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Was Medea a murderer? Or was she just another victim of racist laws enacted by a bigoted politician?
Under Hera's orders, Herakles had to serve Eurystheus, a cruel king for whom he had to perform his famous ten labours. Later, Herakles' children - "The Herakleidae" - are being pursued by Eurystheus' man and the Athenians offer those children protection.
Do mortals have the right to reject the ways of gods? Hippolytus rejected Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and sex and took his devotions to the virgin goddess Artemis, the goddess who opposed all that Aphrodite stood for.
How strong and big in stature - or knowledge or ability - is a mortal allowed to be before he or she irks the gods? In these plays, Euripides the bearer of the scales of Justice turning his stage into a courtroom trying to present moral questions such as these to his fellow Athenians.
Euripides
Charles Martin is a poet, translator, and essayist. The author of seven books of poems and translator of Catullus and Ovid, he is the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine, and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
A.E. Stallings is an American poet and translator who lives in Athens, Greece. Her most recent books are LIKE: Poems and a translation of Hesiod’s Works and Days.
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