Supplices
First sentence
O DEMETER, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and ye servants of the goddess who attend her fane, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus, wherein my father reared me, Aethra, in a happy home, and gave me in marriage to Aegeus, Pandion's son, according to the oracle of Loxias...
Description
Centering on the right of proper burial for those fallen in battle, Suppliant Women reflects on war and on the rule of law. In Electra Euripides gives us his version of the famous legend of the murder of Clytaemestra by her children in revenge for her killing their father, a portrayal interestingly different from that in Sophocles' Electra. Narrating sudden reversals in the hero's fortunes, Heracles testifies to the fragility of human happiness.

