Helen and Three Other Plays: Phoenician Women, Ion, and Cyclops

In the three tragedies of this volume, Euripides presents careful studies of people in an inescapable trap, caught through no fault of their own in the crossfire between rivals.

The real Helen - not the beautiful but sinister phantom that went off with Paris to Troy - is stuck in Crete waiting for her husband, Melelaos, while being pursued by Theoclymenos, the island's king.

In Phoenician Women, a retelling of the Oedipus myth, Jocasta - who in Euripides' version did not hang herself - must witness the death of her two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles who are fighting over the throne of Thebes.

Ion, too, is trapped in Apollo's temple where he must serve as a caretaker. He is without a name and without a past, without a mother and without a memory, the very stuff, the very substance of a mortal.

The final play, Euripides' Cyclops, is the only satyr play that has survived the tortuous travails of history. It is a play that rolls as clowns roll on the floor of a Circus as pirates capture Dionysus and the Cyclops Polyphemus captures Odysseus and his men... and there is plenty of wine!