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
Why It Matters
Aeschylus's earliest surviving play is about fifty women who run from forced marriage and beg a king for asylum. It's the oldest look in Western literature at refugee rights and the tension between protecting outsiders and the risk of taking them in. The themes are so current that modern productions barely have to change a word.
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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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Zeus, protector of suppliants, look with favor upon our company.”
“Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands / Look down benign on us who crave / Thine aid—whom winds and waters drave / From where, through drifting shifting sands, / Pours Nilus to the wave.”
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