This is the Medea we have been waiting for. It offers clarity without banality, eloquence without pretension, meter without doggerel, accuracy without clumsiness. No English Medea can ever be Euripides', but this is as close as anyone has come so far, and a good deal closer than I thought anyone would ever come. Arnson Svarlien has shown herself exceedingly skillful in making Euripides sound Euripidean.--David M. Schaps, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Critical acclaim for the Arnson Svarlien & Mitchell-Boyask
Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, also available from Hackett Publishing Company:
"The excellent Introduction by Robin Mitchell-Boyask displays an admirable command of up-to-date scholarship and judiciously leaves controversial matters open to one's own interpretation. Arnson Svarlien's verse translation has both elegance and power--it reads well, not just to the eye, but (happily for the director and actors) also to the ear."
-- Ian Storey, Department of Classics, Trent University
"Mitchell-Boyask's Introduction gives the reader a lively and accessible overview of Euripides' life, the circumstances of the original performances, and critical debate on the three plays. Footnotes to the translations provide students with useful background without over-burdening the text.
"The translations themselves are lively, vigorous, colorful, and direct, while remaining very close to the Greek; I laughed out loud more than once when I realized that, yes, this was exactly what Euripides had said. Arnson Svarlien has also taken care with the meter. Iambic trimeter, the 'spoken' meter of Greek, has been represented with iambic pentameter in English; but even in the lyric passages, whose meters do not translate into English, responsion within odes has been preserved. Yet all of this attention to such details of meter and accuracy sacrifices nothing in clarity or pace. Arnson Svarlien's translations are an ideal introduction to Euripides for students with no Greek and little knowledge of the ancient world. They remind me of why I love Euripides."
- Laurel Bowman, Department of Classics, University of Victoria
Diane Arnson Svarlien is Visiting Associate Professor of Classics, Georgetown College.
Robin Mitchell-Boyask is Associate Professor of Classics, Temple University.
