Euripides
c. 480–406 BCE · Ancient Greece
“I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury.”
Peak-work percentile in the canon.
The lineage through Euripides
Drew From(2)
who shaped Euripides
- Medea's honor-driven rage is built on the heroic code of Achilles in the Iliad — the hero who cannot endure a slight or the threat of being laughed at
- Euripides deliberately invokes that epic temper, then twists it: where Achilles relents and gives back Hector's corpse, Medea will not let Jason bury their sons
- Reading the Iliad first lets you hear the Achillean note in everything Medea says about honor and vengeance
via The Oresteia
- Medea answers the Oresteia — the murder-by-poisoned-robe is patterned on Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon in his entangling robe
- Euripides borrows the Agamemnon's language of 'sacrifice' for the killing, and stages Medea over the bodies as Aeschylus staged Clytemnestra over hers
- Read the Oresteia first and Medea reads as a deliberate response to Clytemnestra — the avenging woman over the corpses, remade
Inspired(3)
who Euripides shaped
- Aristotle puts Medea on his dissecting table — he names the play by name when he lays down the rules of plot
- Its god-sent chariot ending is his prime example of a resolution wrongly forced by a deus ex machina, a fault he warns every dramatist against
- He cites Medea's child-murder again as a deed done knowingly — Medea is one of the case studies the Poetics is built on
via The Aeneid
- Euripides's betrayed, vengeful heroine is the model Virgil reaches for when he builds Dido in Aeneid 4
- The arc is Medea's: the abandoned spouse whose love curdles into wrath and ruin
- Virgil transplants that Greek-tragic rage into Roman epic — Dido's language after Aeneas leaves recalls Medea's directly
via Metamorphoses
- Euripides gave the abandoned wife her terrifying inner voice — and Ovid took it whole
- Medea's deliberation on the stage, torn between love and fury, becomes the torn lover's soliloquy of Metamorphoses Book 7
- Where Euripides stages one catastrophic day, Ovid stretches Medea across her entire career, folding the tragedy into a continuous epic sweep
Famous Quotes
“There be many shapes of mystery. And many things God makes to be, past hope or fear. And the end men looked for cometh not, and a path is there where no man thought.”
“Of all things that have life and intelligence, we women are the most wretched creatures on earth.”
“Cleverness is not wisdom. And to think mortal thoughts is to keep mortal company.”
“I would gladly take my stand in battle array three times o'er, than once give birth.”
About Euripides
Ancient Greek tragedian who, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, defined Athenian tragedy. More of his plays survive (18 or 19) than any other Greek dramatist. His work was considered radical in its time for its psychological realism, strong female characters, and questioning of traditional values — Medea, The Bacchae, and Alcestis remain among his most performed works.
Euripides, Ranked
According to 
- 96Medea431 BCEuripidesModerate·Short·54 pagesInfluence68Popularity51Ancient GreeceTragedyAncient Greek
- 149Alcestis438 BCEuripidesModerate·Quick·36 pagesInfluence28Popularity5Ancient GreeceTragedyAncient Greek
- 165The Bacchae405 BCEuripidesModerate·Short·48 pagesInfluence68Popularity49Ancient GreeceTragedyAncient Greek