The most "dog blood" Greek mythological story
In every era, there are writers who try to turn the stories left by their predecessors into new ideas. For example, ancient Greek epics and myths provided an inexhaustible blueprint for future generations of creators. Countless plays, novels, movies, and symphonies have drawn a lot of inspiration from ancient Greek epics and myths.
In ancient Greek epics, there is a story that can be called "dog blood", which is the tragedy of the Atreus family (this is the story of four generations of a family, with many characters and a variety of versions, and the following is just one of the comprehensive versions):
Agamemnon's grandfather was Pelopus, after whom the Peloponnese (meaning "island of Pelopus") was named. Although this man achieved great feats such as conquering southern Greece and founding the Olympic Games, he was cursed for killing Hermes's son, Myrtyros: his descendants were kings, but they were destined to live in the shadow of blood relatives and brothers.
Perops' son Atreus was killed by his brother Tierus and nephew Edestus. Agamemnon, son of Atreus, traveled to Sparta and joined Tindarios. During this time, he killed Tantalus, the son of Theestes, and the son of Tantalus and Clyteignestra. Afterwards, he married the heartbroken Krytenestra and gave birth to his eldest daughter Iphigenia, his second daughter Erektra, and his son Orestes.
Heroes of the Trojan War
Later, when the Trojan War broke out, Agamemnon, as the leader of the Greek coalition, led his troops on a campaign and accidentally shot the deer of the goddess Artemis, and Artemis turned the wind in a direction that was not favorable to the Greek coalition fleet. In order to appease Artemis' anger, Agamemnon lured his daughter Iphigenia to the station with lies and sacrificed her. When Agamemnon triumphed, what awaited him was the elaborate murder of Clyteigstra and his adulterer Edestes.
Later, Orestes, at the instigation of Apollo and his sister Erektra, killed Clyteigstra and Edestes. Hunted down by the goddess of vengeance for killing his mother, he sought refuge in the Temple of Athena, and in the end, a panel of thirteen gods acquitted him by a vote of seven to six, affirming his act of avenging his father.
The above story is actually the history of the decline of the Atreus family, and any one of these links is enough to form a complete story, and it is no wonder that later creators favor it.
Poster for the English edition of Orestes, pictured of Apollo washing Orestes of blood
The relevant adaptations can be traced back to the ancient Greek tragic poet Aeschylus's famous Orestes trilogy: Agamemnon, The Winemaker, and The God of Vengeance – the only surviving triad of ancient Greek tragedies.
The most poisonous woman's heart vs angry mother
Ancient Greek myths and epics are magnificent, but the social soil that gave birth to them has disappeared after all. Many of the ideas in the original work cannot withstand the scrutiny and questioning of modern people, and these ideas must be transformed by modern times before they can be accepted by readers.
For example, in the most primitive version of the above story, Krytenestra is a vicious woman with a snake and scorpion heart. In Homer's Epic, Agamemnon's "ghost" cried out to Odysseus:
……
Natindarios' daughter (i.e., Kryteigstra) plotted evil deeds
Killing of her own hair-bound husband (i.e. Agamemnon)
Her ugly deeds will be passed down through the world
Bring bad reputation to the whole woman
Although some people also behave in a noble manner
Wait a minute! Before being "rhythmic" by Agamemnon, let's make it clear what this guy did: first, Agamemnon killed Clytegnastra's husband and infant son (who were actually innocent) for the so-called revenge of killing his father; second, he took Clütemnestra for himself; and finally, he deceived Iphigenia, his daughter born to Cletegnestra, and sacrificed this innocent girl to make up for his mistake.
To the modern reader, any of Agamemnon's above three acts is already absurd enough, and Clyteigstra has quite a good reason to kill this incompetent, cruel husband; if necessary, even the law must turn a blind eye to this sad, miserable woman.
Orestes is chased by the goddess of vengeance
Unfortunately, in the ancient Greek era, which Medea lamented as "of all the sensible, spiritual creatures, we women are the most unfortunate", the will of God and the power of men could not be challenged. If God's will is to sacrifice the maiden Iphigenia, then Agamemnon's behavior is very justified; if Agamemnon forgets Iphigenia's death, then Clütenestria has no reason to be angry about it; on the contrary, even a woman of noble birth like Clütemnestra, who commits adultery and murder, is bound to be spurned by the world and infamous.
Even, in Homer's Epic, Homer did not give a clear account of what happened to Clütenestra, who was only an adulterer who betrayed her husband, and it was her adulterer Edestes who led the killing of Agamemnon.
By the time of Aeschylus, things had changed. In the Orestes trilogy, Krytemnestra becomes a woman who dares to love and hate, dares to be bold, and has a strong personality, who single-handedly planned and carried out the murder of her husband, and has the courage to bear it, without concealment. In contrast, Edestes' role became insignificant. After such a rewrite, the audience can also have some sympathy and understanding for the extreme behavior of this painful mother.
Rewrite Greek mythology with modern ideas
Aeschylus is not far from Homer's time, and there have been major changes. Today, more than two thousand years later, how can we understand this story?
Ireland's foremost contemporary writer, Colm Tobin, chose to rewrite it with modern ideas, writing the novel House of Names in 2016. Let's see how Tobin redesigned the characters in the story .
"Famous Doors"
[Ireland] by Colm Tobin
Translated by Wang Xiaoxiong
Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Archipelago Books
October 2020
Price: 59.00 RMB
Fame begins with war, lies, and death: in order to win honor and loot, the ruthless Agamemnon decides to sacrifice the maiden Iphigenia; in order to make her appear, he makes up a lie to deceive the maiden and her mother; the maiden dies tragically while her mother is imprisoned in a dungeon, desperately waiting.
Iphigenia's death and Clytenestra's wrath paved the way for what happened next, and the "angry mother who lost her daughter" became the tone of Clytenestra's image. But Tobin did not want to make Clytemnestra, who "countered violence with violence," a morally perfect man, a hero of revenge. In other words, although he gave Clytegnastra sufficient motives, he had no intention of proving her right.
Tobin writes in How I Rewrite Greek Tragedy later in the book:
In my book, I felt that I should find for Clyteigstra an unwavering tone, a tone of gyneus, never tolerated, a tone of ruthlessness and brutality. I want to find a voice for those who have endured loss and shame, who are ready for revenge and who intend to enjoy the fruits of revenge.
When I began to study one of Euripides's late plays, Iphigenia in Orlis, I found that the image of Clyteignestra here was more complex, and her wounded voice was more difficult and unsteady.
Clyteignestra was the leader and the rule-maker. If she had lived in the modern world, she would have declared that there was no such thing as society, or sat in a corner office and issued crude memos. She will start a war and incite hatred, but she will also have a strong sense of loneliness and uncertainty. The conflict between these two parts of her personality will become her weakness and will make her fierce and ruthless.
In The Gate of Fame, Clytenestra ends up presenting a complex personality: she calmly plots, step by step, and finally kills Agamemnon; but after that, she loses the target of hatred and becomes weak, only wanting to return to a "normal life", step by step becoming a vassal of Edyestus.
Illustration: Clyteignstra assassinates Agamemnon
As for Agamemnon, compared to the image of the cold-faced hero in Homer's epic, at least the reader can see that he feels guilty about Iphigenia's dead heart.
The absolute correctness of Agamemnon in Homer's epic is based on the will of God and patriarchy. When this foundation is shaken, Agamemnon's heroic image is crumbling, and he can only become "soft". With the decline of God and the weakening of patriarchal patriarchy, Agamemnon gradually "degenerated" from a hero to a weak and affectionate man.
At the beginning of the Famous Gate, Clyteignstra, who learned that Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed, coldly examines Agamemnon:
Now Agamemnon did not look at me again, nor did he look at Iphigenia. The longer his fight went on, the more I understood that he was afraid of us, or afraid of what he would have to say to us at the end of the fight. He didn't want it to end. He continued the game, he, without courage.
When Agamemnon appeared, he scurried toward the tent entrance and turned around.
"So you know, you both know?" He asked softly.
I nodded doubtfully.
"Then there is nothing else to say," he whispered, "and it has to be so." Believe me, it has to be this way. ”
He left me with an empty look before leaving. He spread his arms, palms facing upwards, and almost shrugged. He's like a man without power, or he's imitating me and Iphigenia what it would look like to be such a person. It is cringe, easy to be fooled or persuaded by others.
This great Agamemnon made it clear in his gesture that any decision was made not by him, but by others. As he rushed into the night to meet the waiting guards, he seemed to want us to see that all this was too much for him, too heavy.
The strength of Colm Tobin is on display here, and the two passages with contemptuous observations so lightly puncture the self-deceptive disguise of the character of Agamemnon.
Orestes assassinated Clyteigstra and Edestus
Finally, the image of Orestes is equally striking. In the most primitive version of the story, Agamemnon avenged his father's murder, not only without punishment, but also received a wife and heir; Orestes's mother avenged his father's revenge, and although he was hunted down by the goddess of vengeance, he was protected by Apollo and Athena. All of this seems to illustrate the dominant power of the ethical concept at the core of the father.
But Tobin's Orestes did not decide to kill his mother because he was dominated by strong ethical ideas. Instead, he is a man who has lacked faith since childhood and needs others to make decisions for him, and when others tell him what to do, he will do. In How I Rewrite Greek Tragedy, Tobin points out that Orestes was a "man who lived in fear and anxiety in the world" and that "he was easily at the mercy of others, uncertain about many things, always lost in his heart, and able to do anything under pressure." His sister Orektra, who is synonymous with the "Electra complex" (i.e., the "Erektra complex"), tirelessly instilled hatred and pressure on Orestes, eventually contributing to new incidents of violence.
It is clear that Tobin's character design of Orestes, the enforcer of violence, is realistic, condensing his observations and reflections on the continuous violent bloodshed around the world.
Ancient Greek pottery vases, Orestes, Athena, Apollo, and the goddess of vengeance are all present
Contemporary writers are very thankless in rewriting classic literary works. Classic works are in front of the jade, it is difficult to surpass; neither can it be copied as is, otherwise it is better not to write; it cannot be arbitrarily rewritten, it is easy to be criticized and distort the classics; while injecting modern concepts into classic works, it is also necessary to reconcile the conflict between the original and modern concepts...
In this way, Tobin's "Famous Doors" is a fairly successful rewrite. He redesigned the characters in Greek mythology and epics, so that the characters who lacked voices, especially the female character Clyteigstra, who had always been saddled with the name of "wicked woman", made their voices heard; he designed some original characters, formed a good interaction with the original characters, gave Orestes a new motive, so that his revenge could be understood by modern people, and had enlightening significance for us to reflect on the endless violent events in modern society; the story is written in Clyteigstra, Orestes, The perspectives of The Three of Eurektra switch freely, revealing more three-dimensional ways of how hatred breeds, how conspiracies are planned, and how violence occurs.
Colm Tobin infuses this ancient story with a modern soul, stripping the sacred cloak of ancient myths and epics with a modern eye, allowing readers to see real love, hatred and desire, and insight into true human nature.
Transferred from 【Shanghai translation】