Herakles
By: Euripides ; translated by Kenneth McLeish
Contributors: McLeish, Kenneth, 1940-1997, translator; Euripides
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London]
Language: eng
Subjects: Drama
Description: While the great Greek hero Herakles was in the underworld completing his divinely ordained labours, above ground, a rival king, Lykos, was busy plotting to murder Herakles' living mortal family. Instead, Herakles' returns just in time to kill Lykos. This is a short-lived redemption, however; after the murder of Lykos, Herakles' descends into madness and murders his own offspring, a madness initiated by an angry Hera, the goddess protector of Lykos. Only the appeal of the legendary king of Athens, Theseus, can bring Herakles back to sanity again, a sanity he reaches only to be realise his actions and be faced with a lifetime of heartbreak and an empty future ahead of him.
Notes: Previously issued in print: in Plays five. London: Methuen Drama, 1997.

Translated from the Ancient Greek.