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Aeschylus I: Oresteia, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers & The Eumenides
Oresteia, translated by Richmond Lattimore. Agamemnon. The Libation Bearers. The Eumenides. In nine paperback volumes, the Grene and Lattimore editions offer the most comprehensive selection of the Greek tragedies available in English. Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use.
170 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 1967
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David Grene
122 books26 followersDavid Grene (1913-2002) taught classics for many years at the University of Chicago.
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May 19, 2021
Taken as a whole, one of the indispensable works of a cosmopolitan literature, something to show extraterrestrials as part of our application for admission to the congress of civilized worlds--even if the individual plays are separately a bit perplexing.
The Agamemnon is curious, with its multiple heralds prefacing the arrival of the protagonist—the first, a watchman, awaits “to read the meaning in that beacon light” (l. 8), to which he responds as “blaze of the darkness, harbinger of day’s / shining” (ll. 21-22), signifying victory at Troy. Clytemnestra describes the beacon’s course very specifically (ll. 281-316), which can be traced on maps well enough.
This scene is a good illustration of the comparative virtues of literature and cinema—the film analogue is of course the lighting of the beacons in The Return of the King, which is mentioned without description in one line at the opening of the novel, but is given two minutes (starting at 0:55) of helicopter cameras and orchestral accompaniment, the solitary truly sublime moment in the movie version, in part because it is impossible for the novels to replicate it—perhaps this is why the decisive cavalry charge is not summoned with the beacon at all in the novel.
The film’s use of the beacon is incidentally a good example of Sun Tzu’s principle that “the best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, next is to attack alliances, next is to attack the army, and the worst is to attack a walled city,” advice borne out completely in Tolkien--and at Troy. In Aeschylus, the beacon signifies the end of the war, whereas in Tolkien it is the beginning—in both presented as unequivocally a good thing, and accordingly in both completely manipulative; on the basis of these two sets of evidence, we should always fear beacons and be suspicious of those who shill them.
Aeschylus is no uncritical shill, of course—Clytemnestra reflects upon the beacon, on how “variant sound the voices of the conquerors / and conquered, from the opposition of their fates” (ll. 324-25). The chorus considers Ares to be a “money changer of dead bodies” (l. 438), a curious economics; the chorus knows that the citizens’ “voice is dull with hatred” and that “the curse of the people must be paid for” (ll. 456-57), again an economics.
Agamemnon himself does not enter, famously, until almost the 50% mark—and at that point boasts first of “the vengeance I have wrought” on Troy (l. 813) and then turns to “the business of the city” (l. 844), a concern for the polis, which is apparently ill, as he “must use medicine, / or burn, or amputate” (l. 848-49), the methods of the Trojan War, this time applied at home. He confronts Clytemnestra as she “who kept my house for me” (l. 914), shifting the concern from polis to oikos. In this connection, the crimes of Tantalus are not emphasized—briefly referenced in Apollodorus, one must consult Frazer’s detailed notes to the Library E.2.3, such as “Tantalus served up the mangled limbs of his young son Pelops, which he had boiled in a kettle” (a crime of the oikos) and the sources cited therein. However, “Thyestes’ feast” is noted plainly by the chorus (1242). Definitely, then, there’s an interest here in minimizing one set of crimes in order to hang the chain of causation on a particular act.
One interlocutor wonders if Clytemnestra’s “lust for conflict is not womanlike” (940), a gendering of the polis. She has concern for the oikos also: “by god’s grace this house keeps full sufficiency / of all. Poverty is a thing beyond thought” (961-62). In fact, she has “no leisure to stand outside the house” (an ekstasis oikos?) (1055). That said, Atreides is a “house that god hates” (1090). Even so, it is easy to ask “what is this new and huge / stroke of atrocity she plans within the house” (1101-02).
Agamemnon is murdered off stage in the house (oikos, NB) (1343). The chorus notes “by these first steps they have taken / they purpose to be tyrants here upon our city” (1354-55).
Clytemnestra does not see it that way: “much have I said before to serve necessity [ananke], / but I will take no shame now to unsay it all” (1272-73). Her motivation: “last blood for the slaughtered children” (1504). She has “swept from these halls / the murder, the sin, and the fury” (1575-76)—cleaning the oikos of crime: “let him go forth to make bleed with death / and guilt the houses of others” (1571-72). Aegisthus by contrast is mixed polis/oikos motives: Thyestes had been driven “forth from his city and his home” (1586). Chorus: “your head / shall face the stones of anger from the people’s hands” (1615-16)—a political response, after which he returns the threat (1617 ff.). He will “control / the citizens” (1638-39) with Agamemnon’s money—conflating oikos and polis.
After obtaining “power,” the assassins intend to “bring good order to our house at least” (1674), concluding part I with the intention to arrogate the juridical authority of the polis to rectify mere despotic defects in their oikos, a standard form of malfeasance that is manifestly foundational of so-called western civilization ab initio, a lesson of this text that we carry forward even into the age of Trump.
Next is the Choēphóroi: “gods have forced on my city / resisted fate. From our fathers’ houses / they led us here, to take the lot of slaves” (76-77). Though “attendant women order our house” (84), “we hold a common hatred in this house” (101); “the day of destiny waits for the free man as well / as for the man enslaved beneath an alien hand” (103-4): “terror, the dream diviner of this house” (31).
Apollo “charged me” to avenge father’s assassination (270 ff), including “madness and empty terror” (287)—until “he lose his city” (290). This is compounded in how “the loss of my estates wears hard on me” (301); he dislikes that “these my citizens” are subject to his mother (302).
Chorus is to “Gather into murmurous revolt” (458), an agambenian stasis. Orestes sees it: “warstrength shall collide with warstrength; right with right” (461), the Hegelian marker of tragedy. But “here in the house there lies / the cure for this, not to be brought / from outside, never from others / but in themselves, through the fierce wreck and bloodshed” (471-74)—reversing the principle of the prior text, which sought to cure civil society with state power—Orestes will cure the state through private initiative. (Sophocles in his Elektra has Orestes consistent with Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra.)
The conflation of oikos and polis continues. Orestes: “announce me to the masters of the house” (658). Mother: “We have all the comforts that go with a house like ours, / hot baths, and beds to charm away your weariness / with rest, and the regard of temperate eyes. But if / you have some higher business, more a matter of state, / that is the men’s concern” (669-73). “Oh curse upon our house, bitter antagonist” (692); “but now / set down as traitor the hope that was our healer once / and made us look for a bright revel in our house” (697-99). They “defiled our house” (765). Orestes as “hope of our house” (776); “let the old murder in / the house breed no more” (805-6).
Chorus: “make / disaster a thing of blood inside the house” (836); murder of Aegisthus is “in the house” (871). Chorus: “Time brings all things to pass. Presently time shall cross / the outgates of the house after the stain is driven / entire from the hearth / by ceremonies that wash clean and cast out the furies. / The dice of fortune shall be thrown once more, and lie / in a fair fall smiling / up at the new indwellers come to live in the house” (965-71). Mother is also killed inside the oikos: “behold the twin tyrannies of our land, these two / who killed my father and who sacked my house” (973-74). So far it appears to be a matter of private concern, not arising to a public affair, despite his prior reversal of his mother’s principle.
And yet: “I killed my mother not without some right” (1027); “you liberated all the Argive city when / you lopped the heads of these two snakes with one clean stroke” (1046-47). Thereafter the retribution begins: “Women who serve this house, they come like gorgons, they / wear robes of black, and they are wreathed in a tangle / of snakes. I can no longer stay” (1048-50).
Therefore, last, the Eumenides, which opens with prayer, including in gratitude for “builders of roads” who “changed / the wilderness to a land that has no wilderness” (13-14), recalling the heraclean war against the chthonians. Orestes is “a man with god’s / defilement on him” (39-40). Apollo has “caught and overpowered these lewd creatures” (67); “because of evil they were born, because they hold the evil darkness of the Pit below / Earth, loathed alike by men and by the heavenly gods” (71-73). Apollo concedes “it was I who made you strike your mother down” (84) and that “the wanderer has rights which Zeus acknowledges” (93).
It is alleged that “younger gods” “hold by unconditional force, beyond all right” “a throne / that runs reeking blood” (162-64), which models the logic of earthly assassination: “the very stone center of earth here in our eyes horrible / with blood and curse stands plain to see” (166-67). Apollo “spoiled his secret shrine’s / hearth with the stain” — “blighted age-old distributions of power” (169-72). The chorus recognizes this vicarious liability of Apollo: “You are the one who did it; all the guilt is yours” (200). Nevertheless, the chorus has a “duty,” an “office,” to “drive matricides out of their houses” (207-10). Killing a spouse is not however the “shedding of kindred blood” (211) apparently.
Athena comes from Troy, where she “was taking seisin of land” (398) for Achaean lords. Athena finds the choral prosecutor to “wish to be called righteous rather than act right” (430) insofar as it seeks to “win by technicalities” (432). Orestes pleads that he has been “absolved” of blood “at the homes of others” (451). They “made the Trojan city / of Ilium no city any more” (457-58). Athena lacks “the right / to analyze cases of murder where wrath’s edge / is sharp” (471-72). She finds that Orestes brings “no harm to my city” (475). Apollo: confesses “responsibility for his mother’s murder” (579), and makes the fairly dumb argument that “The mother is no parent of that which is called / her child, but only a nurse of the new-planted seed / that grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she / preserves a stranger’s seed, if no god interfere” (658-661). Apollo: “There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth, /and, but for marriage, I am always for the male / with all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side” (736-8). Chorus: “gods of the younger generation, you have ridden down / the laws of the elder time, torn them out of my hands” (778-79). “This was the result of a fair ballot which was even” (795-96). Athena: “I am the only god / who knows the keys to where thunderbolts are locked” (827-28). “Civil War / fattening on men’s ruin shall / not thunder in our city” (976-78).
By the time this narrative gets to Seneca’s Agamemnon, we see the normal inversions. We know we’re in for it when the opening scene has the ghost of Thyestes “leaving the murky regions of infernal Dis” (1), the opposite of the classical katabasis scene, as in Lucan’s Pharsalia. Thyestes had relied on an oracle that “bade him seek his daughter’s incestuous embrace” (30), which he acknowledges as “confounded” and “monstrous” (36). The chorus wonders “what palace has not crime answering crime hurled headlong?” (77).There’s a stoic moment in “whatever Fortune has raised on high, she lifts but to bring low” (101). We see that “open to view is a royal house’s every sin [perlucet omne regiae vitium domus]” (148)—cf. the ‘disclosure of sin’ in the Thyestes, below. Here, a conflation of oikos and polis at the point of monarchy? We see that “crime must be forestalled” (103), a preemptive self-defense, apparently—during which she contemplates that “nor throne nor bed can brook a partnership” (259) as against “there is one law for thrones, one for the private bed” (264). Elektra helps Orestes leave: “O sole avenger of our father’s death, fly and escape our enemies’ miscreant hands. O’erthrown is our house to its foundations, our kingdom fallen” (910 ff.), a solicitation that again conflates oikos with polis. Plenty more.
And, of course, the best Seneca is the Thyestes, a foundation that Aeschylus diminishes. Again opens with an anti-katabasis, this time the ghost of Tantalus, returned to torment his offspring, an “undiminished banquet for new monsters” (12), for “whatever space is still empty in the unholy realm, I shall fill up” (21). Atreus for his part lives up to the father’s cruelty in self-exhortation to “do what no coming age shall approve, but none forget” (192), laying down thereby a rule of vengeance: “crime thou dost not avenge, save as thou dost surpass them” (194). He is not discouraged by the demos: “the greatest advantage this of royal power, that their master’s deeds the people are compelled as well to bear as praise” (206). Indeed, “where only right to a monarch is allowed, sovereignty is held on sufferance” (214). Instead, “honour, virtue, faith are the goods of common men” (218). Atreus as full metal crazy: “thou speakest of punishment’s completion; I punishment itself desire. Let the mild tyrant slay; in my dominion death is a boon to pray for” (247). Not sufficient in villainy alone, Atreus wants “to entangle my sons in guilt” (321)—“let Agamemnon be the witting agent of my plan, and Menelaus wittingly assist his father. By this deed let their uncertain birth by put to proof” (325). The chorus dispenses stoic chestnuts: “a king is he who has no fear; a king is he who shall naught desire. Such kingdom on himself each man bestows” (389-90). One of Thyestes’ murdered sons is also stoic: “careless of self he stood, nor did he plead, knowing such prayer were vain” (720). The crime is horrific, described in gory detail, such that “in mid sky didst bury the darkened day” (776). Like Poe, “there is no sin but it shall be revealed” (788). Atreus treats his desire for revenge as a claim: “I release the gods, for the utmost of my prayers have I attained” (888). “Of crime is there no limit” (1050)—cf. “crime’s limit deemst thou this?” (747)—cf. “to my fear what limit shall I set?” (483). After it is done: “now I believe my children are my own” (1096).
Recommended for those forced by constraint of fact.
The Agamemnon is curious, with its multiple heralds prefacing the arrival of the protagonist—the first, a watchman, awaits “to read the meaning in that beacon light” (l. 8), to which he responds as “blaze of the darkness, harbinger of day’s / shining” (ll. 21-22), signifying victory at Troy. Clytemnestra describes the beacon’s course very specifically (ll. 281-316), which can be traced on maps well enough.
This scene is a good illustration of the comparative virtues of literature and cinema—the film analogue is of course the lighting of the beacons in The Return of the King, which is mentioned without description in one line at the opening of the novel, but is given two minutes (starting at 0:55) of helicopter cameras and orchestral accompaniment, the solitary truly sublime moment in the movie version, in part because it is impossible for the novels to replicate it—perhaps this is why the decisive cavalry charge is not summoned with the beacon at all in the novel.
The film’s use of the beacon is incidentally a good example of Sun Tzu’s principle that “the best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, next is to attack alliances, next is to attack the army, and the worst is to attack a walled city,” advice borne out completely in Tolkien--and at Troy. In Aeschylus, the beacon signifies the end of the war, whereas in Tolkien it is the beginning—in both presented as unequivocally a good thing, and accordingly in both completely manipulative; on the basis of these two sets of evidence, we should always fear beacons and be suspicious of those who shill them.
Aeschylus is no uncritical shill, of course—Clytemnestra reflects upon the beacon, on how “variant sound the voices of the conquerors / and conquered, from the opposition of their fates” (ll. 324-25). The chorus considers Ares to be a “money changer of dead bodies” (l. 438), a curious economics; the chorus knows that the citizens’ “voice is dull with hatred” and that “the curse of the people must be paid for” (ll. 456-57), again an economics.
Agamemnon himself does not enter, famously, until almost the 50% mark—and at that point boasts first of “the vengeance I have wrought” on Troy (l. 813) and then turns to “the business of the city” (l. 844), a concern for the polis, which is apparently ill, as he “must use medicine, / or burn, or amputate” (l. 848-49), the methods of the Trojan War, this time applied at home. He confronts Clytemnestra as she “who kept my house for me” (l. 914), shifting the concern from polis to oikos. In this connection, the crimes of Tantalus are not emphasized—briefly referenced in Apollodorus, one must consult Frazer’s detailed notes to the Library E.2.3, such as “Tantalus served up the mangled limbs of his young son Pelops, which he had boiled in a kettle” (a crime of the oikos) and the sources cited therein. However, “Thyestes’ feast” is noted plainly by the chorus (1242). Definitely, then, there’s an interest here in minimizing one set of crimes in order to hang the chain of causation on a particular act.
One interlocutor wonders if Clytemnestra’s “lust for conflict is not womanlike” (940), a gendering of the polis. She has concern for the oikos also: “by god’s grace this house keeps full sufficiency / of all. Poverty is a thing beyond thought” (961-62). In fact, she has “no leisure to stand outside the house” (an ekstasis oikos?) (1055). That said, Atreides is a “house that god hates” (1090). Even so, it is easy to ask “what is this new and huge / stroke of atrocity she plans within the house” (1101-02).
Agamemnon is murdered off stage in the house (oikos, NB) (1343). The chorus notes “by these first steps they have taken / they purpose to be tyrants here upon our city” (1354-55).
Clytemnestra does not see it that way: “much have I said before to serve necessity [ananke], / but I will take no shame now to unsay it all” (1272-73). Her motivation: “last blood for the slaughtered children” (1504). She has “swept from these halls / the murder, the sin, and the fury” (1575-76)—cleaning the oikos of crime: “let him go forth to make bleed with death / and guilt the houses of others” (1571-72). Aegisthus by contrast is mixed polis/oikos motives: Thyestes had been driven “forth from his city and his home” (1586). Chorus: “your head / shall face the stones of anger from the people’s hands” (1615-16)—a political response, after which he returns the threat (1617 ff.). He will “control / the citizens” (1638-39) with Agamemnon’s money—conflating oikos and polis.
After obtaining “power,” the assassins intend to “bring good order to our house at least” (1674), concluding part I with the intention to arrogate the juridical authority of the polis to rectify mere despotic defects in their oikos, a standard form of malfeasance that is manifestly foundational of so-called western civilization ab initio, a lesson of this text that we carry forward even into the age of Trump.
Next is the Choēphóroi: “gods have forced on my city / resisted fate. From our fathers’ houses / they led us here, to take the lot of slaves” (76-77). Though “attendant women order our house” (84), “we hold a common hatred in this house” (101); “the day of destiny waits for the free man as well / as for the man enslaved beneath an alien hand” (103-4): “terror, the dream diviner of this house” (31).
Apollo “charged me” to avenge father’s assassination (270 ff), including “madness and empty terror” (287)—until “he lose his city” (290). This is compounded in how “the loss of my estates wears hard on me” (301); he dislikes that “these my citizens” are subject to his mother (302).
Chorus is to “Gather into murmurous revolt” (458), an agambenian stasis. Orestes sees it: “warstrength shall collide with warstrength; right with right” (461), the Hegelian marker of tragedy. But “here in the house there lies / the cure for this, not to be brought / from outside, never from others / but in themselves, through the fierce wreck and bloodshed” (471-74)—reversing the principle of the prior text, which sought to cure civil society with state power—Orestes will cure the state through private initiative. (Sophocles in his Elektra has Orestes consistent with Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra.)
The conflation of oikos and polis continues. Orestes: “announce me to the masters of the house” (658). Mother: “We have all the comforts that go with a house like ours, / hot baths, and beds to charm away your weariness / with rest, and the regard of temperate eyes. But if / you have some higher business, more a matter of state, / that is the men’s concern” (669-73). “Oh curse upon our house, bitter antagonist” (692); “but now / set down as traitor the hope that was our healer once / and made us look for a bright revel in our house” (697-99). They “defiled our house” (765). Orestes as “hope of our house” (776); “let the old murder in / the house breed no more” (805-6).
Chorus: “make / disaster a thing of blood inside the house” (836); murder of Aegisthus is “in the house” (871). Chorus: “Time brings all things to pass. Presently time shall cross / the outgates of the house after the stain is driven / entire from the hearth / by ceremonies that wash clean and cast out the furies. / The dice of fortune shall be thrown once more, and lie / in a fair fall smiling / up at the new indwellers come to live in the house” (965-71). Mother is also killed inside the oikos: “behold the twin tyrannies of our land, these two / who killed my father and who sacked my house” (973-74). So far it appears to be a matter of private concern, not arising to a public affair, despite his prior reversal of his mother’s principle.
And yet: “I killed my mother not without some right” (1027); “you liberated all the Argive city when / you lopped the heads of these two snakes with one clean stroke” (1046-47). Thereafter the retribution begins: “Women who serve this house, they come like gorgons, they / wear robes of black, and they are wreathed in a tangle / of snakes. I can no longer stay” (1048-50).
Therefore, last, the Eumenides, which opens with prayer, including in gratitude for “builders of roads” who “changed / the wilderness to a land that has no wilderness” (13-14), recalling the heraclean war against the chthonians. Orestes is “a man with god’s / defilement on him” (39-40). Apollo has “caught and overpowered these lewd creatures” (67); “because of evil they were born, because they hold the evil darkness of the Pit below / Earth, loathed alike by men and by the heavenly gods” (71-73). Apollo concedes “it was I who made you strike your mother down” (84) and that “the wanderer has rights which Zeus acknowledges” (93).
It is alleged that “younger gods” “hold by unconditional force, beyond all right” “a throne / that runs reeking blood” (162-64), which models the logic of earthly assassination: “the very stone center of earth here in our eyes horrible / with blood and curse stands plain to see” (166-67). Apollo “spoiled his secret shrine’s / hearth with the stain” — “blighted age-old distributions of power” (169-72). The chorus recognizes this vicarious liability of Apollo: “You are the one who did it; all the guilt is yours” (200). Nevertheless, the chorus has a “duty,” an “office,” to “drive matricides out of their houses” (207-10). Killing a spouse is not however the “shedding of kindred blood” (211) apparently.
Athena comes from Troy, where she “was taking seisin of land” (398) for Achaean lords. Athena finds the choral prosecutor to “wish to be called righteous rather than act right” (430) insofar as it seeks to “win by technicalities” (432). Orestes pleads that he has been “absolved” of blood “at the homes of others” (451). They “made the Trojan city / of Ilium no city any more” (457-58). Athena lacks “the right / to analyze cases of murder where wrath’s edge / is sharp” (471-72). She finds that Orestes brings “no harm to my city” (475). Apollo: confesses “responsibility for his mother’s murder” (579), and makes the fairly dumb argument that “The mother is no parent of that which is called / her child, but only a nurse of the new-planted seed / that grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she / preserves a stranger’s seed, if no god interfere” (658-661). Apollo: “There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth, /and, but for marriage, I am always for the male / with all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side” (736-8). Chorus: “gods of the younger generation, you have ridden down / the laws of the elder time, torn them out of my hands” (778-79). “This was the result of a fair ballot which was even” (795-96). Athena: “I am the only god / who knows the keys to where thunderbolts are locked” (827-28). “Civil War / fattening on men’s ruin shall / not thunder in our city” (976-78).
By the time this narrative gets to Seneca’s Agamemnon, we see the normal inversions. We know we’re in for it when the opening scene has the ghost of Thyestes “leaving the murky regions of infernal Dis” (1), the opposite of the classical katabasis scene, as in Lucan’s Pharsalia. Thyestes had relied on an oracle that “bade him seek his daughter’s incestuous embrace” (30), which he acknowledges as “confounded” and “monstrous” (36). The chorus wonders “what palace has not crime answering crime hurled headlong?” (77).There’s a stoic moment in “whatever Fortune has raised on high, she lifts but to bring low” (101). We see that “open to view is a royal house’s every sin [perlucet omne regiae vitium domus]” (148)—cf. the ‘disclosure of sin’ in the Thyestes, below. Here, a conflation of oikos and polis at the point of monarchy? We see that “crime must be forestalled” (103), a preemptive self-defense, apparently—during which she contemplates that “nor throne nor bed can brook a partnership” (259) as against “there is one law for thrones, one for the private bed” (264). Elektra helps Orestes leave: “O sole avenger of our father’s death, fly and escape our enemies’ miscreant hands. O’erthrown is our house to its foundations, our kingdom fallen” (910 ff.), a solicitation that again conflates oikos with polis. Plenty more.
And, of course, the best Seneca is the Thyestes, a foundation that Aeschylus diminishes. Again opens with an anti-katabasis, this time the ghost of Tantalus, returned to torment his offspring, an “undiminished banquet for new monsters” (12), for “whatever space is still empty in the unholy realm, I shall fill up” (21). Atreus for his part lives up to the father’s cruelty in self-exhortation to “do what no coming age shall approve, but none forget” (192), laying down thereby a rule of vengeance: “crime thou dost not avenge, save as thou dost surpass them” (194). He is not discouraged by the demos: “the greatest advantage this of royal power, that their master’s deeds the people are compelled as well to bear as praise” (206). Indeed, “where only right to a monarch is allowed, sovereignty is held on sufferance” (214). Instead, “honour, virtue, faith are the goods of common men” (218). Atreus as full metal crazy: “thou speakest of punishment’s completion; I punishment itself desire. Let the mild tyrant slay; in my dominion death is a boon to pray for” (247). Not sufficient in villainy alone, Atreus wants “to entangle my sons in guilt” (321)—“let Agamemnon be the witting agent of my plan, and Menelaus wittingly assist his father. By this deed let their uncertain birth by put to proof” (325). The chorus dispenses stoic chestnuts: “a king is he who has no fear; a king is he who shall naught desire. Such kingdom on himself each man bestows” (389-90). One of Thyestes’ murdered sons is also stoic: “careless of self he stood, nor did he plead, knowing such prayer were vain” (720). The crime is horrific, described in gory detail, such that “in mid sky didst bury the darkened day” (776). Like Poe, “there is no sin but it shall be revealed” (788). Atreus treats his desire for revenge as a claim: “I release the gods, for the utmost of my prayers have I attained” (888). “Of crime is there no limit” (1050)—cf. “crime’s limit deemst thou this?” (747)—cf. “to my fear what limit shall I set?” (483). After it is done: “now I believe my children are my own” (1096).
Recommended for those forced by constraint of fact.
June 22, 2010
It's paradoxically inspiring and frightening that the things the Greek playwrights were writing about still resonate today: inspiring that their insights and idiocies remain relevant to modern readers, and frightening that humanity has made so little progress that the insights and idiocies of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles still concern us.
I picked up the Oresteia because I thought it was about time I put the plays to the tale I thought I knew. I found what I expected:
Amongst it all, I was shocked to discover something fresh -- at least to me. We often talk about the stultifying power of patriarchy, how that power has twisted up our cultures into the ugliness we know now, and the blame for that power is widely accepted to be the responsibility of those who made the power, hold the power and don't want to give it up.
What struck me in the Oresteia is that most people, from that day to this, from Ancient Greece to our modern globalized world, are responsible for the power of patriarchy (at least partially) because they desire infantilization. Few, so very, very few, want to be adults (metaphorically speaking). They don't want to make choices, they don't want to accept responsibility, they don't want to face conflict, they don't want to think. They want protection, they want to be told, they want to justify, they want to conform, they want to remain permanent metaphysical children embracing illusory comfort.
In the Oresteia the gods are credited with every act taken, so the players live or die believing that another is responsible for what they've done. They remain willing children of the gods.
It's a human willingness that I see all around me 2,468 years after the Oresteia was written. Is it any wonder the concerns of Aeschylus still plague us today?
I picked up the Oresteia because I thought it was about time I put the plays to the tale I thought I knew. I found what I expected:
The children were eaten: there was the firstThe familiar bloody tale of cannibalism, infanticidal sacrifice, vengeance, more vengeance, and the Gods ordained entrenchment of patriarchy were all there. The three plays of the Oresteia -- Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides -- were brutal, lovely, frustrating, illogical, brilliant and exciting in turns. I spent some of my time trying to suss out a way to stage these entertainingly without wholesale change, and some of my time thinking about the insights and idiocies that the Oresteia offered.
affliction, the curse of Thyestes.
Next came the royal death [if we ignore the sacrifice of Iphigenia:], when a man
and lord of Achaean armies went down
killed in the bath. Third
is for the saviour. He came. Shall I call
it that, or death? Where
is the end? Where shall the fury of fate
be stilled to sleep, be done with?
Amongst it all, I was shocked to discover something fresh -- at least to me. We often talk about the stultifying power of patriarchy, how that power has twisted up our cultures into the ugliness we know now, and the blame for that power is widely accepted to be the responsibility of those who made the power, hold the power and don't want to give it up.
What struck me in the Oresteia is that most people, from that day to this, from Ancient Greece to our modern globalized world, are responsible for the power of patriarchy (at least partially) because they desire infantilization. Few, so very, very few, want to be adults (metaphorically speaking). They don't want to make choices, they don't want to accept responsibility, they don't want to face conflict, they don't want to think. They want protection, they want to be told, they want to justify, they want to conform, they want to remain permanent metaphysical children embracing illusory comfort.
In the Oresteia the gods are credited with every act taken, so the players live or die believing that another is responsible for what they've done. They remain willing children of the gods.
It's a human willingness that I see all around me 2,468 years after the Oresteia was written. Is it any wonder the concerns of Aeschylus still plague us today?
October 10, 2007
I enjoyed "The Eumenides" more than I thought I would, more than the other two parts of the trilogy. Reading "The Libation Bearers" was incredibly confusing, because I had read two versions of "Electra" before going into The Oresteia, and sophomore year of highschool I saw a play entitled "Orestes 2.0," which was a wacky retelling of the mythos of Orestes and Electra. None of these fell into my understanding of the myth, which is Orestes kills Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Electra has a part in it but ends up going insane and either killing herself or someone else, and then Orestes is hounded by the Erinye.
This is a pretty hard translation to get through, very long and flowy and it's incredibly easy to get lost in the language. It's also easy to miss subtle little nuances in the text. Over all, though, it seems to stay pretty true to Aeschylus. Or so my professor hinted at.
This is a pretty hard translation to get through, very long and flowy and it's incredibly easy to get lost in the language. It's also easy to miss subtle little nuances in the text. Over all, though, it seems to stay pretty true to Aeschylus. Or so my professor hinted at.
March 31, 2010
This is an excellent trilogy (of course), about a woman's revenge upon her husband for the sacrifice of her daughter, and a son's revenge upon his mother for having murdered his father...kind of confusing, like a lot of Greek tragedies. This one involves a conflict between the old ways, represented by Clytaemnestra, Agamemnon, and the Furies, and the new ways, represented by Orestes, Athena, and Apollo. It's Athena, through the use of reason and justice, who puts an end to the cycle of revenge and violence, and reconciles the old and new ways. The first two plays are tragedies, from at least one point of view, but the last one has an optimistic ending, with Athena and the Furies reconciled.
Richmond Lattimore's translation is occasionally opaque; you have to read it twice to really get anything out of it.
Richmond Lattimore's translation is occasionally opaque; you have to read it twice to really get anything out of it.
July 2, 2014
I always find it interesting reading the original plays of ancient Greek tales that I'm familiar with, and this is one of those classic tales that deserves to be read. The dilemma posed by the situation of these characters is as compelling today as it ever was, and I felt myself swayed to sympathy for all the characters who played a role in this tragedy (with the exception of Agamemnon himself, who I don't really see as all that deserving of all this revenge hullabaloo). Its clear that the dilemmas posed in these classic plays are still captivating today. However, I have to say that as enchanted as I was by the scenarios of these tragedies, I nearly always find reading plays, especially ancient plays, difficult. I generally stay away from them unless they are truly spectacular works, and even then I think I miss out on a lot because I don't really understand how to read it. I wish I had been able to read this with a class, or with really thorough footnotes or the like. I may try to come back to this text in the future to see if I can get any more out of it.
On a more personal note, reading this within view of the Acropolis = A++
On a more personal note, reading this within view of the Acropolis = A++
January 25, 2009
This was the state-of-the-art translation team for almost all the Greek classics when I took a Greek-in-translation course. Aeschylus fascinated me immediately and still does, and I can't say exactly why. Formalism and repeated themes aren't usually my cup of tea, but somehow the force of the words and the moral/social force of the message keep building. I guess the structure is something like the phalanx in Greek warfare--solid, massive, simple in form, effective in force. None of the other Greek playwrights could match his balance of form, content and message--though Euripides is more fun.
January 18, 2018
Richmond Lattimore's translation of "Agamemnon" is the most fucking beautiful thing in all of time, forever, period, these are my final words on the subject, no seriously, goodbye I am dead, that's it. The poetry of his translation is flawless and excuses, in my mind, all embroidery. Ted Hughes's was a vanity project in comparison, which is a little mind-boggling. Nevertheless. I still get chills when I read certain stanzas (Iphigenia, anyone?). Unbearable, as in I am unable to bear how beautiful this freaking play is.
February 26, 2012
Amazing stuff. And Richmond Lattimore's introduction (okay, I'm dating my copy back to the Columbia Humanities requirement days, 70 cents, used!!!), especially his discussion of lyric tragedy and the distinction between Aeschylus and Sophocles' later development of individual character, was invaluable. The final section of Eumenides provoked a faith in democracy that warmed this half-empty cynic's heart.
August 15, 2009
I read Agamemnon in highschool and it left me hanging. The second two play have all the good parts in them anyway. It was great to finish the story. Again and again I kept thinking to myself, "so that's where Shakespeare got the idea", and "this is where the famous saying came from." I love it tons.
November 17, 2009
The Oresteia is beautiful, if a somewhat disturbing portrait of "justice". Agamemnon is by far the best-the poetry is absolutely, mind-blowingly gorgeous, and the character of Clytaemestra was a total badass. Definitely the only one of them who was justified. Anyway, read it.
May 14, 2017
Aeschylus explores moral ambiguity very well in these three plays. Having the chorus added to the ambiguity, and watching not only different characters but the city as a whole making different arguments was a treat.
July 29, 2008
I learned how to make references to ancient Greek plays. An invaluable skill for college.
January 27, 2009
I enjoyed Ted Hughes' liberal translation, but Lattimore's is more dignified and faithful.
March 5, 2009
Aha! I learned that I do not have the only fucked up family, and that in fact dysfunction goes back quite a ways, my friends. Quite a ways.
March 5, 2013
Ratings for the Oresteia and The Libation Bearers
December 16, 2024
Hands down, easily one of my favorite books. It has everything one could ever want in a book.
Motif? Check. The webs and nets show how all the characters in the play are in a seemingly endless cycle of bloodshed, fury, entrapment, and deception. The fire is both a symbol of triumph and of destruction with the fall of Troy, but also violence returns (the fire arriving before the victor Agamemnon does to the house).
Gore and bloodshed? Check. The code of justice (prior to the establishment of the Athenian court) followed by the main characters and the Furies in the play is one of revenge, as the only way to cleanse an act of violence is through punishing the perpetrator with another act of violence, creating an endless cycle of bloodshed. According to our professor, such direct retribution was considered a moral obligation at the time. Whoever kills a family member, as the descendant, one must kill the murderer. Following this logic makes one wonder about the justification behind murders. IS Clydemnestra killing Agamemnon justified? Was Orestes justified? There is also historical mythology tied, related to the House of Atreus when the family's tragic cycle of violence began with Tantalus' sins and continued through generations. The characters acknowledge this themselves, "I tell you, the living are being killed by dead ones." How genius. On the surface, this sentence hints at Orestes' fake identity, claiming himself to be "dead" and killing Aegisthus as the "dead". However, one can also argue the "dead ones" point to the violence unleashed by the House of Atreus, despite the generations prior being dead, the violence still haunts the living like a curse.
Law and reflection on the wider world? Check. As someone interested in the legal field, the book shows how law is at its root about accountability. Justice in the play is redefined to end the blood cycle of revenge only after Athena rules that Orestes is innocent, where the Furies' purpose transforms from revenge to fairly governing the Athenians as the graceful (complete reversal of the definition of justice from revenge seen through the parallel from “bloodshed for bloodshed” to “grace for grace”). We see the transition from an old, chaotic system, to a legal, systematic framework, and really watch the emergence of justice in Ancient Greece unravel before us. Symbolic representation, but still incredibly well done.
Interaction with the crowd? Check. The play and all its drama simultaneously occur to both the audience and the characters. Instead of seeing the murder occur, the audience sees the palace doors open with Clytemnestra / Orestes over the bodies much like the rest of the kingdom would see it. Reminds me of Hedda Gabler with her pistol.
An actually nuanced discussion on gender (that was likely really ahead of his time)? Check. We see this at both the individual level and the societal level. For example, throughout the play, gender roles and attributes are explored through Clytemnestra’s character, especially at the beginning of Agamemnon. The elders acknowledge Clytemnestra’s power as a woman but remain skeptical of her words. Her defiance of patriarchal norms directly challenges the male-dominated order that defines Greek society: she kills her husband, defying one gender norm, supposedly out of a motherly instinct for revenge for her daughter, but also sends Orestes away from the kingdom, choosing power and lover over her son. On a more societal level, we see, from the court case, the shift from a female-first order to a male-first order, as Athena, a motherless goddess gains the upper hand from the Furies (daughters of the Night). While the Furies represent the priority placed on matriarchal lineage, Apollo and Athena represent the patriarchal view; which views Orestes as the son of Agamemnon before being the son of Clytemnestra, that views mothers as the vessel carrying the heritage of the men, not of “kindred blood.”
It is just a genius piece of work.
Motif? Check. The webs and nets show how all the characters in the play are in a seemingly endless cycle of bloodshed, fury, entrapment, and deception. The fire is both a symbol of triumph and of destruction with the fall of Troy, but also violence returns (the fire arriving before the victor Agamemnon does to the house).
Gore and bloodshed? Check. The code of justice (prior to the establishment of the Athenian court) followed by the main characters and the Furies in the play is one of revenge, as the only way to cleanse an act of violence is through punishing the perpetrator with another act of violence, creating an endless cycle of bloodshed. According to our professor, such direct retribution was considered a moral obligation at the time. Whoever kills a family member, as the descendant, one must kill the murderer. Following this logic makes one wonder about the justification behind murders. IS Clydemnestra killing Agamemnon justified? Was Orestes justified? There is also historical mythology tied, related to the House of Atreus when the family's tragic cycle of violence began with Tantalus' sins and continued through generations. The characters acknowledge this themselves, "I tell you, the living are being killed by dead ones." How genius. On the surface, this sentence hints at Orestes' fake identity, claiming himself to be "dead" and killing Aegisthus as the "dead". However, one can also argue the "dead ones" point to the violence unleashed by the House of Atreus, despite the generations prior being dead, the violence still haunts the living like a curse.
Law and reflection on the wider world? Check. As someone interested in the legal field, the book shows how law is at its root about accountability. Justice in the play is redefined to end the blood cycle of revenge only after Athena rules that Orestes is innocent, where the Furies' purpose transforms from revenge to fairly governing the Athenians as the graceful (complete reversal of the definition of justice from revenge seen through the parallel from “bloodshed for bloodshed” to “grace for grace”). We see the transition from an old, chaotic system, to a legal, systematic framework, and really watch the emergence of justice in Ancient Greece unravel before us. Symbolic representation, but still incredibly well done.
Interaction with the crowd? Check. The play and all its drama simultaneously occur to both the audience and the characters. Instead of seeing the murder occur, the audience sees the palace doors open with Clytemnestra / Orestes over the bodies much like the rest of the kingdom would see it. Reminds me of Hedda Gabler with her pistol.
An actually nuanced discussion on gender (that was likely really ahead of his time)? Check. We see this at both the individual level and the societal level. For example, throughout the play, gender roles and attributes are explored through Clytemnestra’s character, especially at the beginning of Agamemnon. The elders acknowledge Clytemnestra’s power as a woman but remain skeptical of her words. Her defiance of patriarchal norms directly challenges the male-dominated order that defines Greek society: she kills her husband, defying one gender norm, supposedly out of a motherly instinct for revenge for her daughter, but also sends Orestes away from the kingdom, choosing power and lover over her son. On a more societal level, we see, from the court case, the shift from a female-first order to a male-first order, as Athena, a motherless goddess gains the upper hand from the Furies (daughters of the Night). While the Furies represent the priority placed on matriarchal lineage, Apollo and Athena represent the patriarchal view; which views Orestes as the son of Agamemnon before being the son of Clytemnestra, that views mothers as the vessel carrying the heritage of the men, not of “kindred blood.”
It is just a genius piece of work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 2, 2025
lowkey don't know if this is the exact one i read but it was edited by david grene and none other than....richmond lattimore! didn't really read the whole book entirely but got a good grasp of the themes: what does JUSTICE mean? an eye for eye? divine justice vs retribution?? also free will and fate. so much killing tho lol but interesting how "justice" came to be
Read
January 1, 2025Didn’t have anything resembling “it’s rotten work. Not to me. Not if it’s you.” Zero stars.
June 22, 2025
5 star story, but 4 stars for the translation and editing.
August 20, 2025
Interesting stuff, the wellspring of western drama. It’s interesting to read this as three exercises in what drama can do.
November 29, 2025
justice for cassandra honestly
November 30, 2020
This is the essential story of the transition from the "laws of the elder time" to the rule of law. The laws of the elder time were the ancient socio-politically normative practices of vengeance killing and retribution that had no end. Each act of vengeance demanded a retaliation, thus perpetuating an endless spilling of blood. It's not easy reading in this translation. If the reader has no familiarity with the core story some preparatory reading would be crucial. But with that and a modest effort the rewards are inestimable.
February 26, 2019
The Lattimore translation is sometimes a little arch and stilted, but still very readable seventy years on. The Chicago edition has a decent general introduction to the plays and to Greek drama, but which unfortunately gives no insight into the translator's specific aims or choices during translation.
January 28, 2022
Aeschylus wrote when tragedy as an art form was still very fluid, having only just emerged from fixed religious rituals dominated by chorus, mime and dance. Richmond Lattimore provides a fascinating and to me very informative introduction.
September 1, 2013
Read: "The Eumenides"
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