B.’s new edition of the Libation Bearers, part of the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts series, presents a new text, translation and commentary, with a lengthy introduction and a metrical analysis. This edition is not meant to supplant A. Garvie's Choephoroi (1986) or A. Bowen's Bristol commentary (1986), but positions itself between the two, for a student who has encountered Greek tragedy before, but may not be able to read Greek. At 480 pages, it is significantly longer than some others in the series. There is little grammatical help here, but this is unsurprising – the commentary is keyed to the facing English translation and aims to explicate the text rather than aid the student in rendering the Greek. Instead, B. offers textual criticism, literary analysis and contextual framing.
The overall impression is one of great care: B.’s explanations are always accessible and thorough, whether the topic is staging or the possible deletion of a particle, and suggestions are often tempered with cautionary reminders of our limited evidence. B. is balanced in his presentation of other interpretations and conscientious in his treatment of rejected readings.
The extensive introduction includes background on earlier versions of the myth, the relationship of LB first with the Agamemnon and then the Eumenides, and the reception of the play in antiquity. Discussion of Greek tragedy in general is incorporated into discussion of Aeschylean tragedy specifically, as in a helpful explanation of the performance space, and of other unified tetralogies.
Issues of textual criticism are likely to be unfamiliar to beginner students, but the corrupt text of the LB makes this a necessary point of discussion. B. approaches the subject with the aim of giving early students a ‘flavour’ (p. 55) of textual criticism while satisfying more advanced readers. He is unflinching in his evaluation of the state of the manuscript M and is explicit in his preference for plausible emendation over the obelisation of the implausible transmitted text of M (p. 45). Although the critical apparatus contains (for the most part) only accepted emendations, other readings are discussed at length in the commentary. Elsewhere in the commentary, B. presents a detailed analysis of interpolations in the recognition scene and of the structure of the great kommos. Observations range from the granular to the general with occasional illustrative references to modernity, such as a nod to a Wagnerian leitmotif in the discussion of Aeschylean imagery (p. 41) or a story of English widows pouring Christmas tea-libations to their husbands (p. 174).
The up-to-date bibliography and B.’s frequent citations of other scholars will be invaluable to students undertaking research on the play. This is a rich and lucid commentary, which makes not only a difficult play, but the scholarship surrounding it much more accessible to students of Aeschylus.
