"Να καλοτυχίζεις κάποιον, όταν πεθάνει μ’ ευχάριστο τέλος της ζωής του.

Οι μαύρες Ερινύες με του καιρού το πέρασμα
αυτόν που άδικα είναι τυχερός
μ’ ένα άλλο της τύχης γύρισμα τον αφανίζουν.
Και για όποιον αφανίζεται δεν υπάρχει διόλου γιατρειά.
*
Αυτός ο πόθος που για αίμα διψά τρέφεται απ’ τα σπλάχνα μας.
Πριν τελειώσει η παλιά πληγή, βγαίνει απόστημα καινούριο."

(εκδ. ΖΗΤΡΟΣ, μετάφραση Θ. ΜΑΥΡΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ)

Trojanski rat je završen i Agamemnon se vraća u Arg. Jeste zbog sujete u Maloj Aziji izgubio desetine hiljada života, uz to mu je na povratku potonulo 99 od 100 brodova, ali vraća se pobednik. Klitemestra, supruga mu, dočekuje ga nakon tih deset godina odsustva ("Ta koji dan bi ženi slađi svanuo no kad joj muža kući s vojske vrati bog"). To je ujedno i dan kad ga vidi prvi put otkako je bogovima žrtvovao ćerku Ifigeniju, kako bi uopšte mogao otploviti za Troju.

Agamemnon je početak jedine sačuvane antičke trilogije, a kao i brojne druge tragedije, u centar postavlja ženu. Klitemestra je ta koja iznosi glavnu temu - šta je pravda? Da li je iskustvo pravde uvek povezano sa ispravljanjem velike nepravde? Da li pravda bez nepravde postoji? Oko za oko - da li je pravda samo osveta ili još nešto drugo?

U svakoj grčkoj tragediji izgleda postoji trenutak kad nam autor slama srce. Ovde je to strašan trenutak žrtvovanja Ifigenije.

n  "Dok ćerka moli: 'Babo, babo!'
na devojačku mladost njenu
bes vojvoda ne osvrće se.
Kad molitvu pred žrtvu svrše,
tad na znak očev sluge počnu:
k'o jagnje dignu je nad oltar,
s ramena oklizne se veo,
pa snažno pomaknu je napred
i lepa zatisnu joj usta
da kletvu kući ne krikne."n

(nastavlja se još tužnije)

Klitemestra naravno ubija Agamemnona. Poželiš da se ta pravda izvrši pred tvojim očima, nasred scene, ali možda je ovako i bolje. Znamo da ga ubija krvnički, sekirom, iza scene u kupatilu. Ipak, ne bi rekao da to donosi osećaj pravde prisutnima. Niko ne spominje Ifigeniju ili druge gadosti koje je ovaj počinio. Da li ubistvo ćerke nije nepravda, pošto je to njegovo dete? A i, na kraju krajeva, tu žrtvu su tražili bogovi?

Tekst je gust, stilski sjajan, zbog toga ponekad i nerazumljiv.

Συγκλονιστική η ευχαρίστηση που πήρε η Κλυταιμνήστρα μόλις σκότωσε τον Αγαμέμνονα!

Don't mess with the mama bear.

"Perched over his body like a hateful raven, in hoarse notes she chants her song of triumph."

Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus with their women are property attitudes have never been favs. Not sure what Aggy was thinking would happen when he got back after the whole Iphigenia incident. Of course, the whole Aegisthus sidebar is a fun twist, and I see where Shakespeare got his inspiration for Titus Andronicus.

All Hail the Hero!
Sucks to be Cassandra.
Clytaemestra gets two thumbs up!

n  The truth still holds while Zeus still holds the throne:
the one who acts must suffer --
that is law. Who can tear from the veins
the bad seed, the curse? The race is welded to its ruin.n

Contrast Odysseus and Penelope's marriage against Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra's. Penelope exemplifies the femininity of an ideal wife. In her husband's decade-long absence, against all odds of his returning, she remains loyal to Odysseus even as suitors queue within the palace. Penelope takes no part in violence, resigning to her bedroom before any quarrels or bloodshed take place between the soldiers. Telemachus assumes the masculine role in the house as best as he can in his father's stead and relinquishes that burden from falling on his mother. The Odysseus family understands the role that each person must play and, in the end when Odysseus finally comes home, survive the most devastating storms.

After Aga sacrifices his and Cly's daughter, as opposed to protecting her, we see disruption and confusion brewing in the household. Cly speaks "like a man, my lady (l. 355)" to the elders. Their son Orestes is sent away, and his mother assumes the mantle of head of home. "You treat me like a woman (l. 910)," Aga tells his wife after being greeted by an overtly feminine welcome on his return from war. The dysfunction in the gender roles culminates to mariticide and Cly's extramarital lover Aegisthus seizing power without the masculine accountability of doing the deed himself.

Aegisthus: The treachery was the woman's work, clearly. (l. 1668)
...
Leader: Coward, why not kill the man yourself? (l. 1676)

Men killing women, and women killing men -- of the same household. We know how this story will end.

It's interesting how the Chorus used to enjoy a more elaborate function in Aeschylus than in the later Sophocles. Not really a passive, detached "omniscient narrator" here; the Chorus takes on the characters head on, getting involved in the action of the play. Which was slightly hilarious during the row with Aegisthus but never mind. :P

I began with George C. W. Warr's translation: Astoundingly thorough, amazing illustrations, meticulously explained notes, but too challenging for the beginner. The most annoying bit was that the commentaries are sandwiched between the actual translation which ruins the reading experience. Would actually be great for the scholar but does nothing for the beginner.

Moved on to the "much recommended" Fagles translation but found it a bit too droll after Warr's version. Very easy but very prosaic.

Finally came across Morshead's version which strikes a perfect balance between the above-mentioned translations. The rhyming thing gets annoying but it's readable and you get through.

Began Aeschylus as complementary reading to O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. One gets confounded in the abundance of translations that not really sure I'd be continuing with this trilogy anytime soon. One shouldn't be so ridiculously ambitious, anyway. :P

This was good but never great. It's thematically strong: the generations-old conflict between Aegisthus and Agamemnon overlaps here with Clytemnestra's desire for retribution after Agamemnon sacrificed their youngest daughter to facilitate the Greek trip to Troy. I liked everything here once Agamemnon and Cassandra were murdered, especially Aegisthus' introduction. Clytemnestra basking in her murder was great. But before the murders, the play is empty. I take it that the audience is supposed to be in suspense. We know what's going to happen, especially because we can understand Cassandra. But Aeschylus never really takes advantage of the suspense. It is a disappointment in that respect.

“Zeus who put men on wisdom’s road,
Who gave ‘Suffer and learn‘
Authority.“

This sentiment, expressed by the Chorus, has a dark and a bright side, the dark side being the conviction that suffering is the seed of wisdom, the bright one being that at the end, there is some wising up after all. In the case of the Atrides, who go back to the arrogant Tantalus, however, this saying may prove wishful thinking at the most, because the family curse incurred by Tantalus seems to blind the members of the family to all kind of better understanding and drives them to murder of their kin.

Aeschylus’s tragedy Agamemnon is named for the king of Argos, who helped his brother Menelaos wage war against Troy in retribution of Paris’s exploiting the latter’s hospitality in order to elope with his wife Helen. Now, Artemis was backing the Trojans and that is why she tried to stop the Greek fleet with a lull, which could only be ended by Agamemnon sacrificing his beloved daughter Iphigenia.

”The senior lord spoke,
‘Fate will be heavy if I do not obey, heavy as well
If I hew my child, my house’s own darling,
Polluting her father’s hands
With slaughter streaming from a maiden
At the altar: what is there without evil here? […]’”

For us moderns, the dilemma in which Agamemnon saw himself, might not seem comprehensible, and luckily so, but in Agamemnon’s eyes, there was the dictum of the seer urging him to placate the goddess, there were the men growing restive and impatient, and there was that vow of retribution to fulfil … And even for us moderns, there may be situations that make us exclaim, “What is there without evil here?” Eventually, Agamemnon takes one ghastly decision, leaving the other ghastly decision undone, estranging his wife Clytemnestra from him and setting her on a course of plotting revenge, of playing the “fawning dog” and uniting, in more ways than one, with Aegisthus to make Agamemnon get his comeuppance.

The story is well-known, but the way Aeschylus presents the basic conflict, makes use of the Chorus both as an omniscient narrator and as vox populi interacting with the characters, is simply breathtaking. Fate reigns supreme and seems to leave no alternative but to do and die, and when the Chorus interacts with Cassandra, who knowingly goes into death, there is even a moment of bitter irony which foreshadows the western genre:

“Cassandra: There is no further escape, no, none, strangers, through time.
Chorus: Yet the final part of one’s time is the most valued.
Cassandra: That day is here; I shall gain little by flight.
Chorus: Your resolution is from a brave heart, I tell you.
Cassandra: None of the truly fortunate hears that said.
Chorus: But a famous death is welcome to a mortal.“

All in all, however, Cassandra leaves little doubt that humans are never much more than the straw dogs of the gods or of Fate no matter whether they seem to succeed or to fail in their plans:

“ Oh! Mortal men and their dealings! When they succeed, a shadow may turn them round; if they fail, the wipe of a wet sponge destroys the picture. I pity the second much more than the first.“

This play is also remarkable for the character of Clytemnestra, because she holds her own against the Chorus, who thinks that as a woman her place should be one of subjection to the will and power of her husband, whereas she herself cannot forgive the sacrifice of her daughter and, maybe, thinks that it is not only ”right to honour the lady of a ruler, when the man leaves his throne empty”, as the Chorus thinks, but that such a lady should be honoured in her own right.

I read the play in the translation by Christopher Collard, which seems to me very meticulous with regard to the original text but also indebted to legibility.

The First Strike

Each of the plays that make up The Oresteia tetralogy are supposed to be stand alone pieces as well as perfect complements to each other. All the themes that The Oresteia is to explore later are planted and ready for internal development at the end of Agamemnon. Aeschylus works magic with the triadic structure of the plays and of greek rituals (the fourth was probably a conventional satyr play and is lost to us) by going for a feeling of tit-for-tat of conventional revenge stories in the first two and a ‘third and final’ resolution in the third (though I feel game-theory wise a tit-for-two-tats additional play would have made for a good thought experiment!).

So in Agamemnon we are presented with the first strike -- and the tit-for-tat is ready, prophesied and waiting inevitably for the reader/viewer in the next part. It is the bleakest and most ominous ending to a play that I have witnessed because unlike a Hamlet, here there is no cosmic meaning to give us solace either. Agamemnon ends ominously and without significance-in-itself, leaving us with the feeling that the tragedy has just begun and there is a long road yet to be traversed before we can glimpse any possibility of a resolution.

A Note on the Translations

I have over the past several months read the whole play (only Agamemnon) in multiple translations. A few thoughts on each:

The Richmond Lattimore Translation: is sonorous and grand — quite impressive. You feel like you are really reading an ancient master, unlike in the Fagles version. However, it uses complex structures and hence the reading is not quite smooth. With Fagles you can just read on and on and never stop due to a complex phrasing or unclear meaning, but with lattimore you have to pause and rewind often to catch the exact drift.

The Robert Fagles Translation: is immediate and easy on the ear. It is also quite easy to grasp as the words do not form confusing structures as it does in the Lattimore translation. However I felt a certain something missing and couldn’t put my finger on it. I prefer the Lattimore version.

E.D.A Morshead Translation: Rhythmic but compromises on ease of reading to achieve the metric scheme. Could hardly grasp a thing on first reading of most verses. Has the advantage that it demarcates the Strophe, Antistrophe & Epode of each choral ode and that helps the reader visualize better. None of the other translations do this and I felt it was very useful.

The Alan Shapiro Translation: Written in beautiful blank verse, this is probably the best placed to merit first rank as a poetic work. Shapiro injects new power into the verse by his poetic take and provides a fresh perspective on almost all important scenes and imagery. But needs to be a supplementary read since it departs often from the other translations in sometimes subtle and sometimes significant ways. It tries to be an improvement on the Lattimore version but in my opinion it can at best be read as an additional indulgence by the reader already well acquainted with Lattimore.

The Headlam Translation: is bilingual and gives the Greek text on the facing page. This is useful in clarifying doubts arising from conflicting translations or interpretations. The translation itself is slightly long winded and pompous and does not strike the fine balance that Lattimore strikes between majesty and simplicity. Does provide the most elaborate stage directions and that is a plus as an aid to accurate visualization (which in my opinion can make or break your reading of almost-exotic plays).

The Denniston Commentary, the edition under which this review appears: is one which I have not read (and do not have access to) and in the interests of neutrality I have selected it — since it has no translation and is in fact the Greek text itself with english commentary, which seems to be widely accepted as some of the best scholastic commentary on the play.

I will add notes on other translations if and when I track them down.

تعتبر هذه المسرحية التي كتبها أسخولوس من أوائل المسرحيات في الأدب اليوناني، مسرحية بدائية وخصبة تستدعي الهلع التراجيدي الأول عند الأدباء الأغريق، تتجسد فيها شخصية البطل والصراع من أجل الدولة وسنوات من الحرب والانتظار، مسرحية مليئة بالعنف والعاطفة الشديدة والمكر وكيف أن الحقد لا ��مكن أن تمحوه السنوات ولا حتى الغياب ولا النصر، تتجلى في المسرحية أصوات الحرب والأمواج التي تحطم أعتى السفن والإنهاك الواضح للجنود والقادة، تتمتلئ جنبات هذا المسرح بالعويل والصراخ والجُمل المركبة والتشبيهات البليغة والشعارات والأساطير وآلهة اليونان القديمة ..


هذه المسرحية هي الجزء الأول من ثلاثية (أوريستيا) والتي تبدأ بعودة أجاممنون إلى أراجوس بعد حربه الطويلة في طروادة وعودته من النصر المظفر الذي حققه بعد عشر سنوات كاملة من الحرب مع الطراوديين ..


نلتمس هنا الكثير من ملحمتي هوميروس من حيث اللغة الشعرية العاطفية التي تسود جو المسرح ��الصخب الهائل والروح الأغريقية العريقة، للأسف كثر أستخدام الكورس في المسرحية مما أدى إلى ضعف ظهور الشخصيات بل ومحو بعضها تماماً، وكأنك أمام جمهور يتحدث بلا توقف بدل أن تتحاور الشخصيات وتعبر عن ذاتها، على كل حال، المسرحية صادمة وغريبة، قرأتها بترجمة لويس عوض وهي ترجمة فذة وتعطيك الأحساس بقوة المسرحية وقدمها ..

32. The Persians by Aeschylus
translated from Ancient Greek by George Theodoridis, 2009
performed: 472 bce
format: 39 page length webpage: https://bacchicstage.wordpress.com/ae...
read: Jun 6
rating: ?? stars

This is apparently the oldest surviving Greek tragedy and also the only of the surviving plays on a contemporary subject. The battle of Salamis, where the Greeks destroyed the Persian navy and essentially ruined any hope of Persian expansion through Greece, occurred in 480 bce. This play is about the aftermath.

It's very simple. People in the Persian capital, including the the king's mother, await word on the battle. They share their hopes...and then get the real news and express their woe in response.

The speeches are kind of moving and memorable, but my main response is mostly curiosity. It was interesting to me to see how simple these plays could be. And it's interesting that the victorious Greeks were willing to think through the Persian perspective, albeit there is an element of gloating in there somewhere.

As a side note on the Greek plays. I think only 33 plays exist. There were hundreds. There was apparently even a play on the Persians that preceded Aeschylus. We just have these scraps left.

I kind of feel like a bad person because I've never the Oresteia before. I'm fixing that now, but I think it'll take awhile for me to get through these. It isn't the story. The story of Orestes is wonderfully exciting, full of violence and intense emotion. But ancient Greek drama was different than what I'm used to, and I don't think I like the format. Sure, there are some truly great lines ("Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.") and it is a fairly quick play. I'm glad I read it, but I think I'll need to take a quick break between this one and The Libation Bearers.