The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides

Daisy: Great

United States on Nov 29, 2023

Amazon Customer: Words are printed with missing pieces and uneven ink. The E, A, K and S are all smeared with black ink. Is this what discounted copies are like?

Canada on Oct 18, 2023

Moumita Debnath: Font is perfectly readable.
Good replacement.

The Eumenides is the best.

India on Oct 02, 2023

Ellison F: Bought as a gift for a classics enthusiast. He has not ceased praising this edition translated by Robert Fagles. Also very positive re production qualities and excellence of print.

United Kingdom on Nov 06, 2022

Richard Hopewell: OK, it's a niche enjoyment, but accepting that, this is an excellent translation of my favourite piece of Greek drama. The Agamemnon is excellent, Libation Bearers is my favourite of the three and even if Eumenides is a crowd pleasing flag-waver for Athens, it's still really great writing. All in all, if Greek drama is your thing (niche, as I say !), then this is for you.

United Kingdom on Sep 08, 2020

Patricia Grice: This is a thorough and very readable translation. Gives a vivid interpretation very true to Aeschylus intention.

United Kingdom on Nov 13, 2017

Phillip McCollum: The Oresteia was written by our man Aeschylus during a golden age of Athens. Art and civility began to flourish at this city upon a hill, not long after a set of ravaging wars with the Persian empire. In one sense, the city-state was ancient, but in another, it had become new again.

The tragic playwrights arose from these circumstances. They were men who put on competing shows every Spring during the Festival of Dionysus. Aeschylus was the first of these authors whose work has endured the centuries and The Oresteia is the only surviving trilogy (though still incomplete as it’s missing its fourth satyr play, Proteus, which was meant to lighten the mood after such a heavy piece). What’s lost, we may never know, but what we have in the trilogy is an amazing story of civilization rising from the ashes of barbarism.

This tripartite drama says many things, but on a superficial level:

King Agamemnon of Argos returns home from Troy a hero, ten years after sacrificing his daughter for a successful expedition. His wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, have been awaiting his return, bent on murder. They justify that murder for their own reasons: Clytemnestra...

United States on Apr 22, 2015

Mondo: As a great classic 'The Oresteia' by Aeschylus merits a full 5 stars. I will, however, question Aeschylus logic and motive in creating this play. Aeschylus was an Athenian who participated in the war with Persia and stated that he fought in the battle on the plain of Marathon. He is a patriot who promotes the glory and happy existence of Athens, the City of Athena.

At the same time, the basic concept for this play is drawn from the Odyssey. In Homer's great work Odysseus [Ulysses] learns that Agammemnon, following the destruction of Troy, manages to successfully get home to Mycenae. He arrives with much loot and with his sexual slave, Cassandra, recently princess of Troy. Agammemnon receives quite a homecoming. He and Cassandra are slaughtered by Agammemnon's wife, Clytaemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. The motive for the killings are apparently multiple. Clytaemnestra is quite understandably outraged that Agammemnon, immediately prior to sailing away to Troy, sacrificed their daughter, Iphigeneia, for favorable winds. Clytaemnestra, perhaps in revenge, takes a lover and, along with him, plots Agammemnon's death. When Agammemnon actually does arrive, another motive...

United States on Aug 17, 2010

Howard Schulman: I appreciated the opportunity to read Robert Fagles' translation of The Oresteia. To be sure, it is a difficult text and translation to read, but probably the best. By difficult, I mean dense and complex, just like reading Shakespeare, with all the good and bad connotations. By "best" translation I mean truest representation in English of what the author had in mind when he wrote the play in Greek.

There are many excellent explanatory notes in the back of the book, and to make the back and forth between the text and the notes easier, I spent 30 minutes underlining each phrase in the text that had a note in the back of the book so that I knew when to refer back, as there is no indication that a note exists in the text pages. I read the book with one finger in the notes section and the other in the text.

The idea that this play is the earliest existing play in Western literature, 2500 years old, and yet it is so highly refined and complex, never ceases to amaze me. It is also the only fully preserved trilogy of Greek tragedy. Further, keep in mind that Aeschylus probably wrote 80 or 90 plays, probably of similar quality, yet we only have 7 plays today. Amazing.

United States on Apr 05, 2009