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Euripides: Hecuba | |||
2006 • 1-58510-148-6 • paper • 118 pages • 5˝ x 8˝ • $8.95 | About the Author | Contents | Introduction |
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Euripides’ Hecuba is one of the few tragedies that evoke a sense of utter desolation and destruction in the audience. The drama focuses on the status of women, those who are out of power and at the margins of society, by enacting the sufferings of Hecuba. With the city of Troy fallen, Hecuba and Polyxena, her daughter, are enslaved to Agamemnon. Hecuba is despondent with the news that Polyxena is chosen to be sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles. After the sacrifice, the body of her son Polydorus, already a ghost at the start of the drama, is discovered. Polymestor, a king in Thrace who Hecuba sent Polydorus to for safety reasons, murdered Polydorus for his gold. With the tacit complicity of Agamemnon, Hecuba plots her revenge against Polymestor. What transpires next has lasting implications for all involved, including a dramatic trial scene and Hecuba’s ultimate metamorphosis.
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Robin Mitchell-Boyask is Associate Professor of Classics at Temple University and has been a Junior Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies and a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University. He has published numerous articles on Greek and Latin literature as well as Approaches to Teaching the Dramas of Euripides (MLA 2002). He is currently completing a book on the plague of Athens and Greek drama.
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My goal here has been to produce a translation that has as little to do with me as possible; this means I do not introduce any new metaphors through the process of translation, I try to keep the English lines as close to their Greek counterparts in number and placement as I can without making the English excessively awkward, and I try to translate the Greek into English using the same English words consistently. This translation will thus not be the most poetic available (though I do sometimes strive to render Euripides’ use of alliteration) and sometimes English idiom will be sacrificed to the goal of preserving the flow of ideas from the original Greek lines, though without, I hope, falling into the trap of “translationese.” What is gained is a more accurate approximation of Euripides’ Greek than has sometimes been the case in translations of the Hecuba so that readers can follow shifts in word use and language more coherently. Another result of a more literal translation is that English words will now show Euripides’ insistence on certain key themes as embodied in the drama’s language. For example, the Greek idiom didômi dikęn is normally translated as “I pay the penalty (for transgression)”, and rightly so, since it connotes punishment. But it literally means “I give justice.” Justice (dikę) is, arguably, the most important theme in the play, and this idiom thus allows the audience to hear “justice” repeatedly. I believe that English readers need to see (and hear) this insistence preserved, so I have compromised with the translation “to pay justice.” Similarly, Euripides uses two words to denote Hecuba’s children, teknon, which I have translated as “child,” and pais, which I have translated as “boy” for Polydorus and “daughter” for Polyxena; “boy” in English, coming from a mother, has a much greater emotional range, I think, than just “son.” It connotes Polydorus’ child-like helplessness against the machinations of his host, and a mother’s despair over losing the one son, her “baby,” she believed was safe. One of the difficulties of translating Greek tragedy for a modern audience is that modern American English has an impoverished vocabulary for lamentation. “Alas” is, at best, extremely stilted, and, at worst, inducing of giggles. Thus, when I do chose to translate pheu as “alas”, that is when I feel a character’s stated grief is insincere. Other terms of grief, such as aiai or oimoi, I leave untranslated, since the inarticulate interjections seem, in some ways, more powerful than any actual English equivalent. The first readers of this translation were the students in my introductory Greek Drama and Culture course in the spring of 2002 at Temple University. I inflicted an extremely awkward first draft on them, and asked them to help me write the notes and commentary by telling me what they needed to know. As complete novices, they were the best judges of what other students would need in the final edition. I am extremely grateful to them for their help. These students also helped me with the stage directions, and about stage directions I must also say a few words. The manuscripts that led to modern editions lacked any stage directions, and, indeed, even changes in speaker were indicated by simple marks. Any stage direction in a modern translation comes from the translator’s imaginative interaction with the contents of the play itself. Some directions, such as indications of a speaker’s tone, are more imaginative than others. Readers who consult multiple translations will find wide differences in matters such as when exits occur and in what direction. Some of my stage directions will raise eyebrows, but I have tried to indicate which directions are more imaginative than others; in general, they are based on information in the text and from my working on possible dramatic reconstructions with my students. One last note about directions: directions are given according to the audience’s perspective, and so, for example, “right” is the audience’s right. Readers will notice that some passages are placed inside brackets. These are used to represent where modern editors have reached a conclusion that a part of the received manuscript is not genuine; those lines were added subsequently, usually by actors. These additions are called interpolations.
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Euripides: Hecuba
