The Oresteia of Aeschylus A New Translation by Ted Hughes

by Hughes, Ted

• ISBN13: 9780374527051
• ISBN10: 0374527059
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-09-04
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

In the last year of his life, Ted Hughes completed translations of three major dramatic works: Racine'sPhedre, Euripedes'Alcestis, and the trilogy of plays known as atTheOresteia, a family story of astonishing power and the background or inspiration for much subsequent drama, fiction, and poetry. The Oresteia--Agamemnon, Choephori, and the Eumenides--tell the story of the house of Atreus: After King Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, their son, Orestes, is commanded by Apollo to avenge the crime by killing his mother, and he returns from exile to do so, bringing on himself the wrath of the Furies and the judgment of the court of Athens. Hughes's "acting version" of the trilogy is faithful to its nature as a dramatic work, and his translation is itself a great performance; while artfully inflected with the contemporary, it has a classical beauty and authority. Hughes'sOresteiais quickly becoming the standard edition for English-language readers and for the stage, too. The British poet, translator, author, and criticTed Hughes, born in 1930, wrote more than forty books, including, in the last decade of his life,Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being;Tales from Ovid; verse adaptations of Aeschylus'sOresteia, Racine'sPhegrave;dre, and Euripedes'Alcestis; and the bestsellingBirthday Letters. Hughes served as Poet Laureate to Queen Elizabeth II from 1984 until his death in 1998. In the last year of his life, celebrated poet, critic, and translator Ted Hughes completed translations of three major dramatic works: Racine's Phedre, Euripedes'Alcestis, and the trilogy of plays known asTheOresteia. The OresteiaAgamemnon, Choephori, andThe Eumenidesdepicts the downfall of the house of Atreus: after King Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, their son, Orestes, is commanded by Apollo to avenge the crime by killing his mother, and he he does so, bringing on himself the wrath of the Furies and the judgment of the court of Athens. Commissioned by the Royal National Theater, Hughes's "acting version" of the trilogy is itself a great performance, capturing the classical grace and authority of Greek drama at its greatest while also exhibiting an artful and contemporary agility. ThisOresteiais quickly becoming the standard edition for English-language students, scholars, and other readers. "Hughes's rendering of this appalling story has the hurtling momentum one assumes the playwright's original Greek had for his Athenian audience . . . To release the play's staggering power Hughes has transformed some thoughtful scholarly commentary into raw horror and agonizing ethical dilemma . . . Ferociously physical . . . like the best of Hughes's own poems"Ron Smith,Richmond Times-Dispatch "Hughes's rendering of this appalling story has the hurtling momentum one assumes the playwright's original Greek had for his Athenian audience . . . To release the play's staggering power Hughes has transformed some thoughtful scholarly commentary into raw horror and agonizing ethical dilemma . . . Ferociously physical . . . like the best of Hughes's own poems"Ron Smith,Richmond Times-Dispatch "Evinces Hughes's wide range of interests and mastery of classic literatures. His nearly conversational rhythms produce an arresting mixture of colloquialism and formality, enlivened by strong imagery (as in the matricidal Orestes' declaration that 'This house has been the goblet / That the demon of homicide, unquenchable, / Has loved to drain') . . . An essential further installment in the always interesting oeuvre of a gifted poet who was also a diligent scholar."Kirkus Reviews "

Author Biography

Among Ted Hughes's translations are The Oresteia of Aeschylus, Racine's Phedre, and Tales from Ovid. His last book of poems, Birthday Letters, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize. He was Poet Laureate to Queen Elizabeth II and lived in Devon, England until he died in 1998.

Table of Contents

Agamemnon	3	(86)
Choephori	89	(60)
The Eumenides	149

Excerpts

Chapter One

(Outside the royal palace at Argos.)

WATCHMAN

You Gods in heaven--

You have watched me here on this tower

All night, every night for twelve months,

Thirteen moons--

Tethered on the roof of this palace

Like a dog.

It is time to release me.

I've stared long enough into this darkness

For what never emerges.

I'm tired of the constellations--

That glittering parade of lofty rulers

Night after night a little bit earlier

Withholding the thing I wait for--

Slow as torture.

And the moon, coming and going--

Wearisome, like watching the sea

From a deathbed. Like watching the tide

In its prison yard, with its two turns

In out in out.

I'm sick of the heavens, sick of the darkness.

The one light I wait for never comes.

Maybe it never will come--

A beacon-flare that leaps from peak to peak

Bringing the news from Troy--

`Victory! After ten years, Victory!'

The one word that Clytemnestra prays for.

Queen Clytemnestra -- who wears

A man's heart in a woman's body,

A man's dreadful will in the scabbard of her body

Like a polished blade. A hidden blade.

Clytemnestra reigns over fear.

I get up sodden with dew.

I walk about, to shift my aches.

I lie down -- the aches harden worse.

No dreams. No sleep. Only fear--

Fear like a solid lump of indigestion

Here, high in my belly -- a seething.

Singing's good for fear

But when I try to sing -- weeping comes.

I weep. There's no keeping it down.

Everything's changed in this palace.

The old days,

The rightful King, order, safety, splendour,

A splendour that lifted the heart--

All gone.

You Gods,

Release me.

Let that flame come leaping out of the East

To release me.

Where did that light come from? In pitch darkness

That point -- that's new.

Down there, near what must be the skyline,

In the right place! It just appeared!

A flickering point. And getting bigger. A fire!

The beacon!

Tell the Queen--

It's the beacon.

It's flaring up! It's shaking its horns.

Troy has fallen.

The King is coming home.

Agamemnon is coming. Troy has fallen!

Now the Queen can rejoice

And I'll be the first to dance -- Troy has fallen.

The gods have blessed our master.

They've blessed me too.

They've made me the bearer of the news.

Only let them bring the King home safely.

Let me prostrate myself at his feet

And then -- what follows,

Better not think about it.

Only the foundations of this house

Can tell that story. Yes,

The tongue that could find

The words for what follows -- that tongue

Would have to lift this house's foundations.

Those who know too much, as I do, about this house,

Let their tongue lie still -- squashed flat.

Under the foundations.

(Cry of triumph from Clytemnestra inside palace. She

enters: casts incense on altars, etc. Enter Elders of Argos:

the Chorus. Dawn.)

CHORUS

Ten years ago

The sons of Atreus,

Menelaus and Agamemnon,

Both divine Kings,

Assembled a thousand ships

Crammed with the youth of Hellas

And sailed across the sea to punish Priam.

Two brothers, ravenous for war,

Their hunger for war

Went up

Like the screaming

Of eagles, two eagles in agony

Over a crag

Where their nest has been robbed-

Beating the air

With broad oars,

Climbing the currents

They bewail, in helpless fury,

Their lost labours.

Their brood gone,

They lament

Their vigilance that failed.

Anguish tears their throats.

They scream it in heaven -- and in heaven

Some god hears it--

Zeus or Pan

Or Apollo hears

And pities it,

And sends a remorseless fury

To hunt the culprit down

And pluck the guilt from his bowels.

So now Zeus -- protector

Of the sacred trust

Between the guest and the host--

Sends the two sons of Atreus

To rip the boasting tongue

From between the lips of Paris

And Helen from his bed.

Greece and Troy with bellowing effort

Lock their limbs

In that accursed marriage, and labour

At the killing.

Spear-shafts splinter

In twisting bodies,

Strong men kneel

In their own blood

Under weights of darkness

And what is happening

Cannot be otherwise.

Cannot not happen.

Fate holds every man

Of these two embattled armies

By the scruff of the neck

And jams his face, helpless,

Into what has to happen.

Priam pours libations

To lubricate the favour of the heavens

In vain.

He burns perfumed offerings on altars

To soften their pity

In vain.

The gods above and the gods below

Ignore him.

No bribes,

Nothing that passes under the roof of a temple

Or under the roof of the mouth,

Can appease heaven's anger

Or deflect its aim.

We were too old.

Second childhood

Propped on sticks

Kept us out of the battle.

We stayed here

On the scrap heap

Playing with our dreams,

The playthings of dreams.

(Chorus sees Clytemnestra.)

Queen Clytemnestra,

What has happened?

What have you heard?

Why have you called for a sacrifice

Throughout Argos--

Every altar

Of every god

Is ablaze--

From the kitchen-shrines of hearth-goblins

To the high temple of Zeus, god of the summits.

Fortunes in rich oil

Go up in smoke

Smudging the dawn.

Cherished beasts

Drop to their knees

In a flood of blood.

What has happened?

What is happening?

Are we right

To smell hope

In all this?

Or has a worse fear come? Tell us.

Do all these fiery tongues,

These forked and horned offerings,

Declare good news or the opposite? Tell us.

Do they consume the evil of the past

And the dread of what is to come--

All these fears that sicken us--

Or do they thicken the air with something worse?

I am the man to tell this tale.

Old age

Takes away everything

Except a few words the gods have tested,

For the eye

That opens towards the grave

Sees the core of things and is prophetic.

As our two Kings set out,

As their floating forest of spears

Lifted anchor,

Two birds,

Hook-beaked, big-winged birds,

A black bird and a white bird,

Sailed over

On the right -- on the right!

Good fortune!

The whole army cheered the good omen--

Victory!

Then those two birds,

The black bird and the white bird,

Flushed and drove and killed

A hare heavy with her twins.

The whole army

Saw them kill the pregnant hare. They saw

The black bird and the white bird

That had brought them promise of victory

Rip the mother's womb and drag from it

The living unborn tenants--

The whole army watched from start to finish

That murder of the unborn.

If evil is in this wind, let it blow over ...

(Continues...)

Copyright © 1999 The Estate of Ted Hughes. All rights reserved.