Euripides, Volume I (Loeb Classical Library)

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

CAPPS,

PAGE, LITT.D. W. H. D. ROUSE,

PH.D., LL.D.

EURIPIDES I

litt.d.

EURIPIDES. BUST

IN THE

NATIONAL MUSEUM, NAPLES

.

_EURIPIDES WITH Ai/eNGLISH TRANSLATION BY

ARTHUR

IN

WAY,

S.

D.LIT^

FOUR VOLUMES I

IPHIQENEIA AT AULIS

RHESUS HECUBA THE DAUGHTERS OF TROY HELEN

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

:

MCUXXX

First printed 1912, Heprinttd 1916, 1920, 1925, 1930.

PRINTED

IN

GREAT BRITAIN.

CONTENTS PAGE

IPHIGENKTA AT AULIS

1

RHESUS

153

HECUBA

243

THE DAUGHTRUS OF TROY

HELEN

.

351 461

2234660

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

period

of

daring enterprise,

development, and

conquest and

material

He was

poetry, and philosophic speculation.

480

B.C.,

alike in

in art,

born in

Thermopylae and Salamis.

the year of

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

forty

when

He

of creation.

years

before

Expedition was mortis,

his genius

was

in its first flush

had been writing tragedy

the

enacted

;

and,

for

of felix

more than

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.

INTRODUCTION His

fatlicr

was named Mncsarchides,

liis

mother

Tliey must have been wealthy, for their son

Kleito.

possessed not only considerable property (he had at least

once

a " liturgy,"

discharge

to

" proxenus," or consul, for

but

both),

also,

what was

He when

birth

Magnesia, costly duties

of Apollo, for which

would have been

as a

boy

in

any one of

ineligible.

appeared in the dramatic arena at a time it

was thronged with competitors, 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

then, a

especially rare

on record that he took part

festivals

ceiixiin

mean

it is

was

His family must have been well-

valuable library. born, for

and

^

:

Sophocles had

years in the front rank, and was to years longer, while there were others,

forgotten now, but good enough to wrest the victory

from these at half the aimual dramatic competitions at least.

Moreover, the new poet was not content

to achieve excellence his predecessors

of public approval. ^

His genius was

Perhaps the expense, or

war-fillip.

viU

along the lines laid

down by

and already marked with the stamp original,

and he

part-expense, of equipping

f\

INTRODUCTION followed his

it

fearlessly^

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

makes conquest

originality

judges of literature

official

work ran counter otherwise,^

it

gained the

first

last,

and

as his

to a host of prejudices, honest

hardly surprising

is

that his

and

plays

prize only five times in fifty years.

But the numl)er of these

official

recognitions

is

no

index of his real popularity, of his hold on the hearts, all who spoke his how on two occasions the

not only of his countrymen, but of

mother-tongue. bitterest

It

is

told

enemies of Athens so

spell, that for his

yielded

far

to 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

most

living

language, the most popular and the

influential of

drama.

the three great masters of the

His nineteenth-century eclipse

followed by a reaction in which he

"

He was

is

has

been

recognised as

baited incessantly by a rabble of comic writers, course by the great pack of the orthodox and the V ulgar. " u rra y. ^

anrl of

—M

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

admiration

and

love,

all

Athens,

following

Sophocles' example, put on mourning for him.

which

plays,

Macedonian shortly

part

his

with

death, and

the

first

attempt of Aristophanes, a few

of

months before,

the

fruits

were represented at

leisure,

after

acclamation

were

were

prize,

in his

in

Four of

his

Athens

crowned spite

comedy of The

by

of the Frogs,

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 oi great

piinciples,

especially of the certainty of divine retribution,

and

of the persistence of sin as an ineradicable plagueX

;:

INTRODUCTION He

taint.

great

believes and trembles.

characters

destiny and

"man

is

he

:

the

man, and master of

problems

he

:

of the

human

natural,

malevolence of evil

He

his fate."

him

to

:

believes

Euripides propounds great

faith.

analyses

instincts, its passions, its

Sophocles de})icts

the

power of

])ersisteiit

with unqucstioninjj moral

ignores

human

motives

nature,

its

he voices the cry

;

soul against the tyranny of the super-

the selfishness and

crushing weight

of

cruelty

He

environment.

of

man, the questions

" he will not

make his judgment blind." Of more than 90 plays whicli Euripides

wrote,

names of 81 have been preserved, of which

the

19 are extant

— 18

the Cyclops.

His

(lost)

was represented

may be

and one

tragedies, first

play, in

satyric

drama,

The Daughters of Pelias

455

The extant

b.c.

plays

arranged, according to the latest authorities,

in the following chronological order of representation,

the dates in brackets being conjectural

(probably the earliest) (i)

Medea, 431

(6)

Hippolylus,

;

;

(2) Cyclops

(5) Children

428;

(7)

;

:

(1) Rhesus

(3) Alceslis,

;

of Hercules, {i29-i21)',

Andromache,

(430-424);

(8) Hecuba, (425); (9) Suppliants, (421); (10) ness

438

of Hercules, (423-420);

(12) Daughters of Troy, 415;

(11) (13)

/ow,

Mad-

(419-416)

Eleclra, (413);

INTRODUCTION (14) Iphioencia in Taurka, (114-412); (15) Helen, 412

;

408

;

(16) Phoenician Maidais, (41 1-409) (18) Bacchanals, 405

In

tliis

;

;

(17) Oresles,

(19) Iphigeneia in Aulis, 405.

edition the pl;iys are arranged

in

main groups, based on their connexion with

three

(1) the

Story of the Trojan War, (2) the Legends of I'liebes, (3) the

Legends of

of old

Thessaly.

Atliens.

The

Alceslis is a story

The reader must, however, be

prepared to find that the Trojan

War

series does not

present a continuously coiniected stoiy, nor, in some

These

details, a consistent one.

plays,

produced at

times widely apart, and not in the order of the story,

sometimes present situations

of

Troji,

and

Helen')

(as in

Hecuba, Daughters

mutually exclusive, the poet not

having followed the same legend

throughout the

series.

The Greek eclectic,

text of this edition

called

being based upon what appeared, after care-

ful consideration, to

previous editors and

and

may be

for special

been admitted.

be the soundest conclusions of critics.

In only a few instances,

reasons, have foot-notes on readings

Nauck's arrangement of the choruses

has been followed, with few exceptions.

The

translation (first

publislied

1894-1898) has

been revised throughout, with two especial aims.

INTRODUCTION closer fidelity to the original,

expression.

It is

and greater

corrections will be found to bring

attainment of these Cyclops,

oljjects.

The

which was not included

translation of the Tragedies, has edition.

lucidity in

hoped that the many hundreds of 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 VVodhull

—

——

:

;

BIBLIOGRAPHY. I.

Editiones principes

—

(Florence, 1496); Med., Hi]>p., 2. M. Musiirus (Aldus, Venice, 1503) ; 17 plays, all except He7-c. Fur. (added in a suppleineutary voliuuc), and Electra. 3. 1'. Victoiiua 1.

J.

Lascaris

Ale, Andr.

Eledra, from Floientine Codex (1545). II.

Latest Critical Editions

:

G. Murray (Clar. Press, 190-2-09) (Teubner, Leipzig, 1878-1902). III.

Latest Important Commentaries

:

Prinz-Wecklein

;

—

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

(Paris, 1878).

IV.

Recent Important Monographs on Euripides

:

Decharme's Eunpides and the Spirit of his Dramas (Paris, 1896), translated by James Loeb (Macmillan, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Herakles (Berlin, 1906) ;

W. Nestle, Euripides der Didder der yriech1893) isrhen Aufklciruny (Stuttgart, 1902) P. Masqueray, Euripide et ses idies (Paris, 1908) Verrall, Euripides the Rationalist (1895), Four Plays of Euripides Tyrrell, The Bacchants of Euripides and (1905) other Essays (1910) ; Thomson, Euripides and the Attic Orators (1898) ; Jones, The Moral Standpoint ;

;

;

;

of Euripides V.

(1906).

Editions of Single Plays

:

Bacchae, by J. E. Sandys (Cambridge Press, 1904), R. Y. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 1896) Electra, ;

H. Keene (Bell, 1893) Iph. at Aidis, E. B. England (Macmillan, 1891); Iph. in Tauris, E. B. England (Macmillan, 1883) Medea, by A. VV.

C.

;

;

Verrall (Macmillan, 1881-1883) Orestes, Wedd (Pitt Phoenissae, by A. C. Pearson (Pitt 1895) 1911), J. U. Powell (Constable, 1911) ; Troades, R. Y. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 1897). ;

Press, Press,

;

XV

IPHIGENEIA AT AULIS

VOL.

I,

ARGUMENT When the

the hosts of

narrow

Hellas were mustered at Aulis beside

sea, tvilh

purpose

to sail against

Troy, they

were hindered from departing thence by the wrath of

who

Artemis,

sujfered no favouring wind to blow.

when they enquired concerning

this,

Then,

Calchas the prophet

proclaimed that the anger of the Goddess ivuuld not be

appeased

save

by

the

of

sacrifice

Jphigeneia,

daughter of Agamemnon, captain of the

abode yet with her mother tvrote

a lying

daughter this

did

thereof.

Odysseus

When

lie

in

Mycenae;

but the king

her mother, bidding her send her

to Aulis, there to

Agamemnon how

letter to

eldest

Noio she

host.

be wedded to Achilles.

devise,

the time

but

drew near

repented him sorely.

sought to undo the

evil,

All

knew nothing

Achilles

that she should come,

And

herein

and of

the

is

told

maiden

s

coming, and how Achilles essayed to save her, and how she willingly offered herself for Hellas' sake, and

maiiel that befell at the

of the

sacri/ice.

a

2

TA TOY APAMAT02 nPOSfiHA AFAMEMNnN nPE2BTTH2 X0P02 MENEAA02 KATTAIMNH2TPA I*irENEIA

AXIAAET2 ArrEAos

DRAMATIS PERSONA E Agamemnon, captain of the host. Old SERYAi^T of Agamemnon. Menklaus, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen. Clytemnestra, xvi/e of Agxmemnon. Iphigeneia, daughter of Agamemnon. Achilles, son of

the sea-goddess Thetis.

Messenger. Chorus, consistirig of women of Chalcis who have crossed over to Aulis to see Orestes, infant son the chiefs.

in the isle

of Euboea,

(he fleet.

of Agamemnon, attendants, and guards of

ScENit: In the Greek

camp at Aulis, Agamemnon.

outside

tiie

teut ot

H EN AYAIAI

I(I>irENEIA

AFAMEMNnN

'n

7rp€