Customer Reviews

The Oresteia

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This may not be the most literal translation of "The Oresteia," but it has to be the most linguistically sensuous and emotionally gripping of them all - conveying the full power of one of the most complex tragedies of all time. A friend of mine recently won raves for his performance of Agamemnon in a Los Angeles production of "The Greeks," so I had spent quite a bit of time re-reading Aeschylus (not in the original, I'm afraid) and was reasonably familiar with other translations, but this is the one I would read over and over, for the sheer power and beauty of it, and the way it tackles (enhances?) the emotional complexity of each situation the characters are thrust into. It's an inspiration as well as a treasure.

This may not be the most literal translation of "The Oresteia," but it has to be the most linguistically sensuous and emotionally gripping of them all - conveying the full power of one of the most complex tragedies of all time. A friend of mine recently won raves for his performance of Agamemnon in a Los Angeles production of "The Greeks," so I had spent quite a bit of time re-reading Aeschylus (not in the original, I'm afraid) and was reasonably familiar with other translations, but this is the one I would read over and over, for the sheer power and beauty of it, and the way it tackles (enhances?) the emotional complexity of each situation the characters are thrust into. It's an inspiration as well as a treasure.

What a story! What a bloodbath ! It leaves the catsup'y-trite bluster of the typical Hollywood slasher pic in the dust. And it is Hughes who accomplishes this through his translation. Perhaps saying "story by Aeschulus" is not offering the old-timer his due... doubtless, when read in the Greek, the original had the flash and spurt of Hughes' version. But lacking the ancient tongue you'll find some pretty tame translations scattered around the cannon. I know, I checked. (I was so stunned at one of the more brutal story elements that I went to a library copy. Sure enough, Agamemnon's father really did stew his brothers' children and serve them up to his brother - brewing up the similarly brutal chain of revenge and recriminations that the story revolves around. But in the library's vanilla version this segment read more like a particularly dry autopsy report).

Now I can be drawn into a gory tale by a good talespinner like a Stephen King just as much as any other guy... but there is more than spinning of yarn and sloshing of blood here. There is a way in which Hughes' inevitably modern take on the translation subtly exposes the deep cultural differences between those fine ancient peoples and our equally-fine selves. We haven't become more or less vicious or more or less clever - but we have changed in fundamental ways. This tale, in this telling, does suggest, over and over, how a culture's sense of self, of free- or enchained-will, of god(s), and of the inevitable whirl of the cosmic wheel can produce truly different constituents. Different versions of the "God-meme" or even the "self-meme" can deeply infect and transform a culture-centered species like ours.

We've heard for so long how our "Western" tradition sprouts from Athens, but in this telling, those folks have a sense of their place in the universe which is deeply, subtly alien. It made me think of a long ago reading of Julian Jaynes' breathtakingly-titled: "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind.", which posits that ancient minds were explicitly pre-conscious... gods as literally heard voices in the head. This is certainly an odd idea, but one that opens up the notion that radically different kinds of minds could well exist in a homo sapiens transport system.

Hughes delivers this sense of the fundamental other-ness of the Greek world-view through the powerful mix of pre-modern sense of self and of justice delivered in modern speech forms. This contrast builds, appropriately, from the underlying story of Aeschulus, to the confrontation with the deeply primal Furies near the end. It sent chills down my spine to hear their rendering of the cold heartless core of their universe... and to contrast it with the countering argument of Athena for a more reasoned and rational justice. How can Orestes be driven to matricide by the command of one god (buttressed by hair-raising threats) and then be condemned to an even more bitter doom by another group of immortals for accomplishing his mission? The degree to which my own sense of fairness was bruised by the events leading up to this denouement exposed the power of the schism between primal and modern that seems to lie at the heart of the tale.

I won't tell you how it ends, but that's saying something! A thousands-of-years-old story in free verse dramatic form that turns out to be a 'page-turner'! Its a wonderful discovery that will lead me next to Hughes' other translations from his last few years, and might grab you as well.

As a professor teaching classics in Regents College Master of Liberal Studies Program, I am always looking for translations that will entrance my students and give them that sensation of the marvelous that many of them can find only in videos and MTV. Hughes' translation of "The Oresteia" is a perfect choice. Sure, there may be in some passages a lot more of Hughes than of Aeschylus, but if that's what it takes to reincarnate those ancient and bloody tragic figures, it's a price well worth paying. After reading this book, I think my students will see "The Sopranos" as just another soap opera.