I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.
Author: Euripides, one of the trio of great Greek dramatists which includes Sophocles and Aeschylus, lived during the fifth century BC. He wrote approximately ninety-two plays, of which nineteen are extant, but he only won four prizes in the great dramatic contests of the time, probably because of his somewhat unorthodox views. He was the first to reduce the importance of the chorus in his plays and to instead emphasize the study of character.
Characters:
Medea, a sorceress and wife of Jason.
Jason, the Argonaut who, with the help of Medea, won the Golden Fleece.
Creon, King of Corinth.
Chorus of Corinthian women.
Medea’s nurse.
Aegeus, King of Athens, Medea’s protector.
Messenger.
Quotations:
Attendant: “Art learning only now that every single man cares for himself more than for his neighbor, some from honest motives, others for mere gain’s sake?”
Creon: “A cunning woman, and man likewise, is easier to guard against when quick-tempered than when taciturn.”
(Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. ~Julius Caesar)
Medea: “Ah me! Ah me! to mortal man how dread a scourge is love!
Creon: “That, I deem, is according to the turn our fortunes take.”
(Love is a thing aye full of dread. ~Chaucer)
Messenger: “Not now for the first time, I think this human life is a shadow; yea, and without shrinking I will say that they amongst men who pretend to wisdom and expend deep thoughts on words do incur a serious charge of folly.”
(“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ~Macbeth)
Chorus: “Many a fate doth Zeus dispense, high on his Olympian throne: oft do the gods bring things to pass beyond man’s expectations; that which we thought would be is not fulfilled, while for the unlooked for, god finds out a way; and such hath been the issue of this matter.”
(“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.”
~All’s Well That Ends Well)
Either Shakespeare knew Euripides, or else the translator whose work I read was well steeped in Shakespeare —or these are just universal statements of truth.
