tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59542420146095786592024-02-08T20:01:45.439+02:00Oreste Ritsos ULB 2010Oreste Ritsos ULB 2010pakyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10370451240666392255noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5954242014609578659.post-62517696121422402132010-11-03T10:00:00.001+02:002010-11-03T11:39:25.550+02:00UN PRINCE AUX ABATTOIRS<div style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Au siècle d'Oreste et d'Electre qui se fait jour, Œdipe sera tout simplement une comédie.<br /><br />HEINER MULLER<br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Avant même qu'il naisse les dieux comme les hommes l'attendent. L'un des des derniers survivants d'une odieuse race noyée dans le sang et les dîners d'horreur. Il lui échut d'être un prince aux abattoirs, tenant entre ses mains une tête de marbre qui épuise ses épaules et dont il ne sait que faire. Et voilà aussi son amour muet qui attend derrière lui. Il a les yeux de Pylade. Il ne parle pas, il le laisse seul à planer au-dessus de ses mémoires, ses sentiments, ses pensées qui le secouent.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Le silence mystérieux de son amour, les cris de vengeance de sa sœur Electre le plongent dans le désespoir le plus profond et le conduisent à une rage incontrôlable. Un couteau profondément enfoui dans la mémoire par la main de son père l'attend. Et la matrice qui lui donna naissance, qu'il y rentre en vengeur victorieux.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Pour l'instant le voilà qu'il se tient debout. </span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Dans l'entre-deux</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span> Devant la porte qui changera son existence. Il est là, debout, la main sur la porte de la mémoire et avec une terreur extrême qui se dessine sur ses deux yeux. Un prince sans royaume, un amant désespéré, immensément seul </span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">devant le seuil de l'act</span>e</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >. Rempli de larmes et d'amour. On lui tira les cartes sans le consulter, on scruta son destin, définit sa vie, son corps et sa voix dans une forme qui ne pouvait les contenir. Il se bat pour en sortir, il se bat et bute comme le papillon de nuit sur la lumière qui l'attire et qui la tue en même temps, dénonçant tous ceux qui usurpèrent sa vie, tous ceux qui comptaient lui fermer la bouche.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Horribles profondeurs noires, hauteurs si vertigineuses. Son âme d'adolescent à l'agonie de la mort. Et sa colère à le secouer jusqu'à ce qu'il s'effondre. Cosmiquement seul, nu jusqu'à l'os, devant le seuil de l'acte. Avec des mots qui galopent sans cesse devant lui, des sentiments et des pensées vaincus traînés derrière son char.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" > Words, words, words.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" > Sans même qu'il ait le réconfort de la folie ou la résignation de l'autre prince, Hamlet, qui savait bien que les mots ne construisaient ni ne détruisaient une réalité amputée avançcant en boitant vers sa disparition.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Il reste là, debout. Devant la porte. Tenant d'une main la porte de la mémoire et de l'autre un couteau plein de sang pointé vers nous.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;font-size:100%;" >Personne ne veut donc lui parler ?</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><div style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: bold; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">YANNIS KATSANOS,<br />Notice du metteur en scène,<br />Bruxelles, 25 Octobre 2010,<br /></span></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5954242014609578659.post-69646475497519875632010-11-02T21:16:00.001+02:002010-11-03T11:03:15.419+02:00ENFANT DE LA NUIT<div style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); text-align: justify;"><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le songe d'une pérégrination d'été à travers des lieux sacrés et anciens l'a téléporté au seuil du palais de son enfance. La voix électrique de sa sœur l'a violemment réveillé en transportant et en réordonnant ses molécules dans une dimension partagée entre deux mondes. Mais bientôt, il se rendra compte que le terrain de jeux est désormais rouillé, que les tapeculs grincent au moindre balancement et que le toboggan glisse en sens inverse. Les jeux ont fait place à des sources mortes, à des casernes désertes, aux sandales des morts. Paysage sauvage extirpé des rêves d'un enfant.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lui, à la fois en plein milieu et sur les bords d'un cercle de sang, il eut le temps de se transformer de la larve qu'il était en l'âme d'un papillon. Enfant de la nuit, on lui donna le nom d'Oreste et les dieux fixèrent son destin : retourner en roi désormais dans les ténèbres de la matrice.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mais comment faire ? Comment y retourner quand la lumière de ses yeux, la respiration de sa bouche, <span style="font-style: italic;">l'usurpateur de sa seule vie</span> se trouvent en face de lui ? Quand une partie du corps s'effondre ? Comment en se nourrissant lui-même pourra-t-il former un corps de roi, de chef et de vengeur à partir de ses propres cendres ? Qu'importe-t-il le plus en fin de compte ? Satisfaire les désirs d'autrui ou dompter les siens? Et comment se décider quand l'amour observe en silence ?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Je ne sais pas.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Et pourtant, nous avons tous pleuré un jour en nous réveillant.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 204); font-weight: 700;">Nikos Stamogiannis</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><b><span style=";font-family:";" ></span></b><span style=";font-family:";" lang="EL"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5954242014609578659.post-72592987387858814742010-11-01T00:38:00.014+02:002010-11-03T11:00:26.893+02:00<span style="font-weight: bold;">Yannis RITSOS, <span style="font-style: italic;">ORESTE,</span> english translation</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Two young men, about twenty years old, pause at the gateway with an expression as if they are trying to remember something, to recognize something. At the same time everything looks unimaginably familiar and affecting to them, only somewhat smaller—much smaller—because of all they have seen abroad, in other lands and at other times— everything much smaller, the walls and the great stones, the lion gate, the palace under the shadow of the mountain. It is still summer. Night is falling. The private cars and large tourist buses have gone. The place relaxes in the silence—the mouths of ancient tombs and monuments breathe deeply. A scrap of newspaper stirs in the burned grass, blown by a vague wind. There comes the sound of the nightwatchman's steps, and the great key that locks the inner door of the tower. Then, as if set free in the night's warm freshness, the crickets begin beating their tiny drums. Somewhere, behind the mountain, lurks an unidentified brightness—perhaps it is the moon. And at exactly the same moment, from the stone steps, can be heard—sharp, harsh, jarring—a woman's lamentation. The two young men cannot be seen. They merge with the lower part of the wall like two great shadows. After a little, one wipes the sweat from his face with his handkerchief, gestures casually in the direction of the sound, and speaks to the other, who always remains affectionately silent and attentive, like Pylades:</span><br /><br />Listen—it hasn't stopped yet, she hasn't gotten tired. Intolerable,<br />on this Greek night—so warm, so calm,<br />so independent of us and indifferent, allowing us<br />a respite—to be in its midst, to watch from its midst<br />and from far off at the same time; to see the night<br />naked like the most insignificant voices of its crickets,<br />like the slightest shivers of its black skin.<br /><blockquote></blockquote>How did it happen that we, too, remained independent, with the<br />delightful pleasure of indifference, of tolerance, beyond everything, in the midst of everything, in the midst of ourselves—alone, together,<br />under no obligation, without competition, rivalry, censure, without<br />any expectations or demands placed on us by others? Thus I need only to look at the thong of your sandal, which sets apart for me your big toe, so irreproachable, turns it toward a position of my own, toward a secret place, my own, near the oleanders,<br />and the silver leaves of night that fall on your shoulder<br />and the sound of the fountain flowing imperceptibly under our nails.<br /><br />Listen to her—her voice spreads over her like a deep-arched vault,<br />and she herself is suspended in her voice<br />like the clapper of a bell, and is struck by and strikes the bell,<br />though there is neither feast nor funeral, only the immaculate solitude of<br />the rocks and, below, the humble quiet of the countryside—underlining this unjustifiable passion—which move around her as innocent children's kites circle countless stars with the light papery rustle of their long tails.<br /><br />Let's move a little away from here, so the woman's voice won't reach<br />us; let's stand further down; no, not at the ancestral tombs; no libations tonight. I don't want to cut my hair—this hair<br />where your hand has so often wandered. What a beautiful night— our own in a sense, receding, torn from us, and we can hear it like a dark river flowing down to the sea,<br />gleaming now and then under branches, to the sparkling of the stars, amid this powerful, pitiless summer, with imperceptible pauses, momentary, with haphazard jumps (maybe<br />someone is throwing stones into the river)—this small leap and the vinegrowers' greenhouse panes shining near ground level.<br />Strange,<br /><br />they prepared a complete life for me and for this I prepared myself. And<br />now, before this gate, I feel completely unprepared— the two marble lions—did you see them?—they've been tamed, those lions, that started out in our childhood years so resolute, wild, almost, manes bristling, poised for a daring leap, they've settled down now, reconciled, at the two upper corners of the<br />outer gate, with lifeless pelts, vacant eyes—they frighten no one—with the<br />expression of whipped dogs, not even especially unhappy,<br />faithful, blind dogs, without rancour,<br />tongues licking, from time to time, night's soft warm sole.<br /><br />Unprepared, yes indeed—I can't do it; I lack that essential<br />relationship to the place, the time, the situation,<br />the facts. It's not cowardice. I'm unprepared<br />before the threshold of the deed, a total stranger<br />before the destiny that others have decreed for me. How is it<br />that others establish our fate, little by little, prescribe it for us<br />and we accept it? How is it that with the smallest threads<br />of a few of our moments they weave for us<br />our whole time, harsh and dark, thrown<br />like a veil from our head to our feet, covering<br />our faces and hands completely, where they've secreted<br />an unknown knife—quite unknown—and it lights up,<br />with its harsh glint, a landscape, not our own—<br />that I know; it is not our own. And how does it happen<br /><br />that our own fate accepts it, stands back<br />and watches, like a stranger, ourselves and our strange fate,<br />dumb, austere, resigned, aloof,<br />not even with the dignity of magnanimity or stoicism,<br />without even disappearing, without dying,<br />and that we remain, prey, it may be, to a different fate,<br />but to one only—not in two minds and divided. Look at it, still there,<br />as though drowsy—one eye closed, the other dilated,<br />letting us see it watching us and discerning<br />our endless hesitation, with neither approval nor disapproval.<br /><br />Two opposing forces seem to pull equally on our legs and one force moves far further away than the other, stretching the stride of our legs to the point of dismemberment; and the<br />head is a knot that still rules this weary body, although, I know, legs are made to move<br />one by one of their own accord, both in one rhythm, in one direction, in the fields below, near the clusters of grapes, as far as the reddening<br />horizon beyond, moving our whole bodies—or perhaps<br />because of this great and terrible stride of ours we were fashioned over the unknown abyss, over graves and our grave? I don't know.<br /><br />And yet, beneath the many layers of shock and fear, I divine<br />endless silence spreading out—justice,<br />a self-existent balance that contains us<br />in the order of seeds and stars. Did you notice?—at noon<br />as we were coming here, a cloud-shadow passed across the plain<br />covering wheatfields, vines, olive trees,<br />horses, birds, leaves—a transparent sketch<br />of a distant landscape of the infinite, here upon the ground;<br />and the peasant who was trudging along at the far end of the field<br />seemed to be holding, thrust under his left armpit,<br />the whole shadow of the cloud, like a huge cloak—<br />majestic, yet simple as his sheep.<br /><br />Thus the earth becomes familiar with the infinite, taking on something<br />of blue and of vagueness; and the infinite, in its turn,<br />takes on something from earth, chestnut and warm, something of leaves,<br />and of sheepfolds and roots, something of the eyes<br />of that patient cow (remember?)<br />and the strong legs of the farmer disappearing in the distance.<br /><br />Meanwhile this woman shows no sign of being quiet. Listen to her.<br />How can she herself not hear that voice of hers? How can she stay<br />shut suffocatingly in one instant of past time,<br />past feelings? How can she, and with what,<br />renew this passion for retribution and the voice of passion<br />when all the echoes belie her, mock her even—the echoes<br />from the porticos, columns, stairways, furniture,<br />from the.jars in the garden, the caves of Zara, the water channel,<br />from the stables below for the horses, the guards' watchtowers on the<br />hills, from the pleats on the statues of women in the outer courtyard and the noble phalluses of the stone runners and discus throwers?<br /><br />The vases in the house still, as it were, set against her lamentations<br />the merciful gesture of a few tender-hearted roses<br />arranged charmingly by Mother's own hand,<br />there on the carved sideboard; in front of the great, ancestral mirror,<br />next to a light, reflection against reflection, watery—I remember it<br />from my childhood years—it remains for me unshadowed—<br />watery light, impalpable, neutral—an unknown quantity—<br />timeless, innocent—something smooth and wonderful<br />like the soft hair at the nape of girls' necks or on the lips of youths,<br />like the smell of a newly bathed body on the sheets,<br />the warm freshness in the breath of a summer night, filled with stars.<br /><br />She understands nothing, not even the echoes<br />that mock her harsh voice. I am afraid; I'm powerless<br />to respond to her challenge—so exorbitant and at the same time so<br />comic—<br />to these pompous words of hers, old-fashioned, as if unearthed<br />in a linen chest "from the good old days" (as the old folks say),<br />like great flags, unironed, the seams of which have absorbed<br />naphthalene, denial, silence—so very old<br />that no one doubts their age, and they persist<br />in flapping with archaic gestures above the unsuspecting passers-by—<br />the busy ones, the tired ones—above the asphalt-covered streets,<br />modest, for all their breadth and length, with elegant shop windows<br />all ties, crystal, bathing suits, hats, gloves, brushes,<br />which correspond quite beautifully to our needs of the moment<br />and so also to the age-old needs of life that rule us.<br /><br />And she persists in preparing hydromel and food for the dead<br />who no longer thirst or drink, no longer have mouths<br />or dream of restoration or revenge. All this invokes<br />their infallible nature (—what way infallible?) perhaps to escape<br />the responsibility of her own choice and decision—<br />when the teeth of the dead, bare, scattered on the ground,<br />are white seeds in an endless black valley<br />sprouting all by themselves, infallible, invisible, pure white trees<br />that glow in the moonlight, till the end of time.<br /><br />Ah, how can her mouth bear those words,<br />drawn forth, yes, from old linen chests (like the ones<br />decorated with big náil-studs), dragged out<br />from among Mother's old hats, in an outmoded style,<br />which Mother no longer wears-—she despises them. Did you see her<br />this afternoon in the garden?—how beautiful she still is—she hasn't<br />aged at all, perhaps because she watches time and manages it every moment—I mean she's renewed by the recognition of the youth she's losing—perhaps in this way she gets it back.<br /><br />And Mother's voice, how real, ordinary, precise—<br />she can make the biggest words seem natural,<br />or the smallest, in their deepest significance, like:<br />"A butterfly came in through the window,"<br />or: "The world is unbearably wonderful,"<br />or: "They should use more blueing on the linen napkins,"<br />or: "One note of this nocturnal fragrance escapes me," and she laughs,<br />perhaps to anticipate someone else who might laugh—<br /><br />This depth of understanding and tender indulgence<br />for everyone and everything—almost contempt—always amazed and<br />alarmed her with that conscious, lofty dignity of hers, mingling her tiny, artful, complex laugh with the little hiss of the match and the match flame, as she lit the hanging lamp in the dining room, and there she was, lit up from<br />below, with the light focused more strongly on her shapely chin and on her thin, flaring nostrils, that for a moment paused to breath in and narrow, as if she would stay near us, stop, be motionless, lest she dissolve like a column of blue smoke in the night wind, lest the trees seize her with their long branches, lest she wear a star's thimble for some endless piece of handiwork—<br /><br />Thus Mother always found her most precise movement and stillness<br />precisely at the moment of her absence—we were always afraid<br />she would vanish before our very eyes, be taken up, rather—whenever<br />she bent to tie her sandal, which left uncovered her marvellous, painted, curved toenails, or whenever she arranged her hair in front of the big mirror with a movement of her hands• so graceful, youthful, and light,<br />she might have been rearranging three or four stars on the world's<br />forehead, or setting two daisies to be kissed beside the fountain or watching with the effrontery of affection two dogs making love right in the middle of the dusty road at noon, in burning summer. Mother was so simple and persuasive and at the same time strong, commanding, and unfathomable.<br /><br />Perhaps that was what my sister never forgave her—her eternal youth—<br />that old woman of a child, cautious by contrast, given to denial<br />of beauty and delight—ascetic, odious in her moderation,<br />solitary and detached. Even her clothes,<br />stubbornly old-womanish, baggy, tattered, old,<br />and the cord at her waist limp, worn out,<br />like a bloodless vein around her belly (and she tightened it even so)<br />like the cord of a fallen curtain that no longer opens or closes<br />thus revealing obliquely a landscape of perpetually crabbed harshness<br />with jagged rocks and huge trees, naked, branches stretching up<br />into hackneyed, pompous clouds; and there, in the distance,<br />the barely perceptible presence of a lost sheep,<br />a living white spot, a speck of softness—it can't be seen—<br />and that same sister of mine an upright rock<br />encased in its hardness—intolerable. Listen to her,<br />almost quibbling—she keeps a stern eye on Mother, is continually<br />provoked<br />whenever Mother puts a flower in her hair or her bosom,<br />whenever she walks down the corridor with her confident, lilting steps,<br />when she tilts her head, in melancholy relaxation, a little to one side,<br />letting fall a small drop of sound, charged with meaning, from her long<br />earring onto her shoulder, that she alone hears—her own sweet prerogative. And she, the Other, is furious.<br /><br />She sustains her anger with the pitch of that voice of hers—<br />(if she ever lost it, what would become of her?) —I think she fears the<br />accomplishment of her revenge, lest nothing be left of her at all. She never heard the grass rustle secretly in the night from the passing of a lithe, unseen man outside the window, at dinner time; she never saw the ladder, propped without reason<br />against a high, bare wall one holiday; she paid no attention<br />to that "without reason"; she didn't notice<br />the tassel of a corn-ear grazing the sole of a tiny cloud,<br />or the shape of a jug against the starry sky, or a sickle<br />abandoned, all by itself, beside the well, one noontime,<br />or the loom's shadow in a locked room, when they fumigate the<br />vineyards and the laborers' voices can be heard below in the fields, while a sparrow, all alone in all the world, pecking in the courtyard at insects, seeds, a few crumbs, tries to spell out its freedom. She saw nothing, ever.<br /><br />Completely blind, imprisoned in her blindness. But how can it be that she lives a life entirely based on opposition to another, entirely out of hatred for another, and not out of love of her own life, without any place of her own? And what do they want? What do they want from me? "Vengeance, vengeance," they cry. Let them take care of it by themselves, then, since vengeance nourishes them.<br /><br />I don't want to hear her any more. I can't stand it. No one<br />has the right to control my eyes, my mouth, my hands,<br />these feet of mine that tread upon the earth. Give me your hand. Let's go.<br /><br />Long nights, summery, perfect, our own, assorted stars, sweaty armpits, shattered glasses— an insect hums politely in the ear of tranquility, lizards warm at the feet of young male statues, slugs on the garden benches or even in the locked forge, strolling on the huge anvil, leaving behind on the black iron white trails of sperm and spittle.<br /><br />Let's leave this land of Mycenae behind us once again—how the earth<br />here smells of bronze-rust and black blood. Attica's lighter. Isn't it? I sense that now, this appointed hour, is the hour of my final abdication. I don't want to be their theme, their servant, their instrument, not even their ruler.<br />I too have a life of my own and I must live it. Not vengeance— what could it bring back from the dead, one death more, and that a violent one?—what could it add to life? Years have gone by. I don't feel hatred any more; perhaps I've forgotten? grown weary? I<br />don't know. Indeed, I feel a certain sympathy for the murderess—she took the<br />measure of great chasms^ great understanding has widened her eyes in the darkness and she sees—she sees the inexhaustible, the unattainable, and the<br />unalterable. She sees me.<br /><br />I too want to see Father's murder in death's palliative generality,<br />to forget it in that totality of death<br />which awaits us too. This night has taught me<br />the innocence of all usurpers. And we are all<br />usurpers of something—some of the people, some of the throne,<br />others of love or even of death; my sister<br />usurps my own life, and I yours.<br /><br />Oh my dear, how particularly you share in all<br />these strange, foolish undertakings. And yet, my hand<br />is yours; you too must take it, usurp it—your own,<br />and because of this also my own; take it, clasp it; you expect it to be<br />free from retributions, reprisals, recollections,<br />free—I too want that,<br />so that it belongs wholly to me, and only thus<br />can I give it wholly to you. Forgive me<br />this secretive solitude and division—you know it well—<br />that splits me in two. What a beautiful night—<br /><br />a damp smell of oregano, thyme, capers—<br />or perhaps geraniums?—I confuse fragrances; sometimes,<br />blood smells of sea salt, and sperm of the forest—<br />a willful displacement perhaps—that's what I seek tonight,<br />like that soldier who told us, one night in Athens, how when<br />the beach was loud with groans and the clang of arms,<br />he hid in the withered bushes, above the shore and<br />watched in the moonlight the swaying shadow of his manhood on his<br />thigh like a doubtful erection, striving to exist, testing<br />his willpower over his own body, for a displacement away from the plain of death, in hope of a dubious independence.<br /><br />Let's go further down; I can't bear to hear her; her cries<br />batter my nerves and my dreams, just as those oars<br />battered the floating slaughtered corpses<br />momentarily lit up by the ships' flares, the shooting stars of August,<br />and they were all agleam, young and erotic, unbelievably immortal,<br />in a watery death that cooled their backs, their ankles, their legs.<br /><br />How quietly the seasons change. Night falls, limitless.<br />A wicker chair remains alone, forgotten under the trees,<br />amid the light dampness and mist given off by the earth.<br />There is no sorrow; scarcely any expectation; nothing.<br />A motionless motion spreads out to yesterday and to tomorrow.<br />The tortoise is a rock in the grass; after a little it stirs—<br />unforeseen calm, hidden complicity, happiness.<br /><br />A tiny spot of vacancy remains in your smile—perhaps<br />because of what I'm telling you or what I may tell you, things I don't yet<br />know myself, things I have not yet found in the rhythm of speech that travels ahead of my thoughts—far ahead—that reveals to me my own rhythm and my self. Like that time in the arena, when the runners arrived, bathed in sweat, and I noticed one who had tied a bit of string around his ankle, for no reason at all, quite at random. Just that, and nothing else.<br /><br />Sacrifices, then, and heroics—what difference do they make? Years and<br />years. Maybe we really came for these small revelations of the great wonder that no longer contains small and great, nor murder and sin.<br /><br />All one passion—enchantment and amazement (as Mother would<br />sometimes say), when the leaves of night—broad, fleshy, cool— brush our foreheads, and the falling fruit is a message, fixed and incommunicable, like the circle, the triangle, or the rhombus. I muse over a saw rusting in an abandoned woodshop,<br />and the house numbers changing position out there on the horizon— 3, 7, 9—the innumerable number. Listen; she's stopped.<br /><br />A vast, inachievable quiet—I think thousands of pure black horses<br />must be climbing darkly up to the mountaintop, while on the far side<br />a golden river runs downhill toward the plain<br />with its lifeless springs, uninhabited camps and stables<br />where the straw steams with an ancient heat of stray beasts,<br />and the dogs, with their tails hanging, wander<br />like dark scars in the silver depth of night.<br /><br />She's stopped at last—peace—deliverance. It's beautiful.<br />Look—the shadows of hurrying insects over the wall<br />leaving behind a dewdrop or a tiny bell<br />that rings a little later. Beyond, a brightness—<br />a prolonged suspicion, purple—the moon,<br />small, solitary conflagration behind the trees, the chimneys, and the<br />weathervanes, burning the great thorn trees and yesterday's newspapers, leaving behind this approval—glorification, almost— of not waiting, not hoping, of manifest vanity, moving out to intrepid isolation, to the end of the road with the ghostly, violet passage of a cat.<br /><br />When the moon appears, the houses sink down to the plain below, the corn-ears crackle with frost or from the law of growth, whitewashed trees gleam on their boles like agonized columns in a silent war, while the signs of little shops hang like fulfilled oracles over the locked doors.<br /><br />Countrymen will go to sleep with their huge hands on their bellies and the birds with their tiny feet curved lightly around branches in their sleep<br />as if they made no effort to hang on, as if effort were nothing,<br />as if nothing had happened, as if nothing were about to happen—<br />light, light, as if the sky had penetrated their wings, as if someone were walking the long narrow corridors, lamp in hand, and all the windows were open and outdoors could be heard beasts calmly ruminating in the midst of eternity.<br /><br /><br />I love this fresh quietude. Somewhere, close, in an upper gallery,<br />a young woman will be combing her long hair<br />while her spread-out underclothing rests beside her in the moonlight.<br />Everything fluid, smooth, happy. Great water jars in the bath rooms—<br />I imagine them pouring water on the necks and breasts of young girls—<br />small bars of sweet-scented soap slither on the tiles,<br />bubbles rise through the noise of water and laughter,<br />one woman has slipped and fallen,<br />the moon has slipped through the skylight,<br />everything's slippery with soap—you can't get hold of things<br />or keep a hold on yourself—this slipperiness<br />is the returning rhythm of life; the women laugh<br />shaking white, light-as-air mounds of soapsuds<br />above their little forests of pubic hair. Is this what happiness is?<br /><br />This night of waiting has left me an opening to the outside<br />and to within. I can't describe it exactly. Perhaps it is<br />huge masks destroyed, metal buckles,<br />and the sandals of the dead, warped from the damp,<br />moving all by themselves, as though walking without feet—but they<br />don't walk; and that great net in the bath—who wove it?— the knot, the knot—unloosable—black—it was not Mother who wove it.<br /><br />An immense shadow spreads out over the arches;<br />a stone works loose and falls into the ravine—and yet no one passed<br />by-then nothing; and then a branch that snaps from the light pressure of the sky. Small frogs jump, soft and silent, in the damp grass. Peace.<br /><br />Ash-gray mice fall into the wells and drown,<br />dense constellations slowly turn; down inside there<br />they toss the trash from banquets—pitchers, cups, mirrors, and chairs,<br />animal bones, lyres, and clever exchanges. The wells never fill up.<br /><br />Something like fingers of light and freshness pass in succession over our<br />chests, drawing circle-traces around the nipples,<br />and we too are winnowed by the air, circle upon circle, around a center<br />unknown, ambiguous, and yet fixed—endless circles<br />around a mute cry, around a knife thrust; and the knife<br />is driven into our hearts, I think, forming the center of our hearts<br />like the stake in the middle of the threshing floor up there, on the hill,<br /><br />and around the horses, ears of corn, oil lamps, mule drivers and reapers beside the hayricks, with the moon's head on their<br />shoulders, hearing the neighing of horses till the very end of their sleep, hearing the bulls piss among willows and brambles, the thousand feet of the millipede on the jar, the slithering of the quiet snake in the olive grove, and the cracking of heated stones as they cool and contract.<br /><br />One erotic word stays forever locked in our mouths, inexpressible,<br />like a pebble in our sandals or even a nail; you get tired<br />of stopping, removing it, loosening your straps,<br />being delayed—the secret rhythm of your walking has possessed you<br />more than the annoyance of the pebble, more<br />than the stubborn reminder of your weariness,<br />your procrastination; and there is still<br />a small thorny exultation and recollection<br />in the fact you've brought that pebble back from a beloved shore,<br />from a pleasant walk with good conversation, with watery images,<br />when the tobacco merchants' talk could be heard in the seaside taverna<br />with the song of the seashells and the song of the sea,<br />far off, far off, lost, near, alien, our own.<br /><br />That wretched woman is still quiet. In the midst of her silence I seem to<br />hear the justice of her claim—<br />ЦЩ she is so vulnerable in her fury, so wronged,<br />with her bitter hair fallen about her shoulders like grass on a tomb, walled up in her narrow righteousness. Perhaps she's fallen asleep, perhaps she is even dreaming of an innocent place with good animals, whitewashed houses, the smell of warm bread, and roses.<br /><br />And now I remember—I don't know why—that cow we saw, toward evening, in a field in Attica—remember? She stood, just unyoked from the plough, and looked around,<br />with two thin streams of vapor from her nostrils steaming over the purple, violet, and golden sunset, mute, scarred on sides, back, beaten about the forehead, familiar perhaps with resignation and obedience, implacability and hatred in her acquiescence.<br /><br />Between her two horns she held<br />the heaviest piece of the sky like a crown. In a little<br />she lowered her head and drank water from the stream,<br />and licked with her bloody tongue that other<br />cool tongue of her waterborne image, as if she were licking<br />broadly, calmly, maternally, inevitably,<br />from the outside, her own inner wound, as if she were licking<br />the silent, vast round wound of the world—perhaps also to quench her<br />thirst— perhaps only our own blood will do to quench our thirst—who knows?<br /><br />Later she raised her head from the water, not touching anything,<br />herself untouched and calm, like a saint,<br />and only between her feet, both rooted in the river:<br />there remained a small changing pool of blood from her lips,<br />a red pool, in the shape of a map,<br />which little by little widened and dispersed; it disappeared<br />as if her blood were flowing far away, freed, without pain,<br />into an invisible vein of the world; and she was calm<br />precisely for this reason; as if she had learned<br />that our own blood is not lost, that nothing is lost,<br />nothing, nothing is lost in this vast nothing,<br />disconsolate and pitiless, incomparable,<br />so sweet, so consoling, so nothing.<br /><br />This nothing is our familial infinite. Useless, then, this gasping for breath, or anxiety, or faith. Just such a cow I drag with me, in my shadow—not tied:<br />she follows me of her own accord—she is my shadow on the road when there's a moon; she is my shadow on a closed door; and you're always aware of this: the shadow is pliant, bodiless; the shadows of her horns may just be two pointed wings and maybe you can fly , and perhaps you can get past the locked door some other way.<br /><br />And now I remember (this, too, may have no significance) the cow's<br />eyes—dark, blind, huge, convex<br />like two hillocks of darkness or black glass; their surface<br />faintly reflected a church tower, and the jackdaws<br />perching upon the cross; and then someone called out<br />and the birds disappeared from the cow's eyes. I think the cow<br />was a symbol in some ancient religion. Not for me<br />such ideas and such abstractions. An ordinary cow<br />for the villagers' milk and for the plough, with all the wisdom<br />of her labor, her endurance, her usefulness. And yet,<br /><br />at the last moment, just before the animals returned to the village—<br />remember?— she let out a heartrending bellow, toward the horizon, so loud that from branches around the swallows and sparrows<br />scattered, horses too, goats and farmers, leaving her alone in a naked circle, out of which rose, much higher, in the distance, the spiral of constellations, until the cow ascended; no, no, I think my eye picked her out from among the herd climbing the overgrown path, quiet, docile, toward the village, at the hour when lamps were lit in the courtyards,<br />behind the trees.<br /><br />See where dawn is breaking. There—and the first cock crows in the<br />yard. The gardener's woken up; he'll plant a sapling or two in the garden. The<br />familiar noises of working tools—saws, pickaxes—<br />and the courtyard fountain; someone washing; the smell of the earth; water boiling in coffeepots; peaceful columns of smoke above the roofs; a warm odor of sage. So we've survived even this night.<br /><br />Let us now lift up this funeral urn with my purported ashes—<br />the recognition scene will begin in a moment.<br />They will each of them find in me that person they expected, they'll find the just man, in line with their legislation, and only you and I, only the two of us, will know that in this urn I am holding my own real ashes.<br /><br /><br />And while the others are triumphing through my deed, the two of us<br />will weep over the gleaming, bloody sword, worthy of glory,<br />will weep for these ashes, this corpse, whose place<br />has been taken by another, completely covering his flayed features<br />with a golden, respectable, venerable mask,<br />perhaps even useful, with its crudely worked design,<br />as a precept, an example, opium for the people, terror for tyrants, an<br />exercise that slowly, heavily, pursues history with repeated deaths and triumphs, not with terrible knowledge (impossible for the multitude) but with hard action and easy faith, inflexible, necessary, unfortunate faith, disproved a thousand times and held fast a thousand more tooth and nail by the soul of man—ignorant faith that does great deeds secretly, antlike, in the dark.<br /><br />And I, the faithless one, choose this faith (the others do not choose me),<br />yet in full personal knowledge. I choose<br />the knowledge and the action of death that enhances life. Let's go<br />now— not for my father, not for my sister (and yet, they too, perhaps both he and she, had to give up at some point) not for vengeance, not out of hatred—absolutely not out of hatred— not even as punishment (who'd punish, and punish whom?) but perhaps for the fulfillment of appointed time, for time to remain<br />free, perhaps for some sort of useless victory over our first and ultimate fear, perhaps for some sort of "yes", that shines, ambiguous and<br />irreproachable, beyond you and me, to give this place, if possible, a breathing space. See how beautifully the<br />dawn is breaking.<br /><br />Mornings in the Argplid are a little humid. The urn<br />is almost frosted, with some condensation<br />as if, as they say, rosy-fingered dawn had moistened it with her tears,<br />holding it between her knees. Let's go. The appointed hour<br />has already come. Why are you smiling? Do you agree?<br />Was it this that you knew already yet never said?<br />This is the right ending—isn't it?—after the most righteous of fights?<br /><br />Let me, one last time, kiss your smile,<br />while I still have lips. Let's go now. I accept my fate. Let's go.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">They walk toward the gate. The guards stand aside as if they were expecting them. The old porter opens the great door, keeping his head bent submissively as if to greet them. In a moment there comes the sound of a man's clotted groan, and then a woman's startled, harrowing cry, followed by a great stillness, broken only, in the plain below, by the occasional report of a hunter's gun, and the countless twitterings of unseen sparrows, finches, skylarks, tomtits, blackbirds. Swallows circle persistently over the north wing of the palace. The guards calmly take off their helmets and wipe the inner cloth band with their sleeves. Then, right under the lion gate, a large cow stops and stares at the morning sky with her huge, black, unwavering eyes.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">BUCHAREST, ATHENS, SAMOS, MYCENAE, JUNE 1962-JULY I966<br /><br />Translation by PETER GREEN and BEVERLY BARDSLEY<br />Anvil press poetry, London 1993 ,<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5954242014609578659.post-70236180218358820542010-10-23T19:54:00.010+03:002010-10-23T20:41:52.562+03:00<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"><span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">ORESTE de Yannis Ritsos: </span></span></span></h3><h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"><span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;">traduction française par Filippos KATSANOS </span></span><br /></span></h3><h2 class="pagetitle"></h2><a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://worldselsewhere.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/oreste-de-yannis-ritsos/">http://worldselsewhere.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/oreste-de-yannis-ritsos/</a><br /><a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://sites.google.com/site/lecielbrule/2-declin-et-decadence-mai-2010/traduction-oreste-de-yannis-ritsos"><br />http://sites.google.com/site/lecielbrule/2-declin-et-decadence-mai-2010</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5954242014609578659.post-86080130818995947552010-09-01T11:03:00.000+03:002010-09-01T11:03:39.761+03:00Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990)Yannis Ritsos vit une adolescence marquée par des évènements tragiques (ruine économique, morts précoce de sa mère et de son frère aîné, internement de son père, ...) qui obsèdent son œuvre. Les lectures le décident à devenir poète et révolutionnaire. Il se rapproche du Parti Communiste de Grèce.<br />
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En 1936, le long poème « Épitaphe » exploite la forme de la poésie populaire traditionnelle. La musique de Theodorakis en fera en 1960 le détonateur de la révolution culturelle en Grèce avant que l’œuvre ne soit brûlée publiquement. Le régime dictatorial de Metaxas, à partir d’août 1936, contraint Ritsos à la prudence. Le poète explore alors certaines conquêtes du surréalisme avec plusieurs œuvres où percent l’accès au domaine du rêve, les associations surprenantes, l’explosion de l’image, le lyrisme.<br />
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Dans « Vieille Mazurka au rythme de la pluie » (1942), Ritsos articule pour la première fois son attachement à l’espace grec, à la «grécité» détentrice de la mémoire historique, qui imprégnera toute son œuvre future. Alors qu’il s’engage dans la lutte contre la droite fasciste pendant la guerre civile, il est enfermé quatre ans dans divers camps de « rééducation ».<br />
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Viennent ensuite ses œuvres de maturité: « La Sonate du clair de lune » (1956) – prix national de la poésie, « Quand vient l’étranger « (1958), « Les Vieilles Femmes et la mer » (1958). « La Maison morte » (1959-1962) qui introduit la série des longs monologues inspirés par la mythologie et la tragédie antique (de 1963 à 1975) « Philoctète», « Oreste », « Perséphone », « Agamemnon », « Ismène », « Ajax » et « Chrysothemis », écrits en déportation, « Hélène », « Le retour d’Iphigénie », « Phèdre ».<br />
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«La Quatrième Dimension » est le titre d’un recueil de dix-sept poèmes brefs que Yannis Ritsos consacre aux figures – féminines, masculines – de la mythologie grecque. (…) Les poèmes de son dernier recueil : « Tard, très tard dans la nuit » (1987-1989) sont imprégnés de tristesse. Le poète vit douloureusement l’amoindrissement de sa santé et l’effondrement de ses idéaux politiques. Intérieurement brisé, il meurt à Athènes, le 12 novembre 1990.<br />
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D’après Guy Wagnerpakyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10370451240666392255noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5954242014609578659.post-64333651510724760982010-08-13T15:57:00.003+03:002010-08-13T16:06:58.346+03:00Le mythe des Atrides<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />Le nom les "Atrides" nomme les deux fils d’Atrée, Agamemnon et Ménélas, les rois grecs qui, nous dit le mythe, ont pris la ville de Troie, en Asie mineure, avec l’aide d’une armée venue de toute la Grèce. Ce nom, "Atrides", a une résonance à la fois prestigieuse et lugubre. Il note la famille royale la plus noble, qui régnait sur Mycènes : Homère (Iliade II, vers 100 et suivants) nous raconte qu’elle détenait un sceptre forgé par le dieu Héphaïstos ; Zeus, le dieu souverain, remit ce sceptre, par l’intermédiaire d’Hermès, au roi Pélops, "qui dompte les chevaux". Celui-ci le transmit à son fils Atrée, "berger des peuples".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le festin de Thyeste</span><br />À partir de là, l’histoire devient plus confuse et varie selon les poètes. Atrée avait un frère, Thyeste, qui lui contestait son pouvoir et séduisit sa femme, Aéropé ; Atrée le chassa, puis fit semblant de se réconcilier avec lui en l’invitant à un banquet, où il lui offrit, en fait, la chair de ses enfants (douze, selon Eschyle), dont il avait haché les membres. Quand Thyeste identifia ce qu’il mangeait, il maudit toute la famille. Cette malédiction est à l’origine des malheurs qui s’imposèrent à la lignée sur plusieurs générations, et qui ont fourni leur matière à de nombreuses tragédies (Eschyle, Orestie, Sophocle, Électre, Euripide, Électre, Iphigénie en Tauride, Hélène, Oreste, Iphigénie à Aulis).<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Les mariages d’Agamemnon et de Ménélas : Clytemnestre et Hélène</span><br />Après Atrée, régna Agamemnon (avec, peut-être des étapes intermédiaires, cela varie d’un poète à l’autre : règne de Thyeste, ou règne d’un dénommé Plisthène, roi travesti et boiteux ?). Agamemnon (dont le nom veut dire "à la très grande puissance") et son frère Ménélas ("puissance sur le peuple") épousèrent deux sœurs, ou plutôt deux demi-sœurs, deux filles de Léda : Clytemnestre ("la célèbre courtisée") et Hélène de Sparte ("celle qui prend"), la première était fille d’un mortel, Tyndare, l’autre fille de Zeus (qui avait séduit Léda sous la forme d’un cygne). Ces mariages sont des preuves de la qualité héroïques des deux Atrides ; leurs femmes avaient été courtisées par toute la Grèce. La cour faite par les princes grecs à Hélène est l’objet de nombreux récits : contre toute attente, elle choisit Ménélas, qui ne passait pas pour le plus valeureux des guerriers. Mais comme le montre la protection qu’il reçut des dieux par la suite, il incarnait une puissance aussi vitale que la force guerrière, celle du droit, de la force des engagements : les princes avaient juré que, quel que soit le choix d’Hélène, ils prendraient les armes pour défendre l’élu, si son mariage était mis en question.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le jugement de Pâris et la fuite d’Hélène</span><br />Les amours adultères d’Hélène sont ainsi à l’origine de toute l’histoire de la guerre de Troie, histoire qui, par ses massacres immenses, signale la fin d’un âge de l’humanité, celui des héros (nous vivons sous un autre âge, celui, malheureux, du fer). Alors que les dieux célébraient les noces extraordinaires d’une déesse, Thétis, et d’un mortel, Pélée (les futurs parents d’Achille), une querelle s’éleva entre trois déesses, Héra, l’épouse de Zeus, Aphrodite, la déesse de l’amour, et Athéna, la fille de Zeus, issue casquée et armée, hors naissance normale, de la tête de son père : les trois déesses se disputaient sur leur beauté. Pour les départager, il fut décidé que le plus beau des mortels désignerait la plus belle. C’est l’épisode du jugement de Pâris. Les déesses se rendirent en Troade (le pays de Troie), dans les forêts du mont Ida, où Pâris, fils du roi Priam, gardait ses troupeaux : comme sa naissance avait été accompagnée d’un mauvais présage, le roi Priam avait décidé de l’écarter de la ville. Pâris désigna Aphrodite comme la plus belle (ce qui était attendu : les deux autres déesses avaient pris le risque de rivaliser sur son propre terrain avec celle qui représentait la grâce et l’amour). Aphrodite lui donna Hélène, la plus belle des femmes, comme récompense. Pâris, pour prendre possession de son prix, se rendit chez Ménélas, séduisit Hélène et s’embarqua vers Troie avec elle et de nombreux trésors qu’il avait volés.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le sacrifice d’Iphigénie, fille d’Agamemnon, à Aulis</span><br />Cela déclencha le conflit mondial entre les Grecs et les Troyens, que racontent l’Iliade et plusieurs poèmes épiques malheureusement perdus (les poèmes de "Cycle épique"). La guerre commença par un acte monstrueux : les Grecs, qui avaient juré fidélité à Ménélas, s’étaient rangés sous le commandement de son frère guerrier, Agamemnon. Ils avaient rassemblé leur flotte sur la côte d’Aulis. Mais ils ne purent s’embarquer, les vents étant contraires, ou, selon une autre version, absents. En effet, la déesse qui protégeait le lieu, Artémis, la vierge chasseresse, était en colère contre Agamemnon. Là encore les poètes divergent pour expliquer cette colère. Selon la version la plus courante, Agamemnon s’était rendu coupable envers elle : il était entré dans un bois interdit qui était consacré à la déesse, ou s’était vanté d’être meilleur chasseur qu’elle. Eschyle, le poète tragique, propose dans son Orestie, une version plus intellectuelle : Artémis, en protectrice de la vie, des petits animaux, s’indignait par avance du massacre qui aura lieu à Troie. Elle exigea que le roi lui offre, en compensation de sa faute ou des vies qu’il allait prendre, ce qu’il avait de plus cher, à savoir la vie de sa fille Iphigénie, encore vierge. Il se résigna à la sacrifier. Selon certains, comme Eschyle, elle mourut sur l’autel ; selon d’autres (Euripide), Artémis la sauva en lui substituant au dernier moment une biche, qui fut tuée à sa place. Iphigénie fut enlevée par la déesse vers l’un de ses sanctuaires lointains, en Tauride.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">La guerre de Troie et l’impiété des Grecs</span><br />Le conflit dura dix ans, et s’acheva par la prise de Troie, grâce à une ruse d’Ulysse, avec l’entrée dans la ville d’un cheval de bois contenant les guerriers grecs. La ville tomba de nuit, le massacre fut général, les Grecs ne respectèrent pas les temples des dieux ; ils y furent pilleurs, massacreurs et violeurs. Athéna, bafouée par Pâris, avait avec Héra juré la perte de Troie. Mais, devant l’impiété des Grecs, elle se retourna contre eux, et fit du retour en Grèce un désastre où ils périrent presque tous. Elle sauva Ulysse, qui erra pendant dix ans. Ménélas et Hélène passèrent par l’Arabie, l’Égypte, avant de rentrer en Grèce.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le retour d’Agamemnon et sa mort</span><br />Agamemnon put revenir sauf après la tempête qui dispersa la flotte grecque, mais fut tué par sa femme Clytemnestre, qui tua par la même occasion Cassandre, la prophétesse qui était fille de Priam : les Grecs l’avaient donnée à Agamemnon comme esclave concubine pour l’honorer après la victoire. Les raisons de cet acte de Clytemnestre sont discutées par les poètes : les mythes offraient, en effet, matière à des débats contradictoires et argumentés. Ou bien Clytemnestre devint criminelle en tuant son mari parce qu’elle avait été séduite par Égisthe, le dernier enfant de Thyeste, le treizième, qui avait survécu au massacre de ses frères (c’est l’explication donnée par Homère - qui ne mentionne pas le sacrifice d’Iphigénie - et par Pindare), ou bien elle vengeait sa fille tuée à Aulis (selon l’interprétation d’Eschyle - mais, sur ce point les interprètes modernes d’Eschyle ne sont pas tous d’accord ; Euripide laisse la question ouverte).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le matricide : la mise à mort de Clytemnestre par son fils Oreste</span><br />Agamemnon et Clytemnestre avaient eu quatre enfants : trois filles (Iphigénie, Chrysothèmis, Électre) et un fils (Oreste). Les deux sœurs survivantes, Chrysothémis (qui, chez les Tragiques, n’apparaît que dans l’Électre de Sophocle) et Électre, eurent à subir la dictature d’Égisthe et de Clytemnestre. Oreste était en exil, chez le roi Strophios, en Phocide (près de Delphes), où il se lia à Pylade. Sur ordre du dieu Apollon, dont il était allé consulter l’oracle à Delphes, il rentra chez lui pour venger son père, et tua Égisthe et sa mère. Immédiatement après son acte, il fut persécuté par les déesses de la vengeance, les Érinyes, qui réclamaient justice au nom de la mère tuée. Oreste se réfugia d’abord à Delphes, chez le dieu qui l’avait contraint à devenir matricide. Celui-ci l’envoya chez la déesse Athéna, à Athènes, où un tribunal, l’Aréopage, jugea son acte. Il fut disculpé, et put rentrer chez lui, pour y régner.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Les tragédies </span><br />Les Atrides rassemblaient quatre tragédies : <span style="font-style: italic;">Iphigénie à Aulis</span> d’Euripide, et les trois drames qui composent la trilogie d’Eschyle <span style="font-style: italic;">L’Orestie</span> : <span style="font-style: italic;">Agamemnon</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Les Choéphores</span>, c’est-à-dire Les porteuses de libations, et <span style="font-style: italic;">Les Euménides</span>, ou Les Bienveillantes, à savoir Les Érinyes. Cet ordre suit celui de l’histoire : sacrifice d’Iphigénie, retour et mort d’Agamemnon, sa vengeance par Oreste, jugement d’Oreste. La pièce d’Euripide est de loin postérieure à <span style="font-style: italic;">l’Orestie</span>. C’est la dernière pièce écrite par Euripide (avec Les Bacchantes), elle fut jouée en 405 avant J.-C., juste après la mort du poète ; <span style="font-style: italic;">l’Orestie </span>date de 458 avant J.-C. Les œuvres d’Eschyle et d’Euripide montrent des points de vue très différents sur le mythe, sur ce qu’est une tragédie, mais, dans cet ordre, l’histoire des Atrides devient plus claire.<br /></div><br /> <br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Pierre Judet de La Combe </span><br />Professeur à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales,<br />traducteur, directeur de recherche au CNRS, Université de Lille III।<br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1