The Persians by Aeschylus

Poetry. "The Persians, an ancient play by Aeschylus, shows the Persian court during the time of the war between the Persians and the Greeks. It depicts the Persians learning of their massive defeat at the hands of the Greek army. I believed that the text which proceeded from my body should report on my total experience of reading The Persians by Aeschylus, not simply report on the 'meanings' of the 'words' of that work. This was an obviously impossible project. To help myself out, I tried to include many collaborators to intervene in the translation, especially including Edward Said, Jane Austen, Walter Benjamin, my Arabic class, the Clash, e-mail correspondence with a translator recruiter from the U.S. Army, and Rumi; also all the things I ate and drank and wore and said and did are in the translation; and most especially I tried to pay attention to the terrific war and the terrific language that the war made that completely infiltrated all of my food and beverages and clothes and words and actions, and I let that get in the way of the translation too. In this way, THE PERSIANS BY AESCHYLUS transmits numerous reports: a report of a reading, a toxological report of the reading and the writing; those latencies did not lie down"—Brandon Brown.