Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers; A Son Returns for Vengeance

As I write this I have just finished the first week of my new job in a call centre. I will be training for 8 weeks and boy is there a lot to learn. I am enjoying so far though but i'm glad there is so much training.

The Libation Bearers is the second play in the the Oresteia, or story of Orestes. The first was Agamemnon and the third is Eumenides and apparently there used to be one more but it did not survive to our time.
The Furies are mentioned at the end of the text with little explanation. Basically, the furies are three goddesses, from the underworld, that punish crimes: especially of children against parents.

The Story
Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, returns, with his cousin, to Argos to take revenge on his mother who killed his father. He returns because the cousin came to convince him to return home and he got good omens from the oracle of Apollo. He meets up with his sister at their father's grave and hatches a plot to kill their mother and her lover. Orestes heads to the palace and pretends to bring news of his own death. Orestes then proceeds to carry out their plan and first kills her mother's new husband. Then, when discovered by his mother, he, after a little hesitation, kills her. Hence committing matricide, after which he flees from the palace being chased by the Furies.

Reflections
It is interesting to see how the chorus is used to both move along the plot but also pad out the story. They are used to convey information to the named character, as well as to provide a foil for the named character's thinking. They also represent the masses of people that would have been around a petty king and his family.
Orestes hesitation in killing his mother shows that he has a firm grasp on just what a crime that would be. But, his decision is that the retaliation for his father's murder is more important to his honour and to Apollo who has sent him.

Comparisons
As the Libation Bearers is a continuation of Agamemnon, about 10-15 years later, it shares some characters in common, but it is the first time we see Orestes and his sister as adults. We see them rekindle a bond as siblings and as people who mourn their father's loss.
At this point in the Oresteia, there is no longer a comparison to be made with the Iliad, as the cross over character of Agamemnon is dead. But in a lot of ways, the story of the Libation Bearers is still a result of the Trojan war.

Have you read The Libation Bearers? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The Libation Bearers but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
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Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Reception on returning from Troy

Greek tragedy is plentiful in this list and in some ways it gets a little repetitive but on the other hand they are easy to sit and read in one afternoon so while it can be a little tiring reading a whole heap back to back at least they go by quickly unlike some texts (*cough* Herodotus *cough*).

The Story
Agamemnon returns home form the Trojan war and is greeted by his wife who notices the concubine in his chariot and has him come inside, he is cold to her. His wife, scorned, plots to kill her husband, with her lovers help. The murder of Agamemnon is successful. His wife and her lover then take over the governance of the kingdom. (Wow! That's a short synopsis, but it is a short play...)

Reflections
What a tragic thing to come home to after many years away at war. I can understand his wife having an affair but it is the conspiracy to kill him that struck me as really off. Thankfully, she does not succeed in killing their son and Agamemnon's heir in the process. This sets up the rest of the group of plays, called "The Oresteia", with his son still alive to take vengeance.

Comparisons
It is interesting to see another story after the Trojan war and after the Iliad. This one is a triumphant king come home to disaster. By contrast, the Odyssey is the extended trip home of one of the other kings and he does eventually reunite with his family and all is happy, eventually.

Have you read Agamemnon? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read Agamemnon but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
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Sappho, Poem Fragments: Stung with Love

Trying to get a bit ahead on this project is proving a little more challenging than I was expecting. It didn't take to long for me to be bogged down in a book again. This time it is Augustine's City of God from my AD lit list. Its not that it is difficult, its rather well put together, its just over 1000 pages long.

Synopsis
It is a little hard to write a synopsis of such a fragmented collection of work, but I will try.
Sappho's work is about love and loving and is generally dedicated to Aphrodite and or Eros, the Goddess of love and the God of sexuality, respectively. Sappho was a composer of short works, often written to be sung. Within this collection there are also songs about marriage and of her girls at the school she ran. She even penned a few of Troy, though she is no epic poet.

Reflections
Maybe I'm just naive but I totally missed the gay elements that are supposedly in this text. I either didn't notice or just didn't render the innuendo or maybe the gay elements are more a modern reading on an older text. Then again, it could just be that her work is so sexualised in it's form, which it most certainly is.

Comparisons
This is the first collection of short poems I have read in this project. So far, there isn't much to compare it to. I do think it will provide a good foil to compare future poems to.

Have you read Sappho If so what did you think of it?

Want to read Sappho but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of Sappho.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: Taoisms heart

NZ is playing India at cricket this afternoon and it's on free to air TV for a change. So, that is in the background, distracting me as I write this. Its only just started though, so the interesting stuff isn't on until later. If you are unfamiliar with cricket, it's a slower game so you can kinda half watch it and half do other things without missing too much. I say that and then there is a wicket in the second over... make that two by the fourth over... this game may not go New Zealand's way at this rate...

Synopsis
Lao Tzu is a contemporary of Confucius, though the name literally means Old Man and so does not, to the modern reader, evoke the image of being a specific man. There is also some question as to whether it was written all at once or added to over time.
The central idea in the Tao Te Ching is the idea of Tao or “the way”, as it is generally translated.Though it covers more than the translation suggests. The way is almost an organic thing, encompassing the idea of an eternal, or high, way to go and of an entity in its own right.

The Way includes pushing away desire and embracing nature and the natural order of things. Being okay with the loss of things and people, to death, as a natural part of life. To pursue Tao, is to pursue non-action and stillness.

It is in the Tao Te Ching that we first see the concepts of Ying and Yang, of balance of positive and negative energies, and the idea that we should strive for that balance in our lives and beings.

Reflections
I can see how the Taoists gave birth to the Tai Chi movements and the like. Their focus on contemplation, and being free of desire, also reminds me of what little I know of Buddism. Tao is a slippery concept in this text as it almost has a life of its own; not being just the path, as I said before, but the whole person becoming more like the way.

It also advocates applying knowledge more than gaining knowledge and I think this seems to suggest that the author is aware of how too much 'head knowledge' can get in the way of practice of the things taught in the Tao Te Ching.

Comparisons
Because of the fluidity of the concept of Tao, the Tao Te Ching is a little more fluid to grasp than the more concrete work of the Analects. You can tell that Confucius and Lao Tsu are contemporaries because of the cultural similarities that we see in the society they are writing in and trying to have input on.  In saying that, they come at the issues of the society in two very different ways: Confucius' message is to improve yourself and you can improve the things around you. Lao Tzu's message is more, to find the Tao, or spiritual path, and the rest won't matter because you are so in touch with Tao.

Have you read The Tao Te Ching? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The Tao Te Ching but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
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The Saga of Burnt Njal; The Spiraling Blood Feud

It's so hot! I'm writing this in the middle of a heat wave. it will be March before this posts but right now, it's a scorcher. We had 32 degrees yesterday and it's 30, so far, today. Because of this, I am hiding out in the local library. Air conditioning is a lovely invention.

Story
The Burnt Njal starts off with a small squabble between a pair of best friend's wives. This squabble leads to the first killing. This killing starts a slowly intensifying blood feud. This feud first consumes the living moments of Gunnar, who is one of the major players of the book (his wife is one of the original arguers), and eventually is his death. After every killing, the perpetrators and the family of the slain meet at the Thing, which is some kind of clan meeting, and is where the law court was held. At the Thing, both sides agree to a blood price for each person killed and pledge their peace to each other. Though this is meant to stop blood feuds, in this case the fight is taken up again and again, often by someone more tangential to the giving of peace. This feud, after the death of Gunnar, spreads to Njal's sons, and eventually to Njal himself. A large group of men come to his house and burn it with him and his household inside. One man escapes, Kari, the rest of the work then describes his revenge on those who did the burning. Eventual peace with the leader of the group  is achieved but only after all other perpetrators have been killed.

Reflections
The most interesting side track, to me, was the arrival and adoption of Christianity to the Icelandic shores and people. A group of men return from overseas in Norway that have converted. They, in turn, convert about half the island. It eventually comes to the hill of laws that they cannot have two laws for the land, so it is eventually decided that they should all become Christian. While this is an interesting addition to the life and times of the Icelandic people, it has little influence on the law proceedings themselves. Though it does change the priesthood and who had those honours.
It is notable just how broad the scope of the work is, starting right back with the original rivalry and fight between the two wives and not ending until the final man who did the burning was atoned for. I spent a lot of the work wondering where the burnt came from in the title as Njal was no more than a side character for much of the work and the burning itself is within the last 10% of the book.

Comparisons
Both The Burnt Njal and Beowulf are full of daring heroes doing daring things. The thing that sets them apart is that, in the Burnt Njal these heroes are fighting each other, not monsters. The Burnt Njal also gives more insight to the little day to day life things than Beowulf, or even than The Neibenlungenlied.
As a saga, the Burnt Njal, like the Iliad, is set mainly in one place; though we do occasionally see people traveling out of Iceland. The Iliad is also an epic that focuses on hero versus hero but it focuses on one action in a war, compared to the many individual actions in the Burnt Njal.

Have you read The Burnt Njal? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The Burnt Njal but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of  The Burnt Njal.