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Title: Choephori by Garvie Aeschylus ISBN: 0-19-872134-X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Impressive.
Comment: (Note: for those who do not know: this edition is in ANCIENT GREEK and if you do not know that language, you may wish to buy a translation instead, such as Lattimore or Lloyd-Jones or Loeb Library's Smyth. This is not a translation but an edition of the text with a long and detailied commentary on said text.)
This semester we read selected long passages from the entire "Oresteia" in Greek. We read a lot more than half of the entire trilogy, and for me, a second-year Greek student, the experience was very intense and pleasantly challenging. My head is still ringing from choruses that never leave roofs, making a song that is not good and with Pylades urging Orestes to make his horrible choice.
I liked Garvie's "Choeporoi" much better than Denniston and Page's edition of the "Agamemnon" because Garvie's commentary is longer and more detailed (it is 8 times the length of the actual text, in smallish print) and Garvie has a more current poetic sensibility which does not dictate ONE POSSIBLE READING AND ONE ALONE for each line of poetry, unlike the older school.
There is also an really fine section in the Introduction on pre-Aeschylean versions of the story of Orestes, including that of Stesichoros, and a section on staging, as well as complete metrical notes.
Throughout the commentary are extensive and formidably learned references to other Greek literature for comparison and to a good array of secondary articles and commentaries. The bibliography is large.
Overall the book is a very fine achievement and deserves great respect and broad usage.

Rating: 4
Summary: The second play in the Orestia Trilogy of Aeschylus
Comment: "The Choephori" ("The Libation Bearers") is the second play in the Orestia trilogy of Aeschylus. It takes place a few years after the events covered in "Agamemnon," which tells of how Agamemnon returned victoriously from the Trojan War only to be slain by his wife Clytemnestra, who never forgave her husband for having their daughter Iphigenia sacrificed so the Achean fleet could sail for Troy ten years earlier. "The Choephori" finds Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, living in exile in the nearby kingdom of Phocis. However, in obedience to a command given him by the god Apollo, Orestes returns to Argos to avenge his father. Seeking out his sister Electra, Orestes disguises himself to enter the palace where he kills Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Orestes attempts to justify his act of matricide but in the final scene of the play becomes consumed by madness and flees from the Furies, the punishing spirits of the gods who will hound him for his hideous crime. The Orestia concludes in "The Eumenides," where Orestes is expiated of his crime and Aeschylus completes his dramatic argument for the civilized notion of justice.

The story of the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes is a unique tale from ancient mythology because it is the one story which serves as the subject for plays by all three of the great Greek tragic poets; both Sophocles and Euripides called their versions of the tale "Electra." All three have their own perspectives on the tale and what makes the Aeschylus version stand out, besides being the middle part of the only extant trilogy from these ancient dramatic competition, is the confrontation between mother and son. After hearing that Aegisthus has been slain, Clytemnestra knows that Orestes has returned and sends her servants to get the ax with which she slew his father. But when they confront each other she reminds him that she gave him birth and nursed him through infancy. Then she argues that she was justified in killing Agamemnon. Finally she threatens him, saying Orestes will be tormented forever if he kills his mother. Orestes replied he would be tormented by his father's curse if he spares her.

This scene in the play's fourth episode is arguably the most powerful ever written by Aeschylus. Notice that neither Sophocles nor Euripides try to compete with this scene and pretty much avoid the fatal confrontation in their "Electra"s. But ironically "The Choephori" is the one play in the Orestia that gets the least attention (for example, it is reduced to a synopsis in Moses Hadas's "Greek Drama" collection while the other two plays are presented complete). There might be a tendency to seeing the play as the flip side of "Agamemnon," setting up the stage for the climax of "The Eumenides." Obviously I want to make an argument that this play stands on its own, even when separated from the Orestia. Note: Several years ago the Guthrie Theater did a fascinating version of the curse on the house of Atreus by doing Euripides's "Iphigenia at Aulis," Aeschylus's "Agamemnon," and Sophocles's "Electra."

Rating: 5
Summary: Aeschylus's version of the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes
Comment: "The Choephori" ("The Libation Bearers") is the second play in the Orestia trilogy of Aeschylus. It takes place a few years after the events covered in "Agamemnon," which tells of how Agamemnon returned victoriously from the Trojan War only to be slain by his wife Clytemnestra, who never forgave her husband for having their daughter Iphigenia sacrificed so the Achean fleet could sail for Troy ten years earlier. "The Choephori" finds Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, living in exile in the nearby kingdom of Phocis. However, in obedience to a command given him by the god Apollo, Orestes returns to Argos to avenge his father. Seeking out his sister Electra, Orestes disguises himself to enter the palace where he kills Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Orestes attempts to justify his act of matricide but in the final scene of the play becomes consumed by madness and flees from the Furies, the punishing spirits of the gods who will hound him for his hideous crime. The Orestia concludes in "The Eumenides," where Orestes is expiated of his crime and Aeschylus completes his dramatic argument for the civilized notion of justice.

The story of the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes is a unique tale from ancient mythology because it is the one story which serves as the subject for plays by all three of the great Greek tragic poets; both Sophocles and Euripides called their versions of the tale "Electra." All three have their own perspectives on the tale and what makes the Aeschylus version stand out, besides being the middle part of the only extant trilogy from these ancient dramatic competition, is the confrontation between mother and son. After hearing that Aegisthus has been slain, Clytemnestra knows that Orestes has returned and sends her servants to get the ax with which she slew his father. But when they confront each other she reminds him that she gave him birth and nursed him through infancy. Then she argues that she was justified in killing Agamemnon. Finally she threatens him, saying Orestes will be tormented forever if he kills his mother. Orestes replied he would be tormented by his father's curse if he spares her.

This scene in the play's fourth episode is arguably the most powerful ever written by Aeschylus. Notice that neither Sophocles nor Euripides try to compete with this scene and pretty much avoid the fatal confrontation in their "Electra"s. But ironically "The Choephori" is the one play in the Orestia that gets the least attention (for example, it is reduced to a synopsis in Moses Hadas's "Greek Drama" collection while the other two plays are presented complete). There might be a tendency to seeing the play as the flip side of "Agamemnon," setting up the stage for the climax of "The Eumenides." Obviously I want to make an argument that this play stands on its own, even when separated from the Orestia. Note: Several years ago the Guthrie Theater did a fascinating version of the curse on the house of Atreus by doing Euripides's "Iphigenia at Aulis," Aeschylus's "Agamemnon," and Sophocles's "Electra."