Produced by Al Haines
The University of Chicago Press
1904
STORY OF ORESTES [Oresteia], A TRILOGY BY Aeschylus
AGAMEMNON
THE SEPULCHRAL RITES [Choephori]
THE GENTLE GODDESSES [Eumenides]
ELECTRA, by Sophocles
ELECTRA, by Euripides
ALCESTIS, by Euripides
THE CYCLOPS, by Euripides
THE BACCHANALS, by Euripides
In the case of Aeschylus and Sophocles the numbering of lines agreeswith that in the translations of Plumptre and in the original. In theplays from Euripides the numbering is that of the lines in the cheaptranslation (Routledge's Universal Library).
[Transcriber's note: In the original book, the line numbers mentionedabove were right-justified. In this e-book, they are enclosed in curlybraces, and placed immediately after their associated line of text,e.g. ". . . a line of text {123}".]
The passages quoted are from Plumptre's Translation
The Sacred Legends touched by this Trilogy would be familiar, inoutline, to the Auditors: e. g.:
The woes of the House of Atreus: the foundation of them laid by Atreuswhen, to take vengeance on his brother Thyestes, he served up to him ata banquet the flesh of his own sons;
His grandsons were Agamemnon and Menelaus: Menelaus' wife, Helen, wasstolen by a guest, Paris of Troy, which caused the great Trojan war.
Agamemnon, who commanded the Greek nations in that war, fretting at thecontrary winds which delayed the setting out of the fleet, waspersuaded by the Seers to slay his own daughter Iphigenia, to appeasethe Deities;
Her mother Clytaemnestra treasured up this wrong all through the tenyears' war, and slew Agamemnon on his return, in the moment of victory,slew him while in his bath by casting a net over him and smiting