Electra
This is a translation of the Greek tragedy by one of the most famous playwrights in history: Sophocles. The story takes place in the city of Argos in the aftermath of the Trojan War. King Agamemnon has returned from that engagement to a wife, Clytemnestra, that has taken up a romantic liaison with Aegisthus, the king’s cousin. Clytemnestra wastes no time in wasting her husband. Although she believes this murder is justified on the basis of Agamemnon having sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia before the Trojan War took him away, the couple’s other daughter Electra is not so sure. The story basically turns on the return of her brother Orestes, hell-bent on avenging the murder of his father by his own mother.
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides
This volume contains translations of four plays by another of the ancient Greek playwrights with a fairly decent reputation: Euripides. The plays contained within are Herakles, Hekabe, Hippolytos and Alkestis. The translation is made with the goal of each individual work by the playwright fitting into the modern thematic structure indicated by the title so that each tragedy becomes a demonstration first and foremost of the effects and consequences of grief.
Herakles is better known to modern readers as Hercules, of course. In this play Hercules is situated in the underworld going about one of his famous tasks: procuring Cerberus, the original dog from hell. While there, his father, wife and children are being sentenced to death in Thebes. In a particularly gruesome exhibition of Greek tragedy’s tendency toward the macabre, he manages to return to Thebes in time to save them only to be twisted into madness by the literal goddess Madness into a killing his wife and kids.
Hekabe is the grief-stricken wife of the King Priam in the aftermath of the Trojan War when the last of the empire is crumbling. The death of her daughter Polyxena has driven her near to madness which in turn drives her to seek revenge for the murder of her son Polydorus, who appears on stage in the form of a ghost.
Hippolytos is the son of Theseus, king of Athens. Phaidra is the second wife of the king, making her stepmother to Hippolytos. Things go south when Phaidra starts having feelings toward her stepson which are something shy of maternal. When she lies to Theseus about being raped by his son, the tragic implications shift into overdrive. Of course, if one would prefer, one could blame all this grief on Aphrodite and her narcissistic need to be a sex symbol to literally mortal male. And, in her own words, Hippolytos “proclaims me the worst of diving beings.”
Alkestis is the wife of King Admetos. The king learns that if he can find someone willing to die in his place, he shall be allowed to continue living. Being the dutiful wife, Alkestis volunteers to be the sacrifice only to realize too late that in doing so, she is ensuring that the continuance of her husband’s life will be a guarantee of grief and misery for Admetos. A cameo appearance by good old dependable Herakles saves the day, but only after getting drunk and making a spectacle of himself before learning what the deal is really going here.
If Not, Winter: Fragment of Sappho
As the title indicates, this text is a translation of the poetry of Sappho. It is an unusually focused and directed attempt to provide a literal word-for-word translation of the available original Greek eschewing all that it is not written in that language. This is notable because even usually even the most sincere efforts at a fully realized translation of ancient texts often sacrifice the strict letter of individual lines to preserve the fuller meaning. In this case, however, Carson truly commits to the goal of not just translating the verse word for word, but also preserving the order of the words and the point at which lines break.
Iphigenia Among the Taurians
That sister of Electra pops up as the star of another tragedy by Euripides, this one not driven by the thematic overlay of grief. Typically titled simply Iphigenia in Taurus, it is not, as one might suspect, the prequel which tells of the sacrifice of their daughter by Agamenon with Clytemnestra uses to justify killing him, but is a sequel which takes place after her brother Orestes has avenged that murder by killing their mother. As it turns out, Iphigenia was not sacrificed at all, but had been saved from that fate through the intervention of the goddess Artemis. (Artemis also makes an appearance as a rival for the heart and mind of Hippolytos in that story.) Orestes is being driven to madness by the constant attacks of the Furies in their role as agents of vengeance against violence to women even though he was acquitted of his crime in a fair trial.
Apollo has commanded Orestes to bring the statue of Artemis back to Athens from Taurus even though it is well-known that any and all interlopers found there are sentence to sacrifice. And this is certainly true for Orestes, who is discovered, captured and sentence to death. Fortunately, he is recognized by his sister Iphigenia and together they steal the statute and turn it to Athens—with goddess-y help from Athena. Because, after all, it would be Athena who helped, wouldn’t it?
