Fenomenal, a Oresteia: Agamémnon e Euménides em primeiro, em mérito equiparáveis; Coéforas em segundo, não por isso menos notável.

Surpreendi-me ao pensar que o final da primeira peça pudesse ser o ponto alto da trilogia, pois revejo nas Euménides o expoente máximo da perícia lírica de Ésquilo. Embora a primeira seja, de facto, a peça que mais explora o «carácter trágico da tragédia», é nesta última que o poeta revela toda a sua mestria e irreverência, no bom sentido do termo, a ponto de adulterar a sorte há muito estabelecida dos deuses. Seguramente mais aliciante que Sófocles, pelo menos se compararmos qualquer uma das três peças, mesmo as Coéforas, a Rei Édipo, excluindo já as suas dissemelhanças estruturais.

Pequeno aparte final: pensa-se que Ésquilo (525-456 a.C.) tenha escrito cerca de 90 peças, das quais apenas 7 sobreviveram à impiedosa passagem do tempo. Devemos, pois, indagar até que ponto desconhecemos a amplitude da sua obra e a grandiosidade do seu génio, por certo já bem fixada pelo pouco que nos chegou. A essa interrogação corresponderá sempre um certo fascínio, tanto maior, creio, quanto a nossa curiosidade procurar saber.

Even compared to other Greek tragedies, the Oresteia stands out. It's not just about the family drama or the bloody cycle of revenge. It's more than that. It's about peering deeply into the darkness of the human soul, stripping any semblance of control over one's destiny, and seeing what would result--madness.

Orestes was driven by forces more ancient and far bloodier than his mere judgment. In a society divinely centered on the family, Orestes was ordained to avenge his father's death, even if it meant killing his own mother. What is a man to do? If he doesn't kill his mother, the furies of his father would pursue him. If he does kill his mother, same story. Hardly fair, as his father Agamemnon was the one who sparked this vicious chain of events in the first place by sacrificing his daughter so that the Achean fleet could sail to Illium. The lack of control, being tossed this way and that like a lone battered ship caught in a divine storm, the uncertainty of life and yet the certainty of eternal torment--such is the definition of hell.

In such a system, how will the House of Atreus, a house of kings and heroes, survive itself?

When I studied the play, many found Athena's judicial intervention jarring and strange, especially since the first two plays centered around emotionally charged brutality and violent justice. In comparison, the resolution of the trilogy seems cold, a stark contrast to the previous two plays. But it is in this intervention that Aeschylus really delivers his message to Greece. Bound by its own traditions and practices, the House of Atreus would ultimately collapse in on itself. But when subjected to a common, binding law determined by moral and impartial judges was the House of Atreus salvaged. A court system and laws, created by the people, established order where there was madness. In the end, man can find his own way, even if divine forces seek to drive us to another fate.

In these plays, Aeschylus wrested our destiny away from the gods and placed the strands of our fate in our hands. Though it might be a fleeting moment of control, even if we are truly the chess pieces of the gods, Aeschylus reminds us to a certain extent, our fates are our own.

Não é preciso acreditar nos antigos deuses gregos para apreciar o valor e as lições dos mitos.

The Oresteia by Aeschylus (translator: David Mulroy) made Aeschylus’s The Oresteia an easy work to read. Though I did stop and pause when the lyricism of the line grated against the earthy descriptions of violence. At one time this would have stunned me, but now I am able to reason that this is a feature of these works.

The Oresteia is a trilogy of a dysfunctional ruling family, where several murders are committed in the name of justice. The verdict of this trial I thought was bittersweet. On the one hand it puts an end to the cycle of murders, but how it reaches its conclusion negates the mother’s role.



I liked reading Mulroy’s translation more than listening to the BBC’s adaptation of Aeschylus’s The Oresteia. Here, the world, with its motive behind the series of murders made more sense.

This edition comes with notes which include a short biography of Aeschylus, and presents an argument of why the last part should be renamed from Eumenides to The Holy Goddesses. Every page is also annotated, and I noted how different it is reading a play in physical format, for an explanation I had to just look at the bottom of a page. On Kindle the annotation is a link, this takes me to another screen.

But what really won me over of this edition is the poetry, for me it’s 5 stars, especially the parts of the chorus. These extracts I would come back to and read again. For the drama, for me it’s 3 stars, beneath the poetry, the pacing in the last two parts are slowed down by repetition. I appreciate this was the style back in Aeschylus’s time but it was hard to not see this as the plot stagnating. The notes in this edition I would give 4 stars because they were sufficient to give me the context to enjoy this read.

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 read Robert Fagles translation; it is accessible while retaining the powerful and subtle language and imagery of Aeschylus’ work. This (Penguin Classics) edition includes a well-written and very useful introductory essay, The Serpent and the Eagle – A Reading of 'The Oresteia', written in collaboration with W. B. Stanford (as are the notes). The introduction, about 75 pages long, gives a wealth of background information to complement the reading experience of the dramatic trilogy itself – this particular reading employs a Hegelian approach, though not too obtrusively. – "The Oresteia is our rite of passage from savagery to civilization," as Fagles/Stanford aptly puts it in the introduction. It is also one of the most fascinating works of drama I have ever read; impressive both in its breadth of scope and depth of detail. I wouldn't hesitate to call it a work of genius, and to my mind, here Aeschylus in many ways dwarfs even a younger giant such as Shakespeare. The fact that this is the only trilogy that has survived since antiquity, makes me mournful for all that has been lost – including the satyr play that originally accompanied the performances of this trilogy, Proteus. From the introductory essay: "For all its optimism [in the final part of the Oresteia], the Proteus may have reminded the Athenians that their lives were based on conflict, indeed that Athena had prevailed over Poseidon for possession of their city. So in the trilogy we reach an accommodation with the earth, but the sea, like Poseidon in the Odyssey, may remain to be placated." It's an intriguing thought - and for sure, I can easily see the use of a bit of comedy, as well as the presence of the more uncultivated and rustic satyrs, after the intense and bloody rite of passage - from a self-perpetuating cycle of vengeance to the rule of law - from chaos to order - of the Oresteia.



n  n
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

....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 have suffered into truth"

"You know the rules, now turn them into justice."

"The outrage stands as it stands, you burn to know the end..."

"Never try to cut my power with your logic."

"We spoil ourselves with scruples, long as things go well."

"Old men are children once again, a dream that sways and wavers into the hard light of day."

...Which is all to say that this trilogy is bananas and savage and graceful, and that Aeschylus was doing Shakespeare things about two thousand years before Shakespeare. More thoughts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-boc...

Um agamemnon: eeeeelska female rage. Meira svonaaaaa. Nei sko ræða Klítemnestru um double standard karlanna um hver má og má ekki fremja morð er best í heimi. "Nú ætlar þú til útlegðar að dæma mig / og undir minnar þjóðar heift og lýðisins last / en sást þá enga sök hjá þeim, sem liggur hér, / þó barni sínu fleygði hann á fórnarstall." !!!!!!!!! SLAY. Líka svo fyndið þegar *SPOILER* Agamemnon er að vera drepinn hann að vera eih "Ó vei, ég hlaut banahögg!" "Og aftur nú! Ó, öðru sinni hlaut ég högg!"

Um Sáttafórn: ég saknaði klítemnestru… ég vildi meira af henni. Og er svo pirruð að hún er allt í einu bara vondi karlinn!!!!! Hvað varð um female rage????? Fengum frekar bara son hennar að vera með eih complexa>:( Ekki jafn gott og Agamemnon en samt alveg agætt. Lika hvað varð um show dont tell??? Ég vildi persónulega fá að sjá morðin á Klítemnestru og Ægistosi… veit ekki hvað það segir um mig en ég stend við þetta!

Um Hollvætti: What in the kvenfyrirlitning?!?!!! Afhverju er Aþena bara mesta pick me ever???? Var að tjúllast. Lika Apollon bara að HATA konur? Eina konan sem er agæt er Aþena því hún fæddist úr föður sinum en ekki móður, “en engin gyðja hefði ever geta búið til svona fullkomna konu.”

Yfirhöfuð samt alveg enjoyable. Agamemnon samt lang best<3

Overall, The Oresteia was a brutal work, savage and eloquent. I highly recommend you listen to Norwegian black metal while reading this, as it really adds to the experience. Then again, I find that listening to Norwegian black metal adds to the experience of such activities as driving to the grocery store, so I may be a tad bit biased there.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

“…we must suffer, suffer into truth.
We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart
the pain of pain remembered comes again,
and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.
From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench
there comes a violent love.”

“But Justice turns the balance scales,
sees that we suffer
and we suffer and we learn.”

“Hope’s hand, hovering over the urn of mercy, left it empty.”

“…the house that hates god,
an echoing womb of guilt, kinsmen
torturing kinsmen, severed heads,
slaughterhouse of heroes, soil streaming blood…”

“Raging mother of death, storming deathless war against the ones she loves!”

“Rushed from the house we come
escorting cups for the dead,
in step with the hands’ hard beat, our cheeks glistening,
flushed where the nails have raked new furrows running blood;
and life beats on, and
we nurse our lives with tears,
to the sound of ripping linen beat our robes in sorrow,
close to the breast the beats throb
and laughter’s gone and fortune throbs and throbs.”

review forthcoming of the oliver taplin version — source text for Harry Potter

My favorite Greek classic so far. It’s absolutely mesmerizing and the third play, which explains the mythical foundations of the court system in Athens, ties up with Aeschylus’ life experiences brilliantly.