Customer Reviews

Agamemnon: 3 volumes

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[Note: This edition is a text in ANCIENT GREEK with notes in English. It has no text in English if you are looking for one. There are many to recommend. The best translation of the Oresteia, of which this work is the first part, is in Tony Harrison's Collected Works; the worst, in my opinion at least, was written by Ted Hughes. All the rest are good.]
This is a superb edition with one caveat. At the moment, educated consensus generally holds that a line of poetry seldom has one meaning. Denniston and Page's text plus commentary of Agamemnon apparently was written before this consensus formed. Denniston and Page are feisty, dogmatic, and insistent that they are right, and are largely reacting to Fraenkel's massive text plus commentary to the same play. They take issue with Fraenkel on a number of points while acknowledging his immense erudition. I have no reservations, however, recommending this edition. It was very useful and well-thought out. I give it a high rating.

Since its publication in 1950 it's been the standard scholarly commentary on the Agamemnon, on of the greatest and most read Greek tragedies. Although it's not easy to handle, very elaborate and showing it's age a little,it's nevertheless a monument of modern classical scholarship.

First in a trilogy about the return of the Greeks after the Trojan War. Powerful stuff. Such horrors and tragedy as only the Greeks can master. Agamemnon's father killed his brother's children and set their flesh before him to eat, unknowingly. Agamemnon himself killed his own daughter as a sacrifice to the gods for success in the Trojan War, and when he comes home after ten years (which is where the action begins), his wife, Clytemnestra, stabs him to death in a plot with Aegisthus who was the son of the father who ate his children, and in the next part, Orestes, Agamemnon's son will return and kill them both. Please don't think I'm giving away plot here. Plot is not the point, the writing of it is all. To see it staged by first-rate actors must be a real thrill indeed.

It would be good to have two years of college Greek behind you before starting on Denniston and Page's AGAMEMNON, a Greek text with modern commentary. As a single-volume edition for students, this one could not be bettered: everything is explained and difficult passages are translated in the notes -- about three lines a page are difficult enough to require this treatment. And I mean difficult for everyone, the world's greatest Greek scholars included. The difficulties are very thoroughly discussed. Another reviewer here has said Denniston and Page are dogmatic; not at all: they point out where passages are unclear, disagreed about by scholars, or outright lost. Most of the choruses contain passages so distorted scholars have to guess at what was written, and (assuming their guess is right) exactly what the passages mean. Aeschylus writes a little like Shakespeare in MACBETH: very poetically and not always clearly. In spite of all this, passages, sometimes quite long, of powerful poetry leap out of the page. The play has been compared to KING LEAR and called, along with LEAR, one of the two best tragedies of all time. What's more, it makes you feel, even with Denniston and Page's constant help, that you can really understand Greek if you can understand lines from this play.

Literary criticism, especially Classical, may someday get better than this, but it has not happened yet. This work and the accompanying volumes provide us with a model of literary criticism without equal.

Oh, let's not forget the play iteslf. This is Aeschylus' finest surviving work, and is excelled only by Sophocles Theban trilogy. The translation, should you need it, is first rate. I especially love the opening scene describing the network of lights across the Aegean announcing the fall of Tray, and setting into motion the mechanisms of destruction for the house of Atreides.

I recieved Aeschylus: Agamemnon right on time and it was crisp and new!

I always liked Homer and Sophocles, but I still have a preference for Aeschylus. What makes "Agamemnon" such a great story is that not only is this a story in itself, but it is only part 1 of a trilogy. Part 2 is "The Libation Bearers" and Part 3 is "The Eumenides." Now "Agamemnon" was written centuries before Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida." Nevertheless, the events of "Agamemnon" take place after Shakespeare's play. If you read that play of Shakespeare's, you know that it covers the last few stages of the Trojan War. In Shakespeare's play, Agamemnon is portrayed as a reasonable and competent king who is frustrated at the length of the war, is repulsed by Achilles's vanity, and shows reasonable strength in diplomacy.

Onto the material at hand. The chorus is basically a group of older men who can comment on situations, but can not really interfere. The chorus tells us that Troy has fallen, and Greece is triumphant. We then meet Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra. She blames Agamemnon for the death of her child Iphigenia. So, she naturally wants to kill Agamemnon. The chorus seems to admit that it was strange that the war was fought over Helen who was a willing prisoner. Nevertheless, the chorus sides with Agamemnon when he arrives. Asimov seems to point an interesting angle out: "Such a keen sense of honor is often praised by those who are safe at home." But of course, it is a different story to those who are involved! But of course, any time romance is involved, the voice of reason tends to take a back seat.

Moving on, Agamemnon seems to be a good king in showing his piety in the light of victory. But there is one flaw. He has kidnapped Hector's sister Cassandra. (She was the virgin priestess to Apollo, and that would be the equivalent of kidnapping a nun for pleasure.) Cassandra has the gift of prophecy, but because she tried to run with Apollo's gift 'without paying for it,' Apollo cursed her in that no one would believe her prophecies.

Showing reason, she curses Paris for starting the war with his utterly stupid kidnapping of Helen. She also tells of how Orestes will avenge his father and kill Clytemnestra (in Part 2). But back to the main plot. Clytemnestra plays the devil, and uses Agamemnon's vanity against him which leads to his death. (How disturbing that vanity was the downfall of many men centuries ago, and still is!)

In comes Clytemnestra's lover Aegisthus. He talks of the crimes of Agamemnon's father against his father. What happened was Aegisthus 's father slept with Agamemnon's father's wife. In revenge, Agamemnon's father tricked Aegisthus's father into eating the flesh of his own son. the theme of revenge is further emphasized. It is of course a never ending circle. Though I do find it interesting that Aegisthus finds it fit that Agamemnon should suffer for the crimes of his father. (Yet was Aegisthus's father who started it!)

So, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra can be together for now. But of course in Part 2, we know that they will get their comeuppance. Overall, it's a great story that emphasizes the evils and seeming eternity of revenge.

My friend Vikki from M.A. wrote and told me how much she liked this. When I was in school this book FLOORED me. Not a single page is wasted! The play is dramatic from one scene to the next! Clytemnestra is memorable as a pre Goneril. (A lustful female villain with no conscience.) Agamemnon is memorable as her virtuous husband who is tricked into performing an act of blasphemy. The death of the virtuous Agamemnon silenced me until I had the strength to read part 2. What makes this (along with the next 2 parts) a masterpiece beyond expectations, is that each third of the trilogy is a captivating piece of work in itself. And yet, each constitutes only 1/3 of the masterpiece. In my opinion, this is the best Greek Mythology that was ever written.

I was quite disappointed when I opened this book and found the contents of the pages to be utter gibberish to me. This text is NOT in English. However, this is VERY misleading because when you preview the first few pages of the book it IS in the English version...so I bought this book thinking that it would be something completely different than it is. Good thing it was only 7 dollars. Complete waste of money and very misleading and dishonest.

There is no denying Agamemnon's greatness and profound importance; it is a foundational text not only in drama but in literature itself and remains a clear masterpiece after nearly 2,500 years. However, since it is part of the Orestia trilogy, and there are many editions with all three plays, it is hard to justify a standalone, especially as one can get all three for little or no more than this.

As the earliest known dramatist whose work survives, Aeschylus' influence is impossible to exaggerate, and this is his greatest known achievement. The story itself is enough to captivate after all this time; the profound tragedy still stirs elements deep within us. This is in large part due to the characters, many of whom have become archetypes. As far removed as they and their events seem from today, they are recognizably human with all-too-human flaws and frailties; we feel for their doomed lives because we see ourselves in them. With its string of intrafamily murders and constant high pitch emotions, the melodramatic plot initially seems to have nothing to do with our world; ditto for the gods, curses, and other such factors. However, the underlying themes are still very much with us - are indeed as relevant as ever and likely always will be. We still struggle with issues like family strife, political succession, revenge ethics, crime and punishment, and the free will question. Agamemnon dramatizes these with unforgettable vividness and provokes at least as much thought as ever. It is essential reading for anyone with even the slightest interest in drama, history, or ancient Greece - indeed, literature itself.

Again, though, it is much better experienced in full and also more affordable and convenient. Readers would do well to get the trilogy, of which I recommend the Robert Fagles translation, which is undoubtedly the best for current readers. It is not that prior ones are inaccurate, but inevitable language changes have made them ever less readable; some may think them more stately, but they lack Fagles' flow and readability. Dedicated Greekless readers will of course want to read several, but neophytes should start with Fagles, the only version most will ever need.