"In classical mythology, Phaethon is the child of the sun god Helios, who tries to drive his father's chariot and is killed in the attempt. Euripides explains how this happened: Helios had seduced Phaeton's mother - already betrothed to another - and as the price of her seduction had promised to grant her a favour. As an adult Phaethon claims the promise and asks to drive his father's chariot, with disastrous consequences...Only a quarter of Euripides' original version of Phaethon has survived. Alistair Elliot has translated these surviving 327 lines and reconstructed the rest, staying as faithful as possible to Euripides' time and way of thinking. The result is something very like finding a lost Euripides play, unperformed since the fifth century BC and amounting to a new masterpiece."
- ISBN10 1840028971
- ISBN13 9781840028973
- Publish Date 12 November 2008
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 1 July 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Oberon Books Ltd
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 76
- Language English