Oresteia

Oresteia by Aeschylus, translated by Richard Lattimore, 171 pages

The Oresteia is a cycle of three plays relating the tragedy of the royal house of Mycenae in the aftermath of the Trojan War.  Agamemnon tells the story of the return of the king, accompanied by the captive Cassandra, and his murder by his wife Clytemnestra, who had taken his cousin Aegisthus as a lover during his decade-long absence.  The Libation Bearers continues the story as the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra avenges his father by slaying his mother.  Finally, in The Eumenides, the goddess Athena stands as judge between the titular Furies and Orestes, in the process establishing Athenian jurisprudence and domesticating the goddesses of vengeance.

Robert Lowell once admitted that it is impossible to recover the power of Aeschylus' drama, "something no doubt grander than any play we can see."  Perhaps some intimation of that power is available to us in these post-Enlightenment times, for meeting it outside the cramped blood-soaked ground of the grand narrative of progressive history, what the reader is immediately struck by is its earnest religiosity.  It is certainly possible for a crippled soul to dismiss Apollo, Athena, and even the Furies themselves as dramatic contrivances and ignore the atmosphere that surrounds them in favor of shallow psychologizing.  It is likewise trivial to invert the tale, to turn Clytemnestra into the righteous avenger of her sacrificed daughter, inevitably ending with her liberation of Cassandra into an unconvincing sisterhood.  If Aeschylus does not have true religion, it is certainly more true than any of the modern simulacra.  Aeschylus' cycle is a real myth, his tragedy rooted in a legacy of crime and guilt inherited both by the sons of Atreus and the daughters of Leda, a shared fault that stretches back into remotest antiquity, where it assumes unknowable cosmic proportions, and which can only be expiated by cult and sacrifice.

Iliad

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, 594 pages

The Iliad is the classic epic story of the pride of Agamemnon, the cunning of Odysseus, the courage of Diomedes and Aias, the tragedies of Patroklos and Hektor, the tears of Akhilleus and Priam, and the war of gods and men.  Taking place during an eventful few weeks in the ten year long Trojan War, it begins with a confrontation between Agamemnon, the Greek commander, and Akhilleus, the greatest Greek warrior.  Akhilleus withdraws from battle as a consequence, and the Trojans are able to press their advantage, driving the Greeks back all the way to their ships.  The story ends with tragedy for everyone involved, as was fated from the start.

Homer's genius is such that he is able to comprehend seemingly contradictory attitudes.  War is both glorious and horrible.  Men have their own wills and powers but their destinies are also determined by the gods.  The final scene, when the doomed king encounters the equally doomed warrior who slew his son, is one of the great moments in literature.  Even minor characters (and there are dozens of them) are given their moments -  Hektor's farewell to his wife Andromache and their infant son, Antilochus cutting off Menelaos during a chariot race, the river Skamander striving to drown Akhilleus for clogging his course with corpses, Diomedes challenging the gods themselves and prevailing.  Despite this, the only times the narrative slows its pace is in the early catalog of the opposing forces and the later detailed description of Akhilleus' armor.

Some of that brisk pace is the product of Robert Fitzgerald's admirable translation which, though not as acclaimed as his translation of The Odyssey, still set the standard for a modern Iliad.

1177 BC

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H Cline, 178 pages

During the waning of the Bronze Age, the eastern Mediterranean and Near East was the site of a cosmopolitan network of cultures and societies, intermarrying, trading, and occasionally warring with one another.  It was a time when the seeds of future cultures were planted - the age of the Trojan War and the Hebrew Exodus.  It all came to a catastrophic end in the twelfth century, when a wave of invaders known to historians as the Sea Peoples washed over the lands of Greece, Anatolia, and the Levant before breaking against Egypt.  That is, at least, the conventional account, but as Eric Cline points out in 1177 BC, it is also at best a massive oversimplification, ignoring contributing causes such as a series of particularly strong earthquakes, years of drought, and the disruption of trade in an increasingly complex, and therefore correspondingly increasingly fragile, international network.

Cline's persistent attempts to draw direct parallels between the Late Bronze Age and late modernity occasionally give rise to silliness - the Bronze Age world was in no way "global", and "while we might call" the ancient empires "nation-states in modern parlance", it would be an absurd anachronism.  This is aggravated by Cline's conclusion that we do not yet understand the causes of the 12th century collapse, which leaves any utilitarian relevance to our own times pointless.  The story of the Late Bronze Age and the modern efforts to uncover its history is fascinating on its own terms.

Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by John SP Tatlock and Percy MacKaye, 137 pages

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is a tragic tale of lovers during wartime.  A Trojan knight, Troilus, is punished for his mockery of love by being smitten with the Criseyde, a Trojan widow whose father has defected to the Greeks.  Even as Troilus gains the assistance of Criseyde's uncle Pandarus to win his lady's love, other forces conspire to tear them apart.

The "Modern Reader's Chaucer" was translated into something approximating modern English prose, with a King James accent to give it an antique feel.  Chaucer's anachronisms have the peculiar charm of a painting of Biblical figures in Renaissance dress, or an Elizabethan play in modern dress.  While this eviscerates the poetry of the piece, it does preserve the distancing effect necessary for a "modern reader" to accept some of the story's more dated conceits.  This clears the way for a deeply moving experience, albeit not quite the one Chaucer intended.

Aeneid

The Aeneid by Publius Virgilius Maro, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, 417 pages

The Aeneid is, of course, the poetic epic of Rome, self-consciously created as a Latin counterpart to Homer and as a paean to the glories of Augustus.  Unfortunately, the reputation of Virgil's masterpiece has suffered as a result of these origins, leading to it being considered by some as an inferior imitation and the flattering work of a court toady.  

It may be these things, yet it is a remarkable artistic creation as well.  The character of Dido outshines Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa, and even Penelope.  The survivors' account of the fall of Troy evokes horror as nothing in Homer does.  Most remarkably, the diabolical pride of Turnus, who is driven to fight Aeneas even when he knows he is clearly outmatched, who would rather die in battle than be second to anyone, becomes unexpectedly poignant when viewed in the light of the civil wars that convulsed Rome in the half century before Augustus.