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

334 Pages·2013·0.39 MB·English

by  Mark Griffith

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 (1913–2002) taught classics for many years at the University of Chicago.
RICHMOND LATTIMORE (1906–1984), 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
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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, 1906–1984. III. Wyckoff,
Elizabeth, 1915–IV. 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'.0108—dc23
2012044399
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Edited by David Grene & Richmond Lattimore
THIRD EDITION Edited by Mark Griffith & Glenn W. Most
GREEK TRAGEDIES
VOLUME 2
The University of Chicago Press
CHICAGO & LONDON
CONTENTS
AESCHYLUS: The Libation Bearers
Translated by Richmond Lattimore
SOPHOCLES: Electra
Translated by David Grene
EURIPIDES: Iphigenia among the Taurians
Translated by Anne Carson
EURIPIDES: Electra
Translated by Emily Townsend Vermeule
EURIPIDES: The Trojan Women
Translated by Richmond Lattimore
Textual Notes
THE LIBATION BEARERS
AESCHYLUS
Translated by Richmond Lattimore
INTRODUCTION TO AESCHYLUS’ THE
LIBATION BEARERS
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 father’s memory, and hopes for revenge. Orestes, her brother, has
grown up in exile, likewise contemplating vengeance on his father’s killers.
He returns with his comrade Pylades, is recognized by Electra, and with
Electra’s 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 Electra’s identification of a lock of her brother’s hair,
deposited on Agamemnon’s tomb, and of his footprints. The brother and
sister, with the chorus of Clytaemestra’s 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 tragedy’s force comes from the spellbinding
rhythms and imagery of the invocation and the choral odes.
THE LIBATION BEARERS
Characters
ORESTES, son of Agamemnon and Clytaemestra PYLADES, his friend
ELECTRA, his sister
CHORUS of Asian serving-women
A SERVANT (doorkeeper)
CLYTAEMESTRA, queen of Argos; now wife of Aegisthus THE NURSE,
Cilissa
AEGISTHUS, now king of Argos
A FOLLOWER of Aegisthus
Scene: Argos, in front of the palace.
(Enter Orestes and Pylades, from the side.)
ORESTES
Hermes, lord of the dead, you who watch over the powers
of my fathers, be my savior and stand by my claim.°

Here is my own soil that I walk. I have come home;

and by this mounded gravebank I invoke my father

to hear, to listen.
5
He met his end in violence through a woman’s treacherous tricks …

Here is a lock of hair for Inachus, who made
me grow to manhood. Here a strand to mark my grief.

I was not by, my father, to mourn for your death

nor stretched my hand out when they took your corpse away.
(Enter the Chorus, with Electra, from the other side.)
But what can this mean that I see, this group that comes
10
of women veiled in dignities of black? At what
sudden occurrence can I guess? Is this some new

wound struck into our house? I think they bring these urns

to pour, in my father’s honor, to appease the powers

below. Can I be right? Surely, I think I see
15
Electra, my own sister, walk in bitter show

of mourning. Zeus, Zeus, grant me vengeance for my father’s

murder. Stand and fight beside me, of your grace.

Pylades, stand we out of their way. So may I learn

the meaning of these women; what their prayer would ask.
20
(Orestes and Pylades conceal themselves, to one side.)
CHORUS [singing]
STROPHE A
I came in haste out of the house

to carry libations, hurt by the hard stroke of hands.

My cheek shows bright, ripped in the bloody furrows

of nails gashing the skin.
25
This is my life: to feed the heart on hard-drawn breath.

And in my grief, with splitting weft

of ragtorn linen across my heart’s

brave show of robes

came sound of my hands’ strokes
30
in sorrows whence smiles are fled.

ANTISTROPHE A
Terror, the dream diviner of

this house, belled clear, shuddered the skin, blew wrath

from sleep, a cry in night’s obscure watches,

a voice of fear deep in the house,
35
dropping deadweight in women’s inner chambers.
And they who read the dream meanings
and spoke under guarantee of god

told how under earth

dead men held a grudge still
40
and smoldered at their murderers.

STROPHE B
On such grace without grace, evil’s turning aside

(Earth, Earth, kind mother!)

bent, the godless woman
45
sends me forth. But terror
is on me for this word let fall.

What can wash off the blood once spilled upon the ground?

O hearth soaked in sorrow,

O wreckage of a fallen house.
50
Sunless and where men fear to walk

the mists huddle upon this house

where the high lords have perished.

ANTISTROPHE B
The pride not to be warred with, fought with, not to be beaten down
55
of old, sounded in all men’s

ears, in all hearts sounded,

has shrunk away. A man

goes in fear. High fortune,

this in man’s eyes is god and more than god is this.
60
But, as a beam balances, so

sudden disasters wait, to strike

some in the brightness, some in gloom

of half dark in their elder time.

Desperate night holds others.
65
STROPHE C
Through too much glut of blood drunk by our fostering ground