Hi!
I was already asking about this in another thread… Who wants to read Agamemnon of Aeschylus together, the Attic tragedy you should read before you die? It is difficult, but that’s why reading it together with someone is a good idea. And it’s not too long, just 1673 lines - the Iliad is >15000!
I was thinking of a pace of about 100 lines per week, which would mean about 4 months in all. I’m open to other suggestions too, though.
Anyone interested?
I’d be interested if the pace can be reduced to 50-60 lines per week.
Are there any rules participants should be aware of? Is the use of online commentaries
(such as the ones on archive.org) forbidden or encouraged? Do we simply post our translations
or supplement them with notes about syntax, idioms and the like?
My copy of Agamemnon (Denniston/Page commentary) is across the Atlantic right now and having it shipped would be difficult since I don’t know which box it’s in. Sorry! Otherwise I’d be up for it.
Now if we were talking Antigone, on the other hand…
I don’t have any very particular rules in mind, and I wasn’t thinking about anything very formal. Just that we agree about a reading pace and discuss anything we find difficult or interesting as we proceed, by translating or by other means.
Personnally I like to use commentaries (as many as I can get my hands on!) and would use at least Denniston & Page. I might also get the recent one by Raeburn & Thomas. But people are different, so if you’re not using a commentary that’s okay by me… On a web forum study group, you’ll necessary have people from more heterogenous backgrounds than in a school setting. Different people have different approaches and different interests, and that’s just the point of doing it together, to see aspects of the text you’d never have thought about alone.
So my primary goal is just to read the whole text and understand the whole story from a linguistic viewpoint, but it’s fortunately unavoidable to learn a lot more in the process.
I didn’t have any particular edition in mind either, not yet at least. Personnally I wouldn’t mind people reading different editions. (Sometimes I even think it’s rewarding to discuss the differences between different editions, though usually that just goes way too deep if you ever want to get to the end…).
So… How about 65 lines per week? That would enable us to read it in 26 weeks, half a year!
I think 65 lines per week is a reasonable pace. Consider me in! 
Spiphany, I actually read Antigone in ornate, archaic, and metrical Hebrew on my lunch brakes.
I’ve always loved the theme of the play and would love to try my hand at reading the original.
Ya know, setting a target rate of reading doesn’t really improve the experience in my humble opinion. It’s better to just dive into it and see how it goes. I found Agamemnon too difficult for my level of attainment a decade ago when I read something like the first 150 lines. Been dabbling a little lately in Aeschylus and it doesn’t seem so bad. But the difficulty waxes and wanes. The fact that Aeschylus uses some vocabulary in a manner not found elsewhere keeps one busy with the lexicon. In some cases the Aeschylus appears to just extend the semantic domain of a particular word but in other places he appears to just invent meanings.
I read somewhere that Ezra Pound “assigned” a modern[est] translation of Agamemnon to T. S. Eliot but not sure of Eliot even started much less finished.
CSB
I’d be willing to drop in on this project now and then but can not sign up for 12 lines a day.
CSB, I agree that setting a target rate won’t improve the experience of work of art, especially if it means spending many months reading it. Ideally, you should read to the whole play in 2 hours or preferably see it in the theatre! Unfortunately, Classical Greek is not our native tongue… Hence, 65 lines per week.
I usually use your “diving” method, and in case of Aeschylus, it always took me to about line 150, just like you, and then I always let go. If I had kept reading, it would certainly have taken me less than a month. But now, a completely different approach!
(And yes, I might consider Antigone too…)
Well, there’s two of us now plus one “now and then”. That’s a good start but we could use a couple more. Come on, it’s free!
Well, we still don’t have a big crowd. But I’m willing to do it. How about you, Nate? I think we could just get started, people might hop in later too.
I’m ready to begin this journey, slow and difficult though it may be.
Ok, let us embark! I think it’s pointless to read exactly 65 lines per week, because that means you often have to stop in the middle of the sentence… So I cut up the play into 26 chunks. I avoided dividing individual speeches into different chunks to keep reading them “meaningful”. Also, some lines are longer than others, which I also tried to take into account. In the beginning the chunks are slightly shorter in average and get a bit longer as we proceed. What do you think?
1-39, 40-103, 104-159, 160-217, 218-280, 281-319, 320-384, 385-474, 475-537, 538-586, 587-635, 636-680, 681-762, 762-809, 810-854, 855-930, 931-974, 975-1071, 1072-1135, 1136-1213, 1214-1294, 1295-1371, 1372-1447, 1448-1520, 1521-1611, 1611-1673
I think it’s a manageable schedule although you should be aware I do not own any commentaries
or translations and I’m going to rely on whatever I can find online for help so my progress would
most likely be slower than expected. Hope it’s OK with you.
Hello Paul, Nate and C.S,
Pleased to meet you. I am interested. I have Fraenkel’s edition and would like to be the fourth member of this group.
In the absence of a specified format I was thinking about writing out my translation and then writing accompanying notes about what I found difficult or questions below the translation. Are we skipping over the Ἀγαμέμνοωος ὑπόθεσισ ? In my edition there are 25-26 lines of this introduction.
When are our translations due and in what format? Do we just post them here on the due date? That might be the best option since perhaps passersby might be inclined to comment and/or help with questions.
Tschüß!
K.
Welcome, Koehnsen!
I wasn’t planning to do any systematic translation myself, but only translating to illustrate some particular point when necessary. Translating can be very rewarding, but it’s also a lot of work. The way I thought I’ll be working is just discussing passages we think difficult, interesting or otherwise challenging. Translation is of course a good way to do this, so of course you should do it as much you feel necessary.
Ἀγαμέμνονος ὑπόθεσις seems to be missing from many editions, I have it my OCT but not in my Loeb and Denniston & Page, and it also seems to be missing from Perseus. But we could start by that. Maybe we shouldn’t dwell too long on that though, as I suppose it’s not an organic part of the work. By the way, do you know where it comes from, who do they think wrote it?
You said you read Fraenkel - from the introduction to Denniston & Page, I got the idea that it’s an impressive instance of German scholarship! I guess you are German-speaking yourself. English is not my native language either, so I’ll have to excuse myself if I don’t always express myself properly. This makes me work my English too.
Nate, like I said we have different backgrounds and different working methods and that’s fine by me. We are not doing a school project or anything like that, we’re planning to read Agamemnon. And as far as backgrounds go, from your previous posts you seem to know a lot more Greek than I do! And I think that counts in this kind of entreprise…
I propose this schedule: We start with Ἀγαμέμνονος ὑπόθεσις, now. October 1st we start with Agamemnon proper, chunk #1, lines 1-39, “deadline” October 7th, and then one chunk per week. Is this ok for you?
Yes, Paul. I will begin working my way through the hypothesis tomorrow after work.
Here’s something I’ve found in Google books regarding the hypothesis and how it somewhat
differs on the extant version of the play:
Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004 (p.57)
This link is context sensitive. Doesn’t work for some of us. Common problem with google books.
You going to to this Agamemnon thing in one huge thread like Thucydides?
Seems kind cumbersome. Easier to follow if you just have a thread on each problem
you want to discuss.
With an extraordinary level of distraction I have plowed through 30 lines from 539-569. Some of it was borderline incomprehensible but the majority was in the same ball park with Sophocles, who can also approach the incomprehensible. What I mean is, it really isn’t impossible to read. Just tedious amount of lexical work. No problem if you use a hypertext and point an click your way through. I put hypertext at the end of the process after all other methods have been exhausted. You learn more, I think.
CSB
Hi Paul. Thank you for your welcome and kind comments.
The Fraenkel edition is written by the esteemed German professor, but it is in English and I believe he was still a professor at Corpus Christi College at Oxford when the set was published around 1950. I do have a great set on the Herakles by his mentor Wilamowitz-Mollendorff that is excellent, and that one is in German and Greek.
I like your ideas regarding procedure and I look forward to posting around 01 October on the Ἀγαμέμνονος ὑπόθεσις. The schedule is perfect for me, too.
In the spirit of Nate’s contribution, I found this online pdf of the ‘Agamemnon’ of Aeschylus; with an introduction, commentary, and translation, by A. W. Verrall (1889)
http://archive.org/details/agamemnonofaesch00aescrich
Tschüß,
K.
There’s also a translation and discussion of the hypothesis on pp. 25-26. The Greek is quite straightforward though, I already read it. I have couple of questions/thoughts, but I maybe I should wait a bit before posting…
I think you’re right, we shouldn’t do this in one huge thread; but let’s still try keep some kind of limit to new threads or we’ll overflow the forum and people will get sick of Agamemnon and us…
Most of the days, I do not have access to previewed books. Even with this link I’ve posted,
the next day I didn’t have access to this page. Sorry about that.
In any case, it mentioned something about a distinct way in which Aeschylus had killed Agamemnon
that is missing in or is different from the version present to us today. I’ve only read the
play once in metrical Hebrew in 2008 for a university course so I’m a little fussy about the scene
in question.