The Oresteia by Aeschylus: Eumenides

1/ As the final part of the Oresteia, this is quite a strange play. After the murder of his mother Klytaimestra (better known as Clytemnestra), Orestes is pursued by the Furies.

“PRIESTESS […] But all around this man there slept 

a terrifying crowd of women resting on our seats. 

Not really women—they were more like Gorgons; 

but I cannot truly liken them to Gorgons

nor Harpies—for I saw a picture once 

of Harpies stealing Phineus’ feast, and they 

had wings; but these have none, and they are black 

and horrible in every way. They’re snoring, 

and the stench around them is unbearable. 

Disgusting streams of filth 

Pour from their eyes…” 

(translated by Michael Ewans) 

Horrifying stuff.

I note that the murder of Aigisthos (better known as Aegisthus) is fair game; even Klytaimestra’s murder of her husband Agamemnon, for the Furies, is not the worst; but matricide is the greatest evil. 

Haunted, Orestes asks for help from Apollo (the one who told him to kill his mother) and also asks Athena. She then sets up a trial for him in Athens, judged by 12 Athenian citizens. 

2/ The imagery in Aeschylus’s plays is interesting. 

“KLYTAIMESTRA You’re hunting in a dream! You’re barking like a sleeping dog 

that can’t forget its need to kill.” 

That’s the ghost of the dead woman, in case you’re wondering. 

“FURIES While I still slept, reproaches came in dreams

and struck me like a horseman with his whip 

in the belly, down below the liver. 

Here, the chill, the heavy chill, 

the dreadful whip-lash of the executioner!” 

3/ It is, however, a strange play because Apollo, a god, appears at the trial and argues in defence, and because the trial ends up not being about morality or justice but essentially boils down to the question “To which parent does the child owe more?”. 

“APOLLO […] The person called the mother is no real parent

of a child; she simply nurses foetuses once they’ve been sown. 

The parent is the man, who mounts; the woman is a hostess 

who preserves a stranger’s offspring—if they are not harmed by any god. 

Now I will show you living proof of what I say. 

A father can beget a child without a mother; see, right here

as witness stands the child of Zeus himself:

she was not nurtured in the dark depths of a womb, 

yet she is such an offspring as no goddess ever bore…” 

That is Athena. But isn’t this sophistry? The vote is split, Orestes is acquitted, the play ends with a triumphant tone, but this is nevertheless troubling.   

Michael Ewans points out: 

“In Agamemnon, [Apollo] punishes the girl who broke her pledge by a hideous death; in Libation Bearers he is ruthless once again, commanding matricide, warning of terrible penalties should Orestes try to evade it, and ordaining that Orestes must sink to treachery in order to achieve that end. Nor was his oracle, in real life, always above the charge of deviousness and trickery.” 

In a way, the acquittal of Orestes (probably) means the end of the cycle of violence, but at the same time I would guess that Aeschylus does mean the trial and Apollo’s interferences to be troubling.