pretty well written, vaguely entertaining portrayal of one of the most well known greek myths, but not really any new or interesting ideas or worldviews presented. made a lot of sense when i found out aeschylus was a nepo baby.

Very much enjoyed this!

Beautifully written.

Persialaiset ja Seitsemän Teebaa vastaan eivät oikein jaksa innostaa minua, mutta Turvananojat ja Kahlehdittu Prometheus onneksi pelastavat kokoelman, etenkin Prometheus-näytelmä (jonka olen lukenut aiemmin jo englanninnoksena) on aika huippu. Maarit Kaimion suomennokset ja johdannot kullekin näytelmälle selityksineen ovat moitteettomia.

Persialaisten "ongelma" on yksinkertaisesti vain se, että näytelmän aihe (Persian kuninkaan Kserkseen sotaretken epäonnistuminen ja sen aiheuttama suru) ei minua yhtään kiinnosta. Muutenhan näytelmä on kyllä ihan mielenkiintoinen lajinsa edustaja - esim. se on ainut meille säilynyt kreikkalainen tragedia, joka ei käsittele myyttiä vaan historiallista tapahtumaa.

Toisaalta Seitsemän Teebaa vastaan perustuu minua henkkoht kiinnostavaan mytologiseen aiheeseen (Oidipuksen poikien Eteokleen ja Polyneikeen kamppailu Teeban kuninkuudesta), mutta sen käsittely kyseisessä näytelmässä ei minua oikein vakuuta. Suurimmaksi osaksi siksi, että keskeisenä hahmona on misogynistinen Eteokles.

Sen sijaan Turvananojissa keskeisessä roolissa on - sangen epätavallisesti - näytelmän kuoro, joka koostuu Libyan kuninkaan Danaoksen 50 tyttärestä. Naiset anovat turvaa Argoksen kaupungista, sillä he eivät halua mennä naimisiin Egyptin kuninkaan poikien kanssa. Kunpa koko näytelmätrilogia, jonka ensimmäinen osa Turvananojat on, olisi säilynyt!

Myös Prometheus-trilogia olisi mielenkiintoista lukea kokonaisuudessaan - Kahlehdittu Prometheus on sekin trilogian aloittava näytelmä. Se kertoo Prometheuksesta, jota Zeus-ylijumala on rankaissut kauhistuttavalla tavalla kahlitsemalla hänet kallioon rautakiila rinnan lävitse lyötynä. Prometheuksen voi nähdä kapinallisena, joka yrittää taistella yksinvaltiastyrannia vastaan.

Aeschylus formats these dramas less in terms of action but rather reverberation – a reverberation of the fates. Even in ‘Thebes’, in which battle comes centrally, his interests are all in the framework before the actual interaction of characters. The great rivalry between Oedipus’ spawn takes place in the abstract, a fulfilment of prophecy before a clash of actors. ‘The Persians’ is the clearest distillation of this effect, taking place entirely after its subject-events and concerned only with the grander image of inevitable imperial collapse. Perhaps a close-reading is a little less sprawling – let us forsake the close reading. Aeschylus provides us the folly of empire, of bonding continents with boat-bridges, of world-churning hubris. Xerxes literally empties Asia and casts her against the Doric spear, the fine constructs of his father (who also, though his court has forgotten it, fell upon Greek spears) all dashed upon brazen shields. We are not afforded the experience of defeat, but rather its aftershock. The state of having lost, of pointed-shadows leering over shredded mind. There is probably something of the later orientalist misanthropy to Xerxes’ insatiable wailing in the play’s close, though also an affect of hopelessness. Here ends ambition. The centrality of the boat-bridge as prime image is reflected in ‘Thebes’, which imagines the city a boat accosted by rushing waves – the crests of the invaders in forward position. ‘Prometheus Bound’ – the greatest by far of these plays – makes middle its Christlike god in chains. ‘The Suppliants’ – by far the least of them – finds some mirror in the transplants of Io. It is in reflection and in signal metaphor that Aeschylus creates his dramatic situations – it is a simple device. ‘Prometheus Bound’, quasi- or not, makes best effort to overcome whatever limitations exist consubstantial to this effect. His rage against power is wide-ranged and fascinating; in it is Milton, Wagner, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John. Perhaps the sequel soothes his rancour (think The Matrix versus where the trilogy finalizes – no, really), but we do not have that sequel. We have this godly martyr, he who saved mankind and prophecies the doom of Zeus. Liberty awaits, and this is its cost.

recensione sul blog: http://thereadingpal.blogspot.it/2018...



Sto cercando di recuperare la lettura di classici greci e latini, per piacere personale. Purtroppo mi manca la conoscenza sia del greco antico che del latino, entrambe lingue che dovrei imparare. Questa volta è toccato ad alcune opere di Eschilo.
La mia è una copia vecchissima, tanto che ha il prezzo in lire, ma sia l'introduzione che la traduzione sono state scritte dalle stesse persone della nuova versione.
Consiglio di non saltare la parte introduttiva: io, presonalmente, l'ho trovata molto interessante. Purtroppo nel corso di Letteratura Greca quest'anno si ci è concentrato su altri autori, quindi per me è stato un approfondimento molto gradito.
Per quanto riguarda la traduzione, senza sapere la lingua non posso dire molto, ecco. Guardando l'originale riconoscevo qualche parola, ma non tanto da poter controllare la traduzione. Nel complesso si leggeva bene, anche se alcuni punti mi sono piaciuti più di altri. È un peccato che ci manchino alcuni versi. Mi chiedo come sarebbe leggerlo, e anche vederlo, in originale. Eschilo ha portato parecchie innovazioni al teatro greco, e le tragedie da lui scritte sono davvero interessanti.
Tra queste quattro opere, quella che ho preferito è sicuramente il Prometeo Incatenato, seguito da I persiani. Per quanto riguarda il Prometeo, racconta il mito del titano Prometeo e della sua punizione, inflittagli da Zeus per aver donato il fuoco agli umani. È quella che mi è piaciuta di più perché adoro la mitologia greca, e perché, leggendo opere che parlano di loro, mi sento più vicina agli dèi. Per quanto riguarda I Persiani, invece, viene portata a Susa la notizia della sconfitta di Salamina. L'ultima parte, dove appare Serse, è uno dei punti che più ho amato. Anche I sette contro Tebe e Le supplici sono bellissime opere, sopratutto la seconda per quanto mi riguarda.
In tutte queste opere possiamo individuare dettagli della cultura greca del tempo, altro dettaglio che mi interessa molto, e le note a volte aiutano ad individuare dettagli che potrebbero sfuggire.
Non ho molto da dire, a essere sincera. Le opere mi sono piaciute, le trame erano interessanti e la traduzione facile da seguire. Il tutto si legge piuttosto velocemente ed io, personalmente, non mi sono affatto annoiata nella lettura.

I bought this book because we were going to see a production of the Persians and wanted to be familiar with the story. I did like it a lot. This translation seemed really good, you could really hear the beauty and the despair of the ancient words. It was interesting reading a play that was how terrible things were for the enemey. Were the Greeks boasting or just showing compassion? I enjoyed the Persians immensly, a lot of woe, a strong woman queen, and a ghost! My favourite things! The next play Seven against thebes I also found interesting. I liked the juxtaposition between the women seeking religious help from the gods and the men keen on war. While it read a lot like a modern action movie (with descriptions of battles) it was interesting to see the gender differences and the way religon was portrayed, and like the first play, the language was gorgeous. The supplicants was also very interesting from a gender perspective, as the women petitioned the gods, and the town to save them from unwanted marriage. I can totally see why people would want to study these plays in detail, just reading through I felt like I was missing so much, but still getting exposed to so much history it was great. The last play Prometheus Unbound wasn't as much fun. The translator said how it was possibly not written by Aeschylus. I think the fact that there were so many more charcters seemed a bit weaker, and I missed the woes of the female chorus in the other play. But it was still good, just not as good as the first three. I think I've read three Greek playwrights so far, and this is definitely my favourite. I also highly recommend this translation.

Prometheus Bound is the jewel of this collection.

Prometheus bound was great, I wish the rest of the trilogy hadn't been lost. Of the few Greek dramas I've read so far, either this or Oedipus Rex is my favorite.

I know The Suppliants was written decades before Oedipus at Colonus, but having read the latter first, and feeling it was much better, this play didn't have much to offer me.

Seven Against Thebes was better than the introduction let on, only it's a shame the true ending has been lost and we're left with nothing but a fanfiction as this great play's capstone.

The Persians felt a bit weak, probably because nothing happened in it; everything was told in retrospect. Perhaps the spectacle of costumes, stage setting, and music would improve it, but this isn't a great piece to be read. On the upside, it's slightly shorter than the prior three, and Darius' ghost was cool.

I read this more for Prometheus Bound than anything else. I find the mythological archetype of the trickster interesting. Prometheus has obvious parallels with the Sumerian/Accadian deity Enki/Ea. There can hardly be any doubt that the tradition is a shared one between the Middle East and the Mediterranean. On top of that, the figure of Shemhazai (aka Samyaza) of the Enochic tradition is also somewhat analogous. Prometheus is said to have given man certain kinds of forbidden knowledge, e.g. the knowledge of fire and various arts and sciences, including medicine and magic. While Azazel was also credited with bringing to humanity forbidden knowledge, his predilection was apparently more geared towards war than towards civilization building. Shemhazai seemed to be more allied with knowledge that was meant to promote civilization. Another interesting parallel between Shemhazai and Prometheus is that both were made to do penance in their repsective traditions. In Prometheus' case, he was bound to some remote mountain where his liver was devoured by crows after it continuously regenerated. Shemhazai was said to have been suspended between heaven and earth. Apparently, in Enochic tradition, some constellation may have been equated with Shemhazai originally. Draco is an obvious candidate, given the following: It also is likely that the serpent in the garden is a related motif. It was a component of Sumerian myth that Enki was often symbolized by a serpent. That serpents and dragons were often conflated in Middle Eastern and Levantine mythology is ubiquitously evident. For some reason both were often associated with wisdom and knowledge. Azazel was said to have been cast into the rocky wilderness of Dudael. There may be some parallel there.

It's interesting that Aeschylus could put in the mouth of Prometheus a prophecy of Zeus' removal as head of the pantheon. It is clear that the average Greek didn't see Zeus as being omnipotent. It was understood that he became the head divinity after the removal of Chronos. It isn't made clear what tradition is behind this Promethean prophecy. Prometheus adamantly refuses to give details when Io inquires. However, there's an allusion to Typhon that seems to imply that Zeus will be overcome by Typhon eventually:

"I pity Typhon, that earth-born destroying giant,
The hundred-headed, native of the Cilician caves;
I saw him, all his fiery strength subdued by force.
Against the united gods he stood, his fearful jaws
Hissing forth terror; from his eyes a ghastly glare
Flashed, threatening to annihilate the throne of Zeus.
But Zeus's sleepless weapon came on him....
... and struck
His very heart, and burnt his strength to sulphurous ash.
...and thence one day
Rivers of flame shall burst forth, and with savage jaws
Devour the bright smooth fields of fertile Sicily;
Such rage shall Typhon, though charred with the bolt of Zeus,
Send boiling out in jets of fierce, fire-breathing spume
Unquenchable..."

The apocalyptic element of this prophecy seems to mirror the Norse legend of Ragnarok and Thor's final battle with the Midgard serpent. The parallels are certainly there.

The other three works included here are semi-historical dramas that are rather low on mythology, but contain some historical characters and allusions to historical events. Not quite as interesting for me, but worth reading nonetheless. There's not much there that I feel compelled to comment on.

The playwrights became excellent sources of myth when other primary sources were lost. Aeschylus is thus a primary source for the myth of Prometheus. If one is interested in Greek mythology, this is a great source.

I came for Prometheus Bound and stayed for The Persians and The Seven Against Thebes--but The Suppliant Maidens is the most sophisticated text here.

The Suppliant Maidens - a bizarre thing, with a choral protagonist, concerning an asylum claim of the Danaids: Greek drama was part of a self-flattering political dream wherein aliens always already desire to immigrate to Hellas against the wishes of nativists, which self-flattery continues in 2019 to be an abiding ideology in the United States and is accordingly one of the key foundational and self-defining mythologies of so-called western civilization. It gets to a weird start when the Egyptian speaker invokes Greek religion in the first line—is it masterful cosmopolitanism, or is it not rather a rigid xenophobia that can’t even imagine that strangers have their own ways? After the initial invocation of Zeus, the chorus seeks asylum whereupon the further invocation is made: “Who not in hell, Where another Zeus among the dead (they say) Works out their final punishment, can flee Their guilt of lust” (ll. 229-31). The imputation of Hellenic religion to xenos continues in “by race we claim Argos, the offspring of a fruitful cow” (l. 273-74), a reference to Io’s long journey.

Their petition: “to be no household-slave to Egyptus’ sons” (334). This, to the royal judge, is a “demand to wage / A new war” (341). The judge wants to avoid that “strife for us arise in unexpected and unpremeditated ways” (359). He regards it as outside his executive or judicial authority to decide, and considers it a legislative question: “But I make no promises until I share with all the citizens” (368-9), who at least have a consultative role, if not truly deliberative. The petitioners argue that “the land, the hearth [polis and oikos, NB] you rule / With the single vote and scepter” (372-3). In this dilemma, he fears “to act or not to act” (379), a moment of indecision. A concern for humanitarian intervention into the oikos of another in “a watchdog of men / Distressed who sit at neighboring hearths, / But obtain no lawful justice” (382-4). It is proposed that “Egytpus’ sons rule you by customs / Native to your city” (387-88), and they wish to escape it as a “heartless marriage” (394). The royal judge has difficulty with the issue, but insists on self-preservation: “So never may people say, if evil comes, / ‘Respecting aliens the city you destroyed’” (400-1).

The king is “run aground” (439) on the impasse of xenos v. polis, a matter of either course “necessity is strained” (440), hanged on ananke: “if consanguine / Blood is to stay unshed, we must sacrifice / To slaughter many kind to many gods” (448-49), he is “spent by this dispute” (450). “If I leave / This debt unpaid, you’ve warned of pollution / That shall strike unerringly” (471-3). He enjoins the father to place wreaths at “Altars of the native gods” so that “no one of the native people, who delight / In blame” might blame him (480 ff).

The chorus for its part thinks “mad is the race Egyptian, cursed, / In war unsated” (741-2); they are “wanton men, monstrous and profane” (763). The choral asylum claim runs through Io (524 ff.), who is construed at times as “bacchant of Hera” (565), “woman in turn, a monster marveled at” (570). The Egyptian advocate refers to the chorus as “you without city, I cannot respect” (852)—“willing, unwilling, you shall go” (861). The Egyptian position is standard imperialist: “I do not fear these gods before me” (893)—though the local royalty is not exactly enlightened: “You are / Barbarians, and you trifle insolently / With Greeks” (913-5): “you know not how to be a stranger” (918) as against “you speak unkindly to strangers” (927). The monarch adheres to the legislative will: “thus unanimous the vote / Decreed, never to surrender them to force” (941-2)—the city’s “voted will / Is now fulfilled” (963-4). Likely a trilogy focusing on the polis + demos > polis – demos; part II as themis – demos > polis + demos; part III is themis + demos > themis – demos? Dreadful, that they are lost.

The Persians

The introduction notes that “Aeschylus removes the Persian War to the realm of myth” here (45). The immediate concern is how “all Asia is gone: / To the city of Persians / Neither a herald not horseman returns” (13-5). The intention had been to “yoke / in servitude Hellas” (49-50)—a “destroyer of cities” (64) who is “yoking the neck of the sea” (71), the Persian monarch, from Herodotus VII, traces “his descent from Perseus” (79). The problem: “For divine fate has prevailed since / It enjoined Persians to wage wars” (102-3). It hangs in suspense until, foil to Marathon, “a Persian runner comes” (246) to report “all the barbarian host is gone” (254): “the sea-dyed corpses whirl / Vagrant on cragged shores” (277-8), “all aliens in a savage / Country, perished” (318-9). Even though the Persians allegedly outnumbered the Greeks, “some deity destroyed / Our host” (345-6): “she could not sate her appetite with those / Whom Marathon had made the Persians lose” (476-7). The result: “Now all Asia / Desolate, void” (548). “They throughout the Asian land / No longer Persian laws obey, / No longer lordly tribute yield, / Exacted by necessity; / Nor suffer rule as suppliants, / To earth obeisance never make: / Lost is the kingly power” (584-90). What’s left but to “lavish on the nether gods” libations for the dead (621)?

An anti-katabasis, of course, wherein the queen summons spectral Darius “up from the dead” (631). He duly reports: “Ascent is not easy. The chthonic deities more readily / Receive than give” (688-9). Though he fears famine or “civil strife within the city” (715) (Agamben’s stasis), the complaint is that Xerxes “drained the plain manless” (718), a fantasy of demographics, then. She is concerned that “to the joyous bridge / They came, the yoke of continents” (735); his point is rather that “my son in ignorance / Discovered it, by youthful pride; who hoped / To check the sacred waters of the Hellespont / by chains, just as if it were a slave” (742-5). He recalls a lovely precession of Persian history (765 ff) before noting that “Grecian soil is their own ally” (791) insofar as “it starves to death excessive numbers” (793). Persia is punished: “so great will be / The sacrificial cake of clotted gore / Made at Plataea by Dorian spear” (816-17).

Seven Against Thebes

Part of the Oedipus story, this text focuses plainly on the stasis that occurs in the power vacuum after Oedipus is cast out: there is “disaster” throughout the polis (5), and the present archon orders his soldiers “fear not that mighty mob of foreigners” (34), a nexus of rightwing anxiety. His reconnaissance reports that the seven enemy divisions seek to “lay your city level / with the ground, sacked, or by their deaths to make /a bloody paste of this same soil of yours” (47-48). Thereafter, signs of the enemy are seen in a “cloud of dust” that their movements raise (60, 81), as well as in sounds thereof heard from outside (83, 100, 150)—though it gets borderline surreal with proclamations such as “I see the sound” (103); this is a similar pre-heralding, as in the Agamemnon. Archon repeats the order to participate in the defense of the polis: “Now if there is anyone that will not hear / my orders, be he man or woman or in between, / sentence of death shall be decreed against him / and public stoning he shall not escape” (196-9 emphasis added): never mind the perverse incentives generated by this injunction, what is going on with the gender politics there? Archon is the normal authoritarian in advocating that “obedience is the mother of success” (223). The choral position is that “thanks to the Gods that we have our city / unconquered” (233), but the archon produces, perhaps, a tragic dilemma in “I do not grudge your honoring the Gods. / But lest you make our citizens cowards, / be quiet and not overfearful” (236-8).

None of it matters insofar as the polis is genuinely subject to solicitation: “Our city groans from its foundation” (245)—is the dilemma aforesaid shaking the constitutional order, rooted in theological fear, which runs contrary to the orders of the polis executive? For his part, the executive despairs, “Alas, the luck which among human beings / conjoins an honest man with impious wretches” (597-8), which founders on the same dilemma, interpreted in a self-serving manner. He believes that “our race, the race of Oedipus, / by the gods maddened, by them greatly hated” (653-4), which is a reasonable point, considering that this is all the fallout of divine revenge against Oedipus for his ancestors’ defeat of ancient chthonian monsters. He appeals to a different dilemma: “I do not think that now he comes to outrage / this fatherland of his she will stand his ally/ or else she is called falsely Justice, joining with a man whose mind conceives no limit in villainy. / In this I trust and to the conflict with him / I’ll go myself. What other has more right? / King against king, and brother against brother” (669-675). The chorus recognizes the problem: “Forth from your house the black-robed Fury / shall go” (700); “Old is the tale of sin I tell / but swift in retribution: to the third generation it abides. / Thrice in Pythian prophecies / given at Navel-of-Earth / Apollo had directed / King Laius all issueless to die” (742 ff.). For Oedipus, the problem was not the patricide or the incest, but rather when “he knew the meaning of his dreadful marriage” (778-9). But “the decisions of Laius, / wanting in faith” (841) as the crime? Otherwise, a fantasy of demographics insofar as “emptied the city walls” (330) is plausible; Capaneus particularly desires to “burn the city” (434), as part of the slick catalog of enemies (375 et seq.); the descriptions of the Seven are lovely otherwise.

Prometheus Bound

Set at “the world’s limit” (1), an “untrodden desolation” (2), agents of the gods “nail this malefactor” (id.) to the cliff so that he might “pay the gods the penalty” for his “man-loving disposition” (3-4). The “command of Zeus” finds its “perfect fulfilment” in “Might and Violence” (12). The torture will proceed until Heracles liberates Prometheus, though during the play he “has yet to be born” (26). Hephaestus feels guilt, but is assured that “your craft is in no way the author of his present troubles” (47).

Fairly brutal: “drive the obstinate jaw of the adamantine wedge right through his breast” (64). The prosopopeia for Might intones, after nailing, that “the Gods named you wrongly when they called you Forethought” (88). Prometheus himself envisions “ten thousand years of time” of torment (95). He also sees a “limit to my sufferings” because “I have known all before, all that shall be” (99-100). His resume is slick: “It was mortal man / to whom I gave great privileges and / for that was yoked to this unyielding harness. / I hunted out the secret spring of fire, / that filled the narthex stem, which then revealed / became the teacher of each craft to men, / a great resource. This is the sin committed / for which I stand accountant” (106-13). At “earth’s end” (117), he finds that he is “enemy of Zeus, hated of all” (121)—aesthetics determined by power—arising out of his “excessive love for man” (123)—even his self-assessment is uncritical in accepting the distortions of power. He wishes instead that he had been thrown “underneath / the earth and underneath the House of Hades, host of the dead-- / yes, down to limitless Tartarus” (152-54), which would have been the more standard punishment for this sort of transgression.

What then accounts for the deviation from precedent? The chorus construes Zeus as he malignantly, / always cherishing a mind /that bends not, has subdued the breed of Uranos, not shall he cease / until he satisfies his heart” (163-5). Prometheus for his part predicts that “he shall need me” (168), at which time he will demand “recompense” (179). Zeus is savage and “his justice / a thing he keeps by his own standard” (188-9), which enables Russell’s critique of the moral argument for the existence of god—that the standard of justice is idiosyncratic to power, rather than derived from any particular set of axioms.

An apocalyptic prediction in that Zeus “shall melt to softness yet / when he is broken in the way I know” (190-1). Zeus is more concerned with how “he assigned / to the several gods their several privileges / and portioned out their power, but to the unhappy / breed of mankind he gave no heed, intending / to blot the race out and create a new” (231-5). Prometheus by contrast “rescued men from shattering destruction” (236) and acted in representative capacity: “I gave to mortal man a precedence over myself in pity” (240). He caused “mortals to cease foreseeing doom” (250) and “placed in them blind hopes” (252) and “gave them fire” (254); he also “first yoked beasts for them” so that “they might be man’s substitute” (462-4). He also taught them medicine, divination, religious practice, oneiromancy, augury, and so on (475 ff.): “all arts that mortals have came from Prometheus” (505). And yet: “craft [techne?] is far weaker than necessity [ananke?]” (513). This acting in representative capacity is also an intentional internalization of an externality: “I knew when I transgressed nor will I deny it. / in helping man I brought my troubles on me” (267-8). An apocalypse is foretold (368-74). A repeated refrain is how Zeus is a tyrant—and that general term of opprobrium is given some substance in the notion of a “tyrant’s private laws” (403).

Here is perhaps a dilemma: “Who then is the steersman of necessity?” “The triple-formed Fates and the remembering Furies.” “Is Zeus weaker than these?” “Yes, for he, too, cannot escape what is fated” “What is fated for Zeus besides eternal sovereignty?” “Inquire of this no further” (515-20). This must be compared to Roman Jupiter, who is perhaps superior to fate. Prometheus declines to let out the secret that he knows, the fate of Zeus, as “it is only by keeping it that I will escape my despiteful bondage and my agony” (524). Io shows up to “the limits of the world” (666), with tales of Zeus wanting to “blot out the whole race” (669), again construing humans as a writing. Prometheus tells Io that her suffering thus far is but a “prelude” (739). Io asks if Zeus will fall from power and he answers: “know that this shall be” (760) because of “a son mightier than his father” (768)—unless Prometheus is freed—and there is a recitation of the liberatory agent, a descendent of Io, “a man renowned / for archery” (870-1), anti-chthonian Heracles.

My second Aeschylus book, this one containing all of his remaining surviving works. Sadly, those which were part of trilogies are now orphaned, so like A Song of Ice and Fire and The Kingkiller Chronicles, we'll probably never get to experience the works in their completeness. I joke, but it does drive home just how much of human literature we have lost - how what survives is only a small fraction of what once existed.

This book was considerably slimmer, thanks to the comparatively brief 15-page introduction, although Philip Vellacot is still the editor/translator. Looks like this may have been the earlier publication, so maybe he just hadn't worked up all that steam yet?

As to the plays, I liked Prometheus Bound, it had a similar intensity of emotion to the Orestia. The Supplicants I felt was the weakest. I felt the chorus of women was very effective in Seven Against Thebes, their mounting terror at the sounds of the besieging army really hightened the tension and the perspective - that of the helpless women who cannot act to defend their city, but must trust that they will be saved and can only fear what will happen if their menfolk fail - provides a different angle from the standard point of view of the brave defending warrior or war-leader, which even today I feel is too often the only focus of war stories. I did agree the conclusion dragged on, and apparently this part might be a post-Aeschylus add-on. I did quite like the idea of the divided chorus exiting in different directions though.

The Persians was simple propaganda. Here we lose the complex motivations and perspectives that I praised in Aeschylus's other works - although we take the "perspective" of the defeated Persians, the whole play is them lamenting how much they suck and talking about how awesome the Greeks are. The conclusion to this one reeeeally dragged. Yes yes, tears and beating your breasts, I get it. For Athenians of the time, however, this would have been more meaningful - a celebration of their victory.

And with that, I have finished all of Aeshylus's surviving works, probably about 10% of what he actually wrote. Pretty impressed overall, let's see what future playwrights do with the material.

Great plays!! I particularly loved "Prometheus Bound"!