Sam Terry’s Reviews > Greek Tragedies, Volume 1: Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound; Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Antigone; Euripides: Hippolytus > Status Update

I just finished Antigone and it is probably my favorite so far. Maybe Prometheus Bound after that. The Elizabeth Wyckoff translation was as good as the David Grene ones. I’m still shocked that Lattimore’s Agamemnon was as difficult as it was but it has me questioning my loyalty a bit. Maybe I will do Fagles’ Odyssey instead

Oedipus Rex ought to end with the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm

Oedipus the King is the only one of these I’ve actually read before, but that was 10 years ago and it was the Fagles translation. I remember enjoying it and have been meaning to revisit it. I’m a little relieved that Lattimore was only responsible for Agamemnon because so far the Grene translations in this collection are way easier to read.

Prometheus Bound was oddly bleak, but I enjoyed the translation a lot more than Lattimore’s Agamemnon. Prometheus drops some of the coldest bars of all time. Free my boy

The David Grene translation of Prometheus Bound is far to read so far than Agamemnon was. The Agamemnon translation was credited to Richmond Lattimore but syntactically it seemed a lot more baroque than his translation of the Iliad so I assume he was credited for making adjustments to an earlier translation.

Agamemnon finished. Really cool but I don’t have time to unpack it right now so I will circle back later with my notes

Ohhhhh so that’s why this one is called Agamemnon