ABSTRACT
Based on rhythmic poetry, ancient Greek tragedies were devised to be performed, not read. Changes in stage conventions and the concept of poetry, which ceased to be based on rhythm, challenged modern translators and interpreters of these texts. This chapter discusses two Polish translations of Aeschylus's Oresteia, by Zygmunt Węclewski (1824–87) and Stefan Srebrny (1890–1962), who strove to render the spirit of the ‘real’ ancient drama by mediating between the past and their own present as well as between restraint and licence. This mediation is presented with regard to prosody and theatricality, based on a comparative analysis of the translated texts and translators' paratexts (added stage directions), and taking into account various concepts of staging. The two translators stood out in their times in that they sought to reframe ancient Greek tragedies at the level of both translation and production.
