Thyestes by Seneca - c. B. C. E. 62- included in the Collection Seneca: Six Tradgedies- translated with an Introduction by Emily Wilson- 2010

 Thyestes by Seneca - c. B. C. E. 62- included in the Collection Seneca: Six Tradgedies- translated with an Introduction by Emily Wilson- 2010

Ancient Reads Post

This is the third drama by Seneca I have so far read. Previously I have posted upon his Phaedra as well as Trojan Women.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Born- 4 B. C. E. - Cordoba,Spain 

49 A. D. Appointed Advisor to Nero

Died 65 A. D - Rome. - ordered to commit suicide for his possible role in a conspiracy to murder Emperor Nero 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE-

Thyestes, Brother of Atreus, in exile

Atreus, King of Argos

Tantalus, father of Thyestes

Plisthenes (silent role), son of Thyestes

Tantali umbra (ghost of Tantalus), grandfather of Atreus & Thyestes

Furia (Rage, Fury), often interpreted as Megaera

satelles, attendant or guard of Atreus

nuntius, messenger

Chorus

"Tantalus killed his son, Pelops, and gave him as a feast to the gods. As punishment in the underworld he suffered eternal hunger and eternal thirst, with water and food forever just out of his grasp. The two sons of Pelops struggled for power over the throne of Mycenae. They agreed that whichever of them possessed the golden sheep from Atreus’ herd should be king. Thyestes produced the sheep, and seized power, ousting Atreus. But Atreus accused his brother of plotting with his own wife, Aerope, to steal the fleece and the throne; he seized power in turn, and exiled his brother. Seneca’s play shows what happened when Thyestes returned from exile." From the introduction 

The plays of Seneca I have read present a very dark vision. People are motivated by Greed, jealousy, envy and lust. No one can be truly trusted. Love turns to hate to violent revenge. The old Gods are depicted sometimes as cruel, capricious sporting with people just for their own amusement. Sometimes their existence is said to exist only in fairy tales, delusions people cling to for comfort. Roman society was built on a foundation of cruelty and oppression through slavery and warfare. With a turn of fortune today’s aristocrats can become Tommorow's slaves.

Thyestes takes place partially in the Underworld. The summary from Edith Wilson depicts the horrors of the plot.

The sacrificing of children was common in numerous Ancient cultures, including Celtic, old testament Judea, India and Meso-America as well as Grecian. Killing a rival's children was a prime means of revenge.

The next play by Seneca I read will be his Medea but first I will read Medea by Euripides.

"ABOUT EMILY WILSON

Emily Wilson is the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities, professor of Classical Studies, and graduate chair of the Program in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College B.A. and Corpus Christi College M.Phil.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance & Early Modern scholarship. In 2019 she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2020 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Philadelphia with her three daughters, three cats, two rats, and one dog.

Follow Professor Wilson on Twitter @EmilyRCWilson. Professor Wilson frequently tweets about the Odyssey, translation, and her pets." From Emilywilson.com

Reading her bio, I thought I live with my three daughters, five cats and one dog but no rats 

Mel u

Trojan Women by Seneca - composed c. 54 A. D. - included in the Collection Seneca: Six Tradgedies- translated with an Introduction by Emily Wilson- 2010

 Born - 4 B. C. E. - Cordoba,Spain 

49 A. D. Appointed Advisor to Nero

Died 65 A. D. - ordered to commit suicide for his possible role in a conspiracy to murder Emperor Nero 

An Article from the Enclopedia Britanica has a detailed account of Seneca's involvement in Roman imperial politics 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE- in order of appearance 

 HECUBA, Queen of Troy TALTHYBIUS, Greek herald PYRRHUS, son of Achilles AGAMEMNON, Greek leader CALCHAS, Greek prophet ANDROMACHE, wife of Hector OLD MAN ASTYANAX, Andromache’s son ULYSSES, HELEN MESSENGER CHORUS [POLYXENA: silent part

 The action is set in the city of Troy, in the aftermath of the ten-year war. The Greeks—led by Ulysses and Agamemnon—have used the trick of the wooden horse to break the siege, invade the city, and defeat the inhabitants. The wealth of Troy is looted; the Trojan men are dead, including the great hero Hector, killed by Achilles; the Trojan Women enslaved, and will be taken home as servants and concubines by the various Greek soldiers. But before the Greek fleet can set sail, fate has decreed that two Trojan children must be killed: Astyanax, son of Hector and Andromache, must be thrown from the city walls; and Polyxena, daughter of Hecuba and Priam, the king and queen of Troy, must be given in ‘marriage’ to the dead Achilles, and then slaughtered. Seneca’s play plots the fulfilment of these terrible predictions.

In my post on his Pheadra I observed that contemporaries of Seneca were coming to see Rome as entering a period of decadence and decline.  Educated Romans were beginning to doubt the  Gods, even seeing them as fairy tales.

"CHORUS Is it true, or a myth to deceive the fearful, that spirits live on after bodies are buried, when the wife has laid her hand on the dead man’s eyes, and his last day has blocked out the sun and the mournful urn contains his ashes? Is it pointless to give our souls to death, since we, poor things, still have to keep on living? Or do we totally die, and does no part of us remain, when with a fleeting gasp...

. Hungry time and emptiness devour us.  Death is a single whole: it kills our body and does not spare the soul. The realm of Taenarus,* kingdom of cruel Hades, and the guard-dog Cerberus, fierce defender of the gate, are fictions, tall tales, empty fairy stories, myths, as close to truth as a bad dream. Do you want to know where you will be after death? Where the unborn are."

In Trojan Women the Greek Leaders are very much vilified, no Homeric Hero emerges unblemished

The women of Troy themselves do not know what the future holds for Ulysses and other Greek Leaders but the Chorus makes sure it is paramount in the mind of the audience.

There is no glory in war. Other women expressed extreme contempt for Helen.

I would suggest that those interested first read Euripides’s version of Trojan women.Emily Wilson is the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities, professor of Classical Studies, and graduate chair of the Program in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College B.A. and Corpus Christi College M.Phil.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance & Early Modern scholarship. In 2019 she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2020 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Philadelphia with her three daughters, three cats, two rats, and one dog.

Follow Professor Wilson on Twitter @EmilyRCWilson. Professor Wilson frequently tweets about the Odyssey, translation, and her pets. From https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/

There are links to links to several articles by Wilson as well as several interviews on her website.

The next play by Seneca I will read is Thyestes.

Mel Ulm

Phaedra by Seneca - 54 A. D. --from Seneca- :Six Tradgedies: Translated by Emily Wilson - 2010

Phaedra by Seneca - 54 A. D. --from Seneca:Six Tradgedies: Translated by Emily Wilson - 2010

An Ancient Reads Post

An Autodatic Corner Work

"‘Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light’" - Hamlet, II,ii,395

Seneca 

Born - 4 B. C. E. - Cordoba, Spain

49 A.D. -appointed Advisor to Nero

Died- 65 A. D. - Rome, Italy - ordered to commit suicide for his alleged role in a conspiracy to murder Emperor Nero 

In this article from the Enclopedia Britanica there is an account of his importance in Roman politics and his work as a Stoic Philosopher 

This is my first venture into Roman drama. I grateful to Emily Wilson for her highly informative introduction to this collection. She provides an illuminating account of the influence of the tribulation in Roman imperial politics had on Seneca's life and his involvement with Nero.

Several of Seneca's plays have counterpart in Greek Tradgedies. For Phaedra this is Hippolytus by Euripides. Wilson helped me to understand the differences between Seneca's work and Greek Tradgedies. 

"Readers who come to Seneca fresh from Athenian tragedy may miss the lightness, the irony, the possibility of open-ended dialogues between one character and another, or between human beings and the gods. Above all, we miss the sense of community. . Seneca’s tragedies focus less on the relationships of people to one another, and more on the relationship of individuals to their own passions. These plays are far darker, but also often much funnier, than their Athenian equivalents." From the Introduction 

The plays of Seneca influenced Shakespeare, Racine, Ben Johson and other dramatists. If Time is permitted to me by the capricious Gods, I hope to reread the plays Wilson mentions.

Wilson elegantly lays out the contrasts of Seneca's treatment of the myth of Phaedra with that of Euripides:

"In comparison with Athenian tragedy, Seneca’s plays focus less on the workings of the divine in human life and more on the conflicts within human nature itself. For example, Seneca’s Phaedra is based on the same story as Euripides’ Hippolytus. Euripides’ play is framed by two goddesses: Aphrodite, goddess of love and sex, who speaks the prologue; and Artemis, goddess of the hunt and of chastity, who appears to the dying Hippolytus in the penultimate moments of the play. It that Phaedra’s incestuous passion and Hippolytus’ excessive chastity are two extreme sides of the same spectrum. Seneca removes the divine machinery, to create a drama about the conflict between passion and self-control within the human psyche."

Educated Roman's, as reflected in the writing of period historians had come by 50 A.D. to view Roman society as entering a period of decadence and depravity, far from the glory days of Rome.

In Reading Phaedra I see the darkness, the lack of community but I admit I found nothing funny in this play. I do find more hatred, little regard for the morality of the often cruel and capricious Gods.

Stoicism is based on the idea that a failure to control human passions, Greed, lust and desire for material wealth are the sources of human misery. (I will obseve when long ago I read the stoical Meditations of Marcus Aurelius i thought, "Easy for an Emperor to say this) The picture of the sexual obsessions of Phaedra paint a troubling view of the impact of sexual passion on women. 

There is less use of the Chorus in Seneca's dramas.  

Here are the closing lines of the play as Theseus laments his role in the murder of his son and curses Phaedra:

"What can this be, so ugly, disgusting, pierced all over with multiple wound.

 I do not know what part it is, but I know it belongs to you; Put it here: not where it belongs, but where a space is empty.

 Is this your face, which used to shine with starry fire, your spirited, piercing gaze? Has your beauty come to this?  

 O terrible fate, O cruelly-helpful gods! Is this the answer to a father’s prayer, a son’s return? Here are the final gifts your father gives you.

You will need multiple burials... Meanwhile, burn these parts. Open the house: it stinks of death

. Let all the land of Attica ring loud with piercing funeral cried

. You, make ready the flame for the royal pyre, and you, go out and seek the missing parts of the body scattered in the country.

 And as for that woman—bury her, and may the heavy earth crush down on her"

Emily Wilson is the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities, professor of Classical Studies, and graduate chair of the Program in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College B.A. and Corpus Christi College M.Phil.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance & Early Modern scholarship. In 2019 she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2020 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Philadelphia with her three daughters, three cats, two rats, and one dog.

Follow Professor Wilson on Twitter @EmilyRCWilson. Professor Wilson frequently tweets about the Odyssey, translation, and her pets. From https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/

There are links to links to several articles by Wilson as well as several interviews on her website.

The next play by Seneca I will read is his Trojan Women.

Mel Ulm