The thrill of translating Euripides is to follow the associations of Euripides’ mind. Besides the usual obstacles of corruptions in the text, the translator of Euripides who aims at a general audience faces some difficulties: what to do with compound words, exclamations, and interjections, and how not to produce a lower level of diction than the general reader may reasonably expect. These must be balanced by the familiar expectations of English poetry. Compound words can clutter English lines and so must be seldom used. Exclamations and interjections are often word music in Greek ototototoi (Trojan Women, 1287) of unknown origin, but in English, they often have echoes of Christianity, as in the overpopular “Oh My God” (OMG). I have chosen more sophisticated versions of the latter rather than interrupt the flow of English with transliterations from Greek. The style of Euripides is somewhat lower than Aeschylus and Sophocles, but not as low as some translations have brought it. I have tried to indicate the formality and rhetoric of the Greek text without sounding “literary.” In the notes (which are keyed to line numbers), I not only identify historical and mythological names and places but also indicate specifically Greek themes and contexts so the reader may better understand the overtones and issues in the plays. I have also tried to stimulate literary analysis without overemphasizing the obvious.
Greek tragedy combines lines of dialogue in iambic trimeters (three pairs, or metra, of iambic verse, or six iambic feet, with variations) with passages of more irregular lyric measures, often sung. In the choral odes, the stanzas are divided into strophe (turn), antistrophe (counter-turn), and sometimes epode (after-song). The strophe and antistrophe correspond metrically. In English, I have tried to find equivalents that would bring the reader closer to the Greek original rather than duplicating Greek meters in English, because of the different metrical uses in the two languages. For example, the dochmius (˘ ——˘ —) is often used in tragedy to increase emotion, positively or negatively, but would have little effect in English. Iambs fit dialogue, both in Greek and English, but dactyls and anapests imply light verse in English, while the dactyl suggests heroic verse in Greek, and anapests, originally a marching meter, can be used for tragic songs, character introductions, and exits. For flexibility, I have used a four-beat variable stress line for the Greek dialogue’s iambic trimeters and freer verse for the lyrical parts, where Euripides uses many lyrical meters with frequent variations because many passages were sung and because of the highly emotional nature of his plays. I have kept the metrical correspondence of strophe and antistrophe. Overall, I have tried to produce a contemporary poetic idiom that can be read, performed, and taught today.