Yazıldığı tarih sebebiyle ilkel bir tiyatro metni. Fakat akıcı.

Peça curiosa. A mais antiga tragédia grega extante, e a única baseada em história recente. Uma peça escrita por e para atenienses que participaram da Batalha de Salamina apenas 8 anos antes da apresentação na festa dionisíaca de 472 ac.

A peça inverte o ponto de vista, conta a batalha toda a partir do persas que esperam o retorno de suas tropas e de seu rei. Os persas de Ésquilo cultuam deuses gregos, são orgulhosos de sua história e seu império. A peça troça do poder persa e ainda vaticina para nunca mais tentarem invadir a grécia novamente, mas também mostra respeito com alguns antepassados de Xerxes, como Ciro e Dário, este ainda participa da peça como fantasma invocado por sua esposa Atossa.

É interessante o registro de nomes de comandantes, terras e cidades que sobreviveram com essa peça, mas também tornam o texto difícil de ler e a história repetitiva. Imagino que tinha mais significado listar os generais caídos da Persia para um público que os enfrentou e temeu.

O pessoal estava bem dramático realmente, mas imagino que algum psicanalista tenha feito bom proveito dessas relações.

Glad to have read this at long last. Can't speak about the translation, but see now why Edward Said used in introducing the issue of Western images of the East in _Orientalism_. Aeschylus may well have been trying to understand how the Persians felt having lost to the Greeks, and empathy definitely is a good, but the ethnocentrism inherent in the way the story is told and the clear pride the Greeks felt in their victory makes it so clear that this was not really about empathy for the Persians, though it is a true heroic drama complete with hubris at the core of the unfolding events.

This is a superb new translation by Mark Will. It's a literal translation that retains the poetry of the original Greek, the translator himself having the natural, musical instincts of a poet, he being a poet himself. Added to this is his emphasis, in his introduction and notes, of the relevance this play has in today's world, and how the play can be seen as a kind of cautionary tale for the American military-industrial complex, warning of the dangers of imperialist over-reach.

It also has maps and a historical overview to explain the background against which the play is set, with copious notes expertly explaining details in the writing that, without them, most modern readers would have little hope of understanding. He even gives suggestions to producers of the play as to how they can use visual effects and costuming to bring out the deeper meaning of the play--suggestions of a 'straight' (i.e., traditional), Brechtian (i.e., distancing effect), or Artaudian (i.e., theatre of cruelty) style.

I cannot recommend this translation enough.

I listened to the Audible version of this translation, and found it decent but a bit hard to follow with a single narrator.

"Los Persas" es la tragedia más antigua que se ha conservado de Esquilo, donde retrata la gloriosa victoria de Grecia sobre los Persas, hecho vivido por él mismo.
¿Cómo va a dignificar a Grecia en una tragedia?
Para hacerlo, Esquilo pone como protagonista a los persas, compuesto por; un coro de ancianos, La Reina Atosa, madre de Jerjes (quien comandó la batalla contra Grecia) y esposa del difunto Rey Darío; y un mensajero, que relatará la trágica derrota de la gloriosa Persia.

Magnifique et quel final!

Prvi put od gimnazije pročitah grčku tragediju. Ovog puta bez moraš, obrati pažnju i unapred zadanog opterećenja to je veličanstveno djelo čovječanstva. I znate ca - uživa sam. Grčka ratna pobjeda nad moćnom perziskom vojskom prepričana od strane gubitnika. Opisani događaji su zanimljivi, par pamtljivih pjesničkih slika ih ukrasi i evo ima sam volje pročitat i pogovor.

This review refers to the James Romm translation in the anthology, The Greek Plays, ed. Mary Lefkowitz and Romm (couldn't locate a separate Goodreads listing).

This review would have come out very differently if I wasn't reading Simon Critchley's marvelous Tragedy, the Greeks and Us. Critchley makes sense of the structure and implications of a play that had always seemed static and formulaic to me. Basically, as I'll get to when I'm finished with the book and review it on GR, he argues that the tragedies offer a way of thinking quite different from Aristotle's philosophy as tragedy, which, he contends, freezes the viewer's terms of engagement with the drama. This opens the door to understanding the play not as a lament over the inscrutable ways of fate and/or the gods but as a mirror to our own refusal to take responsibility for our actions. The reverberations with recent American history, seen from that angle, are hard to miss.

king xerxes is succchhh a drama queen…..he first makes dumb mistakes and gets so many ppl killed then sings about how sad HE is w his chorus buddies boohoo :(

9