Series Copy Based on the conviction that only translators who write
poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless
tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, _The Greek Tragedies
in New Translations_ series offers new translations that go beyond the
literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the
originals. Under the editorship of Herbert Golder and the late William
Arrowsmith, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary
on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and
geographical references in the plays. One of Euripides' late plays,
_Ion_ is a complex enactment of the changing relations between the
human and divine orders and the way in which our understanding of the
gods is mediated and re-visioned by myths. The story begins years
before the play begins, with the rape of the mortal Kreousa, queen of
Athens, by Apollo. Kreousa bears Apollos' child in secret then
abandons it. Unbeknownst to her, Apollo has the child brought to his
temple at Delphi to be reared by the priestess as ward of the shrine.
Many years later, Kreousa, now married to the foreigner Xouthos but
childless, comes to Delphi seeking prophecy about children. Apollo,
however, speaking through the oracle, bestows the temple ward, Ion, on
Xouthos as his child. Enraged, Kreousa conspires to kill as an
interloper the very son she has despaired of finding. After mother and
son both try to kill each other, the priestess reveals the birth
tokens that permit Kreousa to recognize and embrace the child she
thought was dead. Ion discovers the truth of his parentage and departs
for Athens, as a mixed blood of humanity and divinity, to participate
in the life of the polis. In _Ion_, disturbing riptides of thought and
feeling run just below the often shimmering surfaces of Euripidean
melodrama. Although the play contains some of Euripides' most
beautiful lyrical writing, it quivers throughout with near disasters,
poorly informed actions and misdirected intentions that almost result
in catastrophe. Kreousa says at one point that good and evil do not
mix, but Euripides' argument, and what the youthful Ion strives to
understand, is that human beings are not only compounded of good and
evil, but that the two are often the same thing differently
experienced, differently understood, just as beauty and violence are
mixed both in the gods and in the mortal world.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780195357448
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter