Noah Goats's Reviews > Prometheus Bound and Other Plays

This is a great collection of plays, beautifully translated and helpfully annotated in this Penguin edition. The story of Prometheus is one of the most powerful and poignant in Greek mythology, and Aeschylus tells it with real feeling. The other plays in this collection are great as well. Seven Against Thebes continues the story of the aftermath of the whole Oedipus debacle, and in the process captures the horror of living in an ancient walled city under siege. The Suppliants, with its story about refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East and searching for asylum in Europe felt surprisingly timely. We've been having the same immigration debate for well over 2,000 years now apparently. The last play in the collection is the Persians, and it's an interesting work for several reasons. Aeschylus was a veteran of the wars against the Persians, and when he wrote this it wasn't ancient myth, but very recent history. It's actually an important historical source for what happened at the battle of Salamis. It's funny because the play is presented as a tragedy, but what was tragedy for the Persians was glory for the Greeks, and it's fun to imagine those Greek audiences positively glowing with schadenfreude as they watched it. All these plays are interesting glimpses into ancient Greek culture with passages of great beauty and power. Still well worth reading after so many centuries.