Welcome to Litsy!

"Dear gods, set me free from all the pain, the long watch I keep, one whole year awake ... propped on my arms, crouched on the roofs of Atreus like a dog." The play opens with a watchman lamenting fate, who then says of his queen, "That woman--she manoeuvres like a man". You know you're in for something quite dreadful. The first play in the trilogy known as The Oresteia hits hard with violence, murder, & Cassandra uttering chilling prophecies.

Tragedy
3/26/2019 to 6/20/2019
I started reading the book but never got a chance to finish it.
Agamemnon starts with a Watchman on obligation on the roof of the palace at Argos, ready for a sign announcing the fall of Troy to the Greek armies. They surmount the regime, and the Chorus broadcasts that Clytemnestra's son Orestes will return from exile to avenge his father.

"An old story is told of an oxherd who reared at his hearth a lion-cub, a pet for his children,
Pampered fondly by young and old with dainty morsels begged at each meal from his master's table.
But Time showed him up in his true nature after his kind-- a beast savaging for sheep and oxen,
Mad for the taste blood, and only then they knew what they had long nursed was a curse from heaven..."

"And when he bowed down beneath the harness
Of cruel coercion, his spirit veering
With sudden sacrilegious change,
He gave his whole mind to evil counsel.
For a man is made bold with base contriving
Impetuous madness,first cause of much grief.
And so he slew his own child
For a war to win a woman
And to speed the storm-bound fleet from the shore to battle."

I cannot handle this beautiful language, and the condemnation of the war on Troy.

Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.

Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.

Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.