Here, Peter Burian and Brian Swann recreate Euripides' The Phoenician Women, a play about the fateful history of the House of Laios following the tragic fall of Oedipus, King of Thebes. Their lively translation of this controversial play reveals the cohesion and taut organization of a complexdramatic work. Through the use of dramatic, fast-paced poetry--almost cinematic it its rapidity of tempo and metaphorical vividness--Burian and Swann capture the original spirit of Euripides' drama about the deeply and disturbingly ironic convergence of free will and fate. Presented with acritical introduction, stage directions, a glossary of mythical Greek names and terms, and a commentary on difficult passages, this edition of The Phoenician Women makes a controversial tragedy accessible to the modern reader.

"Phoenician Women", one of Euripides' later tragedies, is an intriguing play that arguably displays some of his finest dramatic technique. Rich in cast and varied in incident, it is an example of Euripides' experimentation with structure. It dramatises the most fertile mythical tradition of the city of Thebes and its doomed royal family, focusing in particular on the conflict between Eteocles and Polyneices as a result of their father Oedipus' curse, which eventually leads to mutual fratricide. The play was very popular throughout antiquity, and became part of the so-called "Byzantine Triad" (along with "Hecuba" and "Orestes"), of plays studied in the school curriculum.Thalia Papadopoulou here offers a thorough survey of the play in its historical context, against the background of Athenian tragedy and Euripidean dramaturgy. Employing various critical approaches, she investigates the literary tradition and the dynamics of intertextuality, Euripidean dramatic technique, the use of rhetoric, characterisation, gender, the function of the Chorus, aspects of performance and the reception of the play from antiquity to modern times.

Euripides has been prized in every age for the pathos, terror, surprising plot twists, and intellectual probing of his dramatic creations. In this fifth volume of the new Loeb Classical Library Euripides, David Kovacs presents a freshly edited Greek text and a faithful and deftly worded translation of three plays. For his Helen the poet employs an alternative history in which a virtuous Helen never went to Troy but spent the war years in Egypt, falsely blamed for the adulterous behavior of her divinely created double in Troy. This volume also includes Phoenician Women, Euripides' treatment of the battle between the sons of Oedipus for control of Thebes; and Orestes, a novel retelling of Orestes' lot after he murdered his mother, Clytaemestra. Each play is annotated and prefaced by a helpful introduction.

The four late plays of Euripides collected here, in beautifully crafted translations by Cecelia Eaton Luschnig and Paul Woodruff, offer a faithful and dynamic representation of the playwright’s mature vision.