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INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Of the life of Aeschylus, the first
of the three great masters of Greek tragedy, only a very meager
outline has come down to us. He was born at Eleusis, near Athens, B.
C. 525, the son of Euphorion. Before he was twenty-five he began to
compete for the tragic prize, but did not win a victory for twelve
years. He spent two periods of years in Sicily, where he died in 456,
killed, it is said, by a tortoise which an eagle dropped on his head.
Though a professional writer, he did his share of fighting for his
country, and is reported to have taken part in the battles of
Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.
Of the seventy or eighty plays which
he is said to have written, only seven survive: "The Persians,"
dealing with the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis; "The Seven against
Thebes," part of a tetralogy on the legend of Thebes; "The
Suppliants," on the daughters of Danaüs; "Prometheus
Bound," 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
complete Greek tragic trilogy which has come down to us, consisting
of "Agamemnon," "Choephorae" (The
Libation-Bearers), and the "Eumenides" (Furies).
The importance of Aeschylus in the
development of the drama is immense. Before him tragedy had consisted
of the chorus and one actor; and by introducing a second actor,
expanding the dramatic dialogue thus made possible, and reducing the
lyrical parts, he practically created Greek tragedy as we understand
it. Like other writers of his time, he acted in his own plays, and
trained the chorus in their dances and songs; and he did much to give
impressiveness to the performances by his development of the
accessories of scene and costume on the stage. Of the four plays here
reproduced, "Prometheus Bound" holds an exceptional place
in the literature of the world. (As conceived by Aeschylus,
Prometheus is the champion of man against the oppression of Zeus; and
the argument of the drama has a certain correspondence to the problem
of the Book of Job.) The Oresteian trilogy on "The House of
Atreus" is one of the supreme productions of all literature. It
deals with the two great themes of the retribution of crime and the
inheritance of evil; and here again a parallel may be found between
the assertions of the justice of God by Aeschylus and by the Hebrew
prophet Ezekiel. Both contend against the popular idea that the
fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on
edge; both maintain that the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The
nobility of thought and the majesty of style with which these ideas
are set forth give this triple drama its place at the head of the
literary masterpieces of the antique world.
THE HOUSE OF ATREUS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
A WATCHMAN A HERALD CHORUS AGAMEMNON
AEGISTHUS CLYTEMNESTRA CASSANDRA
The Scene is the Palace of Atreus at
Mycenae. In front of the Palace stand statues of the gods, and altars
prepared for sacrifices.
A Watchman
I pray the gods to quit me of my
toils,To close the watch I keep, this livelong year;For as a
watch-dog lying, not at rest,Propped on one arm, upon the
palace-roofOf Atreus' race, too long, too well I knowThe
starry conclave of the midnight sky,