Aeschylus, 2: The Persians/Seven Against Thebes/The Suppliants/Prometheus Bound

n  n by n  n Aeschylus

Finished: 28.10.2024
Genre: play
Rating: A++
#BackToTheClassics
Reading time: 1,5 hr


Good News: Lives of Io and Prometheus become entangled. One must help the other. Thank goodness Aeschylus uses the 'chorus' help the reader along the way with important backstory. Pg 43 in my Kindle version of the play starts long "road trip" that Io must follow to remove Hera's curse. Irony: Io wants to die to relieve her suffering, Promethesus is unable to "die" (curse Zeus) to relieve his suffering.

Bad News: I needed to look up many Greek Gods so I could follow the story. Who was Cronos, Io, Argus etc.? Don't forget Prometheus' grandfather Oceanus. But all in all knowing this story and learning about mythology is an education in itself.

Good News: I compared this classic play with history!
Prometheus: after stealing fire from the gods, he was publicly tried and punished for his actions.
Robert Oppenheimer: was hounded out of public life. 
Prometheus gave the gift of fire;/ to man; Oppenheimer...gave man the gift of a nuclear bomb.

Personal: The only way I can get through a Greek play is while reading...translate the antiquated text into colloquial words/phrases. I give he characters new names (Prometheus = Pete, Hephaestus - Hank). I keep asking myself simple questions: what does the title mean? What does a chorus do? It is probably basic info about classic Greek plats...but by engaging actively I can make an otherwise dull play into something I can enjoy or even laugh about. Call me crazy..but this works. This was a great play...a real page-turner. Prometheus and Zeus are going to clash...but when and how? (pg 52) "Now it is happening: threat gives place to performance!" In other words... "Game on, Zeus!"
#MustReadClassic

I’ve just read Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. This sounds like an action movie, but in fact it is nothing of the sort. None of the fighting occurs on stage. It is a character study.
Eteocles is the perfect prince. He organises the defence of Thebes with courage and efficiency, and goes to his death Nelson-like, with his duty done and victory achieved.

Prometheus Bound was really cool. The other plays in this volume (The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants) were totally forgettable. Ironically, Prometheus Bound is the only play with disputed authorship (it is so unlike Aeschylus's other plays that it is thought that it could have been written by his son, Euphorion, or someone else).

Prometheus Bound: This play is about the tyranny of Zeus. In this regard it reminded me a lot of Paradise Lost. Just as in Paradise Lost, where the fallen angel Satan says, "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n", Prometheus, chained to a rock in the desolate wastes of the northern Caucasus, has this exchange with Hermes:

PROMETHEUS: I can tell you for sure, I wouldn’t exchange my misfortunes for your servitude. HERMES: Oh, I suppose it’s better to be in servitude to this rock than to be the faithful messenger of my father, Zeus!

The theme of freedom versus slavery permeates this play. "Power", Zeus's henchman, tells Hephaestus as he unwillingly binds Prometheus to the rock, "Everything is burdensome, except ruling over the gods: no one is free but Zeus." The Chorus of Oceanids wails, "New rulers wield the helm on Olympus, and Zeus rules arbitrarily by new-made laws." There is a long scene featuring Io that is intended to showcase Zeus's cruelty - Zeus lusted after her and turned her into a cow to hide her from Hera. Hera discovered her, of course, and sent stinging flies to chase her across the entire world. Prometheus, perhaps sympathizing with her as another victim of Zeus or perhaps because he knew that her 13th-generation descendant Heracles would free him, foretells her wanderings. They are actually really cool:
"You, child of Inachus, take my words to heart, so that you may learn how your journey will end. In the first place, starting from here, turn towards the sunrise and travel over the uncultivated plains. You will come to the nomad Scythians, who dwell in wicker homes, off the ground, on strong-wheeled wagons, armed with far-shooting bows. Do not go near them: go on through and out of their country, keeping your path close to the rocky coast of the groaning sea. Next, on your left hand, dwell the Chalybes, workers in iron: beware of them, for they are savage and not safe for strangers to approach. You will then come to the Violent River, not inaptly named; do not cross it... until you come to Caucasus itself, the highest of mountains, where the river pours its strength out from the very summit. After crossing over those peaks close to the stars, you must take the way to the south, where you will come to the man-hating host of the Amazons... They will be very glad to guide you on your way. You will then come to the Cimmerian isthmus, right at the narrow gateway to the lake; with a bold heart you must leave it and cross the Maeotic channel. Your crossing will in all future time be much spoken of among men, and the channel will be named after it: Bosporus, ‘Strait of the Cow’. ... When you have crossed the stream that parts the two continents, go on towards the fiery rising of the sun, crossing a waveless sea, until you reach the land of the Gorgons, the plain of Cisthene, where the Phorcides dwell, three ancient maidens of swan-like aspect, owning an eye in common and having only a single tooth, whom neither the sun with his rays, nor the moon by night, ever looks upon; and near them their three winged sisters, the snake-tressed Gorgons, haters of humans, whom no mortal can look on and draw another breath... You must beware of the sharp-toothed, unbarking hounds of Zeus, the griffins, and the one-eyed, horse-riding host of the Arimaspians, who dwell by the stream of the river Pluto, which flows with gold: do not go near them. You will then come to a land at the furthest bounds of earth, to a black tribe that dwells at the sources of the sun, where flows the river Aethiops. Follow the bank of this river until you come to the cataract where the Nile pours down from the Bybline Mountains its holy stream, good to drink from. It will lead you to the three-cornered land of Nilotis, where, Io, you are destined to found a settlement far from home for yourself and your children."

Prometheus complains, "Do you think that the autocrat of the gods is equally brutal in all his dealings? That god, because he wanted to sleep with this mortal girl, imposed these wanderings on her!" I couldn't help but feel disgust of Zeus myself - the play does a great job of portraying him as a cruel, lustful, uncaring tyrant.

Prometheus is Zeus's foil - one of the old gods who has sacrificed himself to help humans. Whereas Zeus had planned to destroy humanity, Prometheus interceded on our behalf: "Of those wretched creatures, mortals, he took no account at all – on the contrary, he wanted to obliterate the race altogether and create another new one. And no one resisted that plan except me. I had the courage to do it, and rescued mortals from the fate of being shattered and going to Hades." In an ancient Greek version of "You're Welcome", sung by Maui in Moana, Prometheus lists all of the amazing things he's done for humans: He freed them from fear of death by giving them hope; he gave them fire (just as Maui did); "I showed them the hard-to-discern risings and settings of stars. I also invented for them the art of number, supreme among all techniques, and that of combining letters into written words, the tool that enables all things to be remembered and is mother of the Muses. And I was the first to bring beasts under the yoke as slaves to the yoke-strap and the pack-saddle, so that they might relieve humans of their greatest labours; and I brought horses to love the rein and pull chariots, making them a luxurious ornament for men of great wealth. And it was no one other than me who invented the linen-winged vehicles in which sailors roam the seas... I showed them how to mix gentle curative drugs, with which they can now defend themselves against all kinds of diseases. I also systematized many kinds of seercraft. I was the first to interpret from dreams what actual events were destined to happen; I made known to them the difficult arts of interpreting significant utterances and encounters on journeys; I defined precisely the flight of crook-taloned birds..., and the smoothness of internal organs, and what colour bile should have if it is to be pleasing to the gods, and the mottled appearance and proper shape of the liver-lobe; I wrapped the thigh bones and the long chine in fat and burnt them, guiding mortals towards a skill of making difficult inferences, and opening their eyes to the signs the flames gave, which till then had been dark to them. So much for that; but as for the things hidden beneath the earth that benefit humanity – copper, iron, silver and gold – who can claim to have discovered them before I did?... To sum up everything in a short sentence: know that all the skills that mortals have come from Prometheus."

Prometheus is chained to a rock because he stole fire from Hephaestus's forge and gave it to humans. And yet this act of rebellion has allowed Prometheus to wrest some form of agency away from Zeus for himself: as he says, "I did the wrong thing intentionally, intentionally, I won’t deny it: by helping mortals, I brought trouble on myself."

In addition, and unlike in Paradise Lost, Prometheus knows that there is one thing more powerful than Zeus - destiny. "CHORUS: Well, who is the steersman of Necessity? PROMETHEUS: The triple Fates and the unforgetting Furies. CHORUS: You mean Zeus is less strong than these? PROMETHEUS: Certainly he cannot escape destiny." There was a prophecy that a certain woman would bear a son more powerful than his father. Prometheus is the only one (besides his mother, Themis/Gaia) who knows the identity of the mother of Zeus's future replacement. So until Prometheus tells Zeus this secret, Zeus is basically rolling the dice every time he satisfies his lust. Prometheus, as a prophetic god, knows that he will eventually be freed by Heracles and that his knowledge of the identity of the woman will enable him to broker a treaty with Zeus. I'm not sure how to square this with the play's theme of freedom via free will - Prometheus maintains his sense of agency by rebelling against the tyrant of the gods, but he only feels secure in doing this because he knows that destiny will force Zeus to eventually free him.

The Persians: Written in the aftermath of the Persian Wars, this play was kind of like a classy victory lap around the Persians. Classy because Aeschylus portrays the Persians (particularly the mother of Xerxes and the ghost of Darius) very sympathetically - both characters are wise, thoughtful, dutiful, etc. But it's a victory lap because Aeschylus indulges in really inflating the scale of the disaster of the Persians' loss against the Greeks - Xerxes comes back in rags, his entire army ruined. There is much lamenting about how there are no more men left in Susa, and they list the names of the countless Persian generals who lost their lives in the waves off Salamis.

Seven Against Thebes: This play shows a short but climactic episode of the Oepidan cycle of stories. Oepidus, apparently not content with murdering his father and marrying his mother, curses his two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, to kill each other. Eteocles becomes king of Thebes and banishes Polyneices. Smelling blood, Argos and some other places gather an army to march on Thebes and bring Polyneices with them. The play starts with Eteocles organizing the defense of Thebes. He and Polyneices meet at one of the seven gates and kill each other. The end.

The Suppliants: This play shows a short and not even climactic episode of the story of how the Danaids flee from Egypt pursued by their gross and lustful cousins the Aegyptids. Descendants of Io, the 50 Danaids will eventually marry their 50 cousins and murder them all on their wedding night - all but one, Hypermnestra, who spares her cousin-husband Lyncaeus. That pair goes on to rule Argos and create the dynasty that includes Perseus and Heracles. However, this play just covers the arrival of the Danaids in Argos and their pleading with King Pelasgus to grant them asylum. The interesting part of this play, to me, is that the Danaids are said to have dark skin as they are from Egypt. This is interesting to me because there seems to be no negative associations with dark skin other than indicating that they are foreigners. Also very intriguing to me is that that means that Hypermnestra and Lyncaeus were dark-skinned, Egyptian-origin rulers of Argos and that this is canon in Greek mythology, and also that Perseus was 1/8 African. Moreover, Perseus himself married another African, Andromeda, daughter of the king of Ethiopia, implying that Heracles was also 1/8-plus-some-change African. Combined with the Phoenician origins of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and the Lydian origins of Pelops (who gave his name to the Peloponnesian peninsula) and his descendants Agamemnon king of Mycenae and Menelaus king of Sparta, and it is really interesting how Greek mythology acknowledges without any apparent bias the huge influence that other nations and ethnicities had on the development of Greek institutions and culture.

2.5 - though more so due to a modern complaint than a criticism of dear Mr. Aeschylus.

Four Plays! I did not read the Penguin Classics translation here, which I'm sure is very accomplished and better than the musty translations I had for The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, and Suppliants. This is my complaint-not-critique. The translator took it upon himself to render the entirety of The Persians and all the lines of the Chorii elsewhere into rhyming couplets. Please don't do this when translating from Greek! It's grim. My version of Prometheus Unbound was from a different translation - to its benefit.

They're an interesting set of four, though I think more so from a scholarly perspective than by entertainment. The Oresteia is undefeated as Aeschylus' best, for me. Go to that first. But Prometheus Bound and The Suppliants are the highlights here.

So the language is deliciously rugged and Aeschylean and it would be a shame if it weren't because there's not an awful lot of action here. A consequence of its time I suppose, but if you're looking for action then again, Oresteia.

Aeschylus is the father of tragedy. Of his estimated 92 plays, only six confirmed works have survived to the present day (with another possible, Prometheus Bound, whose authorship is now uncertain, but once was credited to Aeschylus). Of these six, the earliest is The Persians, a notable play in that it is the only extant Greek tragedy based on contemporary events, though he was not the first to do so.

In 480 BCE the Battle of Salamis ripped through the strait between Piraeus and Salamis Island. The Greek city states and Persia battling over territory came finally to this decisive battle – an event that shaped not only the futures of Greece and Persia, but some historians argue the rest of Western Civilisation as it allowed for the preservation of Athenian democracy. Aeschylus was recalled to military service in 480 BCE became a part of the Greek force at Salamis, and fought the Persians. Eight years later, with memories of this battle still on his mind, he dramatised this now famous conflict in his play, The Persians. It is unique not only for being the only extant Greek tragedy based on contemporary events, but that Aeschylus took the opposing view. The Persians is seen from King Xerxes’s point of view.

The Persians was the second part of a trilogy (the first part had been called Phineus and can be presumed to detail Jason and the Argonauts rescue of King Phineus; the second part was Glaucus, and concerned itself either with a mythical Corinthian king or a Boeotian farmer) and won the first prize at the City Dionysia festival in 472BCE at Athens. The Persians cast Xerxes’s defeat as divine retribution for attempting to build a bridge across the Hellespont, and given Aeschylus’s apparent love of connected trilogies, one can also assume that the two missing plays concern themselves in some fashion with that theme.

The Persians is set in Susa, and a chorus of old men are joined by the Queen Mother Atossa, awaiting news of her son King Xerxes campaign against the Greeks. The chorus tell us of Xerxes’s ambitious plans.

However, the arrival of a messenger, and his detailed and gory description of the Battle of Salamis:

“But since the multitude of our ships was crowded in the narrows, and they could give no assistance the one to the other but [on the contrary] were rammed by the brazen-pointed beaks of their friends, they splintered their whole equipment of oars, the Greek ships, too, all around them noting their opportunity, kept charging them on every side, and the hulls of our vessels began to be capsized nor was the sea any longer visible, so choked was it with wrecks and slaughtered men ; and the shores and the reefs were full of them.” (p.53)

The Persians have been defeated, and Aeschylus, not missing a trick, allows a brief flurry of Greek patriotism, with the now famous cry:

“Sons of the Greeks, advance! Deliver your country, deliver your children and your wives, the temples of your fathers’ gods, the tombs of your ancestors. Now is the contest which decides all!” (p.52 – 3)

At the tomb of her dead husband Darius, Atossa summons his ghost, and Darius condemns the hubris of his son. Before departing Darius foretells of another Persian defeat at the Battle of Plataea (479BCE).

Xerxes’s arrives home, crushed by the defeat, and laments the future of his once great nation, and the failures that are to come. This final section of the play has led some to read it as being sympathetic to the Persians loss, revealing a deeper humanity within Aeschylus, whilst others have read it as a deeper celebration of one Greek victory in a brutal ongoing war. This second reading could bring in claims of xenophobia on Aeschylus’s part – but in a time of conflict, hatred of one’s enemy is natural.

The Persians became an important play, often having revivals in Greek culture, and seventy years after its premiere, it is still being referenced in Greek theatre. It is a play that also became popular in the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. Aeschylus’s form of tragedy transcended its national boundaries, to become a true work of art. In 1993, Robert Auletta wrote and Peter Sellars directed a new version of The Persians, which articulated the play as a response to the Gulf War of 1990-1991, proving again the versatility of Aeschylus’s work.

--

The Suppliants is the first part of a lost trilogy that would have included the works The Egyptians and The Daughters of Danaus. As such, The Suppliants reads as an introduction to a larger work, and ends openly, with very few of its narrative threads resolved.

The Danaids are the fifty daughters of Danaus, and they serve as the chorus and the protagonists of The Suppliants. The Danaids are to be wed to their Egyptian cousins, but flee, and when they reach Argos plead for King Pelasgus to protect them.

King Pelasgus refuses them this request, pending the decision of the Argive people, but the people consent, and the Danaids praise the Greek gods. Then a herald of the Egyptians attempts to force the Danaids to return to their cousins for marriage, and so King Pelasgus threatens the herald and offers his protection to the women, who retreat behind Argive walls, and here the play ends.

Reconstructions of the remainder of this trilogy have it that following a war with the Egyptians, Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus becomes tyrant of Argos. His daughters are forced into the marriage, but Danaus instructs his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night following a prophecy. All obey their father except Hypermnestra, whose husband Lynceus flees but later returns and murders Danaus and takes the throne with Hypermnestra. Lynceus must now decide how to punish the murderous Danaids – only with the last minute intervention of Aphrodite absolving the women of their crimes, does the play close with the Danaids marrying forty-nine local Argive men.

As an introduction to this story, The Suppliants works well. The poetry of Aeschylus’s language is more discernable here than it was in Seven against Thebes, and he uses the chorus in a much more innovative fashion than previously. The true extent of Aeschylus’s work here cannot be completed however, due to the bulk of it being missing. There is one speech from Aphrodite that is extant, and from it one can deduce that the third play at least would concern itself somewhat with the redemptive nature of love. Another of Aeschylus’s themes comes through somewhat unclearly in this first part, but would become evident in the third, and that is that society must be based upon reason. Finally there is his slight distorting of the myth for public consumption – one of the issues of the original myth was that the Danaids viewed the proposed union as incestuous, but as the Greeks thought nothing of marrying their cousins, Aeschylus downplays this issue in his retelling.

The Suppliants marks the beginning of what may have been a strong trilogy from Aeschylus – the anthropological interest of early Egyptian society being represented by a Greek alone would be fascinating – but we shall have to live with this fragment alone.

--


Like The Persians, Seven against Thebes is part of a trilogy of which the other two parts are missing. In this instance, Seven against Thebes would have been paired with Laius and Oedipus, forming a connected Oedipus trilogy. Seven against Thebes marks the first known appearance of Aeschylus’s interest in the polis (the city) being a vital development of human civilisation.

Etreocles and Polynices are the sons of the King of Thebes, Oedipus. Oedipus is resigning the throne, and so decides that his sons will alternate the throne of the city, but after a year Etreocles refuses to step down, so Polynices wages war to claim the crown, with the help of the eponymous seven.

Seven against Thebes has very little plot, but is instead constructed around a series of monologues in which a scout describes each of the seven and the devices on their respective shields.

The brother go on to kill each other in combat, and Aeschylus’s original ending, was of lamentation for these fallen men.

“Brothers indeed, and now utterly destroyed by wounds unkind in frenzied strife as a termination to their feud. Their hatred is stilled, and their life-blood is mingled with the gory dust: thus are they united by blood indeed.” (p.104)

A sudden shift in tone and style at this point in the play reveals another ending attached, some fifty years later. Antigone and Ismeme mourn their dead brothers when a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices. Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. This ending was attached to capitalise on the popularity of Sophocles’ Antigone.

Seven against Thebes is a play that has caused some consternation for historians. Archaeologists have been trying to reconcile the “seven-gated Thebes” with the actual city of Thebes which had fewer entrance points than that. Some postulate that the number seven may have been chosen for symmetry, or to refer to some other myth. Nobody is quite sure.

Of all Aeschylus’s work, I find Seven against Thebes the least well formed. Its construction is dramatically unconvincing, and although his language is as rich as before, the vital element of surprise is missing from this work. Seven against Thebes seems obvious and therefore duller than his other works. Nevertheless, we are lucky that it survives – for so little of Aeschylus’s work does – and to criticise so great a playwright seems a little disserving.

Classic Greek tragedy. Aeschylus is difficult, and a guide to Ancient Greek theatre always helps. I returned to this collection over a period of thirty years.

I am reviewing this as Prometheus Bound only
In the past year or so I have attempted to read through a few of Aeschylus' works though have struggled finishing any of them, this being the first, I think the idea of watching Prometheus suffer on a rock is interesting but I regret to say it doesn't hold the same appeal of the works of Euripides or Sophocles to me personally.
I will say that the setting lends very well to the fact that it is a play and it the first footnote is correct then it makes for a very compelling conversation in that regard.
Prometheus is a very cool guy, but in this he just seems like a cocky man who can't be wrong due to him falsifying his story to the chorus and whining to Io.
I will say that Aeschylus thrives on arguments with the climactic debate/argument between Hermes and Prometheus is especially well written
Despite the negativity of this review, maybe on a second reading I might feel a little different and more willing to enjoy Aeschylus play.

Tempi di rilettura.

Prometeo incatenato e I sette contro Tebe.

Tanta tanta roba.