From the Author
The heart of this volume lies in the two texts. . . . These translations, like the originals which they imitate, are written for the theatre, to be staged first and studied next. A play printed on a page is like a butterfly pinned to a wall. We cannot say we have seen a butterfly until we have seen it on the wing; nor can we say we have seen Euripides until we have seen him on the stage. . . . The two translations in this volume are intended for performance, not primarily for academic study. Most translations of ancient plays are written for the desk or for the lap, to be examined as cultural fossils or to be read as poetry. Very few translations of Greek tragedy are written for the stage. Actors and directors, in reading through a script, know at once whether it is actable, whether it will play. The lyrics of the chorus must be able to be set to music and danced. The dialogue must ring true. The characters must be convincing as they reveal themselves in their words. . . . The first commandment to be observed in translating a play is that thou shalt not make a good play into a bad play, much less into a poem or a study guide. This, to my mind, is the appropriate meaning of "literal" translation. It is also the goal I set for myself in the translations. . . ." From Meagher's Introduction.
From the Back Cover
"Euripides, even more than Aeschylus and Sophocles, I believe, speaks with peculiar directness and immediacy to us today. His times were singularly darkened and confused, as ours are. The flight of the gods, the destruction of the earth, and the standardization of man - the marks of our times, in Heidegger's formulation - might as well have described Athens and the Greek world in the late fifth century. The ancient characterization of Euripides, however, as a playwright who wrote about people as they are and not as they ought to be could not in the end be less accurate. True enough, Euripides cast a mercilessly revealing light upon human cruelty and banality; but he also left us with heroes and with a vision of how we ought to live. If his heroes seem not to be such and if his vision seems to cast no appreciable light, it may be that our eyes are not accommodated to the darkness of our times, as Euripides' were to the darkness of his." From Robert E. Meager,Mortal Vision: The Wisdom of Euripides (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989).
About the Author
Robert Emmet Meagher has won critical acclaim from actors, directors and scholars who have commissioned, read, and performed his translations of ancient Greek plays in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland. His unmatched skill in eliciting the power and passion of Greek drama is a synthesis of innate dramatic sensibilities, academic brilliance, and an interdisciplinary approach. Since completing his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, Meagher has taught literature, drama, epic, comparative religion, theology, and philosophy as a visiting professor, a guest lecturer and a full-time professor. Actress Irene Papas, who has commissioned three translations from him, praises Meagher's 'true sense of dramatic construction . . . his dialogue is always sharp, frequently daring, and invariably extremely actable.' The late Michael Joyce of Dublin's Samuel Beckett Center and the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain called him 'the finest living translator of ancient Greek Drama.' Other books include: Euripides' Helen, Mortal Vision: The Wisdom of Euripides, Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis & Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen: A Study in Myth and Misogyny, Euripides' Bakkhai, Euripides' Hekabe, and Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From Iphigenia in Aulis Akhilleus (Calling into the tent) Where is the commander of Akhaians? Will one of his attendants inform him that Akhilleus, son of Peleus, stands outside his tent and wishes to have a word with him? He should know that this sojourn of ours beside the Euripos weights on each of us differently. Those of us who are unmarried have left behind empty houses, while others have virtually deserted their wives, leaving them childless besides. All for us to sit on the beach and count the weeks go by like clouds. From Iphigenia in Tauris Iphigenia I am Iphigenia, seed of Agamemnon, flower of Klytemnestra. My house is the house of Atreus, son of Pelops, whose matchless steeds, gifts of Poseidon, won him his wife. Two sons she bore to Atreus, Menelaos, my uncle and Agamemnon, who took to his bed the daughter of Tyndareos, my mother. I am Iphigenia, for Helen's sake a living sacrifice to Artemis, slain, for all my father knows, on the cliffs of Aulis, near the dark sea pools spun and whirled white in the straits of Euripos. There in the bay of Aulis a thousand sails hung limp, the fleet of Agamemnon, King of Kings, launched to seize the crown of victory and to avenge a spoiled bed. All this to appease a cuckold's lost pride.
