Agamemnon ; Libation-bearers ; Eumenides ; Fragments

Bibliographic Information

Agamemnon ; Libation-bearers ; Eumenides ; Fragments

Aeschylus ; with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth

(The Loeb classical library, 146 . Aeschylus : in two volumes ; 2)

Harvard University Press , W. Heinemann, 1957

  • : American
  • : British

Other Title

Αγαμεμνων

Хοηφοροι

Ευμενιδες

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Note

Greek text and parallel English translation

"The appendix containing the more considerable fragments published since 1930 and a new text of FR.50 is edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones"

First printed 1926

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Aeschylus (ca. 525-456 BCE), author of the first tragedies existing in European literature, was an Athenian born at Eleusis. He served at Marathon against Darius in 490, and again during Xerxes' invasion, 480-479. Between 478 and 467 he visited Sicily, there composing by request Women of Aetna. At Athens he competed in production of plays more than twenty times, and was rewarded on at least thirteen occasions, becoming dominant between 500 and 458 through the splendour of his language and his dramatic conceptions and technique. Of his total of 80-90 plays seven survive complete. The Persians (472), the only surviving Greek historical drama, presents the failure of Xerxes to conquer Greece. Seven against Thebes (467) was the second play of its trilogy of related plays on the evil fate of the Theban House. Polyneices tries to regain Thebes from his brother Eteocles; both are killed. In Suppliant Maidens, the first in a trilogy, the daughters of Danaus arrive with him at Argos, whose King and people save them from the wooing of the sons of their uncle Aegyptus. In Prometheus Bound, first or second play of its trilogy about Prometheus, he is nailed to a crag, by order of Zeus, for stealing fire from heaven for men. Defiant after visitors' sympathy and despite advice, he descends in lightning and thunder to Hell. The Oresteia (458), on the House of Atreus, is the only Greek trilogy surviving complete. In Agamemnon, the King returns from Troy, and is murdered by his wife Clytaemnestra. In Libation-Bearers, Orestes with his sister avenges their father Agamemnon's death by counter-murder. In Eumenides, Orestes, harassed by avenging Furies, is arraigned by them at Athensfor matricide. Tried by a court set up by Athena, he is absolved, but the Furies are pacified. We publish in Volume I four plays; and in Volume II the Oresteia and some fragments of lost plays.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA0128800X
  • ISBN
    • 0674991613
    • 0434991465
  • Country Code
    us
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    enggrc
  • Original Language Code
    grc
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge, Mass.,London
  • Pages/Volumes
    v, 610 p.
  • Size
    17 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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