Reviews

This was pretty good. It’s interesting reading the like “original” versions of these stories after having read the modern retellings bc I like go back and forth on who I side with. But very good i enjoyed!!

bkoser's review against another edition

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5.0

The only surviving trilogy of ancient Greek plays. The main players are the king and queen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, and their son, the eponymous Orestes. In "Agamemnon", Agamemnon returns from the Trojan Wars (the subject of the Iliad) and is killed by his wife. In "The Libation Bearers", Orestes comes home and kills his mother to revenge his father. In "The Eumenides", the Furies put Orestes on trial for matricide.

These stories are short since they're plays. I did read the commentary and some of the footnotes which were interesting background but not essential (unlike e.g. Dante's Inferno, where footnotes are a must for a first-time reader).

Not as enjoyable as The Iliad and The Odyssey, but an interesting comparison. There's less action, less travel, more moralizing, more character development. I'm guessing these differences are mostly because these are plays rather than just written or oral stories.

Recommended if: you read The Iliad and The Odyssey and want to read more Greek classics (with the awareness that these are a different style).

Fagles translation

anna_kristina_nord's review against another edition

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5.0

Hauntingly beautiful

maryehavens's review against another edition

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1.0

Tried listening to this on Librivox but The Chorus in the first part sounded like Greedo from Star Wars. Not only could I not hear it, what I could hear I couldn't understand.
Maybe I'll read this some day.

nlwisz's review against another edition

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5.0

Yikes, these families were completely ruthless! If you’ve read any Greek tragedies at all, you know you are in for plenty of violence, revenge, and power trips (pretty boilerplate stuff for mythology). Nevertheless, this was very well done. King Agamemnon has sacrificed his daughter in exchange for some good weather. He returns home following the Trojan War, only to be slain by his wife Clytemnestra. (I have to say, it was kind of funny when Clytemnestra gives this long monologue upon his return home about how the distance was so hard on her, and he basically tells her to shut up.) Anyway, the Queen kills him, and then (years later, in part 2 of the trilogy) their son Orestes travels to Argos to exact vengeance. He kills his mom (and her new boyfriend) because she killed Agamemnon. Sheesh. Lots of eye-for-an-eye going on. Orestes says that he was basically forced into it though, because Apollo (the prophecy god) told him to do it. But now, the Furies (a young trio of female gods) are ticked off at Orestes for committing matricide and they terrorize him. The trilogy comes to a close with a hung-jury trial (well really, it ends with the establishment of an organized litigation system, as Orestes’ case has been the guinea pig for this new system). Athena casts the tiebreaking vote and determines that Orestes will be spared; she also decrees that Athens need to start settling matters in court rather than personal vendettas/taking revenge into their own hands. The overarching themes focus on justice, the balance of power (as seen amongst mortals, gods, and males/females), and a need for intergenerational respect (as seen in both the family dynamic and the disagreements amongst the ‘old’ and ‘new’ gods).

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