Reviews for Euripides: The Children of Heracles

The average rating for Euripides: The Children of Heracles based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-24 00:00:00 David Hough Runs parallel to the Medea insofar as it involves exiles (aside from Athens, "the rest of Greece is banned to us" (l. 31)). Easy to discern the Peloponnesian War influences in how Athens is set against Argos (a Spartan ally in the war); the Argive ambassador is 'Copreus,' which I assume signifies that he is dungy or a coprophiliac or speaks in a coprolaliac manner or whatever. The text lays out a legal agon between Argos, demanding extradition, and the Heraclids, demanding asylum. The extradition request boils down to "recovering / These Argive nationals who've run away" (ll. 139-40), which is absolutely inadequate under modern extradition rules--here, it is contended that the defendants are "legally condemned at home" and "we have a perfect right to carry out / The laws we make for our own sovereign land" (ll. 141-42). Normally, we will want some evidence that the persons to be extradited have committed a crime, and that this crime is criminalized in both jurisdictions (so-called 'double criminality'). Argos' abject claim lacks all this, and is supported merely by threats of "total war" (l. 160) if they don't get their way. It is in this regard very similar to how the US handled the Afghanistan War in 2001--demanding extradition without a treaty and without evidence but under threat of total war. Good job, US. Heracles' proverbial friendly friend Iolaus argues against extradition and for political asylum; his arguments are also very bad. He begins with flattery and recognized that he shouldn't overdo it (ll. 203-4). He contends that they are no longer subject to Argive jurisdiction because they have been exiled (ll. 185 ff.), which is reasonable, but not an argument for asylum. He next avers that there is a family connection that warrants asylum (ll. 205 ff.), and then that Athens owes the children of Heracles recompense because Heracles hauled Theseus' sorry ass out of Hades (ll. 218 ff.). By some upside-down miracle, the Athenian monarch agrees to grant asylum--until the priests reveal that Persephone demands "as victim a / Young lady of respectable descent" (ll. 409-9) in order to defeat the imminent Argive punitive invasion. The Athenians are about to tumble into stasis (l. 419) debating the issue, and the monarch, while claiming not to be "a tyrant over savages" (l. 423), declines to sacrifice his own kid or require any Athenian citizen to sacrifice theirs on behalf of the refugees--because policy must of course be formed through consultation with oracles and seers and diviners and sorcerers; that's what makes an effective polis. The dilemma is resolved when Heracles' daughter decides to "consent to use / Me of yourselves" (l. 549-50), a perfectly agambenian moment in the 'use of bodies.' After that, it's war and retribution and ugly handling of prisoners of war, wherein the Athenians again make a good initial showing as to the rights of vulnerable persons and then again, perhaps, fail to remain steadfast, caving in to the normative impositions of a conservative theological pragmatism. Fugly, the reliance on human sacrifice to resolve political questions. The ultimate comparison on this point is the variant outcomes of Agamemnon/Iphigenia vs. Abraham/Isaac.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-01-30 00:00:00 Kausikh Nandi فرزندان هراکلس نمایشنامه مهمی در آثار به جا مونده از اوریپید نیست، حذفیات و تغییرات مختلف روند روایت رو دچار تناقض کرده و خود داستان هم پروپاگاندای وطن پرستانه ایه برای افزایش روحیه آتنی ها در جنگ با اسپارتا و متحدهاش! در کل نمایشنامه آیه که میشه کاملا نادیده اش گرفت.