The Eumenides
By Aeschylus
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Aeschylus
Aeschylus (c.525-455 B.C) was an ancient Greek playwright and solider. Scholars’ knowledge of the tragedy genre begins with Aeschylus’ work, and because of this, he is dubbed the “father of tragedy”. Aeschylus claimed his inspiration to become a writer stemmed from a dream he had in which the god Dionysus encouraged him to write a play. While it is estimated that he wrote just under one hundred plays, only seven of Aeschylus’ work was able to be recovered.
Read more from Aeschylus
Aeschylus II: The Oresteia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agamemnon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 1) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrometheus Bound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Suppliant Maidens: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Libation Bearers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yale Classics (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oresteia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Persians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Agamemnon of Aeschylus Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Greek Plays: 33 Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Great Greek Tragedies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Liberation-Bearers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Persians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers, and The Eumenides) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeven against Thebes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Eumenides
Related ebooks
The Three Theban Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHecuba Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Oedipus Rex: A Play Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oedipus at Colonus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Libation Bearers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bacchae Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hippolytus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen of Trakhis: A New Translation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Medea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Electra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oresteia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMedea and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trojan Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clouds Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Prometheus Bound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Theogony Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Iphigenia at Aulis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhiloctetes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alcestis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frogs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Helen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Antigone: A New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tragedies of Euripides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ajax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOedipus Rex (Oedipus the King) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Lear Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMetamorphoses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bacchae and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titus Andronicus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Performing Arts For You
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: From Renowned Expert Dog Trainer and Host of Lucky Dog: Reunions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comedy Bible: From Stand-up to Sitcom--The Comedy Writer's Ultimate "How To" Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Women's Monologues from New Plays, 2020 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifth Mountain: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whale / A Bright New Boise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How I Learned to Drive (Stand-Alone TCG Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Life in Parts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Dolls House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strange Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Being Earnest: A Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Eumenides
40 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The final installment of the trilogy has Orestes fleeing from the Furies who seek judgement against him for spilling the blood of his own kin. Orestes flees a great distance with them constantly upon him, his primary defense that Apollo bade him to seek justice for the murder of Agammemnon. The Furies finally catch Orestes at a temple of Athena, where he grasps her statue in search of aid. Athena then appears and brings the matter to question, allowing testimony from Apollo, Orestes, and the Ghost of Clytemenstra. The judges decide in favor of Orestes, for which the Furies threaten wrath upon Athens. Athena instead offers them a temple there where the Athenian people will pay them proper respect. We have here another great tragedy - perhaps the best at demonstrating the attitudes of the Greek culture toward religion and justice, as well as the relationship between the major deities. The poetry itself is truly gruesome in some places ("Deep draughts of jellied blood will I sip and sup, Though bitter be the wine. And then when I've sucked thy lifeblood dry, I'll drag thee down below.") I kept a copy of this whole play. It's wonderful.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although I own this Kindle edition, I actually read a different translation which I can't find here on GoodReads by George Thomson. The Thomson translation was the best of the three Aeschylus plays I have read, and was contained in the anthology Greek Plays in Modern Translation (modern to the editor in 1947 when this book was published).I found this final play of the Orestiea to be an interesting commentary on the need for old ways to surrender to new ones - this was timely in Aeschylus' day and is still valid. Strangely enough, I recently finished a sci fi novella with this same theme. Truly one of universal application!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5bookshelves: currently-reading, classic, families, betrayal, fradio, greece, legal-courtcase, lifestyles-deathstyles, lit-richer, mythology, play-dramatisation, published-458bc, radio-3, revenge, winter-20132014Recommended for: BBC Radio ListenersR3 A new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz of The Furies, the last play in Aeschylus's trilogy.BBC description: The Oresteia: The Furies By Aeschylus. A new version by Rebecca LenkiewiczThe final play in Aeschylus' classic trilogy about murder, revenge and justice. Orestes has avenged his father Agamemnon by murdering his killer, his own mother Clytemnestra. Now the Furies, deities of revenge, are on his trail and baying for blood. Can the young gods Apollo and Athena stop this cycle of revenge?BBC Concert Orchestra Percussionists: Alasdair Malloy, Stephen Webberley and Stephen Whibley Sound design: Colin Guthrie.To halt the blood feud spreading to yet another generation we are introduced to the emergence of the first homicide court.
Book preview
The Eumenides - Aeschylus
EUMENIDES
THE EUMENIDES
Dramatis Personae
THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS
APOLLO
ORESTES
THE GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA
CHORUS OF FURIES
ATHENA
ATTENDANTS OF ATHENA
TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS
Scene
Before the temple of APOLLO at Delphi. The PYTHIAN PRIESTESS enters and approaches the doors of the temple.
THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS
First, in this prayer, of all the gods I name
The prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,
Second who sat-for so with truth is said-
On this her mother›s shrine oracular.
Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,
There sat thereon another child of Earth-
Titanian Phoebe. She, in after time,
Gave o›er the throne, as birthgift to a god,
Phoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe›s name.
He from the lake and ridge of Delos› isle
Steered to the port of Pallas› Attic shores,
The home of ships; and thence he passed and came
Unto this land and to Pamassus› shrine.
And at his side, with awe revering him,
There went the children of Hephaestus› seed,
The hewers of the sacred way, who tame
The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.
And all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain-king
Of this their land, with honour gave him home;
And in his breast Zeus set a prophet›s soul,
And gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,
Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,
Gives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.
Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,
And after them, I call with honour due
On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs
Who dwell around the rock Corycian,
Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds› haunt,
Wander the feet of lesser gods; and there,
Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,
Since he in godship led his Maenad host,
Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent
Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,
I call on Pleistus› springs, Poseidon›s might,
And Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.
Then as a seeress to the sacred chair
I pass and sit; and may the powers divine
Make this mine entrance fruitful in response
Beyond each former advent, triply blest.
And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,
Men seeking oracles, let each pass in
In order of the lot, as use allows;
For the god guides whate›er my tongue proclaims.
She goes into the interior of the temple; after a short interval, she returns in great fear.
Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,
Have sped me forth again from Loxias› shrine,
With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,
But aiding with my hands my failing feet,
Unnerved by fear. A beldame›s force is naught-
Is as a child›s, when age and fear combine.
For as I pace towards the inmost fane
Bay-filleted by many a suppliant›s hand,
Lo, at the central altar I descry
One crouching as for refuge-yea, a man
Abhorred of heaven; and from his hands, wherein
A