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....Just passed the Libation Bearers. Aeschylus has a way with ironic, monumental dialogues which portend tremendous climaxes. The language is so deep and seeps into the interaction- apparantly he suggests that there are no good options in life, merely the best of the worst, and that one must take their place amid the roil. Wisdom. This resonates with me, in the way that a drama read on the page will, as I imagine the perfect language and staging to bear witness to it....bigger review to follow, as it deserves much more than this.

....Finished. Five stars throughout. Coruscatingly direct, rich, earthy, and sublunary. Wisdom writing as mythology as poetry as black drama as cultural history. The trilogy is, I think, an actual example of literature as a catharsis for a national, cultural wound. Athens is seething after the trauma of the Trojan War.

Aeschylus, a former decorated solider himself, writes not only a gripping moral tragedy of family but of historical moment. The poise is unbearable at times. IF you surrender to the language and the momentum of the situation, of the irreversible circumstances, the annihilating power of the story and the words will blow you away.

This is written almost 2500 years ago and, yes the cliche is true- it's ripped from the headlines. Or more precisely the secret heart of the headlines. it's all there: inter-familial rage, impossible situations which call for revenge, justified killers who are justified in killing justified killers, war, the aftermath of war, sexual infidelity, gender roles, mourning, pulic/private, individual/political conflicts...

The narrative arc slopes upward again and again and falls and settles into an empty stage of dust, rumblings and omens of retributions and unbalanced scales calling for justice. Like any good drama it suspends disbelief in midair as you watch characters you know are only going to move closer to their predetermined end while holding on to the edge of your seat to see what happens next.

The characters are strong and tastefully lit. They've seeped into our collective unconscious, our cultural heritage- noble, tormented, insecure and niaeve Agamemnon, bitter and cunning and oppressed and grand Clytemnestra, sleazy and arrogant Aegisthus. Then you've got the weatherbeaten Chorus, the frenzied truth-telling doomed moonchild Cassandra, Electra of the offerings and doubt. Haunted, determined Orestes plagued by the truly gruesome, grotesque Furies with snakes in their hair and blood dripping from their eye sockets...Athena, Apollo...

Hell, we can easily include the citizens of Greece itself, sitting in the Theater of Dionysus itself, which just happens to be carved into the side of a hill. The chorus is addressing the assembled audience, certainly, and the Gods and Furies are (or can be) as well. There's some meta here, no doubt about it.

It can be applied in a variety of circumstances; Bobby Kennedy quoted from the first play on the night MLK was shot to the black community in Philadelphia, Karl Marx reread it every year, Eugene O'Neil adapted it for a modern stage, Freud was all over it, Yeats and Faulkner and Nietzsche made plenty of hay out of referencing it.

There is much to be said about the play itself, its role in Greek society, how it exhibits the transition from revenge and blood-feud to democracy and self-governance, the history of the cultural mythologies surrounding it.

About...now would be the time for me to admit that I really have no fucking idea how these ideas play out in the grand scheme of ancient history or on the political stage of Aeschylus's time. Not really anything more than some half-digested and barely-remembered diatribes some teachers of mine went on back in undergrad. My fault for all this, not theirs, no sir.

Lucky for me (and you, too, dear reader!) the introduction and background appears in the form of translator Fagles' and scholar Stanford's "The Serpent And The Eagle" an eloquent, erudite and informative nigh- hundred page prose poem.

But don't take my word for it:

"War, war, the great gold-broker of corpses
holds the balance of the battle on his spear!
Home from the pyres he sends them,
home from Troy to the loved ones,
heavy with tears, the urns brimmed full,
the heroes return in gold-dust,
dear, light ash for men: and they weep,
they praise them, 'He had skill in the swordplay,
'He went down so tall in the onslaught,'
'All for another's woman.' So they muster
in secret and rancour steals
towards our staunch defenders, Atreus' sons.

And there they ring the walls, the young,
the lithe, the handsome hold the graves
they won in Troy; the enemy earth
rides over those who conquered."


"Who- what power named the name that drove your fate?-
what hidden brain could divine your future,
steer that word to the mark,
to the bride of spears,
the whirlpool churning armies,
Oh for all the world a Helen!"


"Victory, you have sped my way before,
now speed me to the last."

"The nightingale- O for a song, a fate like hers!
The gods gave her a life of ease, swathed her in wings,
no tears, no wailing. The knife waits for me.
They'll splay me on the iron's double edge."

"Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein,
the haemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear."

"Red from your mother's womb I took you, reared you...
nights, the endless nights I paced, your wailing
kept me moving- led me to a life of labour,
all for what?
And such care I gave it...
baby can't think for itself, poor creature.
You have to nurse it, don't you? Read its mind,
little devil's got no words, it's still swaddled.
Maybe it wants a bite or a sip of something,
or its bladder pinches- a baby's soft insides
have a will of their own. I had to be a prophet.
O I tried, and missed, believe you me, I missed,
and I'd scrub its pretty things until they sparkled.
Washerwoman and wet-nurse shared the shop.
A jack of two trades, that's me,
and an old hand at both...
and so I nursed Orestes,
yes, from his father's arms I took him once,
and now they say he's dead,
I've suffered it all, and now I'll fetch that man,
the ruination of the house- give him the news,
he'll relsih every word."

"Lift the cry of triumph O! the master's house
wins free of grief, free of the ones
who bled its wealth, the couple stained with murder,
free of Fate's rough path.

He came back with a lust for secret combat,
stealthy, cunning vengance, yes,
but his hand was steered in open fight
by the god's true daughter,
Right, Right we call her,
we and our mortal voices aiming well-
she breathes her fury, shatters all he hates.

Life the cry of triumph O! the master's house
wins free of grief, free of the ones
who bled its wealth, the couple stained with murder,
free of Fate's rough path.

Apollo wills it so!-
Apollo, clear from the Earth's deep cleft
his voice came shrill. 'Now stealth will master stealth!'
And the pure god came down and healed our ancient wounds,
the heavens come, somehow, to life our yoke of grief-
Now to praise the heaven's just command.

Look, the light is breaking!
The huge chain that curbed the halls gives way.
Rise up, proud house, long, too long
your walls lay fallen, strewn along the earth."

"This, this is our right,
spun for us by the Fates,
the ones who bind the world,
and none can shake our hold.
Show us the mortals overcome,
insane to murder kin- we track them down
till they go beneath the earth,
and the dead find little freedom in the end.

Over the victim's burning head
this chant this frenzy striking frenzy
lightning crazing the mind
this hymn of Fury
chaining the senses, ripping across the lyre,
withering lives of men!

Even at birth, I say, our rights were so ordained.
The deathless gods must keep their hands far off-
no god may share our cups, our solemn feasts.
We want no part of their pious white robes-
the Fates who gave us power made us free.

Mine is the overthrow of houses, yes,
when warlust reared like a tame beast
seizes near and dear-
down on the man we swoop, aie!
for all his power black him out!-
for the blood still fresh from slaughter on his hands.

So now, striving to wrench our mandate from the gods,
we make ourselves exempt from their control,
we brook no trial- no god can be our judge."

"But for me to suffer such disgrace...I,
the proud heart of the past, driven under the earth,
condemned, like so much filth,
and the fury in me breathing hatred-
O good Earth,
what is this stealing under the breast,
what agony racks the spirit?...Night, dear Mother Night!
All's lost, our ancient powers torn away by their cunning,
ruthless hands, the gods so hard to wrestle down
obliterate us all."

"A spell-
what spell to sing? to bind the land for ever? Tell us.

Nothing that strikes a note of brutal conquest. Only peace-
blessings, rising up from the earth and the heaving sea,
and down the vaulting sky let the wind-gods breathe
a wash of sunlight streaming through the land,
and the yield of soil and grazing cattle flood
our city's life with power and never flag
with time. Make the seed on men live on,
the more they worship you the more they thrive.
I love them as a gardener loves his plants,
these upright men, this breed fought free of grief.
All that is yours to give.
And I,
In the trials of war where fighters burn for fame,
will never endure the overflow of Athens-
all will praise her, victor city, pride of man."

"Yes and I ban
the winds that rock the olive-
hear my love, my blessing-
thwart their scorching heat that blinds the buds,
hold from our shores the killing icy gales,
and I ban the blight that creeps on fruit and withers-
God of creation, Pan, make flocks increase
and the ewes drop fine twin lambs
when the hour of labour falls.
And silver, child of Earth,
secret treasure of Hermes,
come to light and praise the gifts of god."


And that's not even the ending. Not quite. Sorry to go on like this but I wanted to see what I'd have to do to come close to using up all the allotted characters I have left. (9,000 more to go...) It's worth the rant.

I was very curious several times throughout reading this as to how the play would actually be staged to avoid the kind of overshadowed clumsiness staged productions tend do to the text. Sometimes I think plays are better read within the theater of the mind. You can hear the voices of the characters in your own imagination, the stage is set the way it seems to you. The blocking, music and camera angles are totally your call, as well, so in an odd way there's very little blocking you from perfect immersion.

Best to read it alone, aloud by water, because it contains the ancient, roiling toll of the sea.

I tried to read 'Prometheus Bound' years ago, and couldn't finish it. Clearly I should have waited a while- The Oresteia, in the Fagles translation, is one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. Darker and more violent than anything the 20th century could come up with, it's also brighter and more hopeful than anything from the 19th century. It's as if someone had written both Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' and Eliot's 'Waste Land', and it was one book, only there was far deeper social, political and religious thought involved (this is no slight to those two poems). A less edifying, but funnier joy was finding the original 'better to live on your feet than die on your knees' statement being made by an old codger running around like a headless chook while the 'tyrant' murders the 'innocents.'

Otherwise, the introductory essay is a little hand-wavy for my tastes, and the notes are often too detailed and insufficiently informative. Fagles' translation is modern in that it accepts and respects difficulty, while not being utterly obscure. It'll take you some time to read, but it's well worth it.

I can only vouch for this Robert Fagles' translation, but yes, astonishingly gripping after more than 2,400 years.

Probably more 3.75 rounded up!

”he’s here, somewhere, cowering like a hare....
the reek of human blood-it’s laughter to my heart!”

So I’ll do this in three parts as it is 3 plays. These plays combined are called “The Orestia” and tells the homecoming of Agamemnon, his murder, and the revenge his son and daughter take in return... and then the consequences of that.

I have read “Agamemnon“ by Aeschylus once before, in a book called “Greek Tragedy” by Penguin Books. While I can’t remember who the translator for that book was, this full recounting of The Orestia was done by Robert Fagles.

The first play, “Agamemnon” follows said character in his ‘welcome back home’ after fighting in Troy (in Aeschylus’ play this is in Argos and not Mycenae as told by Homer). Here he is greeted by his wife Clytemnestra... who is obviously still hateful and bearing a resentful grudge towards Agamemnon due to his involvement and planning in the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigeneia. No surprises there. So being the vengeful queen she is- she gets her just revenge (in my opinion).

This play also shows Cassandra, the prophetess, and Agamemnon’s ‘spoil of war’. She prophesies all of these deaths but has the unfortunate ability that everything she prophesies will not be believed (thanks Apollo- note the sarcasm).

Anyway, next we move onto “The Libation Bearers” (play 2). Here we follow the children of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon (well... the surviving children I mean). Electra has not seen her brother, Orestes, in years and wishes to take revenge on Clytemnestra for her part in killing their father.
The first half of this play focuses on Orestes and Electra meeting again (after a long time apart) and the awful ‘clues’ Electra follows to convince herself that Orestes is at Agamemnon’s tomb. These clues consist of a lock of hair and a footprint...It is no wonder Euripides made fun of these absurd ‘clues’ in his play “Electra”.

As always, my interest picked up when there’s blood shed and when Orestes grapples with his moral thoughts. Again, Electra is also a vengeful female character (there’s a pattern to this in this trilogy).

The final play “The Eumenides” follows my all-time-favourite Furies who hunt down those who have committed crimes, such as matricide, and torment them. They are after Orestes in this one.
I enjoyed this play probably the most out of the three. This play involved the Gods too (well Athena and Apollo) and the Furies. I just loved the Furies in this, and their vengeance and torment and love for destruction.
This play also features a great court scene where you get to see Athena in her military prowess and strategy hold a trial about Orestes’ crimes.

While it was great to finally read The Orestia- I loved the powerful vengefulness in these plays, and how a family curse has effected each generation- my translation of this just wasn’t the best. I really liked the power of words of some of the passages and the emotions portrayed- it was great to imagine how an actor in a play might show this. However, I found the book layout to not be as clear as I would’ve liked it, and flicking backwards and forwards would take me out of the passages of what was being said.
In addition to this, this translation uses the word “bitch” which wasn’t really needed... and was also not a word used in Ancient Greek (I think?).

Some parts of these plays, for me, moved at a slower pace that I did lose my focus. However, most of the time it would pick up again and I’d be interested to find out what happened in the end.
I would say that The Libation Bearers was probably my least liked play of the three- I think the beginning was a little too slow for my liking, and I was eye rolling hard at the clues, however this play did eventually pick up once the killing deeds are about to begin.

Una de las grandes piezas maestras del Teatro Griego, que muestra un panorama muy oscuro e ineludible a los personajes que se involucran en esta historia. Es patético, a pesar de todo lo que representa Agamenón, en cuanto a defectos, cómo un héroe griego recién llegado puede tener semejante destino. Pero luego le toca el turno a los hijos de éste Orestes y Electra para tomar protagonismo. Orestes es un gran personaje y vaya qué antiguo puede haber sido esta obra y cómo puede ser modelo, si no estructuralmente, sí en el argumento y en la humanidad del propio Orestes, sus miedos, sus recelos, su gran culpa. Claro que la humanización con Esquilo no alcanza su máximo punto, pero eso no le quita para nada lo trágico y legendario.

შენ რო შვილს მაჰკლავ, შენც მოგკვლენ, არც შენ მკვლელს შაარჩენს გვარია...

clytaemnestra did nothing wrong.

can't change my mind

Seeing the Oresteia on stage is an overwhelming experience to say the least.

Reading and discussing the drama at university felt like going through the Disney version of it by comparison. Hearing the screams, seeing the blood and madness, following real people on their anxious road down to hellish destruction while they stare at you - the audience - with blind eyes - that is almost more than one can bear, even if one is familiar with the intertwined plays beforehand.

Violence leads to more violence in a brutal chain reaction. That is a curse that the family of Atreus experiences in three consecutive steps. Agamemnon has to choose between political and military success and his "love" for his daughter Iphigenia. He chooses to be a "leader" over being a human, so he sacrifices his daughter on the way to Troy, and thus kicks off the action thriller. Klytamnestra, his wife, follows the call of revenge, as does Orestes, the son. Electra, on the sidelines, cheers on her brother when he kills his mother, and thus participates in the "honour" killings.

Spirals of violence are not unusual in the history of mankind, but unluckily, we don't possess the Greek dramatic device of a deus ex machina to set the score straight and suggest a solution that leads to better understanding and rule of law. Or could one see the international organisations formed after the Second World War, like the UNO or later the EU, as such attempts at reining in the blood lust of humiliated and hurt humanity?

Of eternal contemporary relevance, the Oresteia is hard to stomach but important to consider!

Must read - a classic even after two and a half millennia!

I really enjoyed the poetry in this. It was my first experience with Greek plays since high school. I found the format to be quite stilted and odd. Every time I pictured what a scene would look like on stage, I lost my emotional connection to the characters. That caught me off guard, but I did really like this translation. It had a modern enough vocabulary to make it easy to read, but the way the words worked together felt ancient and powerful. I quite enjoyed this and will be trying some more Greek plays soon!

For such an old play the characters speak remarkably clear.
The drama, violence and deceit are rendered in long winding verses which take you through the play in high speed. The third act with a rather sudden verdict made less impact on me but overall highly enjoyable to read this classic.

i read now no. 2. the main conflict between son and mother. the erotic freedom of the women - the mother is destructive for the son, as he is suppose to get the heritage. "you killed my father, how can i live with you?"
amazing conflict. great writing. still.
a lot of build up for me as i write a new thriller.