Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Introduction and Bibliography © Edith Hall 2000 Translation and Notes ©James Morwood 2000 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Euripides [Hecuba. English] Hecuba; The Trojan women; Andromache/Euripides/translated with explanatory notes by James Morwood; with an introduction by Edith Hall. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.). 1. Euripides—Translations into English. 2. Hecuba (Legendary character)—Drama. 3. Andromache (Legendary character)—Drama. 4. Troy (Extinct city)—Drama. 5. Trojan War—Drama. I. Title: Hecuba; The Trojan Women; Andromache. II. Morwood, James. III. Euripides. Trojan women. English. IV. Euripides. Andromache. English. V. Title: Trojan women. VI. Title: Andromache. VII. Title. PA3975.A2 2000b 882′.01—dc21 00–059816 ISBN-13: 978–0-19–283987-9 ISBN-10: 0–19-283987-X 6 Typeset by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd. Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing. The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers. Refer to the Table of Contents to navigate through the material in this Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*) throughout the text to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes. OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS EURIPIDES Hecuba The Trojan Women Andromache Translated and Edited by JAMES MORWOOD Introduction by EDITH HALL OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS THE TROJAN WOMEN AND OTHER PLAYS EURIPIDES was born in attica (the country whose main city was Athens) about 485 BCE. By the time of his death in 406 BCE he had written at least eighty plays, which were performed at the Great Dionysia, the Athenians’ major drama festival. Seventeen of these survive complete. He was one of the three outstanding figures—with Aeschylus and Sophocles—who made fifth-century Athens pre- eminent in the history of the world drama. While he lived his apparently reclusive life Euripides was less successful than the other two tragedians, winning the festival’s prize only five times. But his vigorous, immediate, controversial, and flamboyantly theatrical plays soon become by far the most popular and frequently revived works in the ancient repertoire. The universality of the conflicts he explores, and the startling realism of his characterization, ensure that he has also been by far the most often adapted, staged, and filmed of the ancient dramatists from the Renaissance to the