The Oresteia

Again, I compared many different Orestia's and fell in love with this one on Hackett by Meineick. It reads beautifully and easily and the drama and intensity is unmatched. You also get a believable sense of the characters, and the setting in this one. It is in my opinion the best modern version that can be most easily performable with no archai-sisms in the language. I always go with Hackett now that I've found some really excellent translations! Highly recommended.

No, the translation is not literal. If you want a literal translation, buy something written by a professor of Greek. Hughes has a different goal. He¡¦s a poet who wants to interpret this ancient literature into an idiom that modern audiences can understand and appreciate. I wouldn¡¦t even call this a translation. Let¡¦s call it an interpretation and skip over the problem of accuracy. That being said, his interpretation is extremely good. The free verse is both powerful and extremely readable. By putting these stories into a more familiar medium, Hughes recaptures the horror of these plays. By modern standards, the latter plays (Choephori and Eumenides) aren¡¦t very dramatic. The main point is to watch the cycle of revenge play out to a conclusion. But the first play in the trilogy (Agamemnon) is close enough to modern taste to have a huge impact. I was very moved.

As a professor teaching classics in Regents College Master of Liberal Studies Program, I am always looking for translations that will entrance my students and give them that sensation of the marvelous that many of them can find only in videos and MTV. Hughes' translation of "The Oresteia" is a perfect choice. Sure, there may be in some passages a lot more of Hughes than of Aeschylus, but if that's what it takes to reincarnate those ancient and bloody tragic figures, it's a price well worth paying. After reading this book, I think my students will see "The Sopranos" as just another soap opera.