A Name and a Place

Better Babble than Gubbish

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Doin stuff on WordPress now. :)

A Name And A Place

Learning about game design, photography, skepticism, and more.

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Monstrous Tendrils of Grasping Roots on the Kit Carson Loop

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Shameless Monster Cat Post

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Notes on The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Part 6)

A few more unrelated observations

◦ By line 15 of the Fagels translation of Agamemnon, the Watchman has praised the stars as blazing kings of the sky followed by bemoaning a task commanded by the queen, adding she's "full of her high hopes."

◦ There are 1700ish lines altogether in Agamemnon. Quite a lot of it is can be summarized as key characters repeating important plot points back at each other in different ways for clarity and to make sure nobody misses anything critical to making sense of the rest of the play.

◦ In this trilogy, The Furies change their nature under the guidance of Athena and become The Eumenides. Athena acts as Judge. She appoints a jury of Athenian citizens... ostensibly The Furies go from seeking fatal vengeance out of retribution to exacting the righteous judgment of the court after a trial. So maybe they're something like the first executioners.

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Notes on The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Part 5)

A brief summary of the history of the Trojan War

What are some of the background details for the Trilogy WRT the Trojan War and the abduction of Helen?

◦ The existing primary sources for the account Aeschylus is responding to are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Virgil's Aeneid also covers the Trojan War but is written from a Roman's perspective and was produced much later.

◦ Highlight points include Helen being sworn to Menelaus after he competed for the privilege to marry her which was a major event and led to the other suitors swearing to come to his aid should any trouble ever arise concerning her specifically.

◦ Aphrodite promised Helen to Paris as a way of winning a minor contest between the gods, though she was already married into The House of Atreus.

◦ Paris seduces and/or abducts Helen. Menelaus predictably doesn’t love this and calls the other suitors to hold to their oaths in an effort to get her back which is a call his brother Agamemnon answers as well.

◦ This effort is said to be sanctioned by the Gods. It also creates a special conflict with both sides being backed by divine authority, which Aeschylus pays attention to.

◦ Homer has it that Agamemnon offended Artemis by being impiously boastful and Aeschylus seems to suggest it might have also had something to do with the Greeks intending to desecrate and defile the sacred sites of Troy. She demands the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter, or she will not allow their ships safe passage.

◦ If the sacrifice if Iphigenia isn’t carried out, Agamemnon is guilty of a dereliction of duty and could jeopardize the whole war effort. If he goes through with it he’ll be guilty of filicide and fulfilling the family curse of blood against blood atrocity.

◦ Agamemnon’s choice to sacrifice his daughter is the major driving force of the first Oresteia play because this is the event Clytemnestra fixates on as her reason for deciding to murder the king.

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Notes on The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Part 4)

On gender references

Just about every character who speaks makes a wildly sexist remark at one point or another by contemporary standards and it’s not a matter of rendering choices made by the translators. What I mean is there appears to be no legitimate means for parsing these lines to leave out the sexism without doing violence to the text. One does wonder why there isn't more commentary on this in the corresponding scholarship however, especially any material accompanying primary sources. I have my suspicions and concerns.

On the role of the chorus

The Chorus in The Libation Bearers is more intervening than in Agamemnon. That is to say, the chorus is more prominent in the second piece and gets even more involved in the action in the third play. Orestes has it that when Athena sets up her court she appoints some of her citizens to the jury; a role played by the chorus.

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Notes on The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Part 3)

What happens to Helen, the wife of Menelaus, after the fall of Troy?

Well, Euripides has Helen of Troy escaping to Rhodes after the fall of Troy where she's subsequently executed for treason and murder. I guess another ancient conclusion to Helen's story is that she's straight away taken up to Mount Olympus following the sack of Troy. Doesn't look like Homer or Virgil get into her fate too much beyond suggesting she survives the war one way or another. I can't remember a ton of detail on lines concerning her story though, so there could easily be commentary I'm forgetting or have overlooked.

Is it possible the main literary roles of Helen and Paris are to serve as reasons for warfare?

There's some contention over this. Some commentators have gone as far as suggesting Menelaus and Agamemnon weren't especially upset with Helen for choosing her lover: they were nevertheless obliged to go to war which makes the whole thing seem like a weak excuse to mask equally believable economically motivated reasons.

The house of Atreus (Agamemnon's family) is infamous for committing innumerable atrocities and serve as an example of Greece shedding an archaic barbaric nature and embracing the nobility of a more civil society. Helen can easily be viewed as a pawn in this situation rather than a player.

It’s arguable the first play of the Oresteia, Agamemnon, makes it seem like Helen started off the chain of events, but later it's revealed that the cycle of vengeance has been going on for much longer in the house of Atreus. Pretty early into it, Aeschylus has the chorus tell the audience he's basing the events of the play on a fairly standard Homeric interpretation of the story leading up to the Trojan war. The brother kings are headed to war against Troy by order of the Gods for vengeance against Helen and Paris. Priam had to pay for taking them in after their betrayal, after all... Though the following account arises in contemporary scholarship and with the caveat that control of ancient trade routes is a believable alternative justification for a desire to conquer Troy; It has nevertheless been proposed that the brother kings conspired to use the event as a setup to justify their war. It’s noteworthy that all ancient commentators on the matter agree Menelaus was after Helen according to divine mandate while somehow disagreeing about just about every other aspect of the tale from what I can gather.

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Notes on The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Part 2)

Unfamiliar translations nevertheless worth mentioning: Philip Vellacott, 1956 Tony Harrison, 1981 Ted Hughes, 1999 Timothy Chappell, 2012 Simon Scardifield, 2012

The renderings provided by Johnston, Harrison, and Scardifield have all been used to produce adaptations for dramatic performance.

Who/what are our sources?

The Marmor Parium (an ancient marble inscription of Greek historical records), and The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (ancient manuscripts including Greek fragments and testimonia) are where we get the original text for the version of the play we read today.

Aristotle seems to be the most relevant ancient commentator with his remarks in Poetics from a philosophical perspective but we also have helpful records from a variety of others including Aristophanes in The Frogs.

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Notes on The Oresteia by Aeschylus (Part 1)

English Translators I’ve used extensively and suggest for having high quality renderings as well as insightful commentary:

Robert Fagels, 1979 reprinted and revised by Penguin Classics

Link: 

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/292296/the-oresteia-by-aeschylus-translated-by-robert-fagles-introduction-and-notes-robert-fagles-and-w-b-stanford/

Oliver Taplin, 2018 Liveright Publishing

Link: 

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631494666

A list of other English translations I regard as reliable: E. D. A. Morshead, 1881 Public Domain Robert Browning, 1889 Perseus Digital Library Herbert Weir Smyth, 1926 Perseus Digital Library Richmond Lattimore, 1953 University Of Chicago Press Ian Johnston 2007 Richer Resources Anne Carson 2007 (Agamemnon) Farrar, Straus, Giroux Alan H. Sommerstein, 2009 Loeb Classical Library

Who is Aeschylus and what is he known for?

The Oxford Classical Dictionary (2012) has him born circa 525 BCE and dead 456 BCE; probably born at Eleusis, a deme of Athens.

"His epitaph makes no reference to his art, only to his prowess displayed at Marathon; this estimate of what was most important in Aeschylus' life – to have been a loyal and courageous citizen of a free Athens – can hardly be that of the Geloans and will reflect his own death-bed wishes or those of his family." - OCD, Aeschylus entry

He’s also credited with writing over 70 plays, introducing a second actor to the stage, and developing innovative techniques using the chorus, earning him thirteen major victories over his 40+ year dramatic career (evidently a substantial number considering the time and place).

Fagels and Taplin both give 458 BCE as the year in which The Oresteia was first performed. This has Aeschylus at sixty-seven years of age when he produced this trilogy.

There's evidence The Oresteia was originally a tetralogy but the fourth, a satyr play called Proteus, has not survived.

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I practiced writing Haiku for a few months earlier in the year. It was nice. I should probably get back to it.

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Why do I like philosophy.

Because I've learn a lot about myself from studying it.

Also, philosophy introduced me to topics like classics, feminism, and linguistics.

From my experience, philosophy provides a unique set of perspectives from which to challenge and improve life on this planet.

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New edits of a few old favorite flower shots.

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Self assigned Photoshop homework. The original photo is of a large pink dahlia we found at Manito Park a couple years back. 

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Looking at Aristotle's Concept of Mimesis

Halliwell argues it's a foundational aesthetic concept; and also says he sometimes translates it as "represent" following the platonic fashion. Sachs seems to say it's more closely related to terms like "imitation." In Poetics Aristotle lists epic, tragedy, comedy, and dithyramb, along with most aulos and lyre music as kinds of mimesis. A few paragraphs later he mentions the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus. It's an interesting Attic word that maps in important ways onto multiple terms in English and seems to have remained complicated to the point of being labyrinthine. It nevertheless comes up in key moments throughout history in the context of poetry and literature. I like learning about it because it seems like every time I look it up I run into a variety of new and interesting insights.

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Overwatch would probably be my all-time favorite game above hundreds of other worthy considerations if only the community wasn’t the absolute worst toxic waste heap imaginable.

Seriously, if you play Overwatch and you don’t feel like the community has serious anger and violence issues at the very least then you’re part of the problem, my friend. I’m angry and offended as one who paid for the game and has invested time and energy only to be let down over and over again by a sea of unsupportive, uncooperative, nonconstructive, unfriendly, unhelpful, angry bros.

It’s pretty likely you don’t give a rat’s ass and you’re already thinking about what sort of witty bullshit you’ll offer up as a rejoinder... I just thought I’d share my experience in case anyone else ultimately feels let down by Overwatch or online gaming in general, but not by the developers... for us, the problem is specifically the rotten player-base.

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Kit Carson Loop, Mount Spokane State Park.

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A few nature shots from around Bowl and Pitcher area a couple weeks back.