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At crucial stages in his career, Seamus Heaney has relied upon translations of classical texts to open new perspectives for his poetics thus modifying and renewing his practices through the prism of exemplary works such as Dante’s Divine Comedy or Virgil’s Aeneid. The milestone for this undertaking occurs in Field Work which marks the beginning of the second stage of Heaney’s work. Heaney has pursued this activity in other collections, notably Seeing Things, and in the full length translations of Buile Suibhne, Beowulf, and Philoctetes. This article proposes an examination of the development of this strain by briefly tracing the changes in Heaney’s relationship with classical texts. It will then examine Mycenae Lookout, Heaney’s treatment of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and attempt to record and account for the changes in practice which mark this poem.