[Illustration] _Hera and Prometheus From a red figure vase. No 78 in the British Museum_ Four Plays of Aeschylus The Suppliant Maidens The Persians The Seven Against Thebes The Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus Translated Into English Verse By E.D.A. Morshead, MA. Contents INTRODUCTION THE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS THE PERSIANS THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES PROMETHEUS BOUND INTRODUCTION The surviving dramas of Aeschylus are seven in number, though he is believed to have written nearly a hundred during his life of sixty-nine years, from 525 B.C. to 456 B.C. That he fought at Marathon in 490, and at Salamis in 480 B.C. is a strongly accredited tradition, rendered almost certain by the vivid references to both battles in his play of _The Persians_, which was produced in 472. But his earliest extant play was, probably, not _The Persians_ but _The Suppliant Maidens_—a mythical drama, the fame of which has been largely eclipsed by the historic interest of _The Persians_, and is undoubtedly the least known and least regarded of the seven. Its topic—the flight of the daughters of Danaus from Egypt to Argos, in order to escape from a forced bridal with their first-cousins, the sons of Aegyptus—is legendary, and the lyric element predominates in the play as a whole. We must keep ourselves reminded that the ancient Athenian custom of presenting dramas in _Trilogies_—that is, in three consecutive plays dealing with different stages of one legend—was probably not uniform: it survives, for us, in one instance only, viz. the Orestean Trilogy, comprising the _Agamemnon_, the _Libation-Bearers_, and the _Eumenides_, or _Furies_. This Trilogy is the masterpiece of the Aeschylean Drama: the four remaining plays of the poet, which are translated in this volume, are all fragments of lost Trilogies—that is to say, the plays are complete as _poems_, but in regard to the poet’s larger design they are fragments; they once had predecessors, or sequels, of which only a few words, or lines, or short paragraphs, survive. It is not certain, but seems probable, that the earliest of these single completed plays is _The Suppliant Maidens_, and on that supposition it has been placed first in the present volume. The maidens, accompanied by their father Danaes, have fled from Egypt and arrived at Argos, to take sanctuary there and to avoid capture by their pursuing kinsmen and suitors. In the course of the play, the pursuers’ ship arrives to reclaim the maidens for a forced wedlock in Egypt. The action of the drama turns on the attitude of the king and people of Argos, in view of this intended abduction. The king puts the question to the popular vote, and the demand of the suitors is unanimously rejected: the play closes with thanks and gratitude on the part of the fugitives, who, in lyrical strains of quiet beauty, seem to refer the whole question of their marriage to the subsequent decision of the gods, and, in particular, of Aphrodite.