

INTRODUCTION followed his

fearlessly,

it

and

so

became an innovator

in

handling of the religious and ethical problems

presented by the old legends, in the literary setting

he gave to these, and even in the technicalities of

As

stage-presentation.

of the

official

work ran counter otherwise,^

it

gained the

first

makes conquest

originality

judges of literature

is

last,

and

as his

to a host of prejudices, honest

hardly surprising

and

that his plays

prize only five times in fifty years.

But the number of these

official

recognitions

is

no

index of his real popularity, of his hold on the hearts, not only of his countrymen, but of

mother-tongue. bitterest s})ell,

It

is

told

who spoke

all

how on two

enemies of Athens so

his

occasions the

yielded to his

far

that for his sake they spared to his conquered

countrymen, to captured Athens, the

last horrors of

war, the last humiliation of the vanquished.

After

death he became, and remained, so long as Greek

was a living language, the most popular and the most

influential of the three great masters of the

drama.

His nineteenth-century eclipse

followed by a reaction in which he

'

and

"

He was

of course

vulgar."

is

has

been

recognised as

baited incessant!}' by a rabble of comic writers, by the great pack of the orthodox, and the

Murray. ix

INTRODUCTION presenting one of the most interesting studies in

all

literature.

In his seventy-third year he left Athens and his

clamorous enemies, to be an honoured guest at the court of the king of Macedon.

by the malicious vexations, the the

now imminent

perils of

There, unharassed political unrest,

and

Athens, he wrote with a

freedom, a rapidity, a depth and fervour of thought,

and a splendour of

which even he had

diction,

scarcely attained before.

He ant

died

m

406 b.c, and, in a revulsion of repent-

admiration and

love,

all

Athens,

following

Sophocles' example, put on mourning for him. plays,

which

Macedonian shortly

after

part

wei*e leisure,

his

of

fruits

were represented at

death, and

acclamation with the

the

first

attempt of Aristophanes, in

were

prize, his

in

Four of

liis

Athens

crowned

by

spite of the

comedy of The

Frogs,

a few months before, to belittle his genius.

His characteristics, as compared with those of his

two great brother-dramatists, may be concisely stated thus

:

Aeschylus sets forth the operation of grea I prificlples, especially of the certainty of divine retribution,

and

of the persistence of sin as an ineradicable plague1^.

INTRODUCTION He

taint.

great

believes

characters

he

:

Sophocles depicts

and trembles.

malevolence of

the

ignores

destiny and the persistent

power of

"

his fate."

man

is

man, and master of

with unquestioning problems

moral

he

:

of the

human

natural,

the

believes

analyses

human

motives

nature,

its

he voices the cry

;

soul against the tyranny of the super-

and

selfishness

crushing weight

of man, the

cruelty

He

environment.

of

questions

"he will not make his judgment blind." Of more than 90 plays which Euripides

wrote,

names of 81 have been preserved, of which

the

— 18

19 are extant

the Cyclops. (lost)

His

tragedies, first

was represented

may be in

him

to

:

He

Euripides propounds great

faith.

instincts, its passions, its

evil

play. in

and one

satyric

drama,

The Daughters of

Pelias

The extant

plays

455

B.C.

arranged, according to the latest authorities,

the following chronological order of representation,

the dates in brackets being conjectural

(probably the earliest) (i)

Medea, 431

;

(5)

;

(2) Cyclops

:

(1)

Rhesm

(3) Alceslis,

;

438

;

Childroi of Hercules, {i29-i21);

428;

Andromache,

(430-424);

(6)

Hippohjtus,

(8)

Hecuba, (425); (9) Suppliants, (421); (10) Mad-

ness

(7)

of Hercules, (423-420);

(12) Daughter* of Troy, 415;

(11)

(13)

/ow,

(419-416)

EUctra, (413);

INTRODUCTION (14) Iphigeneia in Tnurica, (414-412); (15) Helen, 412

;

(17) Orestes, 408

;

(IG) Phoenician Maidens, (411-409)

(18) Bacchanals, 405

;

;

(19) Iphigeneia in Aulis, 405.

In this edition the plays are arranged in three

main groups, based on their connexion

witli (1)

the

Story of the Trojan War, (2) the Legends of Thebes, (3) the

Legends of Athens.

of old

Thessaly.

prepared to find

The

Alcestis is a story

The reader must, however, be

tliat

the Trojan

War

series does not

present a continuously connected story, nor, in some Tliese plays, produced at

details, a consistent one.

times widely apart, and not in the order of

sometimes present situations

tlie story,

Hecuba, Daughters

(as in

of Troy, and Helen) mutually exclusive, the poet not having followed the same legend throughout the series.

The Greek eclectic,

text

ful consideration, to

previous editors and

and

of this edition

may be

called

being based upon what appeared, after carebe the soundest conclusions of critics.

for special reasons,

been admitted.

In only a few instances,

have foot-notes on readings

Nauck's aiTangement of the choruses

has been followed, with few exceptions.

The

translation (first

been revised )cii

published

throughout,

with

1894-1898) has

two especial aims,

INTRODUCTION closer fidelity to the original^

expression.

It is

and greater lucidity

hoped that the many hundreds of

corrections will be found to bring

attainment of these objects. Cyclops,

The

which was not included

translation of the Tragedies, has edition.

in

nearer to the

it

version of the in

the author's

been made

for this

This play has been generally neglected by

English translators, the only existing renderings in verse being those of Shelley (1819), (1782).

and Wodhul!

BIBLIOGRAPHY. I.

Editiones j)rincipes

—

J. Lascaris (Florence, 1496); Med., Hipp., 2. M. Musurus (Aldus, Venice, 1503) ; all except Here. Fur. (added in suppleplays, 17 mentary volume), and Electra. 3. P. Victorius 1.

Ale, Andr.

Eledra, from Florentine Codex (1545). II.

Latest Critical Editions

:

G. Murray (Clar. Press, 1902-09) (Teubner, Leipzig, 1878-1902). III.

Latest Important Commentaries

:

Prinz-Wecklein

;

—

Paley, all the plays, 3 v. (Whitaker and Bell, H. Weil, Sept Tragedies d'Euripide 1872-1880) ;

(Paris, 1878).

IV.

Recent Important Monographs on Euripides

:

of his Dramas (Paris, 1896), translated by James Loeb (Macmillan, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Herakles (Berlin, 1906) W. Nestle, Euripides der Dichter der griech1893)

Decharme's Euripides and

the Spirit

;

;

ischen

P. Masqueray, Verrall, Euripides

Aufkldrung (Stuttgart, 1902)

Euripide

et ses

iddes (Paris, 1908)

;

;

Rationalist (1895), Four Plays of Euripides (1905) ; Tyrrell, The Bacchants of Euripides and Thomson, Eurijndes and the other Essays (1910) Jones, The Moral Standpoint Attic Orators (1898) the

;

;

of Euripides (1906). V.

Editions of Single Plays

:

Bacchae, by J. E. Sandys (Cambridge Press, Electra, 1904), R. Y. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 1896) Iph. at Aulis, E. B. C. H. Keene (Bell, 1893) England (Macmillan, 1891); Iph. in Tauris, E. B. England (Macmillan, 1883) Medea, by A. W. Verrall (Macmillan, 1881-1883) Orestes, Wedd (Pitt Phoenissae, by A. C. Pearson (Pitt Press, 1895) Press, 1911), J. U. Powell (Constable, 1911); Troadea, R. Y. Tyrrell (MacmilUu, l6U7>. ;

;

;

;

;

XV

ELECTRA

VOL. n.

ARGUMENT When

Agaviemnon returned home from the taking of Troy, his arlv/lerous wife Clytaimestra, with help of her paramour Aegisthus, murdered him as he entered the They sought also to slay his silver hath in his palace. young son Orestes, that no avenger might be left alive but an old servant stole him away, and took him out nf There was he 7iurtiired by king the land, unto Phocis. Sirophius, and Pylades the king's son loved him as a brother. So Aegisthus dwelt with Clytemnestra, reigning in Argos, where remained now of Agamemnon's seed And these tivain marked how Electro his daughter only. Electra grew up in hate and scorn of them, indigyiant for her father s murder, and fain to avenge him. Wherefore, lest she should wed a prince, and persuade husband or son to accomplish her heart's desire, they bethought them, koiv they should forestall this peril. Aegisthus indeed would have slain her, yet by the queen's cou7i,sel forhorr, and gave her in marriage to a poor yeoman, who dwelt far from the city, as thinking that from peasant husband and peasant children there should be nought to fear, Howbeil this man, beiiig full of loyalty to the mighty dead and reverence for blood royal, behaved himself to her as to a queen, ,10 that she continued virgin in his house all the days of her adversity. Now when Orestes was grown to man, he journeyed with Pylades his f-iend to Argos, to seek out his sister, and to devise how he might avenge his father, since by the oracle of Apollo he was commanded so

And

herein

is

to do.

of his coming, and how made known to each other, and

told the story

brother and sister ivere

how

they fulfilled the oracle in taking vengeance on tyrant

and

adulteress.

B 2

TA TOY APAMAT02 nPOSHHA AYTOTPrOS MTKHNAI03 HAEKTPA OPE2TH2

X0P05 nPE2BT2 ArrEAOS KArTAIMNH2TPA AI02K0TP01

DRAMATIS PERSONAE Peasant, wedded in name

to Electra.

Electra, daughter of Agamemnon. Okestes, son of Agamemnon.

Pylades, son of Strophhis, king of Phocis. Clytemnestra, murderess of her hu^shand Agamemnon.

Old Man,

once servant of Agamemnon.

Messenger, servant of Orestes. The Twin Brethren, Castor and Pollux, Sons of Zeus. Chorus, consisting of Argive vomen. Attendants of Orfxtes and Pyladen

;

handmaids of

Clytern-

nestra.

Scene :— Before the Peasant's cottage on Argolis.

the

boidei

3

of

HAEKTPA ATTOTPrOS

'n

7/}