#will carter

Three Plays by Euripides

In the ancient city of Athens, every two years a festival called the Dionysia would be held in honor of the god Dionysus. Established by the tyrant Pisistratus in the mid-6th century BCE, the event saw processions, feasting, and plays in both comedy and tragedy and it is here that the the young Euripides got his start as a tragedian. Starting with the 455BCE Dionysia and continuing until 408BCE, Euripides competed in a plethora of drama competitions and wrote many tragedies, most of which did not survive to the modern day. Of the ones that did survive, three tend to stand out as the pinnacle of the tragedian’s work; Medea, Hippolytus, and The Bacchae.

Special Collections holds various editions of these plays, with some books presenting them separately and others having them compiled together. The book I worked from is of the latter category, being translated by the English classical scholar Philip Vellacott, illustrated by British artist and designer Michael Ayrton, and published by The Limited Editions Club in 1967. The edition was printed in London at the Curwen Press in a limited edition of 1500 signed by the artist, designed by printer and type designer Will Carter and with Ayrton’s drawings reproduced in Moonachie, New Jersey by the Photogravure and Color Company.

Despite the reputation Ancient Greek tragedies have received for their gruesomeness and brutality, death itself is absent from the stage. Though we may see a character going to their death or their bodies after the fact, there are no surviving Ancient Greek plays that show the moment of death. Euripides tended to employ two different techniques when conveying death; the first is having another character tell the audience or another character how the death occurred, and the other is having the actors shouting what is happening offstage for the audience to hear. The former of these two were greatly favored in the three great plays of Euripides for good reason; it allowed the emotion of the characters to shine through. The three different messengers speak of fear, pain, and grief in a way that no action could depict. It's possible to say that the absence of death in the plays of Euripides made death all the more real.

View more of my Classics posts.

View more Limited Edition Club posts.

It was a dirty affair, and Amalia loved every single second of it. She knew she was supposed to feel shame, be disgusted that a woman of her status was having an affair with a man who had a wife and child, but she honestly couldn’t care less. Making love in the very bed where he and his wife slept seemed like a coveted victory. 

Voices outside brought Amalia out of her bliss, and she watched as Will jumped from the bed and looked out the window.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“They’re home.”

Panic seized Amalia, getting off the bed and covering her mouth. “You said she wouldn’t be home for another three hours,” she hissed.

“Toddlers aren’t very predictable,” he answered, condescendingly. “Fuck. Get in the bathroom and grab your clothes.”

“The bathroom?!”

“Would you rather hide in the wardrobe?”

Amalia hid in the bathroom.

She hastily put on her coat over her lingerie, feeling humiliated as she heard Will speak to his wife in their bedroom. He’d sworn that they wouldn’t be home for hours, that she would be able to leave without a rush or worry. She listened as the couple chatted, muffled by the door for what seemed like hours until Will suddenly opened it and pulled her out by the arm. 

“Look,” he said bluntly, “I asked her to take a look at the garden in the yard, so she won’t see you leave. Go through the front.”

“Like this?!”

“Christ, Amalia, yes! It’s mid-day, no one’s home.”

“Well, do you want me to phone you?”

“No. I’ll phone you. And we can’t do this again here, alright?”

She nodded, the sickening feeling of embarrassment crawling up on her. “Alright.”

Standing outside of the townhouse in the middle of the day in messed up hair was probably the most mortifying thing Amalia had ever done. But Will was right. The streets of his neighborhood were empty. She would leave unseen, and all would be well. 

Then she looked up, and Will’s two-year-old son was standing in the window on the second floor, staring at her, more confused than anything. She stared back, before looking away, shame creeping up on her for the first time since beginning the affair. 

November 1948, Oxford, England

Perhaps Miranda was a horrible person. She had a girlfriend, and yet, the thought of Amalia with that blond git made her blood boil with jealousy. All her free time was spent with the illustrious Will Carter. Miranda had yet to meet him. She always left when Amalia told her he was coming over. She should be happy for Amalia, having someone like she had Indira, but the sinking feeling in her never went away.

Miranda was curious by nature, and she assumed it wouldn’t be hard to find an army officer named Will Carter in Oxford. Who was this Will Carter? Who claimed to be a great-grandson of the Baron Southhampton? Who claimed to have served in the war?

She got his addresses quite easily, and though they had yet to met, photographs of her face were plastered all over their flat, so she tried to act inconspicuous, hoping he wouldn’t her practically spying on him. He lived in a small townhouse, surrounded by other officers stationed in the area. As she got closer, however, everything quickly turned very wrong.

Not only was Lieutenant Wilfred “Will” Carter married, he had an infant son!