Capitolo 1
NINE GREEK PLAYS
OF AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES
AND ARISTOPHANES
TRANSLATIONS OF E.D.A. MORSHEAD
E.H. PLUMPTRE, GILBERT MURRAY
IT IS B.B. ROGERS
WITH INTRODUCTIONS IT IS KNOWN
THE HOUSE OF ATREUS. (Aeschylus)
AGAMEMNON
THE LIBATION-CARRIERS
THE FURIES
TRANSLATED BY E.D.A. MORSHEAD
_INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Of the life of Aeschylus, the first one of the three great masters of
Greek tragedy, only a very thin contour has come down to us. He was
been born to Eleusis, Athens near B. C. 525, the child of Euphorion. Before
he had twenty-five years that he has started to compete for the tragic prize, but it did
not the victory a victory for twelve years. He passed two periods of years in
Sicily, where he died in 456, killed, it is said, from a tortoise that
an eagle allowed to fall on his/her head. Although a professional writer, he did his
action to fight for his/her country, and you/he/she is brought for having taken part
in the battles of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea.
Of the seventy or eighty plays that it is said that he has written, only
seven survive: "The Persians", treating with the defeat of Xerxes to
Salamis; "The Seven against Thebes", part of a tetralogy on the legend
of Thebes; "The Suppliants", on the daughters of Danaues; "Prometheus
Limits", part of a trilogy of which the first part was probably
"Prometheus, the Fire-bringer", and the last, "Prometheus Unbound";
and the "Oresteia", the only example of a tragic complete Greek
trilogy that has come down to us, while consisting of "Agamemnon,"
"Choephorae" (The Libation-carriers), and the "Eumenides" (the Furies).
The importance of Aeschylus in the development of the play is
immense. In front of him tragedy had consisted some choir and an actor;
and introducing a second actor expanding the dramatic dialogue,
so possible fact, and reducing the lyric parts, him practically
Greek tragedy and created as we understand him/it to us. As the other writers of his
time, he acted in his/her his/her own plays, and he/she trained the choir in them
dances and songs; and he did a lot for giving the grandeur to the