Translated by Robert Emmet Meagher

Description

Euripides' Hekabe presents a spectacle of suffering, rage, and revenge that offers compelling witness to the courage and solidarity of those who suffer the most from violence. Meagher's brilliant translation is accessible yet does not diminsh the powerful impact of this extraordinary and timeless play.

This ancient Greek tragedy presents a spectacle of the torment, rage, and revenge endured and enacted by women who, Euripides realized, suffer first and most from war. In Hekabe, the fate of the bereaved queen of Troy is a testament to the dehumanizing rather than ennobling effects of intense and prolonged suffering.

As long as we live in a world all but defined by violence, the ancient voice of Euripides Hekabe will offer compelling witness to the courage and solidarity of those who suffer it most and a fierce challenge to the simplistic assurance that suffering is somehow for the better of us all.

Special Features

• A lively and extremely actable English translation that is true to the word and spirit of the ancient original
• An illuminating, attractive and affordable presentation for the general reader, the college student, the director and performer alike

Translator Bio

Robert Emmet Meagher has won critical acclaim from actors, directors, and scholars who have commissioned, read and performed his translations of ancient Greek plays in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland. His unmatched skill in eliciting the power and passion of Greek drama is a synthesis of innate dramatic sensibilities, academic brilliance, and an interdisciplinary approach. Since completing his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, Meagher has taught literature, drama, epic, comparative religion, theology, and philosophy as a visiting professor, a guest lecturer, and a full-time professor. Actress Irene Papas, who has commissioned three translations from him, praises Meagher's "true sense of dramatic construction...his dialogue is always sharp, frequently daring, and invariably extremely actable." The late Michael Joyce, of Dublin's Samuel Beckett Center and the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, called him "the finest living translator of ancient Greek Drama." Other books include: Euripides Helen, Mortal Vision: The Wisdom of Euripides, Euripides Iphigenia at Aulis & Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen: A Study in Myth and Misogyny, Euripides Bakkhai, Euripides Hekabe, and Aeschylus Seven Against Thebes.

Comments and Reviews

Robert Meagher has been progressively making a considerable name for himself as an interpreter, translator and producer of Greek tragedy, particularly Euripides... Meagher is achieving something which these other translators [referring to James Michie, Colin Leach, and Richmond Lattimore] are not perhaps striving for, something credibly actable, and as such he is performing a great service for Euripides and the Classics in general.

— John Myles Dillon,
Regius Professor of Greek,
Trinity College, University of Dublin

Robert Meagher is the finest living translator of Greek drama.

— Michael Joyce,
former director and tutor,
Samuel Beckett Centre, Dublin

As an actress who has performed Greek tragedy in English, I feel a very strong admiration for Robert E. Meagher. He has a talent for making a classical text spring to life, remaining true to the author while investing it with the poetic immediacy of an original work. Mr. Meagher certainly knows how to write for actors. Not only has he a true sense of dramatic construction, but his dialogue is always sharp, frequently daring, and invariably extremely actable. We need playwrights like him.

— Irene Papas
Actress