Foreword
Acknowledgements
A Reading of 'The Oresteia': The Serpent and the Eagle

--Agamemnon
--The Libation Bearers
--The Eumenides

The Genealogy of Orestes
Select Bibliography
Notes
Glossary

Agamemnon is such an impressive piece of theatre. Even to this day, it has a kind of tension so rarely achieved in any piece of theatre since. It set in stone many of the conventions of horror literature. The great unknowable evil lurking underneath the plot is an omnipresence, hanging over all of the dialogue, and flavouring all of the characters' interactions.

The following two plays are more cerebral, and taken together they complete the thematic journey of the trilogy: from chaos to order, and from evil to virtue. They provide a necessary counterbalance to the chaos of the first play, and finally (in Eumenides) serve as a reckoning of the events of the first and second plays.

I first read these plays in the Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro translation. My second reading was in Fagles' translation. Both are very good, and I struggle to choose between them. Fagles appears to be more literal, and Burian/Shapiro appears to be more lyrical.

My slightly weird and rambling years-old review is below.

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I'm quite conflicted about rating this. Beyond any doubt at all, Agamemnon, the first of the trilogy, is a masterpiece of the highest order. It's a superbly tense story with an awesome (and very emotionally affecting) climax. The two plays that follow, although great in their own ways, are not so tense as the first. Libation Bearers continues the story of Agamemnon and is centered around the late general's tomb. And then there's Eumenides which is mostly a courtroom trial (although rather an unusual one, in that Apollo appears as a witness and Athena contributes frequently).

The third play reminded me a lot of Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot. No doubt he was influenced in no small part by Aeschylus. Regardless, I found the courtroom sequences of Murder in the Cathedral to be quite surreal. And I found that same surrealism as present in Eumenides - perhaps even more so than it was in Eliot's play. In Eliot's play there were no gods present at the trial.

None of this is intended as a negative criticism of course. It's just what struck me foremost. Perhaps I should re-read Murder in the Cathedral. So much of modern literature takes on a different appearance when you go back to the sources - and there's no earlier source of drama than Aeschylus.

Oresteia is the only surviving trilogy of Greek tragedy plays, performed in 458 BCE - two years before Aeschylus's death in 456 BCE. This review summarises all three plays as a trilogy, and because I think that it's easier to read them if you know what to expect, I do give away all the relevant plot points.

The first play, "Agamemnon", is about betrayal: King Agamemnon returns home to Argos after the successful sacking of Troy (in modern-day Turkey), only to be killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover, Agamemnon's cousin, Aegisthus, who had taken over Agamemnon's rule in his absence. Clytemnestra is wrathful because her husband sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia, in order to placate the god Artemis and secure calm winds for the voyage to Troy, and kills Agamemnon in his bath. They also murder Cassandra, his spoils of war, the prophetess cursed to never be believed who sees her own death but is, of course, disbelieved. Such is the curse of Agamemnon's family continued.

The second play, "Libation Bearers", is about just revenge, or deliverance. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon's son Orestes returns from another kingdom where he was sent to live, having learned from the oracle Loxias of his mother's murderous betrayal. Through Loxias he is given leave by the god Apollo to exact revenge by killing his mother and her lover. When he arrives at the palace he goes first to the tomb of his father to pay his respects; there he encounters his sister Electra, also in mourning. With the help of the palace servants, he disguises himself as a traveller bearing news of his own death so as to trick his way inside and see Aegisthus privately. He slews him and then his mother, who knows she is going to her death but does not fight it.

The third play, "Eumenides", is about justice and change - it displays a new way of seeking justice, that in a new court-of-law, with the verdict decided by a group of citizen jurors in Athens. The Furies are hounding Orestes, demanding payment for the matricide. Orestes seeks out Apollo's temple and Apollo's protection, and then Athena (Pallas Athena), goddess of war, wisdom and justice (among many other things). Athena decides to hold a trial to hear the case, with the Furies the prosecution and Apollo defending Orestes. Athena casts her own vote in Orestes' favour, and the result is a tie: Orestes goes free. The Furies threaten to destroy the land but Athena placates them instead into protecting it, and decrees that henceforth a trial by jury shall always be used to decide such cases.

That's the general overview of this trilogy of Greek tragedies, though there is a lot more going on in the details. I did struggle a bit, reading these short plays, because it's so hard for me to concentrate these days. I found my mind wandering continuously, thoughts intruding, and even when I made the effort to focus I often had to re-read passages several times and then admit defeat. The notes do help, but the fact remains that I had trouble with the structure of many lines, that like obscure poetry they alluded me. Full of metaphor and requiring a great deal of knowledge to get the mythic and historical references, a lot of "Agamemnon" in particular was hard to follow, in particular the Chorus' chants, like when they tell the story of the family curse (I only know that's what it's about from reading the intro and some notes. Other names are often used - like Ilion, for Troy, or Pallas, for Athena - and like an optical illusion the lines seem to double in on themselves so you don't know what the hell is really being said, or so it seems to me, like it's a language I don't know. It gives me a headache.

Yet, on that note, it also made me wonder (an intruding thought among many), how these plays would have been heard by ordinary people, just as Shakespeare's plays were heard by the poor and uneducated as much as the rich - regardless, they all understood them, didn't they? I mean, the style of speech was understandable in all its convolutions and beseechings. We struggle to follow all the lines in Shakespeare today - it just makes me really recognise how much verbal language has changed, verbal English (I know Greek isn't English, but the translation honours the original). But I digress.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this story. We've all heard the story of Troy even if you haven't read The Illiad, and you've probably heard of Agamemnon and Cassandra too. Aeschylus wasn't the only playwright to create plays based on this myth of Agamemnon's murder - Euripides, for example, who came just after Aeschylus died, wrote one too. I've studied some ancient Greek plays, years ago, but I don't really have a background in it. To me, as a modern-day reader and an emancipated woman, I can't help but find them almost misogynistic in tone, even though scholars have apparently seen Clytemnestra as an early feminist figure for taking over the male role of ruler - the translator, Christopher Collard, Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Wales, says in his introduction that "it seems unnecessary to think of her as more than a playwright's imaginative construction for the sake of his drama." (p.xxvii) But there are far stronger anti-women sentiments voiced in these plays, especially the third one. (I want to bring it up not because I'm offended or anything, but because it's an interesting theme, to me at least, and because I vaguely remember when I studied Greek plays in university that strong, powerful, mad women are a common theme - but more than that, I can't remember!)

In "Agamemnon", the king himself speaks of the gods' undivided and just support for the destruction of Tory, saying "it was for a woman that Troy was ground into dust..." (p.23)

Apollo has the worst denouncement, though, when he says during the trial in "Eumenides":

The so-called mother is no parent of a child, but nurturer of a newly seeded embryo; the parent is the one who mounts her, while she conserves the child like a stranger for a stranger, for those fathers not thwarted by god. [p.103]

And Athena makes her judgement thus:

It is my business in this case to give my judgement last; and I shall cast this vote of mine for Orestes. [...] I do so because there is no mother who gave me birth, and I approve the masculine in everything - except for union with it - with all my heart; and I am very much my father's: so I will set a higher value on the death of a woman who killed her husband, a house's guardian. [p.105]

(Athena, a rational goddess, is the daughter of Zeus, born of his head.)

So combined with Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter, his other daughter Electra's idolatry of her father, Clytemnestra's usurping of a man's role and adultery, the gods' promotion of the masculine over the feminine is rather like having the last word. Bit hard to gainsay a god.

I bring up the theme of women in these plays because I feel it is relevant in questioning, what is Clytemnestra's greatest crime here? Why does Orestes feel the need to kill her rather than bring her to justice? Certain lines jump out at me that make it apparent that her greatest crime was taking on a man's role, and therefore depriving Orestes of his inheritance. In "Libation Bearers", Orestes says of his decision to kill his mother,

"Many desires are falling together into one; there are the gods' commands, and my great grief for my father; besides, it oppresses me to be deprived of my property, so that our citizens, who have the finest glory among men, and honour for their heart in sacking Troy, should not be subjects like this of a pair of women. [p.59]

(By "pair of women" he refers here to his mother's lover Aegisthus, who he calls "effeminate at heart".)

I wonder whether she would have been so abominable in mens' eyes if she had not sought to rule, which she was doing in her husband's absence anyway. It is so easy in mythology to lay all blame and evil and everything that goes wrong, at the feet of women. What scapegoats we make! Though to be fair, if Athena had not cast her own vote, Orestes would have been found guilty, for her vote made it a tie in which case she decreed he would be pardoned. The majority of jurors voted against him.

Which brings me to the big idea of the trilogy of plays, though: justice itself. Here we have the myth of how the first court of law, the first trial, began and was institutionalised in Athens, making it the most sophisticated and modern city-state in Greece. With the Furies trying to avenge Clytemnestra's murder and losing, they bemoan the change: "You younger gods! The ancient laws - you have ridden them down! You have taken them out of my hands for yourselves!" [p.106] The tied verdict, though, helps Athena, the patron of Athens, placate the Furies by saying they have not been dishonoured, and the goddess moves quickly to give the Furies a new role, that of protecting Athens rather than bringing destruction upon it for losing the trial. In doing so, she posits the city as the pinnacle of all things, blessed by the gods and made fortunate by the Furies who she gives the role of "keeping both land and cit on the straight way of justice." (p.111) In telling the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's downfall, this trilogy of plays gives us the mythologised story of how Athens became great - to an Athenian audience, so it's very much a self-aggrandising story.

There's lots more going on here; I've barely scratched the surface. I don't feel I can give it a rating, so I've given it a 3 because it's so middle-of-the-road. In terms of the general plot, it brought to mind "Hamlet" and also "Macbeth" - it's true that everything borrows from everything else, and stripped down, I'm sure there are probably only about three real plots or something (or was it seven? I think there's a book on this already!). It's tricky to read because all the action happens off the page; or rather, it happens in speech, making it fairly bogged-down with details, but this was also an interesting aspect of the plays. It was hard to read Cassandra and Clytemnestra's dialogue when they are both aware they are walking to their deaths - there's real emotion in those lines. The chants of the chorus are the hardest to read, being like poetry rather than prose and requiring significant background knowledge to understand.

A note on this edition: This is a new 2002 translation by Christopher Collard for Oxford World's Classics, and it's more of an academic translation than a popular, readable one. There is a long introduction and essay by Collard on the characters, the theatre production of the plays, dramatic form and so on, as well as extensive notes in the back. It comes with a summary of the three plays - which it's a great idea to read first or it's hard to follow what's going on - as well as a chronology of Agamemnon's family and a map that shows Greece and Turkey, which I really appreciated. All in all, it's a very thorough translation, noting when lines and words are missing from the original manuscripts, and probably your best choice if you're studying the plays.

This is perhaps ancient Greece's most famous tragic trilogy that has survived antiquity. "Agamemnon" deals with the treacherous murder of King Agamemnon, just returned from the Trojan war, at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra, and his brother (who had an affair with his wife and coveted the throne). "The Libation Bearers" brings karmic and bloody retribution upon Clytemnestra at the hands of her only son, Orestes, avenging the death of his father. "The Eumenides" deals with Orestes flight from 'the furies,' demon-like creatures who are hellbent on exacting justice for the unforgivable sin of matricide, with a climax of Orestes appealing for mercy and clemency from the gods of Olympus for his "crime." A fascinating read with such descriptions that one cannot help but imagine the scenes that take place. Highly recommended!

Net zoals de meeste mensen - vermoed ik - ben ik van de drie Atheense tragici het minst vertrouwd met het werk van Aischylos. Dus las ik nu zijn Oresteia, de trilogie rond de moord op Agalemnon door Klytaimnestra en later die op Klytaimnestra door Orestes en de nasleep hiervan.

Ik heb het huis van de Atriden (waartoe ook Tantalos, Pelops, Thyestes, etc behoren) altijd al de meest interessante stof van de klassieke tragedie gevonden - ja zelfs meer dan de Oedipous-stof - en nu ik Aischylos versie las nog meer!

Het is absurd te denken dat deze drie stukken meer dan 2500 jaar oud zijn, ze blijven ons - mij toch - nog steeds raken. Tegelijk zijn ze dus in zekere zin nog steeds actueel (thematieken van de wraak, oorlog, familiemoord, vrije wil etc), maar ook erg gegrond in de eigen context. Zo wist ik bijvoorbeeld niet dat het laatste stuk van de trilogie - Goede geesten - toch vrij expliciet verwijst naar de politieke situatie van het Athene van Aischylos’ tijd. Dat maakt deze stukken zo aantrekkelijk: de lezing ervan is gelaagd en er vallen vele interpretaties te vormen.

Straf werk.

I actually read this twice. Back-to-back in the style of Mortimer Adler. The first time through I read it with only some of the initial commentary of the translator. Additionally, I had some background provided by a Great Courses lecture. The second time through I read along with the translator's entire commentary. I would have enjoyed the trilogy very much without the second reading but it was with the second reading that I developed a real appreciation for the work.

Mind you, I'm a skeptic when it comes to literary analysis. As someone who has put words on a page in an attempt to create something meaningful, I understand that sometimes a writer chooses words for no more compelling reason than she is hungry and wants to get up to get a snack. I always imagine that literary analysts are arguing over the meaning of word choices and metaphors that were chosen because Aeschylus was in a hurry to finish a thought before he tucked into his hummus and pita chips. "Let's do that nets and robes thing again. Throw an eagle in there. People love eagles. Jayzus, I'm so sick of this play already. I'm starving. Why did I pick this career? I hate myself. I'm never going to have this finished for the Dionysian revels."

But I did cherry pick the translator's thoughts for insight and gave more weight to his ideas than mine given that he is a noted scholar of Ancient Greece and I'm a stay-at-home-mom who has read more issues of People magazine than I care to enumerate here.

More than a few traces of Shakespeare in here, by the way. Some lines just shamelessly lifted, if you ask me. Which you shouldn't. See above.

*Edit - That makes it sound like Aeschylus lifted from Shakespeare. I'm not quite THAT stupid. But I understand if you thought so. I did, naturally, intend to suggest that Shakespeare (if that IS his real name) bogarted some lines from Aeschylus.

Great story, though not even easy to understand, even in the German translation.

Un antico proverbio è diffuso tra gli uomini, che la felicità dei mortali, raggiunto il suo culmine, partorisce, non muore sterile: dalla fortuna germoglia alla stirpe dolore insaziabile.



Chiunque è incline a piangere con l'infelice; ma il morso del dolore non gli penetra fino nell'infinito; così, per mostrare di gioire con chi è felice, sforza il suo volto che fa resistenza al sorriso.

These brief plays contain multitudes: history, philosophical and moral inquiry, strong characters, good writing, the perfect amount of drama....and does not fall into the trap of a perfectly happy or tragic ending.

The Greeks had an intoxicating culture, or at least it seems to us. All of the iniquities and superstitions of the ancient people have been buried or lost, leaving only the perfect skeletons of buildings and the greatest of their literary productions. As a result, they strike us as a race of superpeople. This trilogy certainly furthers this impression, for it is a perfect poetic representation of the birth of justice and ethics out of the primordial law of retaliation.

The most basic ethical principal is loyalty. We are born into a family, establish reciprocal relationships with friends, become a contributing member of a mutually supporting group, and so naturally feel bound to treat this network of people with the proper respect and kindness. But loyalty has several problems. First, one’s family, friends, and group are largely determined by chance—and who is to say that our family and friends are the most worthy? Second, loyalty does not extend outside a very limited group, and so does not preclude the horrid treatment of others. And, as the Greek plays show us, the bounds of loyalty can sometimes cross, putting us in a situation where we must be disloyal to at least one person.

This is the essential problem of Antigone, where the titular character must choose between loyalty to her city or to her dead brother, who betrayed the state. This is also the problem faced by Orestes, who must choose between avenging his father and treating his mother properly. In Sophocles’ play, the problem proves intractable, leading to yet another string of deaths. But Aeschylus shows that by submitting the bonds of loyalty to a higher, impartial court that we can resolve the contradictions and put an end to the endless series of mutual retaliations that loyalty can give rise to.

The rise of judicial procedures, and of concepts of ethics that extend beyond loyalty to fairness, was a crucial step in the rise of complex societies. Aeschylus has given us an immortal dramatization of this epochal step. But, of course, this play is more than a philosophical or historical exercise. It is a work of high drama and poetry, worthy to stand at the first ranks of literature for its aesthetic merit alone. The Greeks continue to enchant.

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

A dramatic trilogy for both Gods and men. Aeschylus' ability to weave and connect his tragedies seems second nature in today's world of sequels, trilogies, and Star Wars prequels, but Aescheylus' genius existed both in the original form and the brilliant substance of his surviving plays. I can understand how Swinburne could call the Oresteia trilogy the "greatest spiritual work of man." The Oresteia is at once brilliant, creepy, and infinitely tragic (only family dramas can be so damn full of pathos). As I was reading it, I was constantly thinking of the influences the Oresteia had on everyone from Shakespeare (think Lady Macbeth) to our current crop of TV police procedurals.