Eschyle , né à Éleusis vers 525 av. J.-C., mort à Géla en 456 av. J.-C., est le plus ancien des trois grands tragiques grecs. Précédé par d'autres dramaturges, il participe à la naissance du genre tragique grâce à certaines innovations, comme le nombre d'acteurs qu'il porte à deux selon Aristote. Treize fois vainqueur du concours tragique, il est l'auteur d'environ 110 pièces dont sept seulement nous ont été transmises. Le théâtre d'Eschyle est essentiellement remarqué pour sa force dramatique, la tension, l'angoisse qui habite ses pièces, dont la cohérence se comprend surtout par la progression qui les reliait au sein de trilogies « liées », dont ne subsiste aujourd'hui que l’Orestie. S'il ne développe pas la psychologie des personnages, ses choix lui permettent de mettre en valeur ses conceptions puissantes sur l'équilibre de la cité, le dégoût de l’hybris qui met en danger cet ordre, et le poids de la décision des dieux dans la conduite des affaires humaines, notamment à travers le sort militaire, ou la malédiction familiale . Wikipedia
Eschyle Les Sept contre Thèbes
ἄνδρες γὰρ ἑπτά, θούριοι λοχαγέται,
ταυροσφαγοῦντες ἐς μελάνδετον σάκος
καὶ θιγγάνοντες χερσὶ ταυρείου φόνου,
Ἄρη τ’, Ἐνυώ, καὶ φιλαίματον Φόβον
ὡρκωμότησαν ἢ πόλει κατασκαφὰς
θέντες λαπάξειν ἄστυ Καδμείων βίᾳ,
ἢ γῆν θανόντες τήνδε φυράσειν φόνῳ
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Le serment des sept chefs argiens contre Thèbes, décrit à Étéocle par un Messager.
Les Sept contre Thèbes
“Zeus! … quel que soit son vrai nom, si celui-ci lui agrée, c'est celui dont je l'appelle.”
Ζεύς, ὅστις ποτ’ ἐστίν, εἰ τόδ’ αὐ-
τῷ φίλον κεκλημένῳ,
τοῦτό νιν προσεννέπω.
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Invocation à Zeus pendant la parodos (entrée du Chœur sur scène)
L'Orestie, Agamemnon
ἄπειρον ἀμφίβληστρον, ὥσπερ ἰχθύων,
περιστιχίζω, πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν
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Clytemnestre raconte le piège qu'elle a tendu à son époux Agamemnon pour le tuer.
L'Orestie, Agamemnon
Eschyle Les Sept contre Thèbes
τῶν τοι ματαίων ἀνδράσιν φρονημάτων
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ἀληθὴς γίγνεται κατήγορος.
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Étéocle réagissant aux propos impies de Capanée, l'un des sept chefs assaillant Thèbes, que lui rapporte le Messager.
Les Sept contre Thèbes
ἄρασσε μᾶλλον, σφίγγε, μηδαμῇ χάλα·
δεινὸς γὰρ εὑρεῖν κἀξ ἀμηχάνων πόρον.
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Le dieu Pouvoir (Kratos) conseille Héphaïstos pendant que ce dernier enchaîne Prométhée au mont Caucase.
Prométhée enchaîné
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La déesse Athéna instaure le tribunal de l'Aréopage à Athènes afin de trancher le conflit entre Apollon et les Erinyes au sujet de la culpabilité ou de l'innocence d'Oreste (la mère d'Oreste, Clytemnestre, ayant tué son époux Agamemnon, Oreste a tué Clytemnestre, commettant ainsi un matricide pour venger son père).
L'Orestie, Les Euménides
“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
This is usually attributed to Emiliano Zapata, but sometimes to Aeschylus, who is credited with expressing similar sentiments in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life".
Misattributed
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 510–524, as translated by R. Potter (1860)
“Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.”
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 378; compare: "Apt words have power to suage / The tumours of a troubl'd mind", John Milton, Samson Agonistes.
Aeschylus Agamemnon
Variant translations: <br class="br">Zeus has led us on to know,<br>the Helmsman lays it down as law<br>that we must suffer, suffer into truth.<br>We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart<br>the pain of pain remembered comes again,<br>and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.<br>From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench<br>there comes a violent love. <br class="br">Robert Fagles, The Oresteia (1975) <br class="br">God, whose law it is<br>that he who learns must suffer.<br>And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget<br>falls drop by drop upon the heart,<br>and in our own despite, against our will,<br>comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. <br class="br">Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way (1930), pp. 61 and 194 ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=D3QwvF3GWOkC&lpg=PA61&ots=BacvHvGm6e&dq=%22And%20in%20our%20own%20despite%2C%20against%20our%20will%2C%20Comes%20wisdom%22%20-kennedy&pg=PA194#v=onepage&q=%22our%20own%20despite%22&f=false) <br class="br">Robert F. Kennedy quoted these lines in his speech announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968. His version http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html: <br class="br">Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget<br>falls drop by drop upon the heart<br>until, in our own despair, against our will,<br>comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. <br class="br">Variant translations of πάθει μάθος: <br class="br">By suffering comes wisdom. <br class="br">The reward of suffering is experience. <br class="br">Wisdom comes alone through suffering. <br class="br">Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 176–183, as translated by Ian Johnston ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=qz1HpBZ1fTwC&lpg=PA13&ots=C7aohrZRF1&dq=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep%2C&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep,&f=false)
“On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble.”
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 1089
Contexte: On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.
“Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.”
Aeschylus The Libation Bearers
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 103
“Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?”
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 328–329 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
“Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
Thou shalt not kick against the pricks.”
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 322–323 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“The will of Zeus,
The hand of his Hephæstus.”
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 619 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“The guardian of poor suffering mankind.”
Aeschylus The Suppliants
Source: The Suppliants, lines 382–383 (tr. Christopher Collard)
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 309–310 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“Arrogance in full bloom bears a crop of ruinous folly from which it reaps a harvest all of tears.”
Aeschylus The Persians
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 821–822 (tr. Christopher Collard)
“Chorus of Furies: Living, you will be my feast, not slain at an altar”
Aeschylus Les Euménides
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 305 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“Thou shalt learn,
Late though it be, the lesson to be wise.”
Aeschylus Agamemnon
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1425 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“Repute of justice, not just act, thou wishest.”
Aeschylus Les Euménides
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 430 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again.”
Aeschylus Agamemnon
trans. https://archive.org/stream/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp#page/n38/mode/1up Gilbert Murray <br class="br">Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
“His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 592; compare: esse quam videri.
“Innumerable twinkling of the waves of the sea.”
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 89
Aeschylus The Persians
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 818–820 (tr. S. G. Benardete)
Aeschylus Agamemnon
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 790–794 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 50 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
“May Morning, as the proverb runs, appear
Bearing glad tidings from his mother Night!”
Aeschylus Agamemnon
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 264–265 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“Children are memory's voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying.”
Aeschylus The Libation Bearers
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, lines 505–506 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.”
Aeschylus Les Euménides
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 432 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.”
Aeschylus Agamemnon
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1343
Aeschylus Agamemnon
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 485–487 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
Aeschylus The Libation Bearers
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, lines 600–601 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Aeschylus Prométhée enchaîné
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 35 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“Good fortune is a god among men, and more than a god.”
Aeschylus The Libation Bearers
Variant translation: Success is man's god.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 59
