Medea: A New Translation - Softcover

The Medea of Euripides is one of the greatest of all Greek tragedies and arguably the one with the most significance today. A barbarian woman brought to Corinth and there abandoned by her Greek husband, Medea seeks vengeance on Jason and is willing to strike out against his new wife and family-even slaughtering the sons she has born him. At its center is Medea herself, a character who refuses definition: Is she a hero, a witch, a psychopath, a goddess? All that can be said for certain is that she is a woman who has loved, has suffered, and will stop at nothing for vengeance. In this stunning translation, poet Charles Martin captures the rhythms of Euripides' original text through contemporary rhyme and meter that speak directly to modern readers. An introduction by classicist and poet A.E. Stallings examines the complex and multifaceted Medea in patriarchal ancient Greece. Perfect in and out of the classroom as well as for theatrical performance, this faithful translation succeeds like no other.

“A masterful translation of a crucial classic. Martin’s Medea is crisp, forceful, swift, witty, and utterly believable and persuasive.”—Rachel Hadas, author of Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry

“Most Greek tragedies begin with a supernatural being, or royalty, or even the Chorus itself. This play, though, has no gods; it opens in the voice of the mortal of absolute lowest status in Greek society—not only a woman, but a slave; not only a slave, but a foreigner; indeed, a female foreign slave whose mistress is herself a refugee. . . . [D]eportation, extradition, asylum, exile—Martin emphasizes these timeless issues with a modern vocabulary out of our news cycles.” —From the Introduction by A.E. Stallings