|
The Oresteia
Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and The Holy Goddesses
Aeschylus, A verse translation by David Mulroy, with introduction and notes
Wisconsin Studies in Classics
Laura McClure, Mark Stansbury-O'Donnell, and Matthew Roller, Series Editors
The ancient dictate of vengeance is transformed by Athena into the rule of law
First presented in the spring of 458 B.C.E. at the festival of Dionysus in Athens, Aeschylus' trilogy Oresteia won the first prize. Comprising three plays—Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and The Furies—it is the only surviving example of the ancient trilogy form for Greek tragedies.
This drama of the House of Atreus catches everyone in a bloody net. Queen Clytaemestra of Argos murders her husband Agamemnon. Their son Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother. The Furies, hideous deities who punish the murder of blood kin, pursue Orestes. Into this horrific cycle steps Athena, goddess of wisdom, who establishes the rule of law to replace fatal vengeance. Orestes is tried in court before a jury of Athenians and found not guilty. Athena transforms the Furies into benevolent goddesses and extols the virtue of mercy.
An important historical document as well as gripping entertainment, the Oresteia conveys beliefs and values of the ancient Athenians as they established the world's first great democracy. Aeschylus (525/4-456/5 B.C.E.) was the first of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient Greece, forerunner of Sophocles and Euripides. In this trilogy he created a new dramatic form with characters and plot, infused with spellbinding emotion. David Mulroy's fluid, accessible English translation with its rhyming choral songs does full justice to the meaning and theatricality of the ancient Greek. In an introduction and appendixes, he provides cultural background for modern readers, actors, and students.
 David Mulroy is a professor emeritus of classics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His translations of The Complete Poetry of Catullus and of Sophocles' Theban trilogy—Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus—are all published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Praise
“Mulroy's rendering could well become the standard text for students of classics in English, as pre-reading for those attempting the difficult Greek, and possibly as an acting version. . . . It is the best this reviewer has come across.”
—Classics for All
|
Larger images
April 2018
LC: 2017044983 PA
264 pp. 5 x 8
|
