ماجرا چیست؟
پاریس، شاهزادۀ زیبای تروا، حق نمک میزبان را به‌جای نمی‌آورد و از سرزمین آخایی (یونان)، هلن، همسر زیبای منلائوس، برادرِ فرمانروای یونان، آگاممنون را اغوا می‌کند و با خود به تروا می‌آورد. آگاممنون با هزاران کشتی به سمت تروا لشکر می‌کشد، اما در میانه گرفتار طوفان می‌شود و در دریاها سرگردان. ندایی غیبی به او می‌رسد که چارۀ کار، قربانی کردن دخترش برای پوزئیدون، خدای دریاها است. او این کار را می‌کند و اینگونه دریاها را رام می‌کند؛ اما خشم همسرش کلوتایمنسترا را که در یونان به جای او فرمانروایی می‌کند برمی‌انگیزد. آگاممنون، پس از ده سال، پیروز از تروا بازگشته است؛ اما کلوتایمنسترا که در غیاب همسرش، آیگیستوس، پسرعموی آگاممنون و دشمن خونی او را به بستر خود راه داده است، قربانی شدن دخترش را فراموش نکرده است و سودای قتل شوهر و ستاندن انتقام دخترش را در سر می‌پروراند. نمایشنامۀ اول، «آگاممنون» از برگشتن آگاممنون از تروا آغاز می‌گردد. کلوتایمنسترا به‌خوبی نقش همسری وفادار را بازی می‌کند؛ اما در سکوت و ترسی که وفاداران آگاممنون را فراگرفته است (درحالی که از ماجرای خیانت زن مطلع هستند) در حمام، آگاممنون را به قتل می‌رساند و خود با آیگیستوس دورانی شوم را در یونان آغاز می‌کنند. موضوع نمایش دوم، انتقام گرفتن پسر آگاممنون است از مادر خود و آیگیستوس. پسر که به‌جهت دورماندن از انتقام های خانوادگی به سرزمینی دور کوچانده شده است، با کمک دوست خود و خواهرش، الکترا و البته با حمایت و تشویق «آپولون»، پسر زئوس و خدای عدالت، انتقام پدر را می‌گیرد. نمایش سوم، «الاهگان انتقام» ماجرای دادگاه پسر آگاممنون در پیشگاه خدایان و الاهگان است. الاهگان انتقام که بسیار زشت‌رو هستند و موهایشان از ماران است، هرجا قتلی خانوادگی اتفاق بیفتد، قاتل را دنبال می‌کنند تا انتقام مقتول را بستانند. این قانونی کهن نزد خدایان است. پسر از معبد آپولون گریخته و به معبد «آتنا»، دختر زئوس و الاهۀ خرد پناه می‌آورد. درحالی که الاهگان انتقام درپی اجرای عدالت هستند، آپولون به‌شدت از پسر دفاع می‌کند و او را بی‌گناهی می‌داند که انتقام پدر خود را گرفته است. درنهایت داوری را نزد آتنا می‌برند. آتنا، از سویی نمی‌تواند پسر را به جرم بزرگ کشتن مادر بی‌گناه بپندارد و ازطرفی به دلیل اینکه انتقام پدرش را ستانده مستوجب عقاب نمی‌داند. آتنا، در نهایت تصمیم می‌گیرد برای اولین بار، در داوری از خود انسان‌ها کمک بگیرد و به‌این ترتیب رسمی نو در می‌اندازد. این امر بر الاهگان انتقام که خدایانی قدیمی‌تر از آتنا و آپولون هستند گران می‌اید؛ چراکه رسمی کهن را برمی‌اندزاد. در این دادگاه که قاضیانش بزرگان یونان هستند، پسر بی گناه شناخته می‌شود و بر سرزمین اخایی فرمانروایی می‌کند.
تفسیر من
به نظر من این سه گانۀ آیسخولوس، پدر تراژدی یونان، روایت متمدن شدن اهالی یونان و آغاز حاکمیت خرد بر آن سرزمین است. این امر در تصمیم آتنا در دخالت انسان‌ها در امر قضاوت نمادین شده است. یونانیان که تا پیش از این چیزی نبودند مگر عروسک های خیمه‌شب‌بازی خدایان متعدد و گناه و بی‌گناهی آنان بستۀ هوس آنان بود، حال می‌توانند خود بر بی‌گناهی یا گناهکاری یک متهم حکم صادر کنند و این یعنی حاکمیت خرد بشری به‌جای حاکمیت ارادۀ خدایان. و بیهوده نیست که آتنا این تصمیم خطیر را می‌گیرد؛ چراکه او الهۀ «خرد» است و از نسل جدید خدایان که رسم پدران خود را منسوخ می‌کند و حرمت گزار خرد انسانی می‌گردد. از آن پس انسان بر انسان داوری خواهد کرد و مجلسی از بزرگان برای شهر تصمیم میگیرند؛ نه یک تن و نه تنها خدایان. هرچه در «ایلیاد» و «اودیسه» با تجلی ارادۀ خدایان بر انسان‌ها روبرو هستیم، در اینجا برعکس، با روند مدنیت و در مرکزقرارگیری انسان روبرو هستیم. ازسوی دیگر، دادگاه پسر آگاممنون و حکم انسانها بر بی گناهی وی، خط پایانی است بر رشتۀ طولانی انتقام‌های خانوادگی که از سر رسمی کهن قرن‌ها است در سرزمین یونان حاکم بوده است. حال این قانون و دادگاه است که مجرم را مجازات می‌کند و نه انتقام شخصی. مسئلۀ جرم دیگر شخصی نیست؛ بلکه عمومی است و همه باید برای آن تصمیم بگیرند. واز این منظر نیز این سه‌گانه حرکت به‌سمت تمدن و حاکمیت قانون در سرزمین یونان است.
عبدالله کوثری
شک ندارم که این اثر، یکی از شاهکارهای ترجمۀ این مترجم توانمند است. نثر آهنگین و گاه قافیه‌داری که او در ترجمۀ این سه‌گانه بدان دست‌یافته آنقدر طبیعی و روان جریان یافته است که خواندن را نه‌تنها دچار هیچ سکته و توقفی نمی‌کند، بلکه طعمی از آهنگ و وزن این آثار منظوم کهن را به خواننده می‌چشاند. کوثری در آهنگین و موزون کردن متن راه افراط نپیموده و هرگز طبیعی بودن کلام را فدای موسیقی کلام نکرده است؛ بلکه توانسته بر لبۀ تیغ راه برود و این از مترجمی چون او برمی‌آید و بس.

Yılmaz Onay ve Türkçe milliyetçiliği. Yılmaz Onay ve araştırmanızı öneririm ✍

For people who didn't notice Marina Hyde's column in today's Guardian:

Having been instrumental in forcing the last two prime ministers out of office, Boris Johnson is on a hat-trick. Can he do it? Can Big Dog play his cards in such a way that a third prime ministerial scalp will be his – his in more ways than one? The answer feels like a hard yes, but this never-ending Greek tragedy is certainly taking its time. How’s your stamina? Like me, you maybe feel the Boristeia is dragging on a bit. Seemingly three plays in, Shagamemnon is still with us.

"فإن ذكرت دائمًا مماتي، نجوت من مخاوف الحياة." - "كل آت سوف يأتي بالقضاء، إنما الرؤيا عذاب ووجيعة." - "لا خير في النكوص والتأجيل، والعمر بالتأجيل لا يطول."

::التراجيديا::

الأوريستيا هي آخر أعمال أسخيلوس الفائزة بجائزة المسرح، وهي من محصول عام ٤٥٨ ق. م. أي كتبها في السابعة والستين من عمره قبل وفاته
بنحو ثلاثة أعوام. وهي على وجه القطع أنضج آثاره الباقية جميعًا. وقد كانت الدراما وليدة الأسطورة وطقوسها الباخوسية المعربدة، فالدراما ليست إلا وجهًا من وجوه الطقوس الدينية التي كانت تقام في عيد ديونيسوس وقد لازمتها هذه الصبغة الدينية طويلاً. وعيد الديونيسيا الكبرى كان يقام سنويًا في مارس-إبريل احتفالاً بديونيسوس إله الخمر والدراما. وكانت الدراما تقام في هذا اليوم.

تتكون الدراما اليونانية من: برولوج أي مقدمة وتمهيد لأحداث المأساة في مونولوج طويل. ثم بارودوس أي ظهور الكوراس على المسرح الذي يلعب دور المعلق على أحداث الدراما ومواقفها. ثم الإبيسود أي الحلقة التي تقابل ما يقدم من ديالوج بين شخصين ونادرًا ما يقوم بين ثلاث شخصيات. ثم يعقب الإبيسود نشيد كورالي يسمى استاسيمون وهكذا تتقدم المأساة بتبادل هذين العنصرين: الحوار والاستاسيمون. حتى تبلغ نهايتها أي إيكسودوس حيث يختفي الكوراس عن أنظار الجمهور.

دور التراجيديا من وجهة نظر الفلسفة الأرسطاطاليسية هو أن تعذب المشاهد في البطل أي الإمباثيا الشعور في وهي حالة من التقمص تتجاوز السيمباثيا أي الشهور مع. وهذه النظرية في البويطيقا يذكرها أرسطوطاليس بأنه التطهير التراجيدي الكاثارسيس. عناصر التراجيديا ستة عناصر: العقدة أو الحدث، الشخصية، البيان، الفكر، المنظر، الغناء. والفن عامة هو تقليد للطبيعة أو الحياة، استحضار، ونحن نقول اليوم أنه تمثيل. ولا يكون التمثيل إلا عن الموضوعات بين التعبير يكون عن الذاتيات. العقدة والشخصية يمثلان وسيلة التقليد بينما البيان هو كيفية التقليد والفكر والمنظر والغناء هي موضوعات التقليد.

***

::بين هاملت وأوريست::

عبد بعض النقاد موضوع هاملت لشكسبير شديد الشبه بموضوع الأوريستيا لأسخيلوس، ففي كلا العملين أمير منفي شاب يعود إلى وطنه ليجد أن أمه قد شاركت بطريق أو بآخر، بالسلب كما في هاملت أو بالإيجاب كما في الأوريستيا في قتل أبيه وهو ملك البلاد، وأنها تزوجت من القاتل مغتصب العرش، وهو في الحالين من أقرباء الملك القتيل، فهو أخوه في هاملت وهو ابن عمه في الأوريستيا، وفي كلا الحالين نجد أن الأمير الشاب المبعد عن البلاد يطلع على حقيقة قتل أبيه عن طريق قوى مجهولة من قوى الغيب، تلقي في أذنه بالسر الخطير: الشبح في حالة هاملت وأبولو رب الضياء في حالة الأوريستيا. وفي الحالين يقسم الأمير الشاب أمام قوى الغيب أن يثأر لأبيه من قاتله. وفي الحالين يبر الأمير الشاب بقسمه، وفي الحالين تغيم على عقل الأمير الشاب سحابة سوداء من الجنون والتشتت، كما نجد الصديق الذي يمثل الوجه الآخر من الأمير الشاب، فهو بيلادوس في الأوريستيا وهوارشيو في هاملت. وبالطبع نجد الحب الذي تلعب دوره أخت أوريست إلكترا بينما هي أوفيليا ابنة وزير الملك في هاملت (هذا يدل على الابتعاد عن العلاقات المحرمة وتطور كراهية الانتقام من الوالدين حيث كان سلوك الأم في هاملت سلبي على رغم مواجهة هاملت القوية لأمه إلا أنه لا يقتلها، بينما في الأوريستيا تتضح جذور هذه المشكلة الدرامية أكثر). كلوديوس هو إيجيست: التخلص من قريبه الحميم، ملك البلاد الشرعي ليتزوج من أرملته الملكة ويغتصب عرشه كما اغتصب فراشه. جيرترود هي كليتمنسترا: الزوجة الخائنة زوجة الملك الغائب. هاملت هو أوريست أداة القصاص وإحقاق العدالة، يثأر لأبيه المقتول. الشبح هو أبوللو عالم الغيب وأوفيليا هي قد تكون مزيجًا من إيفيجينيا في ديرها التي ضحى بها أجاممنون قربانًا للآلهة للانتصار في معركة طروادة، وإلكترا الحزينة أخت أوريست. الجنون الذي يصيب هاملت هو في الأساس جنون أوريست الناتج عن هول الجريمة ومن ثم انتقام الإيرينيات أو الفوريات ربات الانتقام من قاتلي ذوي القربى.

***

::الثلاثية::

(١) أجاممنون

هيا اشهدوا العاصفة الهوجاء
أعصارها الثالث في الأنواء
حلت بدار الشؤم والشقاء
أرسلها الأرباب في السماء
تعصف بالقصور والأبهاء
أولها المأدبة الفظيعة،
سارت بها أخبارنا الشنيعة،
أقامها أتريد لأخيه
وأطعم الوالد من بنيه
ثم أتت فاجعة ضروس
على بني القاتل أتريوس:

(٢) حاملات القرابين

وسيد اليونان في القتال،
خر سريع الطعنة النجلاء
في حوضه الفياض بالدماء
ثم أتت ثالثة البلايا:

(٣) الصافحات

أوريست جاء يحسم الرزايا
أهو منقذي من المنايا،
أم هو لعنة من القضاء؟

***

::استبصار حول العدالة::

الأصل أن الإيرينيات كن يلقبن في اليونان القديمة بالصافحات أو المريدات خيرًا وهو من أسماء الأضداء اتقاءً لغضبهن الشديد الذي عرف عنهن، ولكن أسخيلوس بعبقريته وفلسفته العميقة قد جعلهن يتحولن من رسل الجحيم إلى هيئة رسل الغفران أو من زبانية إلى ملائكة رحمة. بهذا يقدم أسيخلوس مفهومًا دراميًا مبتكرًا -وهو أبو المسرح التراجيدي- حول مفهوم تطبيق العدالة، فلأول مرة لا تفعل المنتقمات فعلها الشنيع في متابعة القاتل وإصابته بمس من الجنون وتهجيره من بلاده، وتصبح صافحات وهذا يعني أن القانون الخاص بتحقيق العدالة لا يطبق بطريقة ميكانيكية بل يتم النظر في كل قضية بالبحث حيث تتشكل هيئة قضائية لبحث جريمة أوريست مكونة من ١٢ أثينيًا علاوة على تدخل أثينا بنفسها لمتابعة الأمر من أوله لآخره حتى تسترضي الإيرينيات وتجعلهن لا يتوقفن عن فعلهن في الانتقام من فاعلي الشر لكنهن أيضًا يقدمن الخير لفاعليه.

***

Such beautiful writing. This makes me heart both happy and sad. The chorus is haunting, the scenes are moving and full of feeling. Everything about it is chillingly elegant. It is yet another tragedy that more from this time period has not survived, and even this is fragmented. To have seen this when it was written must have been one of life's greatest pleasures.

2014 Version

Yet another version of ‘The Oresteia’, this time produced by BBC3 and broadcast in 2014. I love Greek myths and especially the stories surrounding the House of Atreus and this was a fairly good modernization with a short introduction to each of the three plays. Agamemnon, the first play, was excellent, ‘The Libation Bearers’, the second one, was good, while ‘the Furies’, the final play, was a little disappointing. Despite the drop off, it was well worth the time spent listening. If you have never had to suffer a classical education, it might be worth reading a wiki or summary of the House of Atreus to get the best out of the experience. This is not a spoiler as the original audiences were already well versed in the myths and were more interested in what Aeschylus did with those myths.

"... que cidade ou homem poderá venerar a Justiça, se viver sem sombra de medo no seu coração?"

Atreu e Tiestes são irmãos gémeos. Quando Atreu (rei de Micenas) descobre que o irmão é amante da sua mulher, decide vingar-se: mata os filhos de Tiestes e convida-o para um banquete, dando-lhos a comer. Salva-se o mais novo, Egisto.
Atreu é pai de Agamémnon. Durante o tempo em que este esteve ausente, na guerra de Tróia, Egisto torna-se amante da mulher do primo, Clitemnestra, e planeia vingar-se do crime cometido por Atreu, matando Agamémnon.
Antes de partir para Tróia, Agamémnon, sacrifica à deusa Ártemis, a sua filha Ifigénia. Clitemnestra nunca lhe perdoou a morte da filha e alia-se a Egisto na vingança.
No fim da guerra, Agamémnon regressa a casa, acompanhado por Cassandra, princesa de Tróia, e são assassinados por Clitemnestra e Egisto.
Após a morte de Agamémnon, o filho, Orestes, é enviado para casa de um tio de onde regressa anos depois com a incumbência, ordenada por Apolo, de vingar a morte do pai. É ajudado por Electra, que odeia a mãe e nunca lhe perdoou ter assassinado o pai, ansiando por vingança.
Depois de Orestes matar Clitemnestra e Egisto é perseguido pelas Erínias - as vingadoras dos crimes de sangue, neste caso o de matricídio.
Em julgamento, presidido pela deusa Atena, Orestes é absolvido e as Erínias são transformadas em Euménides (Benevolentes) - seres da justiça e não da vingança.

Oresteia são três peças de teatro sobre crime e castigo; vingança e justiça; julgamento e absolvição.
Em Agamémnon é representado o assassinato de Agamémnon e de Cassandra por Clitemnestra e Egisto; em Coéforas a morte de Clitemnestra e de Egisto por Orestes e em Euménides o remorso e o julgamento de Orestes.


(François Perrier - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia)


(Evelyn De Morgan - Cassandra)


(Pierre-Narcisse Guérin - Clytemnestra and Agamemnon)


(John Collier - Clytemnestra)


(William Blake Richmond - Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon)


(Bernardino Mei - Orestes slaying Aegisthus and Clytemnestra)


(John Downman - The Ghost Of Clytemnestra Awakening The Furies)


(Franz Stuck - Orestes And The Erinyes)

Or is revenge not the way to go after all? Many an Athenian must have asked just this sort of question after watching a performance of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, from the time when this trilogy of plays was first performed at the Theatre of Dionysus, on the Acropolis in Athens, in 458 B.C. The Oresteian trilogy of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides may be 2500 years old, but these plays are downright modern in the way they encourage the modern reader or viewer to meditate on revenge, its causes, and its consequences.

In our modern world, we are used to being told that it is wrong to seek revenge. At the same time, however, every human being knows the feeling of being wronged, and the strength of that immediate, atavistic wish to repay wrong for wrong. The ancient Greek attitude toward revenge was just as contradictory. On the one hand, Greek civilization had its beginnings in the warrior culture that had won the Trojan War – an honor culture in which one always had to be ready to defend with violence one’s own good name and that of one’s family. On the other hand, Athens in 458 B.C. was just a few years into its experiment in democracy. No doubt the Athenians knew that vengeance and democracy are incompatible – that “an eye for an eye” leaves the whole world blind.

That seemingly contradictory attitude toward revenge makes its way into The Oresteia -- a trilogy of plays that wastes no time moving from spousal murder and coup d’état to matricide. The first play in the trilogy, Agamemnon, chronicles the Mycenaean king’s return from Troy after the Greek victory in the Trojan War. Little does Agamemnon know that he is a marked man; his wife Clytemnestra has taken a lover, Aegisthus, and the two plan to murder Agamemnon. Clytemnestra seeks revenge against her husband because, to secure a favorable wind when the ships were first sailing for Troy, Agamemnon ordered the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia (a story told in Euripides’ play Iphigenia at Aulis). For this reason, there is a decided double edge to lines like the one in which Clytemnestra tells a herald bringing the news of the Greek victory, “Now for the best way to welcome home/my lord, my good lord….” (p. 125).

The Agamemnon of this play seems somewhat more sympathetic than the antagonistic king of Homer’s Iliad; when Clytemnestra invites him to walk upon crimson tapestries like a barbarian potentate, Agamemnon demurs, saying, with a humility that an Athenian audience would have found appropriate, that “only the gods deserve the pomps of honour/and the stiff brocades of fame. To walk on them…/I am human, and it makes my pulses stir/with dread” (p. 137). Nonetheless, his pious humility notwithstanding, Agamemnon is doomed to die at the hands of his wife and her lover.

Likewise doomed is Cassandra, the Trojan princess brought home as a slave by Agamemnon (another act of Agamemnon’s that is unlikely to improve Clytemnestra’s mood). Cassandra is blessed with the gift of prophecy, but cursed with the knowledge that no one will believe her prophecies. Knowing that she and Agamemnon are about to die at the hands of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Cassandra looks ahead – accurately, as always – to future events when she remarks that “We will die,/but not without some honour from the gods./There will come another to avenge us,/born to kill his mother, born/His father’s champion” (p. 155). That promise of retribution aside, the play Agamemnon ends on a grim note, with the chorus of old Argive men indignant at the murder of their king, but helpless to do anything against the new tyranny of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

The man alluded to in Cassandra’s anguished speech – the man fated to avenge his father by killing his own mother – is, of course, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; and as The Libation Bearers begins, Orestes has come home to Argos, accompanied by his friend Pylades. Once Orestes and his sister Electra have found each other, they plan their revenge. Orestes learns that Clytemnestra, plagued by evil dreams and fearful that she will face divine vengeance for her crime of husband-murder, has ordered that a group of enslaved women serve as libation bearers, offering sacrifices to the gods in an attempt to expiate Clytemnestra’s crime. Scornfully, Orestes asks of his mother’s after-the-fact repentance, “Why did she send libations? What possessed her,/so late, to salve a wound past healing?/To the unforgiving dead she sends this sop,/this…who am I to appreciate her gifts?/They fall so short of all her failings” (p. 200). No show of remorse on Clytemnestra’s part – no set of pious prayers mouthed by enslaved libation bearers forced to pray for a murderess whom they despise – is going to sway Orestes from his path of vengeance.

What does, momentarily, shake Orestes from his vengeful path is simple, human emotion - his natural feelings of filial affection toward his mother. The killing of Aegisthus, the original evil stepfather, is an easy enough thing; but then Clytemnestra opens her robe to reveal the breasts with which, many years before, as a young mother, she suckled the baby Orestes. “Wait, my son – no respect for this, my child?/The breast you held, drowsing away the hours,/soft gums tugging the milk that made you grow?” (p. 216) Orestes is momentarily paralyzed by coming face-to-face with the paradoxical reality that he can only avenge his father by killing his mother: “What will I do, Pylades? – I dread to kill my mother!” (p. 217) It is left to Pylades to speak as the voice of god-ordained revenge: “What of the future? What of the Prophet God Apollo,/the Delphic voice, the faith and oaths we swear?/Make all mankind your enemy, not the gods” (p. 217). Thus steeled by Pylades’ invocation of divine will, Orestes proceeds with his own fateful act of matricide.

I call it “fateful” because, divine will or no, Orestes still faces consequences for killing his mother. The mere fact that he acted in response to divine command does not exempt Orestes from a terrible, elemental punishment – to be forever pursued and driven mad by the Furies, hideous snake-haired monsters whose entire purpose, in the Olympian worldview, is to punish certain particularly heinous crimes such as matricide.

It matters not that, as the leader of the chorus of formerly enslaved women states, Orestes has “set us free, the whole city of Argos,/lopped the heads of these two serpents once for all” (p. 224). For Orestes, there is only the ultimate, fundamental horror of seeing, everywhere he turns, “Women – look – like Gorgons,/shrouded in black, their heads wreathed,/swarming serpents!” (p. 225). Orestes’ fate, barring some sort of divine intervention, is to be forever driven mad by the Furies, constantly running from them – “they drive me on! I must move” (p. 225) – in a vain search for shelter or relief. The Libation Bearers ends on this grim note, with only the vague hope expressed by the choral leader that “One thing will purge you. Apollo’s touch will set you free from all your…torments” (p. 225).

“Eumenides” means “kindly ones,” and therefore it seems counterintuitive that the concluding play in this trilogy, a play about the snake-haired, avenging Furies, should be titled The Eumenides (The Kindly Ones). Yet the manner in which Aeschylus resolves this seemingly unresolvable dilemma reveals much regarding the playwright’s beliefs regarding both justice and the relationship between divinity and humankind.

At Apollo’s behest, Orestes, pursued by the Furies, has made his way to the Acropolis of Athens, where he throws himself upon the mercy of Athena, the city’s patron goddess. The Furies meanwhile vow to pursue Orestes unto death, prompted in part by the urgings of the ghost of Clytemnestra, who calls upon the Furies to avenge her murder: “Never forget my anguish./Let my charges hurt you, they are just” (p. 236).

Reluctantly, the Furies agree to let Athena serve as judge between them and Orestes, and the goddess of wisdom lectures the Furies on their narrow and harsh conception of justice, telling them that “you are set on the name of justice rather than the act”, and adding that “Injustice…should never triumph thanks to oaths” (p. 250). The Furies’ defense of their code of vengeance comes to seem legalistic, pettifogging – when Orestes asks why the Furies did not hound Clytemnestra for killing her husband Agamemnon, the leader of the Furies responds, “The blood of the man she killed was not her own” (p. 258). Apollo himself witnesses on behalf of Orestes, and in a traditional Athenian-style trial, Orestes is acquitted by a tie vote.

Yet in response to the Furies’ rage at being denied the victim of their vengeance, Athena offers them a new mission – to become protectors, with her, of the city of Athens: “Look,/it is all yours, a royal share of our land –/justly entitled, glorified forever” (p. 270). The Furies, albeit somewhat reluctantly, accept Athena’s offer; and in the process of forswearing revenge, they cease to be hideous monsters, and become benevolent deities – Eumenides, “kindly ones.” The anti-vengeance message in this resolution of the trilogy seems clear. Additionally, an Athenian spectator of Aeschylus’ time might have thought of the way Athens’ legal system moved from the cruelty of Draco – a man whose laws were so harsh that he gave the world the word “draconian” – to the more enlightened code of the lawgiver Solon.

In the resolution of The Oresteia, we also learn a great deal regarding Aeschylus’ religious sensibilities. I had always heard Aeschylus described as being, of Athens’ three great playwrights, the most conventionally reverent, with his later successors Sophocles and Euripides being more willing to challenge convention – as if Aeschylus was driving around Athens in a chariot with a bumper sticker on the back saying ZEUS SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, AND THAT SETTLES IT. The truth, unsurprisingly, is more complex. Both in The Oresteia and in Aeschylus’ other surviving plays, there is indeed a suggestion that human beings must learn how to serve the gods more reverently – but there is also a corollary suggestion that the gods must likewise learn how to rule over humankind more justly. The divine and the human must find a way to reach out toward each other.

And, as mentioned above, this trilogy’s reflections upon the subject of vengeance are quite modern. Teaching The Oresteia for a “What Is Literature?” class at Penn State University, I found myself pairing the trilogy with Steven Spielberg’s film Munich (2005). The film, which details the Israeli government’s efforts to kill the Palestinian “Black September” terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics, provides, like The Oresteia, a thoughtful look at revenge and its ramifications.

At first, the film’s main character, Mossad agent Avner Kaufman (played by Eric Bana), accepts without too much question the decision by Prime Minister Golda Meir’s government that the blood of the murdered Israeli athletes must be repaid with the blood of their Palestinian killers. Yet as Avner sees the Palestinians with their families, hears from them tales of oppression and dislocation similar to the experience of many Israelis, faces the prospect that the taking of revenge may involve the unintended sacrifice of innocent lives, he begins to question the mission in which he is engaged. Few things could be more modern, or more enduringly relevant, than a story of whether or not to take revenge.

This Penguin Books edition of The Oresteia, rendered into English by the great translator Robert Fagles, includes a helpful introductory essay, informative notes, and a useful glossary. It is a great way to get to know the first complete, surviving trilogy of tragic plays from classical Greece.

“I have suffered into truth.” Orestes makes that declaration in The Eumenides, the third of the trilogy of plays dealing with the House of Atreus’s tendency to take empassioned revenge as their only acceptable call to action in a crisis. You expect excellence from Robert Fagles. His translations of Homer are superb. And you also expect it from Aeschylus, whose surviving plays endure and thrive in the hands of translators of craft and imagination across the centuries.

Aeschylus presents a generational migration through suffering to something approaching understanding, a familial tragedy that parallels an evolving sense of justice in society. Orestes finds no satisfaction in his matricide, though he (mostly) stands by the rightness of it. He is plagued by the Furies, who are also redeemed by the third play’s end by Athena who must treat them with respect and understanding (as opposed to Apollo’s scorn and intolerance). Instead of the next sword’s cut, a jury resolves the dispute over Orestes’s guilt, a jury that divides on the verdict with Athena’s vote tipping the scales, not judging him innocent, as Fagles notes in a long and thoughtful introduction to the plays (read afterwards, I advise), but a justifiable homicide, one that warrants no further punishment, an end to the blood feud.

The Fagles Oresteia is superior to the very good Lattimore translation (just as his Homer is superior to Lattimore’s excellent Homeric renderings—Fagles is the Michael Jordan of classical Greek translators, Lattimore and Fitzgerald the Bryant and James). Fagles’s translations are brutal and elegant both, capturing the barbaric violence with a poetic voice that is passionate, with a harshness mitigated by suffering’s humbling truth.

C’è sempre da commuoversi quando si legge un testo che risale a più di 2000 anni fa, averlo tra le mani e sentire quelle parole lontane, immaginando quel mare della Grecia lontano.
E i sentimenti sono sempre gli stessi, l’uomo è sempre lo stesso: vendetta e giustizia.

I hadn't read The Oresteia since school. I don't remember them being so metal, or that they contain a legal drama. These may be the most brutal works I have ever read. I must have been absurdly callous and half-asleep when I first read them. They are also an endless source of references from Slayer to Kurt Vonnegut to Shakespeare to Game of Thrones to Neil Gaiman and on and on through out recorded culture. Reading these as an adult gives me a brief sense of playing a glass bead game with all the culture I have experienced between my two readings.

I can only vouch for this Robert Fagles' translation, but yes, astonishingly gripping after more than 2,400 years.