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    The Suppliant Maidens: "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times"
    The Suppliant Maidens: "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times"
    The Suppliant Maidens: "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times"
    Ebook77 pages43 minutes

    The Suppliant Maidens: "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times"

    By Æschylus .

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    About this ebook

    Æschylus is often regarded as the father of Greek tragedy; he moved play writing from the simple interaction of a single character and a chorus to one where many characters interact and thereby create more dynamic and dramatic situations. Æschylus, was the son of Euphorion, and a scion of a Eupatrid or noble family. He was born at Eleusis 525 B.C., or, as the Greeks calculated time, in the fourth year of the 63rd Olympiad. He first worked at a vineyard and whilst there claimed to have been visited by Dionysis in a dream and told to turn his attention to the tragic art. It was a dream that would deliver a rich and incredible legacy through his writing talents. His earliest tragedy, composed when he was twenty-six years of age, failed to win the fabled Dionysia, (a revered festival of theatre) and it was not until fifteen years later that he gained this victory in 484BC going on to win it again in 472 BC (for The Persians), 467 BC (for Seven Against Thebes) and 463 BC (for The Suppliants). Æschylus was also known for his military skills and was ready to fight in defence of Athens whenever the call was made. He and his brother, Cynegeirus, fought against Darius's invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE and, although the Greeks won against overwhelming odds, Cynegeirus died in the battle, which had a naturally had a profound effect on Æschylus. He made several visits to the important Greek city of Syracuse in Sicily at the invitation of the tyrant Hieron, and it is thought that he also travelled extensively in the region of Thrace. His writing continued to be the envy of others. With the series of plays of which Seven Against Thebes was a part, his supremacy was undisputed. He was the "father of tragedy." Æschylus made many changes to dramatic form. The importance of the chorus was demoted and a second added to give prominence to the dialogue and making that interchange the leading feature of the play. He removed all deeds of bloodshed from the public view, and in their place provided various spectacular elements, improving the costumes, making the masks more expressive and convenient, and probably adopting the cothurnus to increase the stature of the performers. Finally, he established the custom of contending for the prize with trilogies, an inter-connecting set of three independent dramas. The closing years of the life of Æschylus were mainly spent in Sicily, which he had first visited soon after his defeat at the Dionysia by Sophocles. Æschylus returned to Athens to produce his Orestean trilogy, probably the finest of his works, although the Eumenides, the last of the three plays, revealed so openly his aristocratic tendencies that he became extremely unpopular, and returned to Sicily for the last time in 458 BCE and it was there that he died, while visiting the city of Gela in 456 or 455 BCE.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribe Publishing
    Release dateMar 4, 2017
    ISBN9781787371453
    The Suppliant Maidens: "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times"

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    Reviews for The Suppliant Maidens

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      I rate this work as high as I do only for its classic interest; it is hard to view it as compelling drama in the modern world. Though award winning in its own time, theatre has moved on and left this sort of writing long behind, with all action happening offstage and delivered to the audience as long expository speeches by an annoying chorus that is by turns whiny, pompous, and groveling. It is always interesting to see the historical background of a field you are involved in, but this is not what I would classify among the best of classical drama. It doesn't hold a candle to the Oedipus Cycle, or even the author's own Oresteia. It also suffers in that these are mainly fragments of plays, or parts of trilogies or tetrads that are the only remaining parts of the work, so they feel unfinished, or like they start in the middle, which does them no benefit. Overall, recommended for people interested in historical theatre, or in the period in general, but for people wanting compelling drama, probably should look somewhere else.
    • 5/5
      Hard to understand but naturally since they were written in about 500 BC. Most plays are historical reflecting events during those times . Excellent plays opening windows to the ancient times. Great source if one wants to know more about Greek Gods and their legends
    • 5/5
      Some have compared Prometheus to Jesus Christ. Certainly the opening scene of Aeschylus's play, with Prometheus splayed upon a rock as he is bound by Hephaestus, invites the comparison. I would not go so far and see the interplay between the Greek gods to be the relevant context for this scene. Played out at the "world's limit" in a bleak setting the drama portrays Prometheus suffering punishment for making humans "intelligent and masters of their minds". (line 444)Prometheus' crime is not the only reason for his punishment for the chorus tells us that there is a war going on between the "Old" gods (Olympians) and the new generation of Gods. Zeus is seeking to maintain his primacy while Prometheus and his brothers are the dangerous new gods on the block. Atlas is suffering as well carrying the weight of the whole world on his back. The scales are not even - their is nothing like fairness or justice in this world. Prometheus is doomed even as he is visited by Io who is also suffering due to Hera's jealous rage over Zeus's attentions. Being a god does not seem to lead to a completely pleasant life - there is strife and anger at every turn even for the most powerful. The winners in this play seem to be humans who do not have to relinquish the gifts endowed them by Prometheus. However, even these can be seen as a two-edged sword for our ancestors who had to endure hardships of many kinds in the struggle of living in the world. Prometheus cries out "O sky that circling brings light to all, you see how unjustly I suffer!" (lines 1091-2) Could that be our own cry even today?

    Book preview

    The Suppliant Maidens - Æschylus .

    The Suppliant Maidens by Æschylus

    Æschylus is often regarded as the father of Greek tragedy; he moved play writing from the simple interaction of a single character and a chorus to one where many characters interact and thereby create more dynamic and dramatic situations.

    Æschylus, was the son of Euphorion, and a scion of a Eupatrid or noble family. He was born at Eleusis 525 B.C., or, as the Greeks calculated time, in the fourth year of the 63rd Olympiad.

    He first worked at a vineyard and whilst there claimed to have been visited by Dionysis in a dream and told to turn his attention to the tragic art.

    It was a dream that would deliver a rich and incredible legacy through his writing talents. His earliest tragedy, composed when he was twenty-six years of age, failed to win the fabled Dionysia, (a revered festival of theatre) and it was not until fifteen years later that he gained this victory in 484BC going on to win it again in 472 BC (for The Persians), 467 BC (for Seven Against Thebes) and 463 BC (for The Suppliants)

    Æschylus was also known for his military skills and was ready to fight in defence of Athens whenever the call was made. He and his brother, Cynegeirus, fought against Darius's invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE and, although the Greeks won against overwhelming odds, Cynegeirus died in the battle, which had a naturally had a profound effect on Æschylus.

    He made several visits to the important Greek city of Syracuse in Sicily at the invitation of the tyrant Hieron, and it is thought that he also travelled extensively in the region of Thrace.

    His writing continued to be the envy of others. With the series of plays of which Seven Against Thebes was a part, his supremacy was undisputed. He was the father of tragedy.

    Æschylus made many changes to dramatic form. The importance of the chorus was demoted and a second added to give prominence to the dialogue and making that interchange the leading feature of the play. He removed all deeds of bloodshed from the public view, and in their place provided various spectacular elements, improving the costumes, making the masks more expressive and convenient, and probably adopting the cothurnus to increase the stature of the performers. Finally, he established the custom of contending for the prize with trilogies, an inter-connecting set of three independent dramas.

    The closing years of the life of Æschylus were mainly spent in Sicily, which he had first visited soon after his defeat at the Dionysia by Sophocles.

    Æschylus returned to Athens to produce his Orestean trilogy, probably the finest of his works, although the Eumenides, the last of the three plays, revealed so openly his aristocratic tendencies that he became extremely unpopular, and returned to Sicily for the last time in 458 BCE and it was there that he died, while visiting the city of Gela in 456 or 455 BCE.

    Index of Contents

    Introduction

    THE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS

    Footnotes

    Æschylus – A Short Biography

    Æschylus – A Concise bibliography

    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

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