This line-by-line commentary by a classical scholar is written for non-specialists. It is keyed to the popular translation by R. Lattimore, used in many college courses. Jones points to special features of the poem (such as "ring composition"), explains place names and other obscure phrases, and suggests interpretations of various scenes. There is a wealth of information here. Rather than summarizing the poem (like Monarch notes and other shortcuts around the reading process), this commentary is designed to make your reading deeper and more historical.

Aeschylus' trilogy is very enjoyable reading. It would be fun to see these plays performed. It's too bad that so many of Aeschylus' plays did not survive. The only reason this is not a 5 star rating is that the translation was awkward in just a few places. 4.5 stars is probably the correct rating.

All of the Grene/Lattimore translations I've read have been excellent, but this edition of the Oresteia stands out. Lattimore renders the chori of 'Agamemnon' so hauntingly that they hardly seem translated. The first chorus in particular, with its long sections punctuated by the refrain, "Sing sorrow, sorrow: but good win out in the end" is the best I've ever seen. It makes me shiver.

Greek similies are often tortured in translation, but not in this edition: "the sin / smoulders not, but burns to evil beauty. / As cheap bronze tortured / at the touchstone relapses / to blackness and grime, so this man / tested shows vain..." The poetry is an achievement in itself.

Aeschylus is recognised as the father of tragedy and achieves something new in the Oresteia trilogy which won him another first prize in the Dionysia 458 BC. Born some time near the end of the sixth century in Eleusis - home of the mysteries, he fought at Marathon and probably at Salamis too and died in Gela in Sicily.

Although written in the fifth century the play itself is set in the depths of Mycenean history at the time of the Trojan War (probably c. 1220 BC - the traditional date of 1184 being unacceptable in the context of LH IIIB archaeology. Unlike in Homer's Iliad (written some 300 years earlier) Agamemnon's Court is in the city of Argos. The play fits the traditional spark for the Trojan War in the affairs of Helen whereas in reality it may have had more to do with competitive markets in the weaving industry or disputed fishing rights. Lattimore uses some unconventional spellings and I have stuck with these.

The play recounts the curse of the House of Atreus which fell when Atreus slaughtered two of Thyestes' sons and fed them to him. The wife of Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus - Helen of Troy - is with Paris and Agamemnon plans to take an army to Ilium to recapture her. Before departing he sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia (Iphigeneia) and then sets sail. Aeschylus now dissolves the next 7-10 years to the point of Agamemnon's return with Cassandra, the captive princess and prophetess of Troy - a reminder logic is almost constantly the subject rather than the master of divination. But Clytaemestra (Clytemnestra) now has Thyestes' only surviving son, Aegisthus as her lover and King and she bludgeons the victorious Agamemnon to death in the bath beneath a cloak which envelops him in the same way as the sustained conceits of entrapment and the coiled viper constrain the metaphysical dimension of the first two thirds of the trilogy. Electra, Agamemnon's surviving daughter has to hide her loyalty to her father "in a dark corner, as you would kennel a vicious dog" until Orestes (her brother) returns (in Clyteamestra's words) to "this swamp of death" disguised as a native of Phocis to announce his own death.

In 'The Libation Bearers' (Choephoroe) Orestes slays both Clytaemestra and Aegisthus and the genetic interlinkages metamorphose a revenge drama into a tragedy as in 'Hamlet'. The final play, the Furies (Eumenides) is the reconciliation of revenge and justice seen in the rise of Athens, civilisation, balanced thought, dissolution of irrational hatred and the Aeropagus Court. In this we also have to see the kairos of the triumph of the Olympians over the Titans but within a context of divine compromise as the Olympian gods are unable to completely bury the barbarism of their own genesis. In effect, the underlying motif here is the same as in 'Prometheus Bound' with the violent dynamic being reflected in the gradual change in Greece towards a more settled social organisation.

But the beauty of the trilogy is not merely in its recital of this piece of legend. Rather it is in its unique lyric quality and the power of its extended conceits. The play is riddled with images of animal entrapment and coiled vipers. Even Clyteamestra sees the vision in a dream in which she gives birth to a viper - an image in which Orestes clearly sees himself ("No void dream this, it is the vision of a man").

The first two plays are driven by 'philos-aphilos' and by a quest for justice or right against right. Helen acts as a substrate for all the evils committed in the trilogy - the sacrifice of Iphigenia to Artemis (no war but for Helen) - although Vellacott raises the issue of divine will here - Clyteamestra's 'godless' slaughter of her husband and rightful King, and Orestes' vengeance for his father's murder in the Eumenides. I feel the legendary context in which Clytemnestra's former husband is killed by Agamemnon in battle and Cassandra's hints at the King's brutality should be brought into play here. But the devoured ghosts of Thyestes's offspring also hang over the drama raising issues (alongside Iphigenia) regarding the sacrifice of youth. Offspring sacrifice was unheard of in the Mediterranean basin of the fifth century with the exception of Punic-Phoenician settlements. But this had not always been the case and again we see the birth of 'classical' Greece from its less than ideal parenthood, always slightly ashamed of its past - there is now plenty of evidence that the early worship of Artemis involved human sacrifice in some places. Delphi was also originally sacred to Artemis before being taken over by Apollo in the eighth century. And the sacrifice image also acts as something rather radical for Aeschylus - an almost revolutionary denunciation of the destruction of Achaean (by implication, also Attican) youth through unnecessary warfare. Goldhill has pointed out, there are also gender specific elements within the pattern of slaughter first noted in the text by Cassandra.

The Eumenides provides something completely new - an end to the ethos of attempting to ensure public welfare through private blood feud. As Lattimore puts it, by the Eumenides we are not merely to see, we are to understand. The role of Athens is emphasised by Athena's negotiated compromise between Apollo / Orestes on the one hand and the Furies - she becomes the symbol of Hellenism against the barbarity of the nation's roots. Even the Furies are converted from something hideous to something beautiful by this new, sanitised version of Athena. And we have to put the whole 'Athens section' in the context that the 'polis' was more than merely 'city'; it was the complete framework for everyday life.

In his day Aeschylus was known for adventurous stage set designs from which we have drawn the phrase 'deus ex machina' but it was Aristophanes who was wise enough to see that the playwright has also created "towering structures out of majestic words".

Greek of the Hellenistic period is notoriously tricky to translate. First there is the matter of distance in time. Many of the idioms have lost their meaning, words have been recorded in the lexicon as having a variety of and often conflicting definitions, and the simple (or not so simple) matter of the differences between a pre-industrialized Mediterranean society and a post-industrial western one all can put seemingly unassailable walls between the scholar and his text. Yet despite all these obstacles, Professor Lattimore has provided the world with one of the finest English translations of the New Testament ever produced.

To say that Professor Lattimore's skill in translating both ancient and Hellenistic Greek is outstanding is to understate the matter. His ability is now legendary. Readers of his translations of Homer, Aeskylus, Euripides, and many others have long hailed them as the superlative editions of the works. We can all thank God that he saw fit to apply his talent to this, the most famous of all the Hellenistic Greek documents.

Doing away with the numbering system and printing the individual books in paragraph form is something someone should have done long ago. The text can now be read as it would have been recited long ago - cleanly and without the distraction of meaningless numbers (they were added centuries after the texts were written).

The texts themselves are splendid. Professor Lattimore took the time to convey the flavor of each one to the reader through subtle changes in style and word choice that most often accurately reflect the original Greek. For example, the stilted and simple language of the Gospel of Mark versus the more refined style of the Gospel of Luke is well established in the English translations. What's more, Professor Lattimore offers notes to the reader explaining why he chose one word or phrase over another. That is a sign of true scholarship rarely, if ever, seen in commercial translations of this text. The only regret that can be stated is that he did not team up with a noted anthropologist of the period, such as Richard Rohrbaugh or Jerome Neyrey, to put the final touches to the cultural subtleties so often lost in translations.

The only detraction from the work is the cover. The Andres Serrano photo on the cloth bound edition is unfortunate. North Point tried to depict the suffering and death of Jesus of Nazareth but ended up simply being gratuitous. It will likely put off many readers who will pass by the book simply because the cover photo is so repulsive. This is a shame. Thankfully, North Point thought the better of using the same photo on the paper bound edition.

Without a doubt, this edition of the New Testament is superior to all the well known editions, from the KJV to the NRSV. It makes such partisan tracts, such as The Book (perhaps the worst, I hesitate to write translation as I think it to be more a conglomeration of various other translations which were then simplified for a fourth grade reading level, edition of the New Testament ever produced) look like the intellectual laughingstocks that they are. I would hope more clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, would read Professor Lattimore's translation and also encourage their congregations to do so. It brings a collection of stories too often obscured by time, distance, and dogma much closer to intelligibility.

Lattimore is generally regarded by classicists as one of the greatest translators of Greek this century. His translations of Homer, the Greek Tragedies, and countless other classics have won him this reputation. Lattimore is not a biblical scholar and so he comes to the text without many of the prejudices and biases apparent in so many English translations. In addition, the translation is literal because Lattimore believes that form and meaning are closely related. He even tries as far as it is possible to convey some of the form of the Greek in the English style he uses.

At the end of the day the most important thing in a translation is the strength of its scholarship. For those who have studied Greek, it is scary how often Lattimore gets it right. For the most part, Bible translations today are rated according to their number of sales. Hence the NIV is thought of as a great translation. Lattimore may not be the kind of translation you find in the pockets of devout Christians, but for overall reliability and fidelity to the writers of the NT, I give it 10/10.

Lattimore's translation of the N.T. seems so new it's like it just came off the presses. It's so fresh you can smell the ink in your nostrils. It's so vibrant you can easily forget it's the N.T. and then forget to put it down. It's so gripping that instead of dreading the daily dose of a couple of verses, you look forward to overloading on your next fix. At least I do, and that's after reading countless translations, studying all sorts of helpful guide books, and knowing the Sunday School stories front to back.

But Lattimore's translation is different. He's a Greek translator not a theologian, concerned not so much with making the text say something in English, as with letting it live. And stripped of adornment, the Word is pulse-pounding, heart-racing, blood- pumping alive. "Wait a minute," someone may say, "Are we talking about the Bible?" Yes, we are. But reading Lattimore's version, one sees why people think the story is so exciting.

The genius of this book is in what it leaves out. So not the stately King James. Nor the Not-so-New International Version. No chapter or verse numbers. The four Gospels sound like stories, and the letters of St. Paul read like letters. Lattimore's other genius is his uncanny ear; he often uses simpler words than other translations, but sometimes he chooses bigger ones. Some parts flow together connecting half-remembered tales into a larger narrative, but others are told at a breathless pace: "we did this, and then we did that and then this happened, and then some other thing occured." This is exactly how someone, face to face, would relay a story.

In the preface Lattimore modestly says, "I was struck by the natural ease with which Revelation turned itself into English." I am struck with how he turned it into great reading.