Euripides

Euripides (in Greek, Εὐριπίδης) (Flia —Atica— or Salamis, ca. 484/480 BC-Pella, 406 BC) He was one of the three great Greek tragic poets of antiquity, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Biography

The most important sources on the life of Euripides are the Marmor Parium, the Suda, Aulus Gelius and the Lives written by the Greek biographer of the s. III a. C. Satyr His mother was called Cleito or Cleito (Gr. Κλειτώ) and his father Mnesarco or Mnesárquides (Gr. Μνήσαρχος ο Μνησαρχίδης), who was a merchant. Euripides was born in Flia (Gr., Φλύα), a village in central Attica, from where soon, due to the Second Medical War, decisive for the Greeks and the Western world, they had to emigrate to Athens while he was still a child. Other sources indicate that his birthplace was the island of Salamis.

It is known that he was a student of Anaxagoras of Clazomene, Protagoras, Archelaus, Prodicus and Diogenes of Apollonia. In the year 466 a. C., he completed two military service. He hated politics and was a lover of study, for which he had his own private library, one of the most complete in all of Greece. For a time he was interested in painting, coinciding with the heyday of the Polygnotus painter in Athens. He had two wives, named Melito and Quérile (or Quérine). He was a friend of Socrates, who, according to tradition, only attended the theater when plays by Euripides were performed. In 408 B.C. C., disappointed by the events in his homeland, involved in the interminable Peloponnesian War, Euripides withdrew to the court of Archelaus I of Macedonia, in Pela, where he died two years later.

Work

It is known that he wrote 92 plays, known by their titles or fragments, but only 19 of them have survived (18 tragedies and the satirical drama The Cyclops). Of one of these, Reso, it is still disputed if it is apocryphal. The canon also established 7 Euripides tragedies, but the taste of the time transmitted us a larger number. His tragic conception is far removed from that of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Euripides' works deal with legends and events from mythology from a distant time, long before the 5th century BC. C., but applicable to the time in which he wrote, especially to the cruelties of war. The differential features of his work are the following:

• Innovation in the treatment of myths.
• Complexity of situations and characters.
• Humanization of the characters, which are shown as men and women of flesh and blood, with passions and defects that, in some cases, approach those of the tragicomedia.
• Special influence of the problems and polemics of the moment, which give an air of realism.
• Rationalist criticism of the concept of traditional divinity.
• Decrease in the choir's role.

Euripides is best known for reforming the formal structure of traditional Attic tragedy, showing characters such as strong women and intelligent slaves, and for satirizing many heroes of Greek mythology. His works seem modern compared to those of his contemporaries, focusing on the inner lives and motivations of his characters in a way previously unknown to Greek audiences. One of the most discussed mechanisms is the so-called deus ex machina, which consists of resolving a conflict in an unnatural way, as in Medea (a work in which a dragon appears at the end). who saves the protagonist at the last moment), or in her Helena (tragedy in which an eidolon sent by the gods replaces the real Helena, who has been transferred to another Egypt, without there being adultery, and something similar occurs in his Iphigenias.) The conflict in Hippolytus, who wrote twice, and the only one of his works that he obtained The first place in agones, reveals human passions in a very current dimension and minimizes the participation of the gods in them. Hippolytus also reveals to us the true nature of the Euripidean texts, thanks to the fact that we know the modifications he made to the work in order to present it again and win the competition, and it clearly shows us what was the evaluation of the public and the judges of the time.

Statue of Euripides

The chronological list of his conserved works is:

1. Alcestis -.λκτις - 438 a. C.; second position.
2. Medea - M. δεια - 431 a. C.; third position.
3. The Hierarchy - -ρακλεδαι - ca. 430 a. C.
4. Hippolyte -.ππόλος στεφανοφόρος - 428 a. C.; first position.
5. Andromaca - -δρομάχ ca. 425 a. C.
6. Hécuba - -κγβ - ca. 424 a. C.
7. The supplicants - -κγτιδες - ca. 423 a. C.
8. Electra - -λέκτρα - ca. 420 a. C.
9. Heracles - -ρακλ exclς μαινόμενος - ca. 416 a. C.
10. The Trojans - Τοnοng οnοn οr οr οr οr οr οrοr οr οf οf οf οf οf οf οf οf οf οrοfοrοf οf οf οf οf οrοf οf οrοf οrοrοf οrοrοrοf οrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοr οrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοrοοrοrοrο C.; second position.
11. Ifigenia among the Tauros - -φιγένεια - הν Τας - ca. 414 a. C.
12. Ion - -ων - ca. 414 a. C.
13. Helena -.λένη - 412 a. C.
14. Fenicias - truncated. ca. 410 a. C.
15. Orestes -.ρέστης - 408 a. C.
16. The Baccathes - -άκαι - 406 a. C.: posthumous; the trilogy of which it is a party, Ifigenia in Áulide and Alcmeon in CorintoHe won the first prize.
17. Ifigenia in Áulide - -φιγένεια. /25070/ν.λίδι - 406 a. C.: posthumous; first post of trilogy.
18. Cyclops - Κκλω -, without dating; is its only preserved satirical drama.
19. Resoir -. marginσος. Maybe apocryph.

Chronological list of his fragmentary works:

1. The movies. - κελιάδες - 455 a. C.
2. The cretenses - Κες - 438 B.C., with Alcestis.
3. Alcmeon in Psofis - λκμαίων διの ὰωφδος - 438 B.C., with Alcestis.
4. Telefo - Τ λεφος - 438 a. C., with Alcestis.
5. The cretenses - Κρ substituteσαι - ca. 435 a. C.
6. Filoctetes - διλοκετις - 431 a. C., with Medea.
7. Dictis - Δκτυς - 431 a. C., with Medea.
8. Theristai - strokeερισταί - satirical work, 431 BC, with Medea.
9. Estenebea - σθενέβοια - before 429 a. C.
10. Belerofonte - -ελλεροφεν - ca. 430 a. C.
11. Cresphonts - Κρεσφόντης - ca. 425 a. C.
12. Erecteo -.ρεθες - 422 a. C.
13. Faeton - δα Muerteθων - ca. 420 a. C.
14. Melanipa knew it. or Melanipa the philosopher - Μελανπίπη σοφ σοφο ca. 420 a. C.
15. Alejandro - -λ predecessor ・ανδρος - 415 B.C., with The Trojans.
16. Palamedes - καλαμγδης - 415 a. C., with The Trojans.
17. Yes - σσυφος - work satirical, 415 B.C., with The Trojans.
18. Melanipa chained - MINελανπίπη δεσμהτις - ca. 412 a. C.
19. Andromeda - -δρομέδα - 412 a. C., with Helena.
20. Antiope - -τιόπη - ca. 410 BC.
21. Arquelao - -χρ ca. 410 a. C.
22. Hipsipila - -σιπσλη - ca. 410 a. C.
23. Alcmeon in Corinto- 406 B.C.; the trilogy of which it is part, with The Baccathes e Ifigenia in Áulide, won the first prize

Thought

The Athenian society of the time was debating between two options: the stability of conservative values, represented by Aeschylus and Aristophanes, and rationalist revisionism, represented by Euripides, Socrates and the sophists. The long Peloponnesian War contributed to the defeat of the first option, by verifying that the old recipes of yesteryear were no longer useful for the future. Aristophanes' animosity to the rationalism of Euripides is notorious, which he attacks in his comedies, especially in The Frogs, Thesmophorias, and The Assemblywomen, with jokes and allusions of malicious intent, such as the presumed low social extraction of Euripides' mother, which he qualifies as a greengrocer, when in reality he belonged to a wealthy family, according to serious sources such as Filócoro. The reasons for this persecution mania could be two:

• Ideological antagonism with the advanced thinking of Eurípides.
• The painting made by Eurípides of women in their tragedies, which departs them from the traditional, very stereotyped model of the Old Comedy.

Vincenzo di Benedetto has pointed out an evolution in the theater of Euripides from the destruction of the characters when confronted with reality to the works of his last period, in which, on the contrary, these, wrapped in the chaotic sea of chance, they realize their limitation and fragility and seek by all means to find liberation from their ills. He is not a poet of religious faith as firm as that of Aeschylus or Sophocles, and thus, although he respects traditional religion (for example, the priestess Theonoe's deep faith in Helen), alongside poignant expressions of piety such as Hippolytus' prayer to Artemis:

O dear goddess! [...] I hear your voice even though I do not see your face. I wish I'd finished my life like I started it!.

Sentences appear like the one from the lost drama Bellerophon: "If the gods commit any injustice, they are not gods" or the well-known one from his Helen:

What is God or what is not or what is between these two terms? Who among mortals can say that he has found the extreme limit, when he sees the things of the gods here or there and again varying in unforeseen and contradictory vicissitudes? [...] I do not know what is certain, at least among men; but I have found the word of the gods truthful.

From a passage in his Heracles we know that he rejected the idea that the gods indulge in shameful actions and illicit love, and reputed such stories to be inventions of the poets. Furthermore, he criticizes the fortune tellers, false and full of lies, and affirms that the best fortune teller is reason and courage. But his latest work, The Bacchae, is full of traditional piety.

Euripides offers a vision of war that no longer exalts heroes: twenty-seven years fighting Sparta had given many Athenians a more realistic and tragic vision of what it was. Euripides focuses on the disastrous consequences of war and paints horrifying pictures of it in his Trojan cycle: thus, in The Trojan Women, against the background of the burning of the famous city, the death of the little Astianacte, the sacrifice of Polyxena, the corpse of Polidoro, the blindness of Polymestor for revenge of Hecuba, the despair of Cassandra and the wailing and groans of the Trojan captives. After the defeat of Sicily, this pacifism of Euripides was definitively reflected in some verses from the chorus of his tragedy Helena:

You fools who seek to achieve fame in battle and with bellicose spears, foolishly believing to find a remedy for human labor! Well, if we had to solve them with the bloody struggle, it would never end in the cities the discord..

Spanish translations

Partials: among them, the oldest is the Hécuba triste by the humanist Fernán Pérez de Oliva, completed in 1528 and published much later (Córdoba, 1586; reprinted in the Spanish Parnassus by Juan José López de Sedano, vol. VI, Madrid: Sancha, 1772).

Complete: Eduardo Mier y Barbery (Madrid: Tello Printing, 1865): quite free and with omissions and errors. Completed later between 1909 and 1910, three vols., and later revised and corrected according to the Greek text by Carlos A. Disamdro (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1946)

Antonio Tovar, Euripides. Tragedias (Barcelona: Alma mater, 1955 and 1960): bilingual, in two volumes. Completed years later with a third work by Francisco Rodríguez Adrados and Luis Alberto de Cuenca (1995).

Angel María Garibay (The Nineteen Tragedies, Mexico: Porrúa, 1976): quite unreliable.

José Luis Calvo Martínez, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Carlos García Gual, Juan Antonio López Férez and Alberto Medina González (Madrid, Gredos, 1977-79)).

Julio Pallí Bonet and Josep Alsina Clota (Barcelona, Bruguera, 1982)

Juan Antonio López Férez and others (Madrid, Chair, 1985 ss.)

Manuel Fernández Galiano and Juan Miguel Labiano Illundáin (1991-2000, 3 vols.).

Juan Tobías Nápoli Tragedies I: Alcestis - Medea - Hipólito - Andrómaca (Buenos Aires, Colihue, 2005) ISBN: 950-563-012-3, Tragedies II: Heraclids, Hecuba, Supplicantes (Buenos Aires, Colihue, 2014) ISBN: 978-950-563-074-5, Tragedies III: Troyanas, Helena, Iphigenia en Áulide (Buenos Aires, Colihue, 2016) ISBN: 978-950-563-078-3: The direct translation from Greek and the notes, as well as an extensive and detailed introduction, by Juan Nápoli, a specialist in Greek language and culture from the National University of La Plata.

We must also mention some Complete Works of Euripides in four volumes, printed in Valencia without a year, translated from the French version of Leconte de Lisle by G. Gómez de la Mata, for their elegant prose and because it includes the Reso, and the translation into Catalan in verse by Carles Riba, three vols., (Barcelona, 1977).