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The Complete Greek Tragedies, Volume 1: Aeschylus

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Physically, this is a nice book. It's volume one of a four volume collection, _The Complete Greek Tragedies_ (volume two is Sophocles and volumes three and four are Euripides), and all four volumes are lovely hardcovers, printed on nice paper, with handsome Greekish designs on the front and interspersed throughout. Maybe not so attractive as to go on your mantel, but their prominence in your library will not be an embarassment.

The contents are lovely to match. The translations (by Lattimore, Grene and Bernadete) are readable and flowing. The book has almost no footnotes (only Grene's translations of "Seven Against Thebes" and "Prometheus Bound" have any at all, and there they are sparse), but each play (or collection of plays, in the case of the Oresteia) is introduced by a brief explanatory essay. If you know nothing about the Greeks or Greek tragedy, these essays will not be enough to get you through (and you should check out Rose's _Handbook of Greek Literature_), but if you have a little background information already, the essays are helpful (especially the introductory essay to the Oresteia, which is the most fulsome).

Now, about the plays themselves. Of course, you have to read them. This is, effectively, the beginning of Western drama, and the combination of familiar and alien elements is fascinating. In some ways, Aeschylus's plays are like modern musicals, or like opera, with very few characters, a big role played by a chorus, and lots of long songs. Action happens all off-stage and is described by the characters.

In addition to being important as part of the history of drama, the plays are important primary sources of Greek mythology. In particular, the Oresteia is simply the most complete telling of the murder of Agammemnon and his children's revenge. In addition, "Prometheus Bound" is an important source for understanding the tale of the West's most famous fire-thief, and "Seven Against Thebes" gives detail and perspective about the tragedy of Oedipus not contained in Sophocles's retelling.

Finally, being the most ancient of the tragedians, Aeschylus gives narrative details that reflect a very ancient Greek culture, including, for instance, his ideas about justice and family and several descriptions of rites of aversion. Aeschylus is important -- read him.

This edition is the materworks of two great men Aeschylus and Richmond Lattimore. I have read a dozen of translations of Aeschylus and this has no rival. As well the whole series edited by Green and Lattimore are the best compelation of all the Greek tragedy to date. Lattimore understand the darkness and the fatilism of greek tragedy. The verse translation is flowing and rythmic as the greek is. The translation is loose and not exacting like Lattimores Illiad but he captures the theme better than a too literal translation would allow.

Lattimore's translation, I will admit, is difficult to get into at first if you are not familiar with his style or with the Greek classics in general. I remember sitting with it in front of me, trying for about 45 minutes to get past the first page. But please, don't be scared! Once you get past the initial difficulty and really start to immerse yourself into Lattimore's style, this is probably the most rewarding and interesting translations available. It keeps the Greek alive, displaying beautifully the particulars of the original text. An excellent and literal translation.

One of Twain's better quotes is that a classic is a book that everybody wants to have read but no one wants to read. This is true of Aeschylus, but not in the sense that Twain intended. These plays are hard to read -- they often have lines that don't particularly make sense -- and they are essentially slow-motion monologues spouted to the audience. That said, the stories these plays tell, despite getting pooh-poohed a bit in the translators' introductions, are amazing, and even though I was relieved to put the book down, I find myself continually thinking about the characters and their lives long afterwards.

First, the down sides: when I was taking Greek in college, we would sometimes run across passages that weren't quite meaningful. The sense of them was on the tip of our tongues in Greek, but any kind of English translation was misleading, being either nonsense or implying more than the Greek said. In those situations, we would naturally see what professional translators had done and some of them were pretty wild, taking a shot in the dark and essentially inventing a lucid English passage that had little to do with the Greek. These translations don't take that approach. They're more honest and seem content to approximate the Greek, even if it leaves the English reader grasping at threads. In some cases, a footnote might have helped with an allusion, but I suspect a number of these passages just don't have a meaning that can be fully recovered by moderns. And I certainly don't blame the translator: our collective sense, shared by undergrad and professor alike, was that Lattimore was the man when it came to translating Greek, so I figure this collection is about as good as it gets. If I ever return to these plays again, which I think I will, I shall be sure to get my hands on A Commentary on The Complete Greek Tragedies. Aeschylus (v. 1)

Furthermore, the presentation of the dialogues often isn't particularly compelling on the printed page. That's often the case with drama: it's meant to be spoken and not read. In this case, however, it's worse than usual: there's little that could be called action and instead the reader is subjected to dolorous and sometimes dull speeches.

Nonetheless, these plays are enormously powerful. A number of the characters are vividly drawn -- the helplessness of Cassandra, the dilemma of Orestes, the desperation and brutality of the maidens, the heroism of Prometheus, etc. -- and they are dealing with life `in the raw' as they struggle with fundamental issues of how we are to live: love, the limits of retribution, the cost of doing what's right, grief, etc.

I was particularly moved by the story of Prometheus. In other tellings I've encountered, Prometheus, despite the meaning of his name, comes across Antiquity's shoplifter, who didn't expect to get caught. That's vaguely interesting. Aeschylus' Prometheus is vastly more heroic than that. What he does for humans he understands to be a sacrifice and lead him to undergo tremendous suffering. He is essentially the creator of humanity, giving people civilization so they can rise above the likes of ants. For this, he's condemned to an eternity of pain. And when Zeus threatens him with vastly worst torture if he doesn't reveal that god's fated weakness, Prometheus doesn't blink. This makes Prometheus qualitatively different from the other immortals in Greek mythology, who are worshiped out of fear and hope of further benefits. Prometheus actually has noble qualities, which is so jarring in contrast to the squabblings of Mount Olympus. (I suppose I also have a personal reason for like this character: his condition reminds me of my best friend/hero, who is trapped inside a body that has been shattered by a relentless painful neurological injury.)

So is this a bit of a slog? Yes, but it's worth it -- and none of the plays are that long anyway.

This book contains all seven of Aeschylus' remaining plays. "Agamemnon," "The Libation Bearers," and "The Eumenides," (altogether, the Oresteia) are the most well-known, and, along with "Prometheus Bound," they are the best plays in this collection. The other three, in comparison, are frankly boring, so it might be worth your money to buy the Oresteia separately. But if you are curious about Aeschylus, or interested in Greek tragedy, then this book gives you all seven plays, and has introductions to each which explain the historical context and the content. Read your Homer too.