Andromache: "The wavering mind is but a base possession"
By Euripides .
()
About this ebook
Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "crowns of victory", Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and Æschylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after Æschylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of Æschylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "the noblest of her songs of praise". His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones." Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.
Read more from Euripides .
Heracles: "The greatest pleasure of life is love" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIphigenia in Aulis: "Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orestes: "Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Medea: "There is just one life for each of us: our own" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Electra: "Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRhesus: "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cyclops: "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlcestis: "One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHecuba: "He was a wise man who originated the idea of God" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Suppliants: "Do not consider painful what is good for you" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHippolytus: "Silence is true wisdom's best reply" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trojan Women: "Much effort, much prosperity" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Iphigenia in Taurus: "Among mortals second thoughts are wisest" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Phœnician Virgins: "Better a serpent than a stepmother!" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHelen: "To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIon: "Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElectra: "To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Heraclidæ: "Nothing has more strength than dire necessity" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bacchæ: "The good and the wise lead quiet lives" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related authors
Related to Andromache
Related ebooks
Hippolytus: (Hippolytos Stephanophoros) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trojan Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Phoenician Maidens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Illustrated Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trojan Women and Hippolytus Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Walls of Wilusa: A Novel of Survival During the Trojan War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHecyra (The Mother-in-Law): 'I am human and I think nothing of which is human is alien to me'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOedipus at Colonus Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Andromache Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iphigenia in Tauris Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Name Is Sappho Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Argonautica Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life, Poetry and Influence of Sappho Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlcestis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea of Euripides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hercules Furens: 'And fates I conquered; and in scorn of death I have come back again. What else remains?'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaiting for Odysseus Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Angel's Cut Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Awakening Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Danae Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeace Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Orestes: The Young Lion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Satires of A. Persius Flaccus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIphigenia in Tauris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ilion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sing, Goddess! A YA Anthology of Greek Myth Retellings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhiloctetes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea (Translated with an Introduction and Annotations by Gilbert Murray) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSneferu: The Pyramid Builders, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe World of Ovid's Metamorphoses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Performing Arts For You
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth (new classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: Train Your Dog in 7 Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet, with line numbers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Midsummer Night's Dream, with line numbers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: An Oprah's Book Club Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Star Wars: Book of Lists Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Sketch Comedy: A Journey through the Art and Craft of Humor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStoryworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Importance of Being Earnest: A Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Dolls House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Andromache
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Andromache - Euripides .
Andromache by Euripides
Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius.
Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate.
Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory
, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics.
However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and Æschylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow.
His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after Æschylus had written his classic The Oristria.
Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal.
Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of Æschylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times.
Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, the noblest of her songs of praise
. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones.
Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city.
Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection.
At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.
Index of Contents
The Persons
Scene
ANDROMACHE
Euripides – A Short Biography
Euripides – A Concise Bibliography
THE PERSONS
ANDROMACHE MAID OF ANDROMACHE
CHORUS OF PHTHIAN WOMEN
HERMIONE, daughter of MENELAUS and wife of Neoptolemus
MENELAUS, King of Sparta MOLOSSUS, son of ANDROMACHE and Neoptolemus
PELEUS, father of Achilles
NURSE OF HERMIONE ORESTES, son of Agamemnon
MESSENGER THETIS, the goddess, wife of PELEUS
SCENE
Before the temple of Thetis in Thessaly. The palace of Achilles is nearby.
ANDROMACHE
ANDROMACHE, dressed as a suppliant, is clinging to the altar in front of the temple.
ANDROMACHE
O city of Thebes, glory of Asia, whence on a day I came to Priam's princely home with many a rich and costly thing in my dower, affianced unto Hector to be the mother of his children, I Andromache, envied name in days of yore, but now of all women that have been or yet shall be the most unfortunate; for I have lived to see my husband Hector slain by Achilles, and the babe Astyanax, whom I bore my lord, hurled from the towering battlements, when the Hellenes sacked our Trojan home; and I myself am come to Hellas as a slave, though I was esteemed a daughter of a race most free, given to Neoptolemus that island-prince, and set apart for him