Read this if you…
- are scraping the barrel of greek tragedies, checking boxes at this point
- care about the asylum question: what a city owes strangers at its gates
Skip this if you…
- haven't read oresteia to see if you like aeschylus
- want plot
The 
Take
Kinda boring, but some decent lofty writing
Depicted in Art
Five red-haired Danaids in flowing classical robes pour water from urns into a great pithos in an underworld grove; the vessel's leak-hole is rendered as a scowling clawed face.
John William Waterhouse, 1903
Ancient water-jug painted in red-figure: Danaids in chitons pour vessels into a broken pithos beside a dog and two youths; female heads tucked under each handle.
-330
Six monumental Danaids in a frieze-like procession carry classical jars on shoulders and hips around a marble basin; ceiling mural at the MFA Boston.
John Singer Sargent, 1925
Loose, painterly Edwardian treatment: a knot of robed Danaids gathered around a vessel under decorative sky, color-driven rather than narrative.
Rupert Bunny, 1918
Recommended Editions
David Grene
University of Chicago Press · 2013
Grene's plain prose keeps the focus where it belongs: fifty daughters of Danaus fleeing forced marriage and demanding asylum. One of the earliest surviving plays in the Western tradition, and one of the strangest.
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Notable Quotes
Zeus, protector of suppliants, look with favor upon our company.
Screen & Stage
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looseLes Danaïdes
Opera · 1784
Antonio Salieri
Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)
- Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford; classical scholar & translator, 1866–1957: "It has also on its own lines a profound and haunting beauty."
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