Aeschylus I
Well, I'm getting pretty disgusted by some of the things in the book. A father sacrificing his young daughter, really awful.
That said, this is a beautiful translation and now I'm getting more comfortable reading these plays I start to enjoy the language more and more. Take lines 91-96, just gorgeous:
the altars blaze with oblations
The staggered flame goes sky high
one place, then another,
drugged by the simple soft
persuasion of sacred unguents,
the deep stored oil of kings
The third part describes how the main character is chased by the Furies. It's cool to see where our word "fury" comes from and these are indeed some angry characters. They are transformed at the end of the play -- a move from never-ending blood revenge to a society where there is a court of justice.
I read this book around a business trip to Chicago.
