Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays

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Title: Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays

Author: AEschylus



FOUR PLAYS OF AESCHYLUS



THE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS
THE PERSIANS
THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
THE PROMETHEUS BOUND

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY E.D.A. MORSHEAD, MA.




INTRODUCTION

The surviving dramas of Aeschylus are seven in number, though he is
believed to have written nearly a hundred during his life of
sixty-nine years, from 525 B.C. to 456 B.C. That he fought at
Marathon in 490, and at Salamis in 480 B.C. is a strongly accredited
tradition, rendered almost certain by the vivid references to both
battles in his play of _The Persians_, which was produced in 472.
But his earliest extant play was, probably, not _The Persians_ but
_The Suppliant Maidens_--a mythical drama, the fame of which has
been largely eclipsed by the historic interest of _The Persians_,
and is undoubtedly the least known and least regarded of the seven.
Its topic--the flight of the daughters of Danaus from Egypt to Argos,
in order to escape from a forced bridal with their first-cousins,
the sons of Aegyptus--is legendary, and the lyric element
predominates in the play as a whole. We must keep ourselves reminded
that the ancient Athenian custom of presenting dramas in _Trilogies_-
--that is, in three consecutive plays dealing with different stages
of one legend--was probably not uniform: it survives, for us, in one
instance only, viz. the Orestean Trilogy, comprising the _Agamemnon_,
the _Libation-Bearers_, and the _Eumenides_, or _Furies_. This
Trilogy is the masterpiece of the Aeschylean Drama: the four
remaining plays of the poet, which are translated in this volume, are
all fragments of lost Trilogies--that is to say, the plays are
complete as _poems_, but in regard to the poet's larger design they
are fragments; they once had predecessors, or sequels, of which only
a few words, or lines, or short paragraphs, survive. It is not
certain, but seems probable, that the earliest of these single
completed plays is _The Suppliant Maidens_, and on that supposition
it has been placed first in the present volume. The maidens,
accompanied by their father Danaes, have fled from Egypt and arrived
at Argos, to take sanctuary there and to avoid capture by their
pursuing kinsmen and suitors. In the course of the play, the
pursuers' ship arrives to reclaim the maidens for a forced wedlock
in Egypt. The action of the drama turns on the attitude of the king
and people of Argos, in view of this intended abduction. The king
puts the question to the popular vote, and the demand of the suitors
is unanimously rejected: the play closes with thanks and gratitude
on the part of the fugitives, who, in lyrical strains of quiet beauty,
seem to refer the whole question of their marriage to the subsequent
decision of the gods, and, in particular, of Aphrodite.

Of the second portion of the Trilogy we can only speak conjecturally.
There is a passage in the _Prometheus Bound_ (ll. 860-69), in which
we learn that the maidens were somehow reclaimed by the suitors, and
that all, except one, slew their bridegrooms on the wedding night.
There is a faint trace, among the Fragments of Aeschylus, of a play
called _Thalamopoioi_,--i.e. _The Preparers of the Chamber_,--which
may well have referred to this tragic scene. Its grim title will
recall to all classical readers the magnificent, though terrible,
version of the legend, in the final stanzas of the eleventh poem in
the third book of Horace's _Odes_. The final play was probably
called _The Danaides_, and described the acquittal of the brides
through some intervention of Aphrodite: a fragment of it survives,
in which the goddess appears to be pleading her special prerogative.
The legends which commit the daughters of Danaus to an eternal
penalty in Hades are, apparently, of later origin. Homer is silent
on any such penalty; and Pindar,

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