A Cloud of Dust

The Seven against Thebes, third play in the Theban tetralogy whereby Aeschy­lus won first prize in 467 B.C., has been widely studied in the last 160 years. However, most scholars entangled themselves with apparently insoluble questions or else jumped to conclusions based on unsafe premises. This book, on the contrary, provides a fresh approach to the whole tragedy in such a way as to grasp its unity and find new solutions to old problems. The author contends that the playwright resorted to an absorbing and convincing representation (mimesis) of war, relation with women, family feud, and mourning, as well as of the invisible action of superhuman forces. That action is made credible by the mystifying hermeneutics the chorus, the Messenger, and the secondary chorus are engaged in, as soon as disaster strikes the royal family. This interpretation, which appreciates the poet’s effort to involve his audience’s emotions, will be indispensable to not only scholars and students of Greek tragedy, but also theatre producers and practitioners (for whose sake all Greek and Latin quotations are translated into English). In order to make her arguments clear, the author has added her translation of the play in Appendix 2.