This Book Will Make You Think by Alain Stephen

Author:Alain Stephen [Stephen, Alain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782430971
Publisher: Michael O’Mara

EURIPIDES

‘Who knows but life be that which men call death,

And death what men call life?’

Euripedes (c. 484–406 BC)

Euripides, alongside Sophocles and Aeschylus, was one of the triumvirate of classical Greek playwrights who pioneered a dramatic form commonly known as Greek tragedy. Accounts of Euripides’ life vary from the stuff of folkloric legend to the plainly absurd. The principal reason for the wild disparities in versions of Euripides’ biography stems from the fact that they are gleaned almost completely from the work of later Greek writers and their own prejudices concerning Euripides’ place in the pantheon of classical literature. On one hand, his admirers wished to enshrine Euripides’ legacy by shrouding his life story with mysticism and a generous sprinkling of colourful but largely apocryphal anecdotes. On the other hand, Euripides’ detractors, such as the comic playwright Aristophanes, who wished to decry his achievements, presented him as a self-absorbed buffoon or a lickspittle of the philosopher Socrates. However, given that Euripides himself never let the facts get in the way when telling a good story, it seems appropriate to concentrate on the fabled version of his life.

Most accounts concur that Euripides was born around 484 BC on the island of Salamis. The son of local merchants (Aristophanes rather cruelly suggests his parents were vegetable farmers), Euripides’ father, Mnesarchus, consulted the Oracle on the day of his birth and was told that his son was destined to wear ‘crowns of victory’.

Mnesarchus took this to mean his son would become a famous athlete and sent him to Athens to train. Euripides, like a fifth-century BC Billy Elliot, had other ideas, and after studying philosophy under the tutorship of Anaxagoras, he trained to be a dancer for the Athenian theatre before graduating to writing plays. Following two disastrous marriages to (allegedly) serially unfaithful women, a heartbroken Euripides returned to his native Salamis to become a hermit and live in a cave, where he surrounded himself with a vast library and lived in quiet contemplation. Whilst living in his cave, Euripides composed most of his significant works and his reputation and popularity began to spread across Greece. Eventually, he was tempted out of his self-imposed exile and invited to take up a position in the court of King Archelaus of Macedonia where, according to legend, he was accidentally killed after being torn to pieces by the king’s pack of Molossian hounds (a particularly vicious breed of guard dog similar to the bull mastiff that is, thankfully, now extinct).

Euripides’ most notable contribution to classical Greek tragedy lay in his depiction of the heroes and villains of ancient mythology. Drawing upon centuries of folklore, Euripides imbued his characters not with divine powers and insights but with common human frailties and emotions such as fear, anxiety, love and hatred. One possible explanation for Euripides adopting a realistic approach to the heroic legends of antiquity is that he was ironically trying to reflect the troubles and vices of his own era. During most of Euripides’ life, Athens was locked

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