We read this book in class and we each had our own characters and it was really fun! Good plot and our teacher was super fun teaching it!

Era costumbre en la Antigua Grecia que cada autor trágico presentase tres obras a concurso en los festivales en honor a Dioniso. La Orestíada (compuesta por las obras Agamenón, Las coéforas y Las Euménides), de Esquilo, es la única trilogía que ha pervivido hasta nosotros.
tLa guerra de Troya ha terminado. Sin embargo, el regreso a casa de los vencedores griegos dista mucho de ser triunfal. Agamenón, el caudillo que ha encabezado la flota expedicionaria, vuelve a Micenas únicamente para ser asesinado por su esposa, Clitemnestra, en venganza por el sacrificio de su hija Ifigenia. Después, Orestes, el hijo de ambos, decide hacer justicia alentado por Apolo, y mata fríamente a su propia madre. Pero el asesinato de Clitemnestra no queda impune, y las Erinias, deidades de la antigua justicia, persiguen a Orestes por su crimen. Finalmente, la cadena de muerte y venganza se rompe cuando el Areópago, tribunal de Atenas presidido por Atenea, decide absolver a Orestes.
tMás allá de la sublimidad trágica de los propios textos de Esquilo, la Orestíada simboliza el paso del mundo antiguo al nuevo, de la justicia homérica de los héroes, basada en la venganza y el ojo por ojo, a la sociedad racional de Atenas, basada en los tribunales imparciales del Areópago. La Grecia tribal ha quedado atrás, y la edad de oro de la democracia se abre paso.
tLa representación de estas tres tragedias en un ciclo único en los teatros atenienses debió ser un espectáculo sin parangón. Su lectura, más de dos mil quinientos años después de su concepción, supone una de las experiencias literarias más gratificantes que he tenido la oportunidad de disfrutar.

"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...

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

I enjoyed reading this back in school after I had read The Iliad & The Odyssey. I haven't read them in years, but still remembered a lot of the names. Still, I thought I should read a summary of this first since it is an audio play, complete with the chorus. It was really good & I'm glad that I did read the Wikipedia article first. You can find it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia

The twisty way the gods used men & people used each other makes this fascinating. Glad I listened to it this time. That's far better than reading it.

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.

So the boys asked the Sibyl, "What do you want?"
And the Sibyl said, "I want to die!"
Petronius, Satyricon.

The God Apollo, speaking through the mouth of the Sibyl, is decrying Rome's corruption. So here, Orestes bewails his father, the King's sin. But he quickly learns you can't fight Sin with sin.

Orestes was so ME, in the Seventies. Calamity followed calamity for me, as for him. The Eumenides that Fate followed up with kept me "pinned and wriggling" on a Procrustean bed for fifty long years afterward.

That Agenbite of Inwit, in my seventies, has nearly abated, down to a faint feeling of being ill at ease. I had to sacrifice fun to find love.

The Oresteia is no fun either. Neither is life - excepting, for some, their toys, and for a few, the enduring legacy of love in their lives.

And Orestes has sinned and must do penance. As must we all.

My Prof in that Freshman Year at uni was the eminently and affably unassuming Head of the tiny Classics Department. Pity, that. Ancient Lit has much to tell us if we only had the ears to hear it.

Things about the tragedy of life, for example.

If you're not acquainted with tragedy in your life you're cruising for a bruising! Sooner or later. Tragedy breeds humility, another thing we don't believe in any more. Alas again.

So Orestes learns humility the hard way.

The hard way, unfortunately, for many of us who'd never learn about tragedy any other way, is also the best way.

And your misfortune will finally turn to love, as mine did.

There ARE Happy Endings.

But to get there, like Goldilocks, we must first go through a Dark, Evil Forest:

A LONG, LONG, LONG way from our loving Grandmother's House.

....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.

"But a man’s lifeblood is dark and mortal. Once it wets the earth what song can sing it back?”



Tragedy is described by Aristotle as “An imitation of an action that is admirable,complete and possesses magnitude.” (Poetics 4.1). However the Greeks had a radically different interpretation of what constituted admirable action than we do today. This brings us to today’s work, Aeschylus’ Oresteia.

Considered the grandfather of tragedy, Aeschylus’ masterpiece is the only surviving trilogy from antiquity; a rich and layered cycle of violence and its consequences that still feels fresh and vibrant today.

The first play, Agamemnon, centres on the brutal murder of the eponymous King of Argos (Also the leader of the Greek army in the Iliad) by his wife, Clymenestra. The second play, the libation bearers, focuses on his son’s quest for vengeance, whilst the third, the Eumenides, utilises the setting of a trial to discuss the moral ambiguities inherent in the climaxes from the previous pieces.

It is this final play that transcends the whole piece into more than just revenge tragedy. The Trial of Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, creates an environment where the morality of vengeance is laid bare and the virtues of law over violence are discussed.

However the predecessors also have a part to play in the overall effect. The dramatic tension boils over in the first two plays, and particularly when Orestes confronts his mother in the libation bearers, to a nauseating degree. Furthermore the initial murder that sparks this cycle of violence is not unprovoked, leaving the audience to decide who they should side with.

Overall, the work is a measured and developed contemplation on violence, revenge and justice. It provides a unique insight into the Greek views on morality and righteousness and makes for thrilling drama.

Check out my blog at

http://mikesliteraryhistory.wordpress... for more reviews.

agamemnon - cel ucis de nevastă în baie

după 10 ani de război troian, agamemnon, după ce a cucerit bogata cetate troia, se-ntoarce acasă.

criminala clitemnestra
prefăcându-se că nu mai putuse de dorul lui, nevastă-sa, clitemnestra, îl întâmpină pe covor roșu. dar ea e sora curviștinei elena care-a provocat războiul, și n-are scrupule, așa că-l omoară pe agamemnon în cadă, la prima baie, în mod sadic. o omoară și pe una dintre amantele pe care învingătorul și-o adusese cu el, pe prorocița blestemată să nu fie crezută, casandra. iată, criminala sadică, cum povestește isprava:

CLITEMNESTRA
Atunci, zăcând, el își dă duhul, iar sângele, țâșnind din rănile străpunse, mă împroașcă, picături întunecate, nu mai puțin plăcute pentru mine, decât e roua sclipitoare, dar dumnezeiesc, pentru semințele din muguri. (p.79)

iaca și amantul
aflăm apoi că în vremea asta, cât timp bărba-su se războia departe, ea și-a tras amant, pe vărul mai laș al soțului, egist. nu era el prea bun la războaie - căci n-a plecat la troia - însă era expert, se pare, în sexul cu femeia altuia iar mai apoi convingerea ei să-l omoare.

ceea ce corul bătrânilor cetății îi reproșează:

Ești o muiere! Ai rămas acasă, pândind să se
întoarcă luptătorii din război!
Ai pângărit culcușul unui bărbat de seamă, ai pus
la cale moartea maimarelui oștirii! (p.89)

oare merita războinicul agamemnon să fie ucis de nevastă-sa în baie, după 10 de ani de lupte cu troienii?
- ucigașa zice că da, pentru că și-a jertfit fiica, pe ifigenia, înainte de plecarea la război.
- amantul ucigașei zice că da, pentru că tatăl lui agamemnon i i-a servit tatălui lui egist, la masă, pe propriii copii la dejun, așa că blestemat să fie!

Va dăinui o lege, cât Zeus va dăinui pe tron:
„Vinovatului pedeapsă!“ (p.86)

hoeforele

a doua piesă e cea mai slabă din trilogie. are două părți principale:
1) una în care cei doi copii orfani de tată - oreste și electra - își plâng peste ani tatăl
2) oreste, fiul ucisului agamemnon, îndemnat de oracolul din delphi, își ucide mama și pe amantul acestuia, egist.
nimic spectaculos.

eumenidele - cea mai mișto piesă a lui eschil

fără îndoială, mai abitir decât prometeu înlănțuit, eumenidele (binevoitoarele) este cea mai șmecheră din piesele lui eschil.
de ce?

cine erau eriniile?
pentru că personajele sunt eriniile (furiile la romani), care pornesc după ucigașul de mamă, oreste, să-l înnebunească de cap, ca pedeapsă pentru matricid.

eriniile sunt personaje horror, care fac parte din zeitățile vechi, născute (potrivit theogoniei lui hesiod) din picăturile de sânge scurse în gaia, de la castrarea lui uranos.
sunt ființe înaripate, cu șerpi împletiți în păr sau în mâini și au în mâini torțe sau bice.
au lăcaș în erebos sau în tartaros.

Născute pentru rele, hălăduiesc în umbra din care
se împărtășește răul și sub pământ, în Tartaros,
de oameni urgisite și de zeii din Olimp. (p.151)

rolul eriniilor este de a-i pedepsi pe oameni: pe prorocii care prevestesc prea mult, dar mai ales pe criminali, care zdruncină echilibrul omenirii și care trebuie să purifice prin canoane, dacă nu înnebunește.

cum le „rezolvă“ atena pe erinii și le face blânde?
ele nu se supun zeilor, nici chiar lui zeus, și se iau în gură chiar cu apolo sau cu atena. doar că șmechera atena le transformă din răuvoitoare în binevoitoare, care-i binecuvântează pe greci. astfel, folosindu-se de unealta tribunalului aeropagilor, soarta lui oreste este luată din mâna eriniilor (a blestemului crimei) și dată pe mâna oamenilor.

este o acțiune de îmblânzire a stihiilor originare, a schimbării legilor talionului în legile jurisprudenței. iar oreste este prilejul oportun.

nu mai spun despre prezența în piesă a templului de la delphi, centrul lumii elene, unde preoteasa pythia, muritoarea care ședea deasupra crăpăturii din pământ care emana aburi, și care profețea destinele elenilor, se sperie ea însăși de erinii.

iată ce spun eriniile despre dreapta măsură:
- Nici anarhie, nici puteri despotice, iată măsura. (p.180)
- Neîngrădit de teamă, care muritor mai știe să rămână drept? (p. 180)
- Nu te-nvoi să-ți petreci în
orânduire anarhică viață,
dar nici sub noime despotice,
Cumpănește în toată măsura,
așa-i rânduiala divină
împotriva puterii cu toane. (p.171)
- Cel care, singur, fără să fie silit,
se poartă cu dreptate,
va dobândi fericirea;
el nu va pieri niciodată cu totul,
În schimb, răzvrătitul obraznic,
care a strâns, împotriva dreptății,
de-a valma, atâtea grămezi
de comori ticăloase,
fără-ndoială, va fi nevoit
să-și coboare pânza, cu vremea,
când va sta îngrozit
lângă verga corăbiei ruptă. (p.172)

dincolo de acțiunea plină de personaje mitologice și de zei, eschil pune niște probleme. este, dincolo de poet, un filozof care aduce în mintea spectatorilor idei și probleme ce țin de viața oamenilor în genere și de cea de zi cu zi.

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.

Agamemnon (Oresteia, #1):The First Strike

The Libation Bearers (Oresteia, #2): The Course of The Curse

Eumenides (Oresteia, #3): Pending