Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians

Aeschylus (525–456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens, raising it to the status of high art. In Prometheus Bound the defiant Titan Prometheus is brutally punished by Zeus for daring to improve the state of wretchedness and servitude in which mankind is kept. The Suppliants tells the story of the fifty daughters of Danaus who must flee to escape enforced marriages, while Seven Against Thebes shows the inexorable downfall of the last members of the cursed family of Oedipus. And The Persians, the only Greek tragedy to deal with events from recent Athenian history, depicts the aftermath of the defeat of Persia in the battle of Salamis, with a sympathetic portrayal of its disgraced King Xerxes.

Philip Vellacott’s evocative translation is accompanied by an introduction, with individual discussions of the plays, and their sources in history and mythology.

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• The Oresteia: Agamemnon; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides
• Medea and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
• Parzival (Penguin Classics)
• The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus
• The Portable Dante (Penguin Classics)
• The Bacchae and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
• The Aeneid (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
• Electra and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
• The Essays: A Selection (Penguin Classics)
• The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha