by Aeschylus
1042 / 895 No house will ever grow without your blessing A complete reversal of the Erinyes’ earlier description of their “calling” as “the destruction of houses” (416–17 / 354–55).
1081–82 / 928–29 these powerful, / demanding goddesses In the midst of the Erinyes’ blessings on Athens, Athena does not let the audience forget that they have power to curse as well (1085–94 / 932–37, 1116 / 954–55), and that they must be propitiated with due honors (1156–60 / 992–95). The Erinyes are transformed in the course of the play, but that does not mean that their old functions or danger have been completely forgotten.
1135–36 / 973 Zeus who guides / men’s speech This is Zeus agoraios, the god who presides over the agora, the public meeting place where he had an altar, but also over agora in its broader sense of public meetings and the persuasive speech with which decisions are reached in the legislative and judicial assemblies of the polis.
1150–51 / 985–86 loving the common good, / hating a common foe This is the fundamental principle of Greek popular ethics, “helping friends and harming enemies,” expressed in communal terms as the antithesis of destructive civil strife.
1158 / 992 these kindly ones Athena calls the Erinyes euphrones, in effect conferring upon them a new and auspicious name. They are actually nowhere called Eumenides in the play as we have it, but since both words mean “well-minded” or “well-disposed”, it is possible that the title of the play (which need not stem from Aeschylus) came from a mis-citation of this line by the author of the “hypothesis” (synopsis) found in our manuscript tradition. The synopsis says that Athena “having soothed the Erinyes, addressed them as ‘Eumenides.’” Alternatively, it has been argued that a passage in which Athena gave them the actual title Eumenides has been lost. The title by which the Erinyes were worshipped at Athens, Semnai Theai (August or Awesome Goddesses), is used at 1218 / 1041 (“venerable ones” in our version).
1169 / 1002 The most remarkable of the passages in Eumenides that suggest the gods can feel respect and responsibility for mortals (cf. notes on 262–63 and 882–84. The verb used here, azetai, is usually used of the feelings of awe that mortals have for the gods.
1174 / 1006 holy offerings Sphagiôn semnôn refers literally to sacrificial victims that are august or awesome (the same word as the Erinyes’ Athenian cult title Semnai; see note on 1158). The animal(s) to be sacrificed would presumably be a black cow and/or ewe, the animals of choice for sacrifice to chthonic goddesses. Athena’s pointing out of “these … offerings” appears to require that one or two be present on stage.
1182–83 / 1011 our new / inhabitants Metoikoi are literally “resident aliens.” At Libation Bearers, 1096 / 971, the Erinyes are described as metoikoi who will be evicted from the house of Atreus; now, as Eumenides, they are offered a home in Athens (see further on 1203 / 1028).
1196 / 1022 by the dancing light of torches The torches present a visual conclusion and resolution for the trilogy’s persistent imagery of light and dark. Light has been a symbol of hope from the beginning, when the Watchman saw the beacon fire he had been awaiting for so long, but just as persistently light yielded to darkness. Now the “dark” Erinyes move to their new home bathed in the light of Athenian torches to show that they are fully incorporated in the new civic order.
1198 / 1024 my attendants This group presumably includes the “escorts” referred to at 1172–73 / 1005 as holding the sacred light and perhaps Athena’s priestess and one or more of the arrêphoroi, maidens who carried the symbols of Athena’s cult in procession.
1203 / 1028 in purple robes These robes—the final transformation of the seductive embroideries and blood-stained nets of the earlier plays—are what the metoikoi, Athens’ resident aliens, wore in the great procession of the Panathenaea, the main Athenian festival in honor of Athena.
1208–9 / 1034 aged children, / childless children This translates the compact phrase paides apaides, literally, “children not children.” This form of expression is particularly dear to the tragic poets (e.g., “city … no city” [polin … apolin], 543 / 457). Here it implies both that the goddesses are children and yet not children, because they are old; and that they are children who have no children, because they are virgins.
1211–12 / 1035 and 1215–16 / 1038 Hush … speak well, / only auspicious words This translates a single Greek word euphameite, which literally means “speak well,” but is used before religious rites as a ritual injunction to say nothing except the words prescribed by ritual. Since an inauspicious word could spoil the rite, silence was the safest course.
1221 / 1043 and 1225 / 1047 a joyous cry See note on Agamemnon 33–34.
GLOSSARY
ACHAEANS: Strictly speaking, designates the inhabitants of the north coast of the Peloponnese and southeastern Thessaly, but it is used by Homer and later poets to refer to Greeks in general.
ACHERON: River of the underworld.
AEGEAN (SEA): Sea that divides mainland Greece from Asia Minor, named for Aegeus.
AEGEUS: An early king of Athens and father of Theseus.
AEGISTHUS: Son of Atreus’ brother Thyestes and thus cousin of Agamemnon; paramour of Clytemnestra in Agamemnon’s absence. Thyestes was the only survivor of Atreus’ slaughter of the children of Thyestes (see ATREUS).
AGAMEMNON: Son of Atreus, brother of Menelaus, and ruler of Argos; led the great expedition against Troy.
ALEXANDER: Another name for Paris.
ALTHAEA: Mother of Meleager, at whose birth the Fates prophesied that he would live no longer than a brand that was burning in the fire. Althaea hid the brand, but when the now adult Meleager quarreled with and killed her brothers, Althaea avenged them by burning the brand, thus causing Meleager’s death.
AMAZONS: Tribe of warrior women from the region of the Black Sea, who invaded Attica after Theseus, the Athenian king, had stolen off their queen. They besieged the Acropolis, but were defeated in a great battle by the Athenians under Theseus’ command. Aeschylus explains the name “Areopagus” with the story that the Amazons made their camp on the hill subsequently given that name, and sacrifice there to Ares.
APHRODITE: Goddess of love, personifies the power of sexual attraction.
APIAN LAND: Alternate name for the region of Argos.
APOLLO: God of prophecy, purification, and healing among other powers, and the son of Zeus and Leto. In the Oresteia, he is invoked as king of Pytho (through his association with the prophetic shrine of Delphi), Phoebus (meaning “bright one”), Loxias (“crooked” or “oblique,” an epithet explained in antiquity by reference either to the oblique orbit of the sun, with which he is often identified, or to the ambiguity of his oracles), and Wolf-god (a possible meaning of the Greek word lykaios, which might refer to the god as a killer of wolves or suggest an origin in the region of Lycia in Asia Minor).
ARACHNE’S PEAK: Mountain in the Peloponnese; see note on Agamemnon, 320–59.
AREOPAGUS: “Hill of Ares,” the seat of an aristocratic Athenian council, and the eponymous council, thought to have been founded as a court to try murder cases and restricted to that function by the reforms of Cleisthenes in 462. Aeschylus’ account of the court’s founding by Athena is apparently his own invention. For Aeschylus’ etymology of the name, see AMAZONS.
ARES: God of war, often treated in poetry as a figure for violence and destruction.
ARGIVES: Inhabitants of Argos.
ARGOS: Major city of the Argive plain in the Peloponnese, site of the palace of Agamemnon. For the treaty concluded with Argos by Athens in 462/61, see the note to Eumenides, 885–98/762–74.
ARTEMIS: Sister of Apollo, virgin goddess imaged both as hunter and protector of wild animals.
ASCLEPIUS: Healer, hero (in early sources), and god (in the later tradition). Aeschylus treats him as a mortal of extraordinary powers see the note to Agamemnon, 1163–65/1022–24.
ASOPUS: River of Boeotia.
ATHENA: Virgin goddess born full-grown and armed from the head of Z
eus; a warrior goddess who supported the Greeks at Troy, but also the patron of women’s crafts and of wisdom; patron goddess of Athens. She is often known by her cult name Pallas, whose origin and meaning are uncertain.
ATHOS: Mountain in northern Greece; see note on Agamemnon, 320–59.
ATREIDAE: Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus.
ATREUS: Son of Pelops, avenged his brother Thyestes’ seduction of his wife by killing all of Thyestes’ children (except Atreus) and serving them to their father at a banquet; father of Agamemnon and Menelaus.
AULIS: Port on the coast of Boeotia, from which the Greeks sailed to Troy after the sacrifice of Iphigenia.
BACCHANTS: Women devotees of Dionysus, the god of ecstatic possession (and thus, for example, of wine and theater), from his cult name “Bacchus.”
BROMIUS: Cult name for Dionysus, meaning “roarer” or the like.
CALCHAS: Seer who accompanied the Greek expedition against Troy.
CASSANDRA: Daughter of Priam and Hecuba allotted to Agamemnon after the fall of Troy. Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy in return for the promise of a sexual liaison. When she broke her promise, Apollo could not take back her prophetic power, but punished her by seeing to it that no one would believe her.
CHALCIS: Town on the coast of Euboea opposite Attica.
CHRYSEIS: Daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo, she was awarded as a war prize to Agamemnon after the sacking of a city near Troy. Her father came to ransom her, and when Agamemnon refuses to give her back, Apollo sends a plague on the Greeks army. In Book 1 of Homer’s Iliad, Agamemnon’s quarrels with Achilles begins because he has to give her up; he tells the army meeting in assembly that he prefers her to Clytemnestra.
CILISSA: A slave in the palace at Argos who had been Orestes’ nurse.
CITHAERON: Mountain to the south of Thebes, in Boeotia.
CLYTEMNESTRA : Daughter of Tyndareus and Leda; sister of Helen; wife of Agamemnon and paramour of Aegisthus; mother of Orestes, Electra, and Iphigenia.
COCYTUS: River of the underworld, whose name means lamentation.
CORYCIAN ROCK: Cave high on Mount Parnassus above Delphi, sacred to the Nymphs.
CRANAUS: Early and obscure king of Athens; Athenians are sometimes called children of Cranaus.
CRONUS: God of the Titan generation, son of Uranus, whom he castrated and dethroned; father of Zeus, who overthrew him and chained him and the other Titans in the bowels of the earth.
DANAANS: Another name for the Argives, after Danaus, an early king; used, like Achaeans, to describe the Greeks in general.
DAULIS: Town in Phocis.
DELOS: Island in the Aegean Sea where Apollo and Artemis were born.
DELPHI: Town on the slopes of Mount Parnassus; site of Apollo’s great oracular shrine.
DELPHUS: Hero who gave his name to Delphi; said to have been reigning as king when Apollo arrived there.
EARTH: As a deity, mother of all life. Aeschylus makes her the first giver of oracles at Delphi.
ELECTRA: Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; sister of Orestes and Iphigenia.
ERECHTHEUS: Among the most revered of the early Athenian kings.
ERINYES: Furies, female spirits of the underworld who spring from the blood spilt by victims of homicide and pursue vengeance on their behalf. The singular Erinys can refer to what we might call a hereditary curse.
EUMENIDES: “Kindly Ones,” a cult name of the Erinyes, and the traditional name of the third play of the trilogy. The epithet actually given to the Erinyes by Athena after she has persuaded them to become a force for good in Athens is euphrones, which has a very similar meaning. See the note on Eumenides, 1158 / 992.
EURIPUS: Strait dividing Euboea from mainland Attica.
GERYON: Three-bodied giant killed by Heracles.
GORGONS: Three female monsters, with golden wings, huge tusks, bronze claws, and serpents for hair. One of them, Medusa, was mortal, but her face turned to stone anyone who looked at it. She was killed by Perseus, using a mirror given to him by Athena. For Gorgon Face (345 / 302), not securely identified, see note on Agamemnon, 320–59.
HADES: Ruler of the underworld; brother of Zeus and Poseidon; husband of Persephone.
HELEN: Daughter of Zeus and Leda; sister of Clytemnestra; married to Menelaus, she followed Paris to Troy and thus was held to be the cause of the Trojan War.
NEPNAESTUS: God of fire and the forge; said by the Athenians to be father of Erichthonius, one of their early kings (see note on Eumenides, 14).
HERA: Daughter of Cronus and Rhea; sister and wife of Zeus; patron goddess of marriage.
HERACLES: Son of Zeus and Alcmene and the greatest of Greek heroes, he was forced to serve Eurystheus of Argos and to undertake twelve labors at his command.
HERMES: Son of Zeus and Maia; messenger of the gods; escorter of souls between the worlds of the living and the dead; god of travel, commerce, and trickery. For the rock of Hermes (323 / 283), not securely identified, see note on Agamemnon, 320–59.
IDA: Mountain near Troy.
ILIUM: Another name for Troy.
INACHUS: Most important river of the Argive plain.
IPHIGENIA: Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sacrificed at Aulis.
ITYS: Son of Procne and Tereus, killed by his mother, who later was changed to a nightingale lamenting her lost son unceasingly. For the story, see the note on Agamemnon, 1305.
IXION: King of the Lapiths in Thessaly, he murdered his father-in-law to avoid paying promised bridal gifts and became the first suppliant for purification of blood-guilt. Zeus purified him, but Ixion then attempted to seduce Hera, and Zeus punished him with eternal torment, attached to a burning, constantly rotating wheel.
LEDA: Mother of Clytemnestra (by her husband Tyndareus) and Helen (by Zeus).
LEMNOS: Aegean island. Its women, angered because their husbands took Thracian concubines, murdered all its men.
LETO: Mother of Apollo and Artemis.
LIBYA: Greek name for northern Africa in general; in the Oresteia, refers to the region where Athena is said to have been born.
LOXIAS: See APOLLO.
LYCIA: Country on the south coast of Asia Minor that was the principle ally of Troy; thus, “Lycian spear” at Libation Bearers, 396 / 346–47, stands for the enemy force in general.
MACISTUS: Mountain Euboea, a large island off the eastern coast of Attica.
MEDES: People of the mountainous country southwest of the Caspian Sea.
MENELAUS: Son of Atreus; husband of Helen and joint commander with his brother Agamemnon of the expedition against Troy to recapture her.
MESSAPION: Mountain on the coast of Boeotia on the Greek mainland.
MINOS: King of Crete, said to have lived three generations before the Trojan War; see SCYLLA.
NISUS: King of Megara; see SCYLLA.
ODYSSEUS: King of Ithaca, his homecoming from the war at Troy is the subject of Homer’s Odyssey.
OLYMPIANS: Collective name of the gods whose home was imagined to be atop Mount Olympus on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia. These gods—most prominently Zeus and his wife Hera; his brothers Poseidon and Hades; and in the next generation Apollo, Artemis, and Athena—are regarded as the “younger gods” in relation to the Titans whom they overthrew and the chthonian (earth-dwelling) deities, such as the Erinyes, whose powers and honors their rule circumscribes.
ORESTES: Only son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.
ORPHEUS: Musician of Thrace; his singing had the power to charm even wild animals and trees.
PALLAS: See ATHENA.
PAN: A woodland deity connected to fertility, animals, and nature in general.
PARIS: Son of Priam and Hecuba, whose abduction of Helen while a guest at the house of Menelaus caused the Trojan War.
PARNASSUS: Mountain in Phocis that towers above Apollo’s shrine at Delphi. Hence a “Parnassian accent” would be an inflection characteristic of Phocis.
PELOPS: King of Argos; father
of Atreus and Thyestes; grandfather of Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Aegisthus.
PENTHEUS: King of Thebes, grandson of its founder Cadmus; he denied the divinity of Dionysus and opposed his return to Thebes, for which he was torn apart by bacchants, led by his own mother Agave.
PERSEPHONE: Daughter of Demeter, abducted by Hades and forced to live in the underworld for half of each year.
PERSEUS: Son of Zeus and Danaë who killed Medusa. See GORGONS.
PHERES: King of Thessaly; father of Admetus, whose life Apollo wrested from the Fates.
PHINEUS: King of Thrace who was persecuted by Harpies, winged female monsters who snatched away his food; the Argonauts killed them or drove them away.