Aeschylus (525-c.456 bc) set his great trilogy in the immediate aftermath of the Fall of Troy, when King Agamemnon returns to Argos, a victor in war. Agamemnon depicts the hero's discovery that his family has been destroyed by his wife's infidelity and ends with his death at her callous hand. Clytemnestra's crime is repaid in The Choephori when her outraged son Orestes kills both her and her lover. The Eumenides then follows Orestes as he is hounded to Athens by the Furies' law of vengeanc...

One of the founding documents of Western culture and the only surviving ancient Greek trilogy, the Oresteia of Aeschylus is one of the great tragedies of all time.The three plays of the Oresteia portray the bloody events that follow the victorious return of King Agamemnon from the Trojan War, at the start of which he had sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia to secure divine favor. After Iphi-geneia’s mother, Clytemnestra, kills her husband in revenge, she in turn is murdered by their...

“Agamemnon” is the first of the three linked tragedies which make up “The Oresteia” trilogy (comprising “Agamemnon”, “Choephori” and “The Eumenides”), the only surviving example of a complete trilogy of ancient Greek plays, by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus."Agamemnon" was originally performed at the City Dionysia in 458 B.C."Agamemnon” describes the homecoming of Agamemnon, king of Argos, from the Trojan War, and his return to his wife, Clytemnestra, who ha...

A landmark anthology of the masterpieces of Greek drama, featuring all-new, highly accessible translations of some of the world’s most beloved plays, including Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Bacchae, Electra, Medea, Antigone, and Oedipus the KingFeaturing translations by Emily Wilson, Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Mary Lefkowitz, and James RommThe great plays of Ancient Greece are among the most enduring and...

"Prometheus Bound" is a play written by the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus, which tells the story of the Titan Prometheus, who defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity. As punishment for this act of rebellion, Zeus orders that Prometheus be bound to a rock and left to suffer eternally.The play consists mainly of a dialogue between Prometheus and various other characters, including the chorus of Oceanids, Hermes (the messenger of the gods), and Io (a mortal woman who ha...

This collection presents the works of the three fathers of ancient Greek tragedies: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.The reader of this collection will be able to comprehend how the plots and conflicts populating classical tragedy developed.The principle theme of Aeschylus' tragedies is the idea of fate being omnipotent and the futility in struggling against it.The tragedies of Sophocles reflect the era of the Greeks' victorious war against the Persians, which opene...

Sleep on! awake! what skills your sleep to me-- Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured-- Me from whom never, in the world of death, Dieth this curse, "'Tis she who smote and slew", And shamed and scorned I roam? Awake, and hear My plaint of dead men's hate intolerable. Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved, Me doth no god arouse him to avenge, Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.

Agamemnon is one of three Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in 450 B.C. collectively known as The Oresteia.In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae, the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra or Laodike, Orestes and Chrysothemis. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different n...

At war with Troy for ten years, Agamemnon finally returns home to his kingdom. His wife Cytemnestra is publicly glad to see him, yet plots to murder her husband and his new concubine. Seeking vengeance for the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis ten years earlier, will the queen succeed in taking the crown of Mycenae for herself? Or will loyalty to her king win out in the end?Agamemnon is the first of three tragedies in the Oresteia trilogy, chronicling the f...

Returning to the land of his birth, exiled prince Orestes seeks to avenge his father’s death, as an order from the god Apollo. He comes across his sister Electra, pouring libations on Agamemnon’s tomb to stop Clytemnestra’s disturbing dreams of giving birth to a snake. Finally reunited after many years, the siblings come up with a plan to sneak Orestes into the palace and murder both their mother and her lover.The second play of the Oresteia trilogy further explores the difference ...

Orestes, Apollo, and the Erinyes go before Athena and eleven other judges chosen by her from the Athenian citizenry at the Areopagus (Rock of Ares, a flat rocky hill by the Athenian agora where the homicide court of Athens later held its sessions), to decide whether Orestes's killing of his mother, Clytemnestra, makes him guilty of the crime of murder.

The Persians takes place in Susa, which at the time was one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, and opens with a chorus of old men of Susa, who are soon joined by the Queen Mother, Atossa, as they await news of her son King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks. Expressing her anxiety and unease, Atossa narrates what is probably the first dream sequence in European theatre.