1/ As written in the previous blog post, this is the second part of the trilogy, and about the killing of Klytaimestra (also known as Clytemnestra).
I read the translation by Michael Ewans, who uses transliterations from Greek.
2/ Aeschylus’s plays are rich in metaphors and similes.
“ELEKTRA […] We call upon the gods, who know
that great waves toss us all around
like men at sea; but when we’re fated to survive,
a small seed often grows into a great tree-root.”
Some animal imagery:
“ORESTES Zeus! Zeus! Look down and witness this!
You see the orphaned offspring of the eagle who has died –
a fearful serpent’s trapped him in its coils. They are bereft
of father-love, and suffer pangs of hunger; they’re not strong enough
to hunt food like their father, bring to the nest.
[…] If you were to destroy the eagle’s brood, you could not send
back any sign of hope to mortal men;
and if this tree of kingship shrivels up and dies
we will not be your ministers upon the festive days of sacrifice…”
Mixed metaphors.
Klytaimestra’s nightmare also has an interesting image: “she dreamt she gave birth to a snake” and “a clot of blood poured out into the milk.”
Orestes later compares her to snakes:
“ORESTES […] If she had been a seasnake, or a viper, she could make men’s flesh dissolve
without a bite, so great her daring
and the power of her evil mind…”
3/ This is an interesting passage:
“LIBATION BEARERS The earth
breeds terrifying beasts.
In her embrace the sea
encompasses a multitude
of monsters that can kill a man.
Up in the sky are comets, meteors—
like flying torches which descend
to harm us. Then think of the hurricane,
the anger of the stormwind.
But who can find words to speak
of the ever-daring mind of man
or woman’s love that dares all,
wedded to disaster?
When passion overcomes
the female, it destroys
the unions of animals,
the marriages of men and women.”
The play is full of such wonderful passages. I can see why my friend Himadri thinks the Oresteia is monumental.
4/ It’s fascinating to see that Aeschylus and Sophocles tackle the same myth in completely different ways.
In Liberation Bearers, Aeschylus does repeat the point about the cycle of violence, but presents Orestes’s killing of Klytaimestra and Aigisthos (better known as Aegisthus) as fulfilling the wish of many people, even a god: Orestes has doubts but Apollo tells him of “vile and frosty torments” and the pursuit of the Furies if he doesn’t avenge the murder of his father; the Libation Bearers or the female slaves of the house (the chorus) also egg him on, and take an active role in the revenge plot…
In Elektra—I will stick to Greek transliterations for consistency—Sophocles does something different: he changes the circumstances of the sacrifice, thus making Artemis appear petty and Klytaimestra’s killing of Agamemnon more justified or at least less of a wanton act of violence; concentrates on Elektra and her state of mind; brings in the counter-voices of Elektra’s sister and the chorus, clashing with Elektra’s thirst for revenge; gets the audience to feel compassion for Elektra but also see something perverse in her love of her father and hatred of her mother, etc.
However, Aeschylus adds some discordant notes towards the end of his play.
“ORESTES […] I’m like a charioteer who’s forced to drive
outside the course; I am beaten, and cannot control
my senses. Terror comes prepared to sing its song of hate
beside my heart, and join the dance…”
He is haunted. Did Apollo lie? Or did he warn Orestes of the father’s Furies if the murder’s not avenged, and not of the mother’s Furies if Orestes killed her?
“LIBATION BEARERS […] Where will it end? When will it be sated,
lulled to sleep, the force of destruction?”
5/ Another notable difference is that Sophocles reverses the order: Aeschylus has Orestes kill Aigisthos first and then Klytaimestra; Sophocles starts with, and focuses more on, Orestes’s killing of his mother Klytaimestra.
In Libation Bearers, Elektra also seems to be dropped in the latter part of the play—Aeschylus focuses more on Orestes.
6/ As my main frame of reference is Shakespeare, it’s hard to read these plays without wondering if Shakespeare knew them—just look at Libation Bearers, look at the confrontation between Orestes and his mother Klytaimestra—do you not think about Hamlet and Gertrude? For 400 years, people have debated the phrase “small Latin and less Greek” that Ben Jonson wrote about Shakespeare—most people seem to take it literally, though there is influence of Latin works on Shakespeare’s plays and scholars generally say Shakespeare may just have “small Latin and less Greek” compared to the learned Ben Jonson—I’ve recently read an essay in The Antigone Journal arguing that the sentence may have been misunderstood as “though” also has an archaic sense of “even if”. Do we know if Shakespeare knew these plays? If not in the original then perhaps in Latin translations? I need to look more into this.
