PERHAPS NO OTHER FEMALE figure within the framework of Euripides resists the usual classifications and is as multifaceted and contradictory as Medea. Her initial image of despair is followed by disturbing and threatening images, intensified by the heartbreaking cries and curses that the unseen Medea utters from within. However, from the moment she appears on stage, she is characterized by remarkable self-control.

Employing both legitimate and illegitimate means, she alternately befriends, neutralizes, or manipulates all those who stand against her— the chorus of Corinthian women, Creon, Aegeus, and Jason— in order to gradually weave and unfold her plan for revenge, the unexpected culmination of which is the murder of her children. Only in the pivotal scene of the famous "monologue" does Medea momentarily waver and vacillate.

In the scene of her exit, Medea, who is already on the winged chariot with the dead bodies of her children, is almost equated with a god from the machine and addresses the stunned Jason in this merciless final dialogue from a position of absolute dominance.

A preliminary form of the translation of Medea was presented in the theater in 2006. Over the years, it has been revised several times; however, the focus on theater has remained steadfast, without, of course, neglecting the reader. In my understanding, the reference to theater entails, among other things, an increased concern for the rhythm of the translated text and avoidance of various conveniences. It also implies adherence to accuracy.

And I do not mean the (sometimes deceptive) accuracy of the letter, but the result of the painstaking effort that taps into the deeper deposits of the ancient text and aspires to construct a substantive discourse that is both concise and theatrically effective, avoiding flattening choices and preserving to the greatest possible extent the "relief" of the original.

TH. K. STEFANOPOULOS