Mark Griffith - Greek Tragedies 2: Aeschylus: The Libation Bearers; Among the Taurians, Electra, the Trojan Women

MARK GRIFFITH is professor of classics and of theater, dance, and performance studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

GLENN W. MOST is professor of ancient Greek at the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa and a visiting member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

DAVID GRENE (19132002) taught classics for many years at the University of Chicago.

RICHMOND LATTIMORE (19061984), professor of Greek at Bryn Mawr College, was a poet and translator best known for his translations of the Greek classics, especially his versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
2013 by The University of Chicago

The Libation Bearers 1953, 2013 by the University of Chicago

Sophocles, Electra 1957, 2013 by the University of Chicago

Iphigenia among the Taurians 2013 by Anne Carson

Euripides, Electra 1959, 2013 by the University of Chicago

The Trojan Women 1947 by the Dial Press;

1958, 2013 by the University of Chicago

All rights reserved. Published 2013.

Printed in the United States of America

22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-03545-1 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-03559-8 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-03562-8 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Greek tragedies / edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Third edition / edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most.

pages. cm.

ISBN 978-0-226-03514-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-03528-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-03531-4 (e-book) ISBN 978-0-226-03545-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-03559-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-03562-8 (e-book) ISBN 978-0-226-03576-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-03593-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-03609-0 (e-book) 1. Greek drama (Tragedy) I. Grene, David. II. Lattimore, Richmond, 19061984. III. Wyckoff, Elizabeth, 1915IV. Most, Glenn W. V. Griffith, Mark (Classicist) VI. Sophocles. Antigone. English. 2013. VII. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. English. 2013. VIII. Aeschylus. Agamemnon. English. 2013. IX. Aeschylus. Prometheus bound. English. 2013. X. Euripides. Hippolytus. English. 2013.

PA3626.A2G57 2013

882'.0108dc23

2012044399

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (Permanence of Paper).

Translated by Richmond Lattimore

Translated by David Grene

Translated by Anne Carson

Translated by Emily Townsend Vermeule

Translated by Richmond Lattimore

Translated by Richmond Lattimore

The Libation Bearers is the second tragedy in Aeschylus Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides), which was produced in 458 BCE. Each play of the trilogy can be studied and interpreted as an independent drama, separately from the other two.

The dramatic time is some ten years after Agamemnon. Clytaemestra and Aegisthus rule in Argos, oppressing Electra, the daughter of Clytaemestra and Agamemnon, and tyrannizing the citizens. Electra has remained loyal to her fathers memory, and hopes for revenge. Orestes, her brother, has grown up in exile, likewise contemplating vengeance on his fathers killers. He returns with his comrade Pylades, is recognized by Electra, and with Electras help plots, and himself carries out, the murder of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus.

Sophocles in his Electra and Euripides in his Electra told the same story. The important features special to Aeschylus are as follows. The recognition is begun through Electras identification of a lock of her brothers hair, deposited on Agamemnons tomb, and of his footprints. The brother and sister, with the chorus of Clytaemestras slave women, speak and chant a long invocation to the spirit of Agamemnon and the gods of the earth, working themselves up to an act of which they sense the horror. Electra then leaves the stage, does not reappear, and takes no further part in the action. Aegisthus is killed first, offstage, and Orestes confronts Clytaemestra before the audience, then forces her inside the palace and kills her there. At the end, Orestes cannot enjoy his triumph. As he stands over the corpses, justifying his act, the horror comes upon him and his mind sees the Furies of his mother (the Erinyes, or Eumenides), who pursue him from the stage. The story of this pursuit and the eventual release of Orestes is told in The Eumenides.

All three dramatists have made the murders be accomplished by deception. Orestes presents himself disguised and is not recognized at first by his mother and her husband. In Aeschylus, the intrigue is reduced to its simplest terms. Much of the tragedys force comes from the spellbinding rhythms and imagery of the invocation and the choral odes.