Euripides: Suppliant Women (Aris and Phillips Classical Texts)

I'll initially address the translation and edition. This edition contains a translation, along with an introduction and extensive notes, all by James Morwood. Morwood states, "in accordance with the aims of this series, my translation does not aim at elegance or performability. Its primary objective is to make clear what I take to be the meaning of the Greek." Even so, it was clear and in unstilted contemporary English -- no slang but all standard English as it is written today. Few readers will be interested in producing it on stage, and I was not bothered in the least by any lack of elegance in the translation.The translator indicates where the text is corrupted, where text is probably spurious, and where the translator inserted text to fill out the sense. I like that line numbers are indicated. The Greek text appears on even-numbered pages, opposite the English translation on odd-numbered pages. The notes at the end, which are keyed to line numbers (and therefore easy to find but easy to skip if you are so inclined), address all sort of issues, including ancient Greek culture and legends, translation difficulties and how he attempted to solve them, plot points, citations to ancient Greek literature and secondary sources, and so on, all enough for any student and for the general reader. The Introduction discusses issues, motifs, characters and their development, whether the play was based on historical events, and more. There's a bibliography on the play and another bibliography on various topics related to Euripides, Greek tragedies, etc.As far as the play itself, it contains tension (I'll give away plot points here), such as whether the Athenians will attempt to rescue the bodies of the dead leaders -- will the Athenian king be persuaded by the group of mothers or by his own mother? You get a political argument between the Athenian king and a messenger. The resulting battle is not shown but is reported by another messenger (an approach typical of ancient Greek plays). The reactions of the mothers of the fallen soldiers to their deaths in battle is vivid. The reaction of the wife of a fallen soldier is literally off the top (you can read the play to see why I said "literally.").