The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, the Eumenides

by Aeschylus

  1041 Menelaus: according to Homeric tradition, Menelaus would arrive in a day or so, too late to be of help.

  1043 A name for - : the chorus cuts him short, in effect, before he can utter ill-omened words about his exile and his death.

  1047 Lopped the heads of these two serpents: as if he were a victorious Hercules or Perseus, though such praises only evoke the Furies in Orestes’ mind. Aeschylus was the first Greek writer to describe them as having snakes in their hair (like Gorgons).

  1050 Cannot stay: the phrase overturns Orestes’ declarations at the outset, ‘I have come home . . . the exile home at last.’

  THE EUMENIDES

  1 Mother Earth: man first worships Earth, his source of food, ‘but before long,’ as Jane Harrison writes in the Introduction to Themis, ‘he notices that Sky as well as Earth influences his food supply. At first he notes the “weather,” rain and wind and storm. Next he finds out that the Moon measures seasons, and to her he attributes all growth, all waxing and waning. Then his goddess is Phoebe. When later he discovers that the Sun really dominates his food supply, Phoebe gives place to Phoebus, the Moon to the Sun. The shift of attention, of religious focus, from Earth to Sky, tended to remove the gods from man; they were purged but at the price of remoteness.’ That is the price of Delphi, as Aeschylus portrays it; for the humanism of Athens and her gods, see Introduction, pp. 85ff.

  3 Tradition: literally Themis, the Titaness whose province is established law and custom.

  4 Third by the lots of destiny: perhaps in the third generation of the gods, as apportioned by Zeus before the birth of Apollo. In E the ‘triad’ motif recurs less in explicit statement than as a kind of structural obsession, an idée fixe that turns destruction into joy. The Furies’ refrains, painfully repeated (e.g. 329-34, 342-7), resolve into a third, harmonious song (1004-11, 1023-30). The entire trilogy, as others have observed, recalls the ’triad’ of stanzas found in choral lyric poetry, like the opening ‘triad’ in A (112-60); the turn and counter-turn resolved in a final stand that unifies the partners as a priest presides at a marriage. The basic ’triad’ of the trilogy itself makes the third play a metaphor for the Mean; The Eumenides reconciles the opposites within the Oresteia to produce a state of equilibrium; see Introduction, pp. 91ff.; E 772ff., 1004ff.; A n. 245, LB n. 61; C. John Herington, ‘Aeschylus: The Last Phase’, Arion, iv (1965), 387-403; and Diskin Clay, ‘Aeschylus’ Trigeron Mythos’, Hermes, xv (1969), 1-9.

  7 Phoebe: another Titaness, generally associated with the moon, whose name connotes not only radiance but purity. As Apollo’s grand-mother, it was appropriate for her to bestow her name upon him at birth, Phoebus Apollo. The note of ‘purification’ in these names, sounded three times over in the Greek, prepares us for the purging of Orestes.

  The light-in-darkness theme will now extend into a cosmic conflict between the gods of the Sky and powers of the Earth; see 396ff., 720, 759ff., 937f., 1043ff.; A n. 25, LB n. 137. The imagery of E expands the destructive force of images in A and the human potential of those in LB, while the two extremes are harmonized at last, thanks to a new flexibility of poetic technique in the final play. Earlier images are diffused; they exceed their literal boundaries, blending with other images and often turning into actions that achieve a greater, more positive moral effect; see Introduction, pp. 89ff.

  9f Delos . . . Pallas’ headlands: in this account Apollo came to Delphi from Delos (his island birthplace and one of his chief sanctuaries) via Attica, the land of Pallas Athena.

  13 The god of fire: Hephaistos, whose provinces were fire and mechanical crafts, was the father of Erichthonios, mythical king of Athens. Road-making is probably mentioned here as a symbol of civilization, though it may refer to Apollo’s Sacred Way from Athens to Delphi. The reference to his early journey through Attica anticipates his return to Athens later in this play. The reference to Hephaistos and road-making may anticipate the final torchlit procession; see 396, 1039; A n. 109, LB notes 137, 950.

  21 Athena Pronaia, the ‘Defender of the Temple’, had a notable shrine at the main entrance to the sanctuary at Delphi. Her precinct can still be visited in the valley below the Castalian Spring. Athena Pronaia would become conflated with Athena Pronoia, the Goddess of Forethought, a power she begins to exercise within this play.

  22 Corycian rock, etc. A wild district on a plateau of Parnassus, high above Delphi, with a famous cave frequented by Pan and the Nymphs.

  24 Dionysus: the god traditionally took over control of the Delphic sanctuary during the three months of winter, when Apollo departed for a more genial climate. The vice-regency of Dionysus began, as the priestess recalls, with his savage epiphany at Thebes. Pentheus, the young king of Thebes, was torn in pieces by his mother and other frenzied maenads because he had resisted the god - torn in pieces ‘like a hare’, as Aeschylus phrases it, as if to remind us that the Olympians had been ruthless in the past, and, more specifically, to recall the vivid image of the hare mangled by hunting eagles, a symbol of the destructiveness of war (A 122ff.) and to hint, too, at the fate of Orestes if he is delivered over to the Furies.

  27 Poseidon: was said to have had a cult at Delphi in earlier times; his sparkling sea lies clearly visible below the sacred mountain.

  28 Zeus: significantly, perhaps, all the Olympian gods mentioned are male except Athena. The only major male gods who are not mentioned are Ares, god of war and destruction, and Hermes, who will appear later. This ‘masculinity’ may contrast with the more feminine powers who will preside at Athens; see Introduction, pp. 87ff.

  29 Seat: actually a kind of tripod on which the Pythia sat while delivering her oracles in the interior of the temple.

  31 Where are, etc. Normally there would be a crowd of Greeks and others waiting to enter the temple and ask the oracle their questions. Greeks had precedence over non-Greeks.

  37f Crawling on all fours . . . an old woman, etc. This rather sensational visual effect embodies a theme stressed by the elders in A: the helplessness of old age in the face of violence and terror. The Pythia in Aeschylus’ time had to be a woman of at least fifty years of age. She may symbolize the need for a new, young régime in general, or reflect the poet’s failing strength in 458 B.C.

  42 I see, etc. For the resemblance of this scene, perhaps of the entire play to the world of dreams, see Introduction, pp. 73, 96. Here dreams will reach their supernatural extreme, prophetic and ordained; at the same time they will lead us from the flux of nightmare to a living, waking vision of individual responsibility and promise - dreams become a dominant culture pattern of the race; see 108f., 131ff., 156ff.; A n. 91, LB n. 42.

  51ff Gorgons . . . Phineus: the first were the fabulous monsters whose terrifying appearance - tusks, protruding lips, snaky hair - turned people to stone; see LB n. 818. The winged Harpies, another group of notoriously hideous female demons, persecuted Phineus, a king of a district on the Black Sea, by snatching away or defiling his food.

  58 What they wear: black, the colour of sacrilege and bad omens.

  65f Healer, etc. For the limits of Apollo’s cures and purgations see Introduction, p. 75. Homeopathy - an immersion in poison, plague and their moral analogies: maddening guilt and the agony of failure - becomes the means to individual and social health in the Oresteia; see 330ff., 518ff., 543ff., 795ff., 993ff., n. 178; A n. 907, LB n. 69ff.

  67 No, I will never fail you: that was Apollo’s first promise (LB 273); must Orestes challenge him to keep his word?

  74 The dark pit, etc. Tartarus, the underworld to which the Titans were condemned by the Olympians.

  83 Her ancient idol: the olive-wood figure in the Erechtheum on the Acropolis, the original patroness of Athens, not the colossal statue created (later than this play) by Pheidias for the Parthenon.

  93 Hermes: the Escort of the Dead emerges here to lead Orestes back to life, a sign of the hopeful, regenerative turn that men and gods will take in this concluding play; see A n. 505, LB notes 1, 126, 803.

  94 Shepherd hi
m well: animal imagery will turn from brutalizing to humane effects. The more savage images (115, 191f.) are abandoned for images which are more sacramental (326ff., 462ff.). The Furies turn from hunting-hounds (132f.) to more domestic creatures (248), foreshadowing the shepherded community, the triumph of civilization (955ff., 991ff., 1009ff.). The serpent, their symbol, will discard its venomous, infernal aspect (493f.) as the Furies assume their powers of regeneration (919f.). The Oresteia celebrates the husbandry of heaven; see A n. 810, LB n. 252.

  102 Guilt: aitia, moral responsibility, will turn from a burden to a challenge; see 198, 447f., 585; A n. 796, LB n. 100.

  110ff Libations, etc. Sacrifices to the spirits of the underworld, always conducted at night, burned close to the earth in a low brazier, consisting of honey, milk and water. The image of the feast will grow horrific as the Furies threaten to banquet on Orestes (262ff.), then august and sacramental as they accept their cult in Athens and the land’s first fruits. The image may extend into the atmosphere of health, nurture and the assimilation of our powers that ends the trilogy; see A n. 138, LB n. 261. For the image of libations, see Introduction, p. 91; A n. 1391ff., LB n. 17.

  116 Your nets: this dominant symbol turns from an implement of capture to a symbol of release, finally to an emblem of Athenian culture; see Introduction, pp. 90f. A related image, that of the hunt, is similarly transformed; see A n. 129, LB n. 335. That of the yoke dissolves, in effect, into the responsibilities we shoulder and enjoy, the ballast of our destiny; see A n. 49, LB n. 74.

  150 Child of Zeus: Apollo.

  151 Ridden down: imagery of athletics turns more towards riding and racing than the combat skills of archery and wrestling, but these references are less explicit than before, more inclusive of human ‘pursuits’ in general; see 249ff., 375ff., 414ff; A n. 169ff., LB n. 165.

  155 Guilt both ways, etc. The grammar of impossible alternatives, the tragic choice of evils, expanded from A 212 and LB 342; see E 495f.

  178 This flying viper: a striking metaphor for an arrow; it develops the recurrent snake symbolism and perhaps implies a kind of homeopathy - snake-arrow against snake-goddesses.

  183ff Where heads are severed, etc. Apollo associates the Furies with the worst kinds of ‘official’ cruelty, the ugliest elements in despotic government, which were typical, as the Greeks saw it, of Oriental justice. It is Apollo, however, who has made ’Justice and bloody slaughter . . . the same’; the torture-chamber he describes recalls the house of Atreus, to which he condemned Cassandra (see A 1088ff.) and dispatched Orestes for the murder of his mother.

  210 One’s flesh and blood: the leader argues that, since husband and wife are not blood relations, for one to kill the other is not an offence against the blood-bond. Apollo contends that since marriage is a ‘consummation’ (the Greek term telos also implies ’a rite, ceremony, established office’; see A n. 71f.) instituted by the King and Queen of Heaven, Zeus and Hera, it has a higher binding power than even ties of blood (as Christians might argue from its ‘sacramental’ aspects).

  242 Perhaps it was here, if we may credit the ancient biography of Aeschylus on this point, that the Furies had such a disturbing effect upon the Athenian audience; see Introduction, pp. 88f.

  249 The Furies are wingless (54f.), an anthropomorphic trait they share with Athena (415).

  250 Outracing ships, etc. Nautical imagery will take an auspicious course, once the storms of shipwreck are channelled into tides of joy, gentle winds and blessings by the shower. The man-of-war becomes the ship of state with Pallas at the helm; see A notes 185ff., 1004; LB n. 203.

  270 Hades, god of the dead, is regarded here as the recorder of human conduct or, literally, the public examiner of officials when their term of office has expired. The metaphor from a memorandum tablet resembles the ‘books of life’ which will be consulted on the Day of Judgement according to The Revelation of St John (Book XX, verse 11ff.).

  275ff Where to speak, etc. Even the speech of the murderer who has not been purged might contaminate the listener. The fact that Orestes may go among men without harming them is proof that he has been decontaminated. The swine was used in rites of purgation, especially those of the Eleusinian Mysteries, because it was the preferred victim of the chthonic powers. Its blood was shed over the murderer’s head and was thought to absorb his blood-guilt as it flowed down his body.

  289 The Argive people, etc. Three years before the production of the Oresteia in 458 B.C., this city-state had made an alliance with Athens against Sparta. Possibly Aeschylus transferred Agamemnon’s capital from Mycenae (as it is in Homer) to Argos to please Athens’ new allies.

  291ff Libya . . . the Giants’ Plain: an early legend localized Athena’s birth at Lake Tritonis in Libya. The reference here was probably prompted by the fact that in 460 B.C. the Athenians had sent a fleet to help a Libyan leader in a revolt against his Persian overlords. The Giants’ Plain is Phlegraea in north-eastern Greece, the scene of the battle between the Olympians and the Giants, in which the Olympians triumphed over their more primitive enemies.

  306 Chains of song: the chorus that follows is a kind of magical incantation intended to paralyse its victim. (A recurring refrain is typical of such spells; the anapaestic metre of the Greek implies that the chorus marched as it sang.) Such incantations are referred to elsewhere in Greek literature, but only here - apart from the non-literary spells of the magical papyri - do we find a full example of it. Like the witches’ chorus in Macbeth (first performed at a time when belief in black magic was strong in England), this evil spell of the Furies must have had a powerful effect on the fifth-century Athenians, who believed in many horrific demons and ghosts - a ‘shrivelling effect’, as it is called in the refrain. For the relationship between the Furies’ ‘chains’, thought by Pythagoreans to shackle impure souls in Hell, and the torments of Orestes in this world, see Introduction, p. 76.

  308 Art: crafts and arts, once images, are now performed before our eyes, and will change in force from destructivity to creativity, to become the arts of behaviour, justice, and society; see A n. 150, LB n. 233.

  310 To steer the lives of men, etc. The claim is ultimately acknowledged and enlarged by Athena (942f.).

  322 Mother Night: here Aeschylus substitutes Night for Earth (who according to another tradition was the mother of the Furies), perhaps because he had already mentioned Earth as the primeval deity of Delphi; see n. I. Images of parenthood and fertility, perverted in A, ambivalent in effect in LB, here expand into a preoccupation with evolution - the spiritual evolution of the gods, the cultural evolution of mankind. Everything, we may say, is traced back to its origins, and these, in Aeschylus’ hands, are not simply reclaimed, they are often challenged and revised, so that they may be more cherished and invigorate the poet’s vision of our future; see Introduction, pp. 21ff., 86ff.; E 72n., 348ff., 430ff., 468ff., 666ff., 751ff.; A n. 265, LB n. 131ff.

  330f Frenzy striking frenzy, etc. There are no verbs in this refrain, only participles which, while describing the Furies’ song, make them participate in its frenzy. As Rose explains, the Furies ‘are not ministers of vengeance but Vengeance itself, so their charm is not a cause of madness but madness embodied in words and actions’. Ripping cross the lyre: see A n. 995.

  335 Spun . . . the Fates: the three sisters whose threads ‘run through all things’;; as named by Hesiod (Theogony 904ff.), they are Klôthô, who ‘spins’ the thread of life, Lachesis, who ‘allots’ each man and woman a certain measure of it, and Atropos, who ‘cannot be turned aside’ from cutting it at last - in Milton’s words, the Fate ‘with th’abhorred shears,/[who] slits the thin-spun life’; see notes 116, 972, 1055.

  351 Pious white robes: the gods’ attire for festal occasions.

  354f Reared like a tame beast, etc. Like Helen in the parable from A (713-32).

  360 Exempt: perhaps a reference to the procedure by which a litigant was exempted from a legal burden he could not sustain. No trial, etc. The Furies would waive the ana
krisis, the preliminary hearing.

  409 Scamander: chief river of the plain of Troy, near which the Athenians had a colony, Sigeion, in Aeschylus’ time. They claimed that it was allotted to them after the Greek victory in the Trojan war.

  413 Theseus: the great national hero of Athens. His legends are numerous; those that inform the Oresteia tend to make him a contemporary figure, part myth, part fifth-century hero. His past achievements and the current aspirations of his people are joined in the historical present of the play. He too repelled the barbarian invader, he established a democratic federation and, according to Plutarch, instituted the splendid festivals - the Panathenaia and the Festival of Migration for the Metics - that consecrate the city of Athens to Athena. Aeschylus creates an analogue for each event. Theseus’ ideal of democracy, recorded by Thucydides, as a society strong in individuality and order is celebrated in E. His invitation to all nations, also recorded by Plutarch, to participate in the benefits of democracy - ‘Come hither, all ye people’ - may echo in the closing chorus. For the Athenians’ imitation of Theseus and his achievements, see W. Robert Connor, ‘Theseus in Classical Athens’, in The Quest for Theseus, ed. Anne G. Ward (London: Pall Mall Press, 1970), pp. 143-74.

  415 Cape: the aigis, a magical mantle (originally a breastplate) which was part of Athena’s battle-dress.

  441 The oath: as Headlam explains, ‘Either party might either offer himself to take a solemn oath or ask his opponent to do so: the oath would be to the truth of the essential facts on which the pleadings were based: if both parties agreed to have the matter decided in this way, then this was a final decision.’ Orestes will not take the oath because the facts are not at issue - he admits he killed his mother; the question is whether or not his action was justifiable. That is the thrust of Athena’s position here, and it prepares us for one of the major themes in the play: the evolution of oaths from their ritualistic power to exonerate the criminal to their power to sanctify the evidence, hence to ensure a valid trial. Perjury becomes a crime, in short, and the Furies will have jurisdiction over it; see n. 946.