The Persians
By Aeschylus
3.5/5
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Aeschylus
Aeschylus (c.525-455 B.C) was an ancient Greek playwright and solider. Scholars’ knowledge of the tragedy genre begins with Aeschylus’ work, and because of this, he is dubbed the “father of tragedy”. Aeschylus claimed his inspiration to become a writer stemmed from a dream he had in which the god Dionysus encouraged him to write a play. While it is estimated that he wrote just under one hundred plays, only seven of Aeschylus’ work was able to be recovered.
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Reviews for The Persians
66 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Both an amazing translation and a fascinating tragedy. It should be required reading for dramatists and English majors.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5While a bit dense at times, Aeschylus' work has incredible meaning to Western literature, and illustrates the complex emotions and mentalities surrounding the Persian court in the midst of the Greek Wars.
Book preview
The Persians - Aeschylus
The Persians
by Aeschylus
© 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or transmitted in any form or manner by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express, prior written permission of the author and/or publisher, except for brief quotations for review purposes only.
Hardcover ISBN 13:
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Table of Contents
Dramatis Personae:
Introduction
The Persians
Dramatis Personae:
CHORUS OF PERSIAN ELDERS.
ATOSSA,
WIDOW OF DARIUS AND MOTHER OF XERXES.
A MESSENGER.
THE GHOST OF DARIUS.
XERXES.
Introduction
The surviving dramas of Aeschylus are seven in number, though he is believed to have written nearly a hundred during his life of sixty-nine years, from 525 B.C. to 456 B.C. That he fought at Marathon in 490, and at Salamis in 480 B.C. is a strongly accredited tradition, rendered almost certain by the vivid references to both battles in his play of The Persians, which was produced in 472. But his earliest extant play was, probably, not The Persians but The Suppliant Maidens—a mythical drama, the fame of which has been largely eclipsed by the historic interest of The Persians, and is undoubtedly the least known and least regarded of the seven. Its topic—the flight of the daughters of Danaus from Egypt to Argos, in order to escape from a forced bridal with their first-cousins, the sons of Aegyptus—is legendary, and the lyric element predominates in the play as a whole. We must keep ourselves reminded that the ancient Athenian custom of presenting dramas in Trilogies- —that is, in three consecutive plays dealing with different stages of one legend—was probably not uniform: it survives, for us, in one instance only, viz. the Orestean Trilogy, comprising the Agamemnon, the Libation-Bearers, and the Eumenides, or Furies. This Trilogy is the masterpiece of the Aeschylean Drama: the four remaining plays of the poet, which are translated in this volume, are all fragments of lost Trilogies—that is to say, the plays are complete as poems, but in regard to the poet’s larger design they are fragments; they once had predecessors, or sequels, of which only a few words, or lines, or short paragraphs, survive. It is not certain, but seems probable, that the earliest of these single completed plays is The Suppliant Maidens, and on that supposition it has been placed first in the present volume. The maidens, accompanied by their father Danaes, have fled from Egypt and arrived at Argos, to take sanctuary there and to avoid capture by their pursuing kinsmen and suitors. In the course of the play, the pursuers’ ship arrives to reclaim the maidens for a forced wedlock in Egypt. The action of the drama turns on the attitude of the king and people of Argos, in view of this intended abduction. The king puts the question to the popular vote, and the demand of the suitors is unanimously rejected: the play closes with thanks and gratitude on the part of the fugitives, who, in lyrical strains of quiet beauty, seem to refer the whole question of their marriage to the subsequent decision of the gods, and, in particular, of Aphrodite.
Of the second portion of the Trilogy we can only speak conjecturally. There is a passage in the Prometheus Bound (ll. 860-69), in which we learn that the maidens were somehow reclaimed by the suitors, and that all, except one, slew their bridegrooms on the wedding night. There is a faint trace, among the Fragments of Aeschylus, of a play called Thalamopoioi,—i.e. The Preparers of the Chamber,—which may well have referred to this tragic scene.