Reviews

(31 january, 2015)

A bit disappointing but I will chalk that up to the translation and not the plays themselves. Agamemnon gets no sympathy from me when Clytemnestra kills him for the murder of their daughter Iphigenia. Clytemnestra sounds almost reasonable here but Aegisthus, her lover, comes off as an arrogant dick. Orestes and Electra (with Apollo's tacit approval) plan the death of their mother, Orestes is put on trial for it and is found innocent. What a lovely family!

... and to think all this for a murder that did not actually happen.

mikevanholsteijn's review against another edition

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5.0

Ik zou het bijna 1 ster willen geven omdat ik het idee van een Oude Griek die vele eeuwen later een Goodreads review van 1 ster krijgt gewoon heel grappig vind, maar durf het toch niet aan omdat ik de wraakgeesten niet over me heen wil hebben dus toch maar 5 joejoe xoxo (vond het wel gewoon een heel mooi verhaal!!)

umbrelina's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

levininja's review against another edition

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5.0

“Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well
a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind
one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out;
and that is far the most unhappy thing of all.”
- Agamemnon, 1327-1330

Aeschylus is considered the master of lyrical tragedy; his language is much more poetic than Sophocles and therefore much harder to read in translation. I found occasionally wondering “what the hell exactly am I reading?” but for the most part I was able to track with it.

I've been really impressed by these translations by Lattimore which capture a lot of the poetry, which is really hard to do in translation. It’s truly very beautiful.

The plot is very sparse in each of these plays. These were written in the early days of the development of Greek tragedic plays, so it’s almost a set of lyrics that are inspired by a particular event from the popular stories of their mythology. Musicals are the closest modern thing we have to the lyric dramas of ancient Greece. There is a plot, to be sure. There is a series of events with multiple actors and a rise in tension culminating in a climax, to be sure, but these usually only have two actors at a time (not counting the chorus), are typically only one scene at one setting, and any action happens offscreen. You’re not reading it for the plot; you’re reading it for the poetry.

This particular book of Aeschylus is the Oresteia, a trilogy, each play about 60 pages long. It is special for being the only surviving complete trilogy we have by Aeschylus, who is the earliest of the great three Greek tragedians (Euripides and Sophocles being the others). So, loving the ancients as I do, I was eager to get into it.

The plot

The first two plays, Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers, are soap operas about family members killing each other. The third, the Euripides, is a court room battle between gods, based on the subject matter of the first two plays, to decide whether Orestes is justified in killing his mother in revenge for her having killed his father, the king of the city (Thebes).

So the whole trilogy is about the family of Atreus, which is truly, deeply, disturbed.

If you recall your boy Agamemnon, from the Trojan War, the guy who headed up all the Greek armies to take back his brother's wife Helen? That guy comes home. Turns out, before he went on the Trojan War killing spree, he made a sacrifice to the gods to ensure victory. He made a sacrifice of........one of his daughters. Turns out, his wife was unhappy about this.

Despite the clear motivation, his wife is easily the least sympathetic character in any of the plays. She’s been sleeping with her husband’s rival and plotting to kill old Ag when he comes back. She also reads a bit like a narcissist, unable to have basic empathy for others.

Granted, she has been through some hard things in life. One of her daughters was killed by her husband. Also, her name is Clytemnestra. Yikes.

For his part, Agamemnon has some beatiful passages that seem to foreshadow his end.

“From the gods who sit in grandeur
grace comes somehow violent.”
- Agamemnon, 182

“Justice so moves that those only learn
who suffer; and the future
you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.
It is grief too soon given.
All will come clear in the next dawn’s sunlight.
Let good fortune follow these things as
she who is here desires,
our Apian land’s singlehearted protectress.”
- Agamemnon, 250-257

When Agamemnon comes back, ole Clyte is sweet as roses, lures him inside, surrounds him with robes to entangle him, and then stabs him to death. It’s really chilling stuff. And then she and his brother begin ruling, joyous to be doing so over his dead body. Nasty people.

“Chorus: Have your way, gorge and grow fat, soil justice, while the power is yours.
Aegisthus: You shall pay, make no mistake, for this misguided insolence.
Chorus: Crow and strut, brave cockerel by your hen; you have no threats to fear.”
- Agamemnon, 1668-1671

So that’s the first play. It sets you up really well to hate Clyte and her lover, and the second play, the Libation Bearers, is satisfying because you see these awful people get theirs.

How do they get theirs? Well, Ag and Clyte had two other children, besides the sacrificed one. They had a daughter, Electra, who is mega pissed about the whole killing-my-dad thing. Her brother, Orestes, is in exile for many years, growing up to be a man. Then he comes back in disguise, kills his mother and her lover, and becomes the new rightful ruler of Thebes.

In short, it's a play all about grief, about the catharsis of revenge...or justice, depending on how you look at it (more on that later).

Grief:
“My cheek shows bright, ripped in the bloody furrows
of nails gashing the skin.
This is my life: to feed the heart on hard-drawn breath.
And in my grief, with splitting weft
of ragtorn linen across my heart’s
brave show of robes
came sound of my hands’ strokes
in sorrows whence smiles are fled.”
- The Libation Bearers, 24-31

Justice:
“The day of destiny waits for the free man as well
as for the man enslaved beneath an alien hand.”
- The Libation Bearers, 103-104

Bitter irony:
“You love your man, then? You shall lie in the same grave
with him, and never be unfaithful even in death.”
- The Libation Bearers, 894-895

A foreshadowing of dark things to come for Orestes, for one cannot kill his mother and have no repercussions:
“Take care. Your mother’s curse, like dogs, will drag you down.”
- The Libation Bearers, 924

“I would have you know, I see not how this thing will end.
I am a charioteer whose course is wrenched outside
the track, for I am beaten, my rebellious senses
bolt with my headlong and the fear against my heart
is ready for the singing and dance of wrath.”
- The Libation Bearers, 1021-1025

It’s a bit disturbing how easily he kills his mother but the big picture is, by this point you’re happy to see them both dead. Awesome, they both deserved it, we’re good, everyone's happy.

NOT.

In the final play (titled Euripedes, the fancy name for the Furies), it turns out the Furies are NOT happy about anyone who kills their mother, no matter how justified you think you are. The blood cries out.

The Furies come for your boy Orestes, they want him to pay blood for blood. Orestes says hey, the god Apollo told me it was ok! So, Athena is called on to adjudicate a court case with plaintiff Apollo on the left and plaintiff the Furies on the right.

The Theme of “the Euripides”

It's a rather interesting play because the Furies represent the old gods of Greece (barbaric, primeval, primal, unreasoning) and Apollo represents the new gods (reasonable, thinking, intelligent) and Athena is wisdom, who tries to marry the two and appease them. The play represents Ancient Greece wrestling with its own identity as it develops into democratized, (semi-)civilized city-states.

So when Athena rules in Apollo's favor and Orestes gets off the hook, the endless chain of revenge killings finally ends.

“I will speak in defence
of reason: for the very child
of vanity is violence;
but out of health
in the heart issues the beloved
and the longed-for, prosperity.”
- The Eumenides, 532-537 (emphasis mine)

It represents progression from the old justice to a new more civilized one: from Lex Talionis (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) to something adjudicated by higher powers using reason to dictate justice and settle disputes in a way that finally stops the endless revenge killing that defined the old ways.

I think this is a powerful theme when you consider the historical significance of the justice system. Think about it: before then, the whole government of any people was just a single person: a king, or tyrant. This single person was executive, judicial, and legislative all at once. And he was not elected, but rather determined by the latest struggle of wills, the outcome of armed conflict. So, when Orestes kills his mother and her lover (the king and queen) he is actually just operating according to the established order of things; that is how corrupt leaders are deposed in their world.

He also is reclaiming his rightful throne, which simultaneously grants him the right to dispense justice…which is what he’s just done by killing them. If you kill the current king, you’re the new king. If you’re the new king, then you can dispense justice as you see fit.

The hope in that system is that sometimes you get a king who is noble and just. But what happens when the king has a conflict of interest? In this play, Orestes has a huge conflict of interest: one of the people who needs to be removed is his own mother, and the murder in question was against his own father.

And there is a natural law at play (which the Furies represent), which is that it is perverse and disturbing to kill your own family. (Actually we believe today that it’s rather perverse to kill anyone, but they hadn’t yet arrived to this point in their ethics.)

Loyalty to Family vs The State

This play is one part of a wider theme in Greek literature. There was a belief in the State that was very strong. Socrates made a career of being “the gadfly that stings Athens into action,” even while knowing that this would eventually cost him his life, because he believed that the good of the State came above his own. He refuses an offer to flee the night before his execution for the same reason: who am I to question the will of the state, which has made me who I am?

And then when it comes to Plato, he states plainly in the Republic that the State should have precedence over the family.

This idea is hard for me, someone heavily disillusioned with the fake democracy of America that we have today.

But if I stop and think about their context, about what governments they had to compare against, how they were pushing against the sheer darkness surrounding them on all sides of barbarism and endless war and strife…then yes. I could see how I could give myself over to the cause. I can see how I might die for an idea like that.

Summary of Overall Impressions

I’ve gone widely astray from focusing on the plays themselves, but this in and of itself speaks to the power of the themes in the Oresteia, the fact that it can inspire so much more thought. My measure of a good book is that it makes me think afterward, and Aeschylus has made me do that. And for that I am grateful.

So that's a summary. But I will spend the rest of this review diving deeper into the Furies and into sharing excerpts of the beautiful poetry in this play.

A Deeper Dive into the Furies

Note that Athena admits her perspective (partiality?) as a judge. Because she was born differently than most, she will not be moved unduly by the case having to do with a mother being killed: she was not born of a woman like others, but rather, if you recall your mythology, sprung straight from the brain of Zeus. I think this is not an accidental side-note, but rather, a very deliberate choice. In the Greek mythos, wisdom is birthed not from a woman, but from the brain (intellect, thinking, reason) of a man. There is a sexist undertone here, and it is not unwarranted—the ancient Greek thought was heavily misogynistic (and I say that from considerable evidence, having read a fair amount of Plato, Homer, Sophocles, and Aeschlyus, as well as researched the topic at great length). But I do find it interesting that Athena herself is feminine.

Regardless, if we set aside the possible sexist undertones, I think there is possibly something of depth and interest to this idea of Athena being the judge. At first I was mystified by the idea that the judge would be partial, but as I started to think about it, her unique qualifications makes her not so much partial, but rather, the only possible impartial person. We all know how hard it is to be objective about one’s mother—being loyal to one’s mother is one of the most deeply ingrained instincts. So actually, similarly to how in a modern court, jurors are screened to ensure that no jury member is predisposed regarding the case, here all others but Athena are disqualified, relatively speaking, to her.

This court case is about establishing the new, better system of justice, one that’s not based on feelings, not just reacting out of strong feelings, which is exactly what leads you to the endless revenge-killings that they had previously been stuck in. It represents moving beyond that to something higher: a justice based not on feelings but on reason.

The Blessing of the Furies

After the Furies lose the court case, and then Athena spends a lot of time trying to appease their fury. She ends up appealing to their mutual interest of the benefit of the people of Thebes, and convinces them to bless the land instead of curse it. Their blessing on the land is one of the most beautiful passages.

It's reminiscent to me of some passages in the Bible. It felt healing to me, like speaking a word of blessing to heal all the years of bloodshed in the past, saying: let things now begin to heal.

Outrage of the Furies at their Treatment

“Gods of the younger generation, you have ridden down
the laws of the elder time, torn them out of my hands.
I, disinherited, suffering, heavy with anger
shall let loose on the land
the vindictive poison
dripping deadly out of my heart upon the ground;
this form itself shall breed
cancer, the leafless, the barren
to strike, for the right, their low lands
and drag its smear of mortal infection on the ground.
What shall I do? Afflicted
I am mocked by these people.
I have borne what can not
be borne. Great the sorrows and the dishonor upon
the sad daughters of night.”
- The Eumenides, 778-792

The Furies Blessing

“Let there blow no wind that wrecks the trees.
I pronounce words of grace.
Nor blaze of heat blind the blossoms of grown plants, nor
cross the circles of its right
place. Let no barren deadly sickness creep and kill.
Flocks fatten. Earth be kind
to them, with double fold of fruit
in time appointed for its yielding. Secret child
of earth, her hidden wealth, bestow
blessing and surprise of gods.”
- The Eumenides, 938-948

“Death of manhood cut down
before its prime I forbid:
girl’s grace and glory find
men to live life with them.
Grant, you who have the power.
And o, steering spirits of law,
goddesses of destiny,
sisters from my mother, hear;
in all house implicate,
in all time heavy of hand
on whom your just arrest befalls,
august among goddesses, bestow.”
- The Eumenides, 954-967

Further Quotes

If you're still reading this review, that's amazing! Finally, here are other quotes I found particularly striking.

“Zeus, who guided men to think,
who has laid it down that wisdom
comes alone through suffering.”
- Agamemnon, 176

“Yet the good shepherd, who knows his flock,
the eyes of men cannot lie to him,
that with water of feigned
love seem to smile from the true heart.”
- Agamemnon, 795-798

“Yet it is true: the high strength of men
knows no content with limitation. Sickness
chambered beside it beats at the wall between.
Man’s fate that sets a true
course yet may strike upon
the blind and sudden reefs of disaster.”
- Agamemnon, 1001-1016

“No, but a house that God hates, guilty within
of kindred blood shed, torture of its own,
the shambles for men’s butchery, the dripping floor.”
- Agamemnon, 1090-1092

“Yet once more will I speak, and not this time my own
death’s threnody. I call upon the Sun in prayer
against that ultimate shining when the avengers strike
these monsters down in blood, that they avenge as well
one simple slave who died, a small thing, lightly killed.”
- Agamemnon, 1322-1326

"Let one come, in strength
of spear, some man at arms who will set free the house
holding the Scythian bow backbent in his hands,
a barbarous god of war spattering arrows
or closing to slash, with sword hilted fast to his hand.”
- The Libation Bearers, 159-163

“The gods know, and we call upon the gods; they know
how we are spun in circles like seafarers, in
what storms. But if we are to win, and our ship live,
from one small seed could burgeon an enormous tree.”
- The Libation Bearers, 201-204

“So, though you died, you shall not yet be dead, for when
a man dies, children are the voice of his salvation
afterward. Like corks upon the net, these hold
the drenched and flaxen meshes, and they will not drown.”
- The Libation Bearers, 504-507

“Right’s anvil stands staunch on the ground
and the smith, Destiny, hammers out the sword.”
- The Libation Bearers, 646-647

“Now where away, Cilissa, through the castle gates,
with sorrow as your hireless fellow-wayfarer?”
- The Libation Bearers, 731-732

madcjones's review against another edition

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4.75

I loved the first play (Agamemnon), the others weren’t as good

jordi's review against another edition

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5.0

La mejor tragedia griega que haya leido.
Trata de culpa, de venganza, justicia, lazos de sangre, etc.
Aqui ocurren muchas cosas grandes y se tratan muchos de los grandes temas de la humanidad.
Todo contado en poesia de hace 2400 años.

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