Every translator has priorities, whether they are recognized or not; and the leading priorities of this version of the Oresteia are to bring out the vivid musicality of the expression and the theatricality of its potential performance. Indeed, every word of every translation is a choice; not a single word or phrase has to be rendered in one particular way. Even in translations that are supposed to be “literal” or “highly faithful,” every word is chosen—and, in fact, the choices often tend toward the colorless, and the word order is often awkward. Those plain, pedestrian qualities are very far from the exuberant coloring and vigorous phrasing that characterize the language of Aeschylus.
Aeschylus was not by any measure a plain or modest craftsman of words. He was notorious already in the fifth century b.c.e. for being “lofty,” piling up elaborate locutions, and glorying in coining word combinations. It is part of the texture of his theater that it is expressed in highly colored language, thick with metaphor and with constantly shifting turns of phrase. His lyrics are even further from everyday speech, piling up strange, vivid, sometimes almost hallucinogenic helter-skelters of imagery.
Translations of the Oresteia range from plodding prose to word whirligigs so weird that, as has been said of Robert Browning’s version, it’s fortunate that we have the Greek to puzzle out what the English is about! Every translation of a work from another time and place has to position itself at some point, or at various points, on a scale between the simple and mundane at one end and the outlandish and estranging at the other—between “domestication” and “foreignization,” as these poles have become known. One extreme tends toward the danger of a comfortable familiarity that becomes banal, the other to an exoticism that can become a mere distraction. This version aspires, above all, to convey some sense of the vivid poetic color, the musicality, and the theatricality of Aeschylus’ plays, while still keeping them accessible and without need of constant explanation. The aim is to bring across how the Oresteia is rich and strange and, at the same time, powerfully immediate.
So this translation is very much in verse, not prose. And the verse measures attempt to reflect the metrical and musical differences in the Greek. First, for the sections spoken by individual characters, which make up a bit more than half of Aeschylus’ tragedies, the meter is relatively simple and regular. They are rendered here in English by an iambic beat, but with no regular line length. So, although there are many slight variations and syncopations, there is an underlying alternation of light and heavy syllables. Provided it is working well, readers should find an iambic pulse underpinning the pace of the lines, especially if they are read out loud.
The lyric sections, which were sung, mainly by the chorus, are much more complex. In the Greek they are usually divided into something like “stanzas” that come in pairs (sometimes known as “strophe” and “antistrophe”); and these are set in a wide variety of verse forms—in fact, the meter of each stanza pair was unique, calling for great musical and choreographic variety. This translation, which distinguishes these lyrics in the layout of the text by indentation, attempts to reflect this variety, although it is inevitably far less inventive than the Greek. Rhyme is used extensively as a way of holding together the metrical patterns; but rather than direct rhyme, there are more often variations of partial rhyme and what might be called “sound matches.” The aim is to produce a sense of coherence and musicality, while not making this too pat or simplistic.
There is also a third kind of metrical mode, marked by lesser indentation, which is the anapaestic measure. These crop up in various contexts, delivered by the chorus or by actors, and were probably delivered in some kind of “singsong” chant. Thus, for example, the chorus of Agamemnon, when they first enter, chant for some sixty lines before they modulate into sung lyric.
In any translation from one culture to another, there will be problems about names. Should they be transliterated, or rendered phonetically, or adapted? From ancient Greek into English, it has usually been the convention to use the Latin versions of Greek names, slightly adapted to English. And that is what has been done here (a concession, admittedly, to tame domestication). That means “Clytemnestra,” not “Klytaimestra,” and “Troy,” not “Troia,” and so forth. Since a verse translation like this one has to assume certain pronunciations of names, an indication of those adopted (often very different from the ancient Greek pronunciation) is supplied on p. 171.
An exception to this latinizing arises with the names of the major gods, where the Greek forms mostly supplanted the Latin back in the nineteenth century: so “Hera” rather than “Juno,” “Hermes” instead of “Mercury,” and so forth. The polytheistic Greeks also recognized a multiplicity of gods beyond the well-known family on Olympus. Among the host of other divine powers, there are two collective groups of particular importance for the Oresteia that are still traditionally known by their Latin names: the “Furies” and the “Fates.” In this translation they are given their original Greek names because the domesticated Latin forms do not do justice to their potent significance.
First, the Erinyes (four syllables in the plural—E-reen-newezz—whereas the singular “Erinys” has three: E-reen-noose). The English term “Furies” fails to convey the range of their associations. In the first two plays of the trilogy, the Erinyes are rather mysterious divinities who are thought of as having the task of pursuing grievous wrongs, moral or even cosmic, especially in response to family curses. They are imagined as ghoulish and horrifying creatures who lurk in the underworld and strike at humans in strange and unpredictable ways. In the third play, Orestes at Athens, however, they become terrifyingly incarnated as the chorus. This new physicality, an innovation by Aeschylus, changed the way they were perceived from then on, providing artists with snake-entwined figures—often rather beautiful—always ready to pursue and to punish.
The Moirai (singular “Moira”) are a related group of indistinct goddesses who are repeatedly referred to and called upon in the Oresteia. The standard translation, “Fates,” is again inadequate. The task of the Moirai is to see that people get what they should, especially death; to put it another way, they allocate proper proportions, shares, and lifetimes. Their actual operations are even more inexplicit than the Erinyes’, but they are felt as an underlying current in the moral universe.
So the Erinyes and Moirai are here foreignized away from the familiar Furies and Fates. There is a curiously contrary situation with the titles of the plays. They have traditionally been given rather remote, esoteric forms that in this translation are changed to newly coined, more accessible replacements. The traditional titles—Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides—were those registered in the official Athenian records, but they may well not have originated with Aeschylus. In fact, there is some reason to think they did not.
There is no problem with the first play being called Agamemnon, since it centers on his return from the Trojan War—although, in view of the much greater and more powerful role of his waiting wife, it might have been better called Clytemnestra. Choephoroi, the second title, means “people bringing libations” and is derived from the first appearance of the chorus as they bring offerings to pour upon Agamemnon’s tomb. This ritual is unfamiliar to modern audiences, and the English version Libation Bearers has a musty, off-putting ring to it. I have taken the liberty of changing it to a more recognizable equivalent: Women at the Graveside.
It is the title of the third play that poses the greatest problem and has the least meaning for modern ears. Eumenides, which has been given varying translations but is most often rendered by the clumsy locution The Kindly Ones, is also related to the chorus. The term Eumenides became used as a kind of euphemistic cult term for the Erinyes, but this word is never actually used in Aeschylus’ play, not even after their conciliation with Athena and Athens at the end. It is also misleading in that it fails to convey the threatening role of the Erinyes: while they are benevolent in the final scenes, they are still dangerous. So I seriously considered using the foreignizing title Erinyes, but I have ultimately turned to the central event and named the play Orestes at Athens. This recognizes the ordeal of Orestes and brings out Aeschylus’ bold move of transporting the action from Argos to the city where the tragedies were first performed.
This Oresteia has been translated from the Greek without intermediary versions, and compared with some modern versions, it is relatively “close.” There is, however, one passage where the order of the Greek text transmitted to us has been substantially altered, in order to place Athena’s speech founding the court at Athens in Orestes at Athens at the beginning, rather than the end, of the trial scene (see Scene 7, with note on ‘After 573’). Otherwise, there are no significant additions except for those rare places where there is good reason to think that something has dropped out from the original text (such additions are put inside angled brackets: < . . . >). The Greek text has hardly any external stage directions, and so almost all of those have been added, following inferences from the internal indications.
On the other hand, this translation is not totally and utterly complete, and it does not pretend to include every single phrase, nor even every line, that is to be found in the Greek text as transmitted to us. There is a fair scattering of omissions and trimmings; and while many of these cuts are brief phrases, there are also some lines and even longer stretches that are not included (the larger omissions are indicated in the endnotes on pp. 165–170).
There are three main reasons for these editorial prunings. First, the text transmitted to us includes, unfortunately, frequent places where the original has become seriously corrupted. While many of these passages have been edited to arrive at some intelligible meaning, there are also some where, in the interests of producing a fluent version, it has seemed preferable to pass over the problematic glitch. There is a scattering of places where the text is reasonably secure but includes some subject matter which would be obscure for most modern readers, such that additional explanation would be needed. So in some passages here and there throughout the plays, words and phrases have been pruned because the criteria of accessibility and of momentum have been given priority over the inclusion of everything in the Greek. The third reason for omissions is even more subjective. While the expression of the Greek is mostly tight, there are some places, especially in the spoken dialogue scenes, where it strikes modern ears as rather wordy or labored. So some cuts, usually of only a few words, have been made, in the interest of making the script more pacey and direct. These clippings are inevitably a matter of judgment, open to dispute. But ultimately, after all, every word of every translation is, it must be emphasized, a choice, an ordering of priorities.
The text registers line numbers according to the conventional numeration that has been almost universally employed in modern times; this is derived ultimately from early printings of the Greek text. These traditional numbers often, but by no means always, correspond with every tenth line of this translation. Even without the trimming just discussed, it is simply impossible for a fluent verse translation to remain tied to the fixed numeration. When marginal line numbers appear in parentheses, this is usually because the line with that conventional number has for some reason been omitted. Parentheses are also used to indicate the rare occasions where several lines have been transposed from the order in which they come in the manuscripts to a place where they make better sense.
In conclusion, this translation is not prosaically literal, nor is it colloquial and naturalistic. Its language is crafted to be rhythmical and expressive; at times it is idiomatic, at times exotic or with touches of the archaic, as is the poetry of Aeschylus in places. Cumulatively it aspires to flow, to stir up sights and sounds, and to move the reader toward horror and wonder intertwined with questing thoughts.