Mark Griffith - Greek Tragedies 1: Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound; Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Antigone; Euripides: Hippolytus

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

Agamemnon 1947 by Richmond Lattimore, 1953, 2013 by the University of Chicago Prometheus Bound 1942, 1991, 2013 by the University of Chicago Oedipus the King 1942, 2013 by the University of Chicago

Antigone 1954, 2013 by the University of Chicago

Hippolytus 1942, 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: 978-0-226-03514-7 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-03528-4 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-03531-4 (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 David Grene

Translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff

Translated by David Grene

Agamemnon is the first part of the trilogy known as the Oresteia, the other two parts being The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. The trilogy was presented in 458 BCE and won first prize.

According to the legend, in the version used by Aeschylus, Atreus tricked his brother, Thyestes, into devouring his own children, all but one. Thyestes cursed the entire house. In the next generation, Agamemnon and Menelaus, sons of Atreus, were kings in Argos. Helen, wife of Menelaus, eloped to Troy with Paris (Alexander). Agamemnon led the expedition to Troy to recover her, and, to procure favorable winds to get there, sacrificed his daughter, Iphigeneia, to Artemis. Meanwhile Agamemnons wife Clytaemestra took as her lover Aegisthus, the only surviving son of Thyestes. Agamemnon and Clytaemestra arranged a series of beacons between Argos and Troy, by which he would signal the capture of the city.

It is at this point that Agamemnon begins. The action consists of a short, simple series of events: the return of Agamemnon with his captured war prize, Cassandra; his formal reception and entrance into the palace; the murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra by Clytaemestra and Aegisthus; and, at the end, their defiance of Argos and its citizens. The power of the drama lies partly in the arrangement of these events, partly also in the choral lyrics and long speeches, in which the tragic scenes of the past, flashbacks in memory, as well as hints about the future, are made to enlarge and illuminate the action and persons before us.