The Oresteia
During the final years of his life, Ted Hughes poured much of  his energy into translating the classics. Given the triumph of theBirthday Letters,  some readers may regret this canonical moonlighting. Yet it's hard to  feel shortchanged by the work Hughes did produce: his version ofOvidwas a brilliant  blend of Latinate suavity and contemporary grit, and he negotiated the  alexandrines of Racine'sPhèdrewith  spectacular ease. Now we have his translation of theOresteia,  which was commissioned by the Royal National Theater in the late  1990s. Has Hughes done right by Aeschylus?The answer would have to be yes--with a couple of  qualifications. Hughes made no secret of the fact that he was after an  "acting version" of the trilogy, one that would convey the power of  Aeschylus's classic bloodbath to a modern audience. He has therefore  taken more liberties with the text than we might expect, chopping and  channeling the original to fit his own conception. Perhaps the result  is closer to whatRobert  Lowellcalled an "imitation"--an attempt to capture the work's  spirit without precisely mimicking its form. In any case, thisOresteiasucceeds on both counts. The darkness and destructive  movement of the original remain intact in the Hughes's free-verse  lines:The men of Troy are a litter of corpses,Rubbish-heaps of corpses. Troy on its hillCascades with blood, as under a downpourOf bodies from the heavens,Shattered and entangled with each otherIn every passage--mutilations,Amputations, eviscerations. The womenAre kneeling, shoulders heaving, with eyes hidden,Over what were yesterdayHusbands, fathers, sons.They labour at a grief that is alreadyThe first labour of slaves.Yet Hughes has also left his elemental imprint on the play. Always  drawn to violence in his own verse--particularly the impersonal  assault and battery of the natural world--he has made hisOresteiamore bloody-minded than the original (and that's  saying something). There's nothing sensationalistic about this extra  quantum of wrack and ruin. It's merely Hughes's personal response to  Aeschylus--and a necessary preparation, perhaps, for Athena's  clarifying cameo at the end ofThe Eumenides: "Let your rage  pass into understanding / As into the coloured clouds of a sunset, /  Promising a fair tomorrow. / Do not let it fall / As a rain of  sterility and anguish / On Attica." Her plea for conciliation is as  powerful as the horrors that have preceded it, which may (to tread on  some rather thin biographical ice) reflect the poet's own final  impulses. In any case, this is passionate, memorable, deeply human  poetry--i.e., what becomes a classic most.--Anita Urquhart