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The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus [1906]

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The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus [1906] The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Aeschylus, The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus [1906] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 1,000 books and quotes about liberty and power, and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and web sites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, in present day Iraq. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected]. LIBERTY FUND, INC. 8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684 Online Library of Liberty: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus Edition Used: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus, translated into English Verse by John Stuart Blackie (London: J.M. Dent, 1906). Author: Aeschylus Translator: John Stuart Blackie About This Title: A collection of the major plays of the great Athenian playwright Aeschylus. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1039 Online Library of Liberty: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus About Liberty Fund: Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright Information: The text is in the public domain. Fair Use Statement: This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 3 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1039 Online Library of Liberty: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus Table Of Contents Editor’s Note Preface On the Genius and Character of the Greek Tragedy The Life of Æschylus Agamemnon ChoephorÆ Or, the Libation-bearers a Lyrico-dramatic Spectacle The Eumenides Prometheus Bound a Lyrico-dramatic Spectacle The Suppliants a Lyrico-dramatic Spectacle The Seven Against Thebes a Lyrico-dramatic Spectacle The Persians a Historical Cantata List of Editions Commentaries and Translations Used By the Translator this is no. 62 ofEVERYMAN’S LIBRARY.the publishers will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and projected volumes arranged under the following sections: travel ? science ? fiction theology ? philosophy history ? classical for young people essays ? oratory poetry & drama biography reference romance the ordinary edition is bound in cloth with gilt design and coloured top. there is also a library edition in reinforced cloth London: J. M. DENT & SONS Ltd. New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. THE SAGES OF OLD LIVE AGAIN IN US GLANVILL PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 4 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1039 Online Library of Liberty: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus [Back to Table of Contents] EDITOR’S NOTE The following is a list of the chief English translators of Æschylus:— The Tragedies translated into English Verse; R. Potter, 1777, 1779. The Seven Tragedies literally translated into English Prose, from the Text of Blomfield and Schütz, 1822, 1827. Literal translation by T. A. Buckley, 1849. The Lyrical Dramas . into English Verse; J. S. Blackie, 1850: into English Prose, F. A. Paley, 1864, 1891; E. H. Plumptre, 1868, 1873; Anna Swanwick, 1873; from a revised Text, W. Headlam, 1900, etc. The Seven Plays in English Verse; L. Campbell, 1890. The Agamemnon was translated by Dean Milman, 1865; and “transcribed” by Robert Browning, 1877. A. W. Verrall’s edition of the text, with commentary and translation, appeared in 1889. The most important of the earlier editions of the text was that by Stanley; of the more recent, that by Schütz, Wellauer, and Hermann. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 5 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1039 Online Library of Liberty: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus [Back to Table of Contents] PREFACE Some men of literary note, in the present day, observing the great difficulties with which poetical translators have to contend, especially when using a language of inferior compass, have been of opinion that the task ought not to be attempted at all—that all poetical translations, from Greek at least into English, should be done in prose; and, in confirmation of this opinion, they point to the English translation of the Hebrew Bible as a model. But if, as Southey says, “a translation is good precisely as it faithfully represents the matter, manner, and spirit of the original,”* it is difficult to see how this doctrine can be entertained. Poetry is distinguished from prose more by the manner than by the matter; and rhythmical regularity or verse is precisely that quality which distinguishes the manner of poetry from that of prose. In one sense, and in the best sense, Plato and Richter and Jeremy Taylor are poets; in another sense, and in the best sense, Æschylus and Dante and Shakespere are philosophers; but that which a poet as a poet has, and a philosopher as a philosopher has not, is verse; and this element the advocates of a prose translation of poetical works are content to miss out! That the argument from the English translation of the Bible is not applicable to every case, will appear plain to any one who will figure to himself Robert Burns or Horace or Beranger in a prose dress. In the Bible we seek for the simplicity of religious inculcation or devout meditation, and would consider the finest rhythmical decorations out of place. Besides, the style of the Hebrew poetry is eminently simple; and the rhythmical element of language, so far as I can learn, was never highly cultivated by the Jews, whose mission on earth was of a different kind. The Greeks, on the other hand, were eminently a poetical people; the poetry of their drama, though not without its own simplicity, is, in respect of mere linguistic organism, of a highly decorated order; and by nothing is that decoration so marked as by a systematic attention to rhythm. I consider, therefore, that prose translations of the Greek dramatists will never satisfy the just demands of a cultivated taste, for the plain reason that they omit that element which is most characteristic of the manner of the original. I am persuaded that the demand for prose translations of poets had arisen, in this country, more from a sort of desperate reaction against certain vicious principles of the old English school of translation, than from a serious consideration either of the nature of the thing, or of the capacity of our noble language. In Germany, I do not find that this notion has ever been entertained; plainly because the German poetical translations did not err, like our English ones, in conspiring, by every sort of fine flourishing and delicate furbishment, to obscure or to blot out what was most characteristic in their originals. The proper problem of an English translator is not how to say a thing as the author would have said it, had he been an Englishman; but how, through the medium of the English language, to make the English reader feel both what he said and how he said it, being a Greek. Now, any one who is familiar with the general run of English rhythmical translations, of which Pope’s Iliad is the pattern, must be aware that they have too often been executed under the influence of the former of these principles rather than the latter. In Pope’s Homer, and in Sotheby’s also, I must add, we find many, perhaps all the finest passages very finely done; but so as Pope or Sotheby might have done themselves in an original poem PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 6 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1039 Online Library of Liberty: The Lyrical Dramas of Aeschylus written at the present day, while that which is most peculiarly Homeric, a certain blunt naturalness and a talkative simplicity, we do not find in these translators at all. The very things which most strike the eye of the accomplished connoisseur, and feed the meditations of the student of human nature, are omitted. Now, I at once admit that a good prose translation—that is to say, a prose translation done by a poet or a man of poetical culture—of such an author as Homer, is preferable, for many purposes, to a poetical translation so elegantly defaced as that of Pope. A prose translation, also, of any poet, done accurately in a prosaic style by a proser, however much of a parody or a caricature in point of taste, may not be without its use, if in no other way, as a ready check on the free licence of omission or inoculation which rhythmical translators are so fond to usurp.
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