Five Great Greek Tragedies
DOVER · THRIFT · EDITIONS
Five Great Greek Tragedies
SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES
and
AESCHYLUS
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Mineola, New York
DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS
GENERAL EDITOR: PAUL NEGRI
Performance
This Dover Thrift Edition may be used in its entirety, in adaptation or in any other way for theatrical productions, professional and amateur, in the United States, without fee, permission, or acknowledgement. (This may not apply outside of the United States, as copyright conditions may vary.)
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 2004, is a new collection of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. A new introductory Note has been prepared for this edition.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Five great Greek tragedies / Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus.
p. cm. — (Dover thrift editions)
Contents: Prometheus bound /Aeschylus — Oedipus rex / Sophocles — Electra/ Sophocles — Medea / Euripides — Bacchae / Euripides.
eISBN-13: 978-0-486-11388-3
1. Greek drama (Tragedy) — Translations into English. 2. Mythology, Greek — Drama. I. Sophocles. II. Euripides. III. Aeschylus. IV. Series.
PA3626.A2 2004
882’0108 — dc22
2004041436
Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
43620903
www.doverpublications.com
Note
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the most important playwrights in fifth-century Greece, can be said to have “invented” Greek tragedy as we know it today.
Greek drama at the time of Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) was derived from choral song and dance. Beside the chorus, only one actor appeared in a given scene. Aeschylus’ great contribution was to add a second actor, thereby vastly increasing the dramatic possibilities. Prometheus Bound, believed to be one of his last plays, was written as the first play in a trilogy; unfortunately, the other two plays were lost.
Sophocles (born ca. 496 B.C., died after 413) wrote 123 plays, only seven of which survive. The violence of his plays rises out of intense emotional agony, and signifies nothing less than the psychological rebirth of the hero
The youngest of the three, Euripides (ca. 485 B.C. to ca. 406 B.C.) is represented by the largest number of extant plays (nineteen, as compared with seven each for Aeschylus and Sophocles). He is, in the opinion of many scholars, the cruelest of the three in his view of the indifference or vindictive-ness of the gods.
Sources of the Text
Prometheus Bound is an unabridged republication of the English translation by George Thomson, M. A., as it appeared in Aeschylus, The Prometheus Bound, edited by George Thomson, first published by the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1932.
Electra is an unabridged republication of the play Electra and Oedipus Rex is an unabridged republication of the play Oedipus Tryrannus, both from the volume The Dramas of Sophocles Rendered in English Verse Dramatic & Lyric by Sir George Young, as published by J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, in 1906. (The Dent edition was the second, the first having been published by George Bell & Sons, London, in 1888). In this edition, Sir Geoge’s own notes (exclusively concerned with problems of the Greek text and its interpretation) have been omitted, and several new, very brief footnotes have been added.
Medea is an unabridged republication of the translation by Rex Warner originally published by John Lane, The Bodley Head Limited, London, in 1944. Explanatory footnotes have been added.
Bacchae is an unabridged, unaltered republication of the work translated by Henry Hart Milman as The Bacchanals, in The Plays of Euripedes, volume two, originally published in 1908 by J. M. Dent, London, as part of Everyman’s Library. (Milman’s translation was first published in 1865.)
Contents
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex
Electa
EURIPEDES
Medea
Bacchae
Prometheus Bound
AESCHYLUS
Characters
Prometheus, a Titan.
Io
Hermes, messenger of Zeus.
Hephaestus, god of fire.
Oceanus, god of the ocean.
Might
Violence
Chorus of Oceanids (daughters of Oceanus).
Prometheus Bound
(Enter PROMETHEUS, escorted by MIGHT and VIOLENCE, and accompanied by HEPHAESTUS, who carries the implements of his craft)
MIGHT
To Earth’s far-distant confines we are come,
The tract of Scythia, waste untrod by man.
And now, Hephaestus, thou must mind the task
Ordained thee by the Father — to enchain
This malefactor on yon mountain crags
In indissoluble bands of adamant.
Thy flower, fount of the arts, the light of fire,
He stole and gave to mortals. Such the sin
For which he must make recompense to heaven,
And so be taught to accept the tyranny
Of Zeus, and check his charity to man.
HEPHAESTUS
O Might, and Violence, for you the word
Of Zeus hath been fulfilled — your part is done.
But I have not the heart by force to bind
A god, my kinsman, in this wintry glen.
And yet I must brazen myself to do it;
For grave it is to scant the Father’s word.
True-counselling Themis’ lofty-ambitioned Son,
Not by my will, nor thine, shall rigorous bonds
Imprison thee in this unpeopled waste,
Where neither mortal form shall greet thine eye
Nor voice thine ear, but, parched in the sun’s pure flame,
Thy beauty’s bloom shall perish. Welcome to thee
Shall starry-kirtled Night enshroud the day,
Welcome the sun dispel the frosts of dawn;
And the anguish of thy state shall gnaw thy heart
For ever —unborn is thy deliverer.
Such thy reward for charity to man:
A god, thou didst defy the wrath of gods,
On men their powers bestowing unrighteously.
So on this cheerless rock must thou stand guard,
Upright, unsleeping, unbending the knee,
And with many a groan of unavailing grief
Cry out. Implacable is the heart of Zeus,
And harsh is every king whose power is new.
MIGHT
Enough: why this delay? why waste your pity?
Do you not hate the god all gods abhor,
Betrayer of your privilege to man?
HEPHAESTUS
The tie of kin and comradeship is strange.
MIGHT
True, but is’t possible to disregard
The Father’s word? do you not revere that more?
HEPHAESTUS
Ah, you were ever pitiless and proud!
MIGHT
To grieve for him cures nothing; so do you
Labour no more where labour is in vain.
HEPHAESTUS
O most abhorrent handicraft of mine!
MIGHT
Why do you hate it? In plain truth, your art
Is guiltless of the work that’s now to do.
HEPHAESTUS
Yet would that it had fallen to another!
MIGHT
All things are troublesome, save to rule the gods:
Liberty is the privilege of Zeus.
HEPHAESTUS(pointing to chains)
These teach me that, and I can make no answer.
MIGHT
No more delay then —in these chains bind him,
For fear the Father see your faltering.
HEPHAESTUS
Here are the curb-chains, ready to my hand.
MIGHT
Then manacle his hands with all your might,
Uplift the hammer, strike, and nail him down!
HEPHAESTUS
See, ’tis not vain, the work proceeds apace.
MIGHT
Strike harder, pin him, leave no fetter loose.
His wit can circumvent the closest strait.
HEPHAESTUS
That arm is fixed, fastened inextricably.
MIGHT
And now encase the other, that he may learn,
For all his craft, he is no match for Zeus.
HEPHAESTUS
Of none, save him, have I deserved reproach.
MIGHT
Now drive this stubborn adamantine edge
Deep through his breast and nail it firmly down.
HEPHAESTUS
Aiai, Prometheus! — for thy pains I groan.
MIGHT
Once more you falter, weeping for the foes
Of Zeus. Beware lest you should need your pity.
HEPHAESTUS
The spectacle thou seest doth wound the eye.
MIGHT
A knave I see repaid with his deserts.
Come, cast this iron girth about his ribs.
HEPHAESTUS
It must be done, you need not shout me on.
MIGHT
And yet I will shout —ay, I will hound you on.
Step down. Enclose his ankles in these rings.
HEPHAESTUS
See, without length of labour, it is done.
MIGHT
Now thrust these penetrating spancels home,
For hard it is to please our taskmaster.
HEPHAESTUS
How like your looks the utterance of your tongue!
MIGHT
Be soft yourself, so please you, but do not chide
My stubborn spirit and temperament severe.
HEPHAESTUS
His feet are netted. Let us go our ways.
(Exit)
MIGHT
Here now wax proud and plunder powers divine —
Thy gifts to creatures of a day! How can
Mortals relieve thee in thy present state?
Falsely we named thee the Foresighted One,
Prometheus — thine the need of foresight now,
How from this art to extricate thyself!
(Exeunt MIGHT and VIOLENCE)
PROMETHEUS
O divine Sky, and swiftly-winging Breezes,
O River-springs, and multitudinous gleam
Of smiling Ocean — to thee, All-Mother Earth,
And to the Sun’s all-seeing orb I cry:
See what I suffer from the gods, a god!
Witness how with anguish broken
Through ages of time without number
I shall labour in agony. Such are the bonds
That the new-throned Lord of the Blest hath designed
For my shame and dishonour.
Pheu, pheu! for the pain that is now and to come
I groan, and I cry, where is the destined
Term of my trial and my travail?
And yet what say I? All things I foreknow
That are to be: no unforeseen distress
Shall visit me, and I must bear the will
Of Fate as lightly as I may, and learn
The invincible strength of Necessity.
Yet of my present state I cannot speak,
Cannot be silent. The gifts I gave to man
Have harnessed me beneath this harsh duress.
I hunted down the stealthy fount of fire
In fennel stored, which schooled the race of men
In every art and taught them great resource.
Such the transgression which I expiate,
A helpless captive, shackled, shelterless!
Ah ah, ea ea!
What echo, what fragrance unseen wingeth nigh me?
Is it divine or mortal, or of mingled blood?
Visiting this desolate edge of earth,
Spectator of my agony — with what purpose else?
Behold in chains confined an ill-starred god,
The detested of Zeus and rejected of all
The celestial band that assembleth aloft
In the heavenly courts of the Highest,
For my too great love of the children of men!
Pheu, pheu! what again is the murmur I hear
As of birds hard by?
And the air is astir with the whispering beat
Of their hurrying wings.
Oh, fearful is all that approacheth.
CHORUS of OCEANIDS (Strophe 1)
O be not fearful —as a friend in flight contending to this rock my airy voyage have I winged.
Eager for this adventure, my father’s leave hardly I won.
Swiftly I rode on the flying breezes.
I heard afar off the reverberating echoes in my hollow cave, and unflushed with the shame of maidens
I sped on my chariot-steed unsandalled.
PROMETHEUS
Aiai, aiai!
Daughters of Tethys, the bride many-childed of
Oceanus, who with unslumbering tides
Doth encompass the earth,
Bear witness, behold how cruelly bound
And enchained in a wild and precipitous glen
I shall keep my disconsolate vigil!
CHORUS(Antistrophe 1)
I see, Prometheus, and a mist of grief descendeth on my vision, tears are springing to my eyes
Thus to behold thy beauty by day and night blasted in these
Adamant shackles of shame and torment.
For new the rulers who are throned above in heaven, and the laws of Zeus are new, framed for a harsh dominion.
The mighty of old he hath brought to nothing.
PROMETHEUS
O would in the boundless abyss of the earth,
Bottomless Tartarus,
Where Hades doth welcome the souls of the dead,
In invincible bondage my body were crushed,
That nor god nor another might mock my estate!
But here I am hung as a plaything of storms
And a mark for my enemies’ laughter!
CHORUS(Strophe 2)
What god is he so hard of heart that such a spectacle could delight?
Who doth not share thy sufferings, save Zeus? For in his spirit is no pity. Inflexibly
Fixed on vengeance, still his wrath smiteth the Sons of the Sky; ay, and shall not soften
Till his heart have its fill of revenge, or a mightier
Hand from him plunder his stolen kingdom.
PROMETHEUS
Yet of me, yet of me, though battered, and bent,
Limb-pierced by his shackles of insolent wrong,
Shall the prince who presideth in heaven have need,
To reveal him the new-found plan whereby
Of his sceptre and sway he shall be stripped bare.
And then I, unappeased by his charms honey-tongued
And unmoved by his merciless threats, will withhold
From him all that I know, till he grant me release
From the bonds that encompass my limbs and atone
For the shameful disgrace that I suffer.
CHORUS (Antistrophe 2)
Nay, thou art bold and dost not bow before thy keen adversities,
And too unbridled is thy tongue. I tremble, and my spirit is a-quiver with a piercing fear,
With terror for thy future state, when is it fated for thee rest from these thy labours
To behold? Unapproachable, hard to appease is the
Heart in the breast of the Son of Cronos.
PROMETHEUS
Full well do I know he is harsh and a law
To himself, but in time, notwithstanding, I ween,
Crushed by this danger, his heart shall be humbled,
And, becalming his irreconcilable rage,
He shall hasten to union and friendship with me
Eagerly, eagerly waited.
CHORUS
All things unveil, make manifest to us
Upon what pretext seizing thee doth Zeus
Outrage thee with such agony and shame?
Teach us, unless to speak should bring thee harm.
PROMETHEUS
Painful it is for me to speak of this,
Painful is silence — ’tis misery every way.
As soon as war among the gods began
And strife internal broke the peace of heaven,
Some eager to cast Cronos from his throne
That Zeus might reign, and others contrary
Intent that Zeus should never rule the gods,
Then I, though wise the counsel that I pressed
Upon the Titans, Sons of Heaven and Earth,
Could win no hearing. All my cunning wiles
Counting as nought, in arrogance of heart
They hoped by force for easy mastery.
But often I had heard my mother, Earth
And Themis, one form under many names,
Predict the future as it would come to pass,
How not by strength nor by the stouter hand,
By guile alone the reigning powers would fall.
Such was the tale they heard revealed by me
But deemed unworthy even of a glance.
And then, it seemed, my best remaining choice
Was, with my mother’s aid, to take my stand
Where help was welcome, at the side of Zeus;
And through my counsels in the nether gloom
Of Tartarus ancestral Cronos lies
With all his comrades. Such are the services
I rendered to the tyrant of the gods,
And these cruel penalties are my reward.
For tyranny, it seems, is never free
From this distemper — faithlessness to friends.
But to your question, on what pretext he
Outrages me thus, I will now reply.
No sooner was he on his father’s throne
Seated secure than he assigned the gods
Their several privileges, to each appointing
Powers, but held the hapless race of man
Of no account, resolving to destroy
All human kind and sow new seed on earth.
And none defied his will in this save me,
I dared to do it, I delivered man