PREFACE TO THE FOUR PLAYS.
The kind reception accorded to my version of the Oresteian trilogy has encouraged me to complete my task by translating the remaining dramas of the great Athenian bard.
It is impossible to determine with accuracy the original number of the Æschylean dramas; the lowest estimate is seventy-five, the highest one hundred. Of this treasure of poetry seven dramas only, together with a few isolated fragments, have escaped the wreck of time. Æschylus has been compared, not inaptly, to the Sphinx of the Egyptian desert, buried up to its shoulders beneath the accumulated sands of ages. "Enseveli et éternel, le front sortant du sépulcre, Eschyle regarde les générations."
The influence of his genius has been far-reaching in space, as well as enduring in time:—it is interesting to consider the vast area over which the spirit and language of Hellas were diffused by means of her colonies, which were found scattered and isolated in every region of the known world; from Spain in the west to the countries bordering upon the Euxine in the east; from Pannonia in the north to Libya in the south.
