The Agamemnon was translated by Dean Milman, 1865; and "transcribed" by Robert Browning, 1877. A. W. Verrall's edition of the text, with commentary and translation, appeared in 1889. The most important of the earlier editions of the text was that by Stanley; of the more recent, that by Schütz, Wellauer, and Hermann. CONTENTS Preface Footnotes On the Genius and Character of the Greek Tragedy Footnotes The Life of Æschylus Footnotes AGAMEMNON Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes CHOEPHORÆ Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes THE EUMENIDES Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes PROMETHEUS BOUND Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes THE SUPPLIANTS Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes THE PERSIANS Introductory Remarks Footnotes Notes List of Editions, etc. Footnotes (Complete) Notes (Complete) Greek Textual Notes PREFACE {1} THE poet who publishes an original work, or the painter who exhibits the product of his own brush, does well, in the general case, to spare himself the trouble of any sort of introductory exposition or explanation; for the public are apt to look upon all such preambles as a sort of forestalling of their own critical rights: besides that a good work of art contains within itself all that is necessary to unfold its own story to an intelligent spectator. A translator, however, is differently situated. In interposing himself between the original author and the public, he occupies the position of an optical artist, who, when he presents to the infirm human eye the instrument that is to enable it to scan the path of the stars, is bound, not merely to guarantee the beauty, but to explain to the intelligent spectator the principle, and to make intelligible the reality of the spectacle. Or, as all similes limp, we may say that a translator stands to the public in the position of the old Colchian sorceress, who having cut a live body in pieces, and submitted it to a new fermentation in a magic pot, engaged to produce it again re-invigorated in all its completeness. The spectators of such a process have a right to know, not only that something--it may be a very beautiful and a very attractive thing--has come out of the cauldron, but also that the identical thing put in has come out without transmutation or transformation. And if there has been transmutation or transformation to any extent, they are entitled to know how far.