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Three Greek Plays: Prometheus Bound / Agamemnon / The Trojan Women
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Three classic Greek tragedies are translated and critically introduced by Edith Hamilton.
- ISBN-100393002039
- ISBN-13978-0393002034
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateNovember 17, 1958
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.1 x 0.7 x 7.7 inches
- Print length240 pages
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- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (November 17, 1958)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393002039
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393002034
- Item Weight : 9.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.7 x 7.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,247,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #250 in Tragic Dramas & Plays
- #517 in Ancient & Classical Dramas & Plays
- #2,191 in Literature
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Edith Hamilton, an educator, writer and a historian, was born August 12, 1867 in Dresden, Germany, of American parents and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her father began teaching her Latin when she was seven years old and soon added Greek, French, and German to her curriculum. Hamilton's education continued at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from which she graduated in 1894 with an M.A. degree. The following year, she and her sister Alice went to Germany and were the first women students at the universities of Munich and Leipzich.
Hamilton returned to the United States in 1896 and accepted the position of headmistress of the Bryn Mawr Preparatory School in Baltimore, Maryland. For the next twenty-six years, she directed the education of about four hundred girls per year. After her retirement in 1922, she started writing and publishing scholarly articles on Greek drama. In 1930, when she was sixty-three years old, she published The Greek Way, in which she presented parallels between life in ancient Greece and in modern times. The book was a critical and popular success. In 1932, she published The Roman Way, which was also very successful. These were followed by The Prophets of Israel (1936), Witness to the Truth: Christ and His Interpreters (1949), Three Greek Plays, translations of Aeschylus and Euripides (1937), Mythology (1942), The Great Age of Greek Literature (1943), Spokesmen for God (1949) and Echo of Greece (1957). Hamilton traveled to Greece in 1957 to be made an honorary citizen of Athens and to see a performance in front of the Acropolis of one of her translations of Greek plays. She was ninety years old at the time. At home, Hamilton was a recipient of many honorary degrees and awards, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Edith Hamilton died on May 31, 1963 in Washington, D.C.
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"Even in our sleep pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
I heard this in a documentary about Kennedy. Evidently, Jackie had recommended Aeschylus as a way to make sense of the tragedy that had befallen their family in November, 1963. This piqued my own interest in Aeschylus. Via Google, I eventually discovered that the passage is from Agamemnon. But which translation to read?
Kennedy recited a slightly modified version of a prose translation by Edith Hamilton. Her rendering is nicely lyrical, but I wondered about the accuracy. Aeschylus presumably didn’t really speak of “the awful grace of God,” as he was obviously not a Christian. I decided to check some of the other translations, using that passage as my metric.
Hamilton herself translated the passage more than once. The version Kennedy used appears to come from her book The Greek Way , where she excerpts that passage by itself (as prose rather than verse). In contrast, here is the verse version from her complete translation of Agamemnon in Three Greek Plays: Prometheus Bound / Agamemnon / The Trojan Women :
"Drop, drop—in our sleep, upon the heart
sorrow falls, memory’s pain,
and to us, though against our very will,
even in our own despite,
comes wisdom
by the awful grace of God."
I kind of prefer “pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart.” I’m not sure if the contrast is due to the different demands of prose instead of verse, but to my ear the prose version flows better, without the syntactical inversion. Both versions end with the powerful (if not literally accurate) “comes wisdom by [or through] the awful grace of God.” So, high marks for Hamilton in both versions.
Next, I looked at The Oresteia: Agamemnon; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides from Penguin—always a safe place to start. Here is how their man, Robert Fagles, translated the passage:
"We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart
the pain of pain remembered comes again,
and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.
From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench
there comes a violent love."
I kind of like “the pain of pain remembered,” but otherwise this translation seems inferior to Hamilton’s. “We cannot sleep” connotes something quite different than “in our sleep”; I can’t read the Greek, but, as we will see, the other translations seem to suggest that Hamilton’s reading is closer to the mark. As for the “gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench,” that might be more literally accurate, but it certainly doesn’t have the emotional weight of Hamilton's version, although “violent love” is interesting in place of "grace."
Next, I tried Richmond Lattimore’s Aeschylus II: The Oresteia (The Complete Greek Tragedies) from the U of Chicago Press:
"Still there drips in sleep against the heart
grief of memory; against
our pleasure we are temperate.
From the gods who sit in grandeur
grace comes somehow violent."
I’m with him for the first two lines, but “against our pleasure we are temperate” seems to obscure the meaning, which kills the whole passage; the ending doesn’t work if the middle is unclear. But the rhythm is pleasing.
Next up is Alan Shapiro’s The Complete Aeschylus: Volume I: The Oresteia: 1 (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) from Oxford UP:
"Even in sleep pain drips
down from the heart as fear,
all night, as memory.
We learn unwillingly.
From the high bench of the gods
by violence, it seems, grace comes."
That one has a nice directness, especially the short “We learn unwillingly” after the more complex syntax of the previous three lines. “From the high bench of the gods” seems a good middle-ground between the very specific “awesome rowing bench” and the more abstract “grandeur.”
Next is The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Choephoroe, Eumenides by George Thomson, from Everyman's Library:
"When deep slumber falls, remembered sins
Chafe the sore heart with fresh pain, and no
Welcome wisdom meets within.
Harsh the grace dispensed by powers immortal
On the awful grace enthroned."
That one takes far too many liberties for my taste, and its syntax is tortured and awkward. Although the translation is evidently from 1938, it sounds more like it was written in 1838. In contrast, Peter Meineck’s Oresteia (Hackett Classics) is perhaps too contemporary and flat:
"Not even sleep can relieve the painful memories
that fall upon the heart, drop by drop,
discretion comes even to the unwilling.
This grace is forced upon us
by sacred spirits who reign above."
That one seems to capture the meaning without any of the music, and “sacred spirits” sounds a bit too New-Agey. This seems like it might be a good version for students who have trouble understanding the more poetic versions. On that note, my last two samples also go in the direction of contemporary “accessibility.” Here’s Anne Carson’s An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides :
"Yet there drips in sleep before my heart
a griefremembering pain.
Good sense comes the hard way.
And the grace of the gods
(I’m pretty sure)
is a grace that comes by violence."
I kind of like “griefremembering pain,” but otherwise that passage seems more miss than hit. “Good sense” sounds too folksy, as well as simply a very different meaning than “wisdom.” And while some may find asides such as “I’m pretty sure” to be daringly contemporary, I just find that grating and tonally misleading. The last line strikes a good balance between clear meaning and rhythmic punch, though.
Finally, here is what Ted Hughes did with the passage in The Oresteia of Aeschylus: A New Translation by Ted Hughes :
"Nothing speaks the truth,
Nothing tells us how things really are,
Nothing forces us to know
What we do not want to know
Except pain.
And this is how the gods declare their love.
Truth comes with pain."
That can charitably be called a “loose” translation. Evidently killing Sylvia Plath wasn’t enough for him, so he had to kill Aeschylus, too. (Just kidding.) (Sort of.) Hughes was actually a very good poet, so I don’t know what happened here. If you’re in the mood for Hughesian versions of classical poetry, stick with his Tales from Ovid: 24 Passages from the Metamorphoses .
So, where does this leave us? To quote another poet (T.S. Eliot), “the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.” I must admit that I still like Hamilton’s prose version best, and her verse version second-best. Unfortunately, her full Agamemnon is not available in e-book format. I suppose my next choice, for reading on the Kindle, would be Shapiro’s.
Of course, one passage does not a translation make; this is not enough to make a truly fair comparison between translations of Agamemnon alone, much less the other plays. Still, I offer these comparisons in the hope that they will provide some small help to others who are trying to decide between translations.