All That You've Seen Here Is God: New Versions of Four Greek Tragedies Sophocles' Ajax, Philoctetes, Women of Trachis; Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound

by Sophocles, Bryan Doerries (Translator), Aeschylus

Overview

These contemporary translations of four Greek tragedies speak across time and connect readers and audiences with universal themes of war, trauma, suffering, and betrayal. Under the direction of Bryan Doerries, they have been performed for tens of thousands of combat veterans, as well as prison and medical personnel around the world. Striking for their immediacy and emotional impact, Doerries brings to life these ancient plays, like no other translations have before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307949738
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 7.96(h) x 1.05(d)

About the Author

Bryan Doerries is a New York-based writer, director, and translator who currently serves as Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions, a company that presents dramatic readings of seminal plays and texts to frame community conversations about pressing issues of public health and social justice. A self-described evangelist for ancient stories and their relevance to our lives today, Doerries uses age-old approaches to help individuals and communities heal from trauma and loss. He is the author of a memoir, The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today; All That You’ve Seen Here Is God, four plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles; and The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, a graphic novelization of Homer’s Odyssey, told from the point of view of a US Marine returning home from Afghanistan. Among his awards, he has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Kenyon College and was named Public Artist in Residence for the City of New York.

www.theaterofwar.com

Read an Excerpt

CHARACTERS
(in order of appearance)
Odysseus: the director of Greek intelligence
Ajax: a formidable warrior
Athena: the goddess of war
Chorus: the sailors and soldiers of Ajax
Tecmessa: the battle-won wife of Ajax
Eurysaces: their three-year-old son
Messenger: a soldier of the Greek army
Teucer: the half brother of Ajax
Menelaus: the deputy commander of the Greek army
Agamemnon: the commander of the Greek army


Odysseus appears at dawn—low to the ground—darting in and out of shadows. He is searching for a safe place to wait for Ajax.

Athena startles him, a voice at the borders of darkness.

Athena

   Why am
   I never
   surprised,
   son of Laertes,
   to catch you
   stalking
   an enemy
   at daybreak,
   like a blood-
   hound after
   some scent,
   tracking foot-
   prints behind
   the tents
   where Ajax
   and his men
   hold down
   the battle line?
   
   You wish
   to know if
   he’s inside, 
   soaked 
   in sweat 
   from the 
   slaughter? 

   Then tell me 
   what you’ve 
   come to do, 
   and you may 
   learn from one 
   who knows.

Odysseus 

   Dearest Athena, 
   guardian goddess, 
   though your shape 
   evades my eyes, 
   I hear you clearly 
   in my mind, like 
   the tune of a song 
   to which I somehow 
   know the words. 
   I’m circling 
   in on an enemy, 
   just as you’ve guessed, 
   close on his heels. 

   I have come 
   for Ajax, 
   the one 
   we called 
   the "shield." 

   It is he alone whom I now hunt. 

   Last night, 
   he did some-
   thing vile, 
   some vile 
   thing, some-
   thing un-
   imaginable, 
   if he is the one, 
   we cannot be sure, 
   still shaken by 
   the sight of it, 
   and so they 
   sent me here to 
   confirm what 
   he has done. 

   All of our cattle 
   are dead, and 
   the men who 
   tended them, 
   hacked to pieces, 
   butchered by 
   a hand—his, 
   we think—for 
   one of our men 
   swears to have 
   seen him sprinting 
   across the field 
   with a wet sword. 

   As soon as I heard, 
   I was on the case, 
   following the tracks, 
   which led me here, 
   but I’ve been thrown 
   by strange markings 
   in the mud and cannot 
   find him anywhere. 

   You have 
   arrived, 
   as always, 
   at the right 
   moment 
   to guide 
   me with 
   your hand. 


            Athena steps out of the shadows.

Athena 

   Obviously, Odysseus, I came to help with the hunt.

Odysseus 

   Then I am on the right track?

Athena 

   He is the one you describe: the killer of cows.

Odysseus 

   A reckless gesture, but why did he do it?

Athena 

   Black bile—blinding rage—over the arms of Achilles.

Odysseus 

   But what drove him to attack the animals?

Athena 

   In his mind, their blood was yours.
　
Odysseus 

   He wished to kill the Greeks?

Athena 

   Affirmative. 

   He would have completed his mission 
   had I not been paying attention.

Odysseus 
   
   Where did he find the courage to do it?

Athena 

   He stalked you quietly in the night.

Odysseus 

   How close did he come to his target?

Athena 
   
   Close enough to strike the generals.

Odysseus 
   
   And what contained his bloodlust?

Athena 

   I did. 
   
   I robbed him 
   of the pleasure 
   of cutting you 
   to pieces, 
   raining on 
   his death 
   parade, 
   distracting 
   him with 
   visions of 
   bovine foes 
   grazing in 
   the fields 
   under 
   the watchful 
   eyes of simple 
   herdsmen. 

   He descended 
   upon them 
   with full fury, 
   ripping out horns 
   with his hands, 
   slitting throats 
   and snapping 
   spines, at one 
   point squeezing 
   the life from 
   a general, then 
   taking the lives 
   of other officers, 
   or so he thought, 
   trembling from 
   contamination. 

   I stoked his rage, 
   driving him deeper 
   into the snare. 

   Finally tired from 
   all the killing, 
   he bound and 
   gagged his sad 
   prisoners, those 
   pitiful few cows 
   and sheep some-
   how still standing, 
   and rounded them 
   up for the death 
   march back to his 
   camp, convinced 
   they were men. 

   He tortures them inside the tent. 
   And now I will 
   expose you 
   to his illness, 
   so you may see 
   it with your 
   own eyes. 

   Stand there, 
   like a man. 
   He won’t 
   hurt you, 
   as long as 
   I am here. 

   Don’t worry. 
   I will hide you 
   in his blind spot; 
   he won’t see you 
   in the shadows. 

            Athena turns and shouts toward the tent. 

   You, there, 
   in the tent, 
   stretching 
   prisoners 
   on the rack, 
   put down 
   your ropes; 
   report to me 
   immediately!

Odysseus 
   
   What are you doing? Lower your voice.

Athena 

   Watch what you say. Someone might call you a coward.

Odysseus 

   Please, Athena, by the gods, let him stay inside the tent.

Athena 
   
   He’s only a man, not to be feared, the same as before.

Odysseus 
   
   He was and is my enemy.

Athena 

   Well isn’t it satisfying to laugh at an enemy?

Odysseus 
   
   It would please me more if he stayed within.

Athena 

   Are you afraid to gaze upon a maniac?

Odysseus 
   
   When he was sane, I would have met his stare.
　
Athena 
   
   He won’t see you standing before him.

Odysseus 
   
   Isn’t he looking through the same eyes?

Athena 
   
   I’ll shade his eyes and darken his vision.

Odysseus 

   Whatever the goddess wants, she takes.

Athena 

   Stand there silently. Do not move!

Odysseus 

   I must remain, against my wishes.

Table of Contents

THE AUDIENCE AS TRANSLATOR
TRANSLATOR’ S NOTE

SOPHOCLES’ AJAX
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
AJAX

SOPHOCLES’ PHILOCTETES
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS 
PHILOCTETES

AESCHYLUS’ PROMETHEUS BOUND
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
PROMETHEUS BOUND

SOPHOCLES’ WOMEN OF TRACHIS
AN INTRODUCTION
CHARACTERS
WOMEN OF TRACHIS


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Editorial Reviews

This is a brilliant, original, and harrowing work.” —Andre Gregory
 
“Knowing that these plays were originally authored by military brass, for an audience long familiar with the effects of war, you have to wonder what questions they were trying to address with their contemporaries. For the past decade, I’ve watched Bryan tirelessly pursue what these questions could have been by bringing these texts to the doorstep of the best modern source material we have, our US military. In so doing, he has created a series of translations that are accessible to both actor and audience, deeply insightful and wholly unique.” —Adam Driver
 
“Bryan Doerries’ translations of Greek tragedy in All That You’ve Seen Here Is God seriously engage both with four Greek originals by Aeschylus and Sophocles and with his own experience in performing the plays for disparate audiences who have undergone tragic suffering in person. His spare, contemporary yet poetic lines jump from the page to serve an intense delivery that invites his audience to post-play dialogue.” —Helene P. Foley, Professor of Classics, Barnard College, Columbia University

“We live in an age defined by mythic catastrophe.  We live in an age of perpetual war.  We therefore live in an age that requires drama of the stature contained between these covers.  Bryan Doerries’ brave, spare, inspired translations of Sophocles and Aeschylus have the power to bring us into healing confrontation with ancient, brutal, and essential truth.  These are plays for our time.”  —Doug Hughes, Tony-award winning director of Doubt

“These provocative, hard-driving renderings of Greek tragedy incarnate the enormous learning, keen auditory imagination, and expansive moral vision of Bryan Doerries, a deeply humane poet-translator who has crafted some of the most potent interpretations of ancient tragedy available in the English language.” —Thomas G. McGuire, Poetry Editor, War, Literature, & the Arts, United States Air Force Academy

“Bryan Doerries’ translations roar down the tracks like a raging locomotive. The language is lean, taut, raw, vibrant. The demonic passions of ancient Greek warriors and their thousand-yard stares chase us down and leave no place to hide. The sparse staccato lines jump off the page, onto the stage, into the gut. No wonder Doerries’ revolutionary Theater of War Project has produced such powerful performances at so many theaters over recent years. This is Greek tragedy as combat therapy. There is implicit in these sparse, often unforgiving pages the hope of emotional healing, signs of renewal to be snatched from the shattered souls of wounded warriors and their shell-shocked wives. A riveting read and remarkable accomplishment!” —Stephen Esposito, Assoc. Professor Classical Studies, Boston University
 
“Bryan Doerries’ translations are as illuminating to read as they are to perform.  They emphasize personal struggle over historical gamesmanship and are translated with emotion and humor that feels not only timely but prescient.”  —Jesse Eisenberg
 
“Doerries has listened to the pain of the veteran, the patient, and the prisoner and heard the words of Sophocles and Aeschylus.  He gives powerful voice to both in these stark and sensitive translations.”  —Amy R. Cohen,  Editor-in-Chief of Didaskalia: the Journal for Ancient Performance
 
 
 

From the Publisher

08/01/2015
The searing, harrowing power of classical Greek tragedy derives from its unsparing confrontation of competing moral claims. There are no easy answers. As such it remains profoundly contemporary and relevant for those coming to grips with the wounds of war and other traumas, physical, psychological, and spiritual. Writer and director Doerries, founder of Theater of War and artistic director of Outside the Wire, has translated selected plays by Sophocles and Aeschylus to initiate dialog and healing for servicemen and -women, veterans, and their families. The play Ajax is applicable to those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while Philoctetes offers insight into the condition of the disabled veteran. Prometheus Bound probes the tensions among duty, honor, and freedom, as does the Women of Trachis, which also explores mercy killing. Each of the plays confronts trauma and suffering and our difficult responses to them. Doerries's translations are free, eschewing the formal and linguistic properties of the Greek; nevertheless they vividly demonstrate the power and enduring relevance of the originals. VERDICT While not appropriate for students of classical drama, these translations are highly recommended as swift, accessible, and actable.—Thomas L. Cooksey, formerly with Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah

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