The Oresteia of Aeschylus (1900) PDF book translated by George Charles Winter

The Oresteia of Aeschylus (1900) PDF book translated by George Charles Winter

The Oresteia of Aeschylus (1900)

Content of the book:

Introductory essays.- I. The rise of Greek tragedy.- II. The Orestean trilogy.- Translation - Agamemnon, Choephoroe, Eumenides

Excerpt from the translator :

Considering the obvious advantages offered by the combination of translation with commentary, it is strange that the field of Greek and Roman literature has been so far neglected in this respect that the classics the basis of literary education in our schools and colleges are still, so to speak, sealed books for all but students of Greek and Latin. 

By those who do not possess the key to the originals they are read, if at all, with little real appreciation, while it is to be feared that the majority even of those who have acquired the key at much expense of time and labour make hardly any subsequent use of it. 

The difficulty seems to be met most simply and directly, not only for the ' English reader,' but for the more or less instructed student, by thoroughly annotated translations, giving to the latter the means of widening the area of his early reading and following it up in the afterlife, so as to make the ancient literature a permanent possession. Translations on these lines from the Greek have the further recommendation that they go far to fill the gap and bring continuity into the classical work of the ' modern side,' which is restricted to Latin.

Oresteia, a trilogy of tragic dramas by the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus, first performed in 458 BCE. ... The Oresteia tells the story of the house of Atreus. The first play, Agamemnon, portrays the victorious return of that king from the Trojan War and his murder by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover Aegisthus.

The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation. Oresteia originally included a satyr play, Proteus (Πρωτεύς), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of Proteus has been lost.

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