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    The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers and The Furies
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    The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers and The Furies
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    The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers and The Furies
    Ebook632 pages3 hours

    The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers and The Furies

    By Aeschylus

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Perhaps the greatest of the Greek tragedians, Aeschylus wrote 90 plays, but only seven have survived complete. Among them is this classic trilogy dealing with the bloody history of the House of Atreus.
    In Agamemnon, the warrior who defeated Troy returns to Argos and is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia before the start of the Trojan War. In The Libation-Bearers, Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, avenges his father by murdering his mother. In The Furies, Orestes flees to Delphi, pursued by the divine avengers (Erinyes) of his mother. After being purified by Apollo, he makes his way to Athens and is there tried (and acquitted) at the court of Areopagus.
    Written in a grand style, rich in diction and dramatic dialogue, the plays embody Aeschylus’ concerns with the destiny and fate of individuals as well as the state, all played out under the watchful eye of the gods. Still powerful and provocative after 2,500 years, these great tragedies offer unparalleled insight into the world of ancient Greece and the origins of the Western dramatic tradition.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMar 2, 2012
    ISBN9780486112541
    Unavailable
    The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers and The Furies

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    Reviews for The Oresteia Trilogy

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    • 4/5
      A piece of advice. Always refuse an invitation to an Agamemnon family reunion. Just say no. They are people to leave your mouth agape, and not in the Greek and Biblical senses of the word either. You needn’t take only my advice on this. Ask Aeschylus. Oh, wait . . . he’s gone. You’ll have to read his Oresteia instead to understand. And you should.
    • 3/5
      Three Greek dramas by Aeschylus, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Furies make for an interesting trilogy. An understanding of what went on before the Agamemnon was important; I got a lot out of the Introduction and Notes.Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan War and meets a tragic fate. In the second drama, Orestes, Agamemnon's son, returns to avenge his father's murder (Apollo told him to...).The conclusion of the trilogy is the trial of Orestes, presided over by Athena, with Apollo as a witness for the defense and the Furies for the prosecution and 12 citizens of Athens are the jury.I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed these dramas. I did find them interesting - to see the murder of a husband compared to the murder of a mother, to see Apollo argue that the true parent is the father not the mother, as the mother only 'hoards the germ of life' (WOW!) and makes a comparison to Athena, who did not come from a mother's womb. Also, I found it very interesting to see a newer god (Athena) arguing with older gods (the Furies) and essentially assuage them through bribery...
    • 4/5
      It started out a bit uninteresting, but it became better once Cassandra was introduced.
    • 3/5
      An interesting trio of 3 plays that make up a traditional Greek tragedy set--the only one extant.The play looks at Athena's using a jury trial to determine Orestes' guilt in the murder of his mother Clytemnestra, in the required act of vengeance for her killing his father Agamemnon. Traditionally,Greek law allowed/required a family member to seek revenge for any killing--leading to a never-ending multi-generational series of revenge murders. As had been going on in this family.In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and her lover (and nephew) Aegisthus murder Agamemnon and his new concubine Cassandra.In The Libation Bearers, Agamemnon's son Orestes comes how to seek the required vengeance, meeting with his sister Electra.In Eumenides, he flees Clytemnestra's Erinyes (ancient gods, who seek revenge and will hound him until he is killed in turn), seeking cleansing from Apollo. Apollo and Athena protect him and convince the Erinyes to participate in a jury trial. They then provide the Erinyes with a new option--to live below Athens in a huge area where they become the Fates. If I am understanding correctly.Jury trials were fairly new to Greece when this was first performed, it would not have seemed standard to the Greeks, but would have given an example of why this new method was better than the old.
    • 5/5
      A fine translation by Richard Lattimore.
    • 4/5
      In Agamemnon, Clytaemnestra plans and carries out the murder of her husband Agamemnon with the aid of Aegisthus. Clyatemnestra is angry with Agamemnon because he allowed their daughter Iphigeneia to be sacrificed to Artemis so the goddess would allow the Greek ships to sail to Troy. Aegistthus is angry with his cousin Agamemnon because of a feud between their families. Agamemnon's father, Atreus fed Thyestes some of his children at a banquet in retaliation for Thyestes trying to seduce his wife.The Choephori or Libation Bearers carries on with the return of Orestes, Agamemnon's son who had been banished from Argos. He returns to avenge his father's death as he has been ordered to do so by Apollo's oracle. With the help of his sister Electra he plans and carries out the murder of his mother and Aegisthus. In the Eumenides, the Furies haunt and chase the guilt ridden Orestes for matricide. Orestes seeks asylum at Apollo's oracle, but Apollo sends him to Athens to Athena's shrine. The Furies say that Orestes must suffer as the rule has always been that someone who murders a family member must be punished. Athena gathers together a jury of Athenians and holds a trial for Orestes, the first of its kind ever held. The judges tie in their decision as to whether or not Orestes should be punished, so Athena casts the deciding vote and Orestes goes free. To placate the Furies, Athena offers them sanctuary in Athens and guarantees that they will always be honored by the Athenians. They then become known as the Eumenides.
    • 4/5
      These are great to read - full of humanity, but also a bit confusing - translating thousands year old drama to a modern audience can always be hit or miss. These are the stories are the stories of the Agamemnon and his family - full of tragedy, damned if you do, damned if you don't. The first play that makes up "The Oresteia" starts when Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War. Clytaemnestra is still upset at the sacrifice of her daughter (understandable so). When Agamemnon returns with a captured Cassandra, it tips Clytaemnestra to murder her hustband.The second play has Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, in a bind - he is charged with avenging his fathers killer, but matricide is one of the big sins in Ancient Greek Culture. The last book, "The Eumenides" is a tale of redemption, kind of. Orestes has been hounded by the Kind Ones for the crime of killing his mother. But Apollo takes pity on him, and purifies him. Orestes is put on trial, and at the end, everybody survives.
    • 5/5
      I tried to read 'Prometheus Bound' years ago, and couldn't finish it. Clearly I should have waited a while- The Oresteia, in the Fagles translation, is one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. Darker and more violent than anything the 20th century could come up with, it's also brighter and more hopeful than anything from the 19th century. It's as if someone had written both Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' and Eliot's 'Waste Land', and it was one book, only there was far deeper social, political and religious thought involved (this is no slight to those two poems). A less edifying, but funnier joy was finding the original 'better to live on your feet than die on your knees' statement being made by an old codger running around like a headless chook while the 'tyrant' murders the 'innocents.'

      Otherwise, the introductory essay is a little hand-wavy for my tastes, and the notes are often too detailed and insufficiently informative. Fagles' translation is modern in that it accepts and respects difficulty, while not being utterly obscure. It'll take you some time to read, but it's well worth it.
    • 5/5
      Aeschylus's The Oresteia my not contain the landmark Greek play Oedipus Rex within its cycle but it also doesn't contain the less impressive Antigone. Instead you get three plays that act as three acts, a beginning, a heightened middle, and a denouement. Agamemnon has little of the title character taking up its breadth of lines and none of Orestes, for which the cycle is named. It does set up the action of events, however, as Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra conspire together and kill Agamemnon. The Libation Bearers is set a few years later and features the son of Clytaemnestra and Agamemnon exacting revenge under the guidance of Apollo. The Eumenides is then the tale of the furies' attempt to get revenge on Orestes following his mother's curse in a short but literally divine trial. I do have my complaints about the amount of filler featured at the very beginning of these three plays but that quickly evaporates once the action sets moving at full bore over a course perhaps even shorter than the shortest of Shakespeare's plays. The crown jewel of Greek Tragedy will always be Oedipus Rex (or Oedipus The King) but it's doubtful these three plays would let any but the most stringent auditors down.
    • 5/5
      The Oresteia tells the story of the slaying of Agamemnon, Orestes avenging his father's murder, and his trial. From any online source or introduction to his plays you'll glean that Aeschylus is the earliest playwright whose plays we have. Only seven out of the dozens he wrote survive to the present day. The Oresteia is the only extant trilogy, a form he might have originated. It's listed fourth in Top 100 Plays and is on the Good Reading's "100 Significant Books" list. Critics trace Aeschylus' influence from classic French and Elizabethan drama to Wagner's Ring cycle. The title of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is taken from a quote from the first of the trilogy, Agamemnon. Robert Kennedy, who called Aeschylus his "favorite poet," quoted a line from Agamemnon in a speech dealing with Martin Luther King's assassination. Even JK Rowling prefaced the final Harry Potter book with a quote from the middle play, The Libation Bearers.The last of the trilogy, The Eumenides, was my introduction to Aeschylus in high school. I remember it, and the comments of my teacher, making quite an impression on me. That play includes a trial and deals with such issues, not only of justice and reason, but those of gender as well, as it deals with who has greater claim, a man's mother or his father? Or whether really the claims of a mother have any validity at all. The ending says a lot about how the Ancient Greeks saw women--and it isn't pretty. Thus the Eumenides is one of those plays that bears close study in the classroom, even if less moving than the first two dramas. In fact, the whole bit of a trial, with Apollo as defense council and Athene as one of the jurors seems a bit... bizarre to a modern reader compared to the realistic, yet mythic contents of the other two.I can't speak to the dramatic value of the plays, since I've never seen one performed, but in the various translations I've read, Aeschylus' works are striking and beautiful as poetry, though they feel more stylized than Sophocles or Euripides; they make me think of an ancient frieze. Of course, it depends on a good translation for its beauties to emerge. I'd recommend comparing sections side by side before choosing one. If Lattimore's translation comes across as stilted, Weir-Smith's is downright flowery with archaic language and Slavitt strikes me as far too slangy contemporary. Hughes, Meineck, and Fagles read better I think.
    • 5/5
      This is a modern (circa 1999) translation of one of the greatest of the Greek Tragedies that has survived. It is even rarer in that it is a complete trilogy which was common in the age of the great Greek tragedians but few have survived in tact. n the last year of his life, Ted Hughes completed translations of three major dramatic works: Racine's Phedre, Euripedes' Alcestis, and the trilogy of plays known as at The Oresteia, a family story of astonishing power and the background or inspiration for much subsequent drama, fiction, and poetry. The Oresteia--Agamemnon, Choephori, and the Eumenides--tell the story of the house of Atreus: After King Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, their son, Orestes, is commanded by Apollo to avenge the crime by killing his mother, and he returns from exile to do so, bringing on himself the wrath of the Furies and the judgment of the court of Athens. The culmination of the tragedy addressed the question of the nature and origin of justice and the civil state.Hughes's "acting version" of the trilogy is faithful to its nature as a dramatic work, and his translation is itself a great performance; while artfully inflected with the contemporary, it has a classical beauty and authority. It is a good choice among modern translations.
    • 3/5
      I liked Aeschylus' treatment of the myth (with Fagles' translation) a lot more than Euripedes. Lines like "lull asleep that salt black wave of anger," terrific.
    • 5/5
      This trilogy of plays begins just as the Trojan War ends. It focuses on the House of Atreus, the war hero Agamemnon’s family. **Because each section of the trilogy depends on the events in the previous section there will be SPOILERS**Agamemnon, the first part of the trilogy, tells the story of his triumphant return home after the Trojan War. In order to gain favor with the gods before embarking on the journey to Troy to fight the war, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. Tricking both her and her mother into believing she was about to be wed to Achilles, Agamemnon instead murdered her to honor Artemis and receive the gift of winds to carry their ships. Agamemnon’s cruel actions towards his daughter come back to haunt him when he returns. His wife Clytemnestra welcomes him home with open arms, inviting him to walk on a red carpet and honoring him with gracious speeches. All the while she is secretly planning his demise with the help of Agamemnon’s cousin Aegisthus. Cassandra, King Priam’s daughter, was taken as a spoil-of-war by Agamemnon and is caught up in this horrible scene. She has the gift of sight and so she knows about the impending murder, but she is also cursed by Apollo so no one will believe her when she warns them of it. Cassandra has always been one of my favorite characters in Greek mythology. Her life is such a tragic one and her presence in this player added an extra layer of futility. Part Two, The Libation Bearers is about Agamemnon’s son Orestes’ return to his home land. He quickly learns of his father’s murder and wants to avenge his death. Apollo’s oracle has instructed him to kill his mother in order to achieve this. With his sister Electra’s help he kills both his mother and Aegisthus. They trick Clytemnestra into thinking Orestes is already dead and then follow through with Apollo’s decree for her death. Almost immediately Orestes is haunted by The Furies and he is plagued with guilt for committing matricide. The final section, The Eumenides, is about Orestes’ trial. The Furies have hounded Orestes for years. The gods must decide if he will be punished for his mother’s murder and so Athena arranges a trial with jurors from Athens. There was no blood connection between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s, so his murder was not considered as heinous a crime as her’s. Murdering a blood relative is a more punishable offense, hence Orestes’ trial. During the play we learn the details of Agamemnon’s murder. Apollo comes to Orestes’ defense, explaining that he is the one who told him to avenge his father. Athena is the deciding vote in the trial, deciding to acquit Orestes of all guilt, but not truly giving him peace of mind from what he has done. Greek mythology is all about cycles. You killed so-and-so, therefore I must kill you. You raped my wife, so I will curse you. You tricked me or refused me, so you will be fated to live in some form of agony. The more the gods meddle in human affairs the worse the cycle becomes. This trilogy is a perfect example of this cycle. One murder leads to another until almost everyone is dead. No one is truly spared from the horrific events. BOTTOM LINE: I thought this one would be much denser and hard to read, but I found it relatively easy. I think that a big part of that is reading it while being immersed in the world of Greek mythology. I didn’t have to stop and try to remember who was who and how they were all connected because it was fresh in my mind. I would highly recommend reading this one along side The Odyssey and The Iliad as it provides closure for Agamemnon’s part of the Trojan War story.
    • 3/5
      Interesting enough, but a little slow in some areas.
    • 3/5
      I am not a classical scholar. Only a person who likes a good story. This is that. It has some of the most vivid language I've read in a long time. The Furies are absolutely terrifying. The rage and venom of Clytemnestra is touching and nauseating. I have very little to no sympathy for Agamemnon, and not much for Orestes. It is purported to be a wonderful example of the first show of justice and mercy in its day. Well, not so far as I can see. To me, it seems to say that the murder of a man is more important than that of a woman, and even the darkest avenging gods can be bought if you know their price. Still, a rattling good tale.The presentation of this by the actors was very good. I liked hearing it more than reading it.
    • 3/5
      Book 1: AGAMEMNON - the fat chauvinist from TROY returns home to his wife, who kills himBook 2: THE LIBATION BEARERS - Orestes comes home to find his front yard littered with little beanie babies and his father murdered by his crazy-weird mother. He avenges the murder and is chased around by Mrs. Dodds, before she became a math teacherBook 3: THE EUMENIDES - Apollo drives Orestes to Athens in his Maserati Spyder. Orestes tries to take the wheel but nearly crashes the car, but Apollo is in the middle of a haiku and doesn't take notice. Orestes goes before Athena, who stares him down with her intense grey eyes. Mrs. Dodds gives testimony against Orestes, but Apollo's ultra-cool snakes George and Martha speak in Orestes' defense. Athena finds in favor of Orestes and all his well.
    • 5/5
      I took the opportunuty to peruse the other comments before my review just to see the focus of the comments. I don't find fault with any but the review should be about Hughes' adaptation. The story is 2500 years old no need to retell it here.Hughes is not chained to the original as Fagles is. But in fairness to both their reasons for translating are different. Ted did it for a stage performance by the royal National Theatre and Fagles has done it for academia. Hughes' poetic background shines throughout this "translation". Clytemnestra dialog is outstanding and Agamemnon's dialog is perceptive, raw and refreshing. C-- You are afraid of the rable's disapproval. A -- Do you mean the rabble or the people. Seeing this on stage must have been a real treat to the ears and the mind. Most interesting to me through is Hughes' portayal of the Furies in The Eumenides. Hughes portays them as so perceptive and cutting in their insight. The ending -- which all the classics experts love because it shows that raw vengence has been supplanted by law and community blah blah blah thank god for tenure -- is trite even in Hughes's able hands. I don't care what all the pundits say. This play should end with the Furies unsympetheitc to Athene's sophist arguments. I do understand the play functioned as an instructional tool for society at that time but the ending is sophmoric and I'm sure the viewers felt this way 2500 years ago. Go back in your hole but we will love you. I believe Hughes' really hints at this by not repeating the furies comments which has a tendency to make them mechanized and less perceptive. I would have loved Hughes to take the liberty of doing as Racine had done in Phaedra: retell the tale and prove to everyone that Orestes and Athene and Apollo's arguments are casuistic. Oh well, we will have to leave it to the next set of able hands. Wonderful book a great read!
    • 2/5
      I love Agamemnon. I don't know if it's because I read it in high school, so it has a special place in my heart, but I really just love Agamemnon.
    • 3/5
      Freaky stuff. I'd like to see these actually staged sometime. And I got some great dramatic Cassandra quotes from Agamemnon.
    • 5/5
      This was my introduction to Greek tragedy. It's the only complete trilogy by Aeschylus, the first and perhaps most eminent of the Greek tragedians (and even a few parts of this are missing). The tragic works were divided into specific parts with few actors and a chorus playing a variety of important roles. You see the consistency of Greek myth across their various works; Homer is referenced frequently. This play was all at once entertainment, religion, and cultural exposition.
    • 4/5
      I definitely liked Aeschylus's style better than Euripides' (in "Iphigenia at Aulis"). There's something that he did that brought me right up close, face to face with each character. He made things intimate. It was as if I was having a conversation with the guard at the beginning, and with the herald, with the chorus, with Clytemnestra and then Agamemnon and definitely with Clytemnestra again. When she ranted on about how she was right to kill her husband, it was as if I was standing over her shoulder, nodding away. And then, when the chorus rebuked her and told her why she was abhorrent and should be exiled, I moved next to them and was nodding again. And then back again. And again. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it was the depth of the characters. I thought that they had much more soul than in "Iphigenia at Aulis." Aeschylus paid attention to each character, whether they were main or not.There was also a kind of sly wit in the Agamemnon which was lacking in Iphigenia. I won't say that I laughed out loud, because I didn't. No chuckling was involved. It just made me smile; the subtle turns of phrase which he peppered all around the play. Definitely amusing, to say the least.Agamemnon is surely my favorite of the three in the Oresteia. I didn't really like "Libation Bearers," actually. Agamemnon simply seemed to have more drama and problems in it. Libation Bearers had people whining, 'Woe is me! Whatever am I to do?' with Big Good Orestes killing the Evil Villains With No Heart in the end. It was too predictable and, to me, didn't even come close to the depth of Agamemnon, with its turns and twists and deceit and intimate wishes for personal...personal something. Saving. It sounds bad to say that. Perhaps I can come about this a different way.In Agamemnon, every single character seemed involved and (to me) interesting. We could peer into their soul and see who they were, and why they should be spared from harm. The Libation Bearers seemed too two-dimensional. I thought that it was all right, as far as these things go, but the others which I've read before were much more satisfying.I knew that Clytemnestra was going to kill Agamemnon (as the play-goers in Athens would have known, who went to see it performed for the first time). I was still gripped by the tension. In Libation Bearers, that tension wasn't there for me. Orestes comes back and saves the day by being male and being able to kill two women. (If we're assuming that Aegisthus is female in marrow.) Granted, two harmful women who killed his father, but the issue of Iphigenia wasn't addressed at all, not even by Clytemnestra.I think it was just of Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, but only because it seemed that Clytemnestra had done wrong in the way she managed the people. She misused them, her own daughter included. Her killing Agamemnon wasn't *right*, but it wasn't all that terrible (for fiction), considering Iphigenia.I suppose I just rooted a lot more for Clytemnestra than Orestes. "Bring me my man-killing axe!" If that doesn't say it all for Clytemnestra, I don't know what does."Eumenides" was ok. I loved the part where Clytemnestra yells at the Eumenides/Furies for sleeping on the job. The whole play is sort of a let-down at the end, though, with its deus ex machina. Meh. Anyway, the four stars I gave for the Oresteia are almost completely for "Agamemnon." It is my favorite Greek play, and there is much delight to be found in it. And blood. Lots and lots of blood and massacre.
    • 4/5
      The plays themselves are pretty good. This edition loses a half star in my rating, though, because a) the translation, while it reads fairly well, is opaque/difficult to understand at times, and b) Fagles inserts stage directions that sometimes quite bias the way in which a given line would be interpreted.
    • 2/5
      Lattimore's translation of the Oresteia is today almost unreadable. After battling with the stilted, turgid prosody, I gave up and found a couple much clearer translations. 5 stars for Aeschylus, 2 for Lattimore.