Aeschylus: Agamemnon, A New Translation

by Sophie Grace Chappell

68 pages, Paperback

Published January 29, 2026

Reviews

[Meg Percy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that I bought solely based on one quotation that shook me to the core:

“… comes Helen, comes hell.
Helen: the navy wrecked.
Helen: whole armies dead.
Helen: the city wracked
With mourning’s knell.”

INSANE. This translation ROCKS and reads like Shakespeare. I’ve read Agamemnon before but this brought it to life for me. Another favorite passage:

“Hidden sorrow reveals itself in dreaming,
Delusion appears as delight in the emptied heart:
Delusion, since at first light his wife’s seeming
Skips from his sleep-sight, unreachably apart.
And the empty ache at each army-family’s hearth
Is hidden too, behind eyes dried fresh from streaming
For the dear-faced husbands whom this war returns
As faceless ash in funerary urns.
A refiner’s fire is Ares’, and he makes,
From the counterpoise of spears in his furnace Troy,
A weeping soot that floats in heavy flakes
Which, shipped in parcels home, cremates all joy.
Love rocks in anguish over it, commemorates
The fall-, the glory-sign of each dead boy.
Love breathes a question hidden from the State:
‘These died to get Menelaus back his toy?’”

And finally:

“Helen demented:
One death to so many—
One destructiveness hell-led
That does not spare any,
Comes Helen, comes hell.
Helen: her brow bedecked
Helen: with blood that’s shed
Helen: this house is wrecked
By her bad spell.”

I’m eagerly awaiting Chappell’s further translations. Can’t wait to see what she does next.

[Natalia Bosch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this new rendition. It isn’t my favorite translation (still giving it 5 stars bc it was good!), but I loved the dialogue between the Chorus and Cassandra in the second half of the book. That part was so dynamic, you could just feel the impending doom, the knowledge of the prophetess, and the chorus always falling a step behind. This was by far the best part of the play, and my dearest Riley had to listen to me reading much of it aloud while he was watching football.

Also, I loathe Aegisthus. I was struck by how vengeful and cowardly he is, and he is extremely disrespectful to the elders of the community (the chorus). I would imagine in ancient Greece, this is even more reprehensible than how we’d view it today. For the short appearance he makes in the play, he’s just the worst.

And now, for a few of my favorite quotes:

CASSANDRA
“Woman of ill fortune, will
you really do this? With good will
ply lustral water on that classic head and then —
I cannot speak it, but it comes: an end
unseen unknown unthinkable
in stretched cloth shuttered.”

…

CHORUS
“A mindless mind, borne off by some divinity;
a museless music, shapeless, strings unbent;
and always tuned, like the mourning-bird's, to me:
grief unending, gripped like a child life-spent.”

…

CASSANDRA
"‘The rest’ was: you'll see Agamemnon's death.
CHORUS
Poor girl, you're mad. Save your blaspheming breath.
CASSANDRA
You think a bandage smothering this will heal it?
CHORUS
I won't bewail a blow until the Fates deal it.”