Oresteia

Oresteia by Aeschylus

Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the only complete trilogy of Athenian tragedies to survive from antiquity. Its three plays – Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides – are continuous in plot and unified in subject matter. They follow the curse on the House of Atreus, from the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra (Agamemnon) through the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes (Libation Bearers) to the trial and acquittal of Orestes before the court of the Areopagus at Athens (Eumenides). According to the ancient hypothesis (introduction) to Agamemnon, the trilogy, together with the satyr play Proteus, was staged in the archonship of Philocles (458 BC) and won first prize, with Xenocles of Aphidna as choregus.

Summary of Oresteia

To learn more about the historical background and the characters of Agamemnon, Libation Bearers and Eumenides, and to read a scene-by-scene summary of these plays in addition to play-specific analyses, please consult the articles of the individual plays.

Agamemnon

Agamemnon is set in front of the palace of Argos. At the beginning of the play, a Watcher on the palace roof, who has waited a year for the signal, sees the beacon fire that announces the fall of Troy, ten years after Agamemnon and Menelaus sailed away (Agamemnon 1–40). He mentions that the watch is kept at the command of the queen, a woman with “a heart that plans like a man’s” (lines 10–11). Clytemnestra explains to the Chorus of Argive Elders how the chain of beacons carried the message from Mount Ida to Argos (lines 264–316). A Herald then arrives and confirms the victory (lines 503–680); he reports that a storm scattered the fleet at night, and that he does not know whether Menelaus’ ship has survived (lines 630–680).

Agamemnon arrives in a chariot, with Cassandra, the Trojan princess given to him as a prize, beside him (lines 782–810, 950–955). Clytemnestra welcomes her husband with a long speech about her fidelity and the anxiety of waiting (lines 855–913), and persuades him to enter the palace by treading on purple tapestries (lines 905–957). He hesitates, saying that such honor belongs to a god rather than a man, and that she should not treat him softly, as if he were a woman (lines 914–930), but at last he has his sandals removed and walks on the crimson cloth, praying that no envious glance of the gods may strike him from afar (lines 944–949). He says it is a shame to waste the wealth of the house by treading on costly woven work (lines 946–949), and goes in; Clytemnestra prays to Zeus as he enters (lines 973–974).

Clytemnestra then calls Cassandra into the palace (lines 1035–1068). Cassandra stays silent until she is alone with the Chorus, and then, seized by the prophetic power given to her by Apollo, she cries out to the god, sees the children of Thyestes and the bloodshed of the house, and foretells the murder of Agamemnon and her own (lines 1072–1330). She explains that Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy but that, when she refused his love, no one would believe her (lines 1202–1212). She enters the palace knowing she will die (lines 1290–1330). Agamemnon’s cries are heard from inside (lines 1343–1345), and the palace doors open to show Clytemnestra standing over the bodies. She boasts that she has done the deed: she threw round him a robe like a fishing net from which there was no escape, struck him twice, and gave him a third blow as he lay (lines 1372–1392).

She defends the killing before the Chorus as just: Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia, valuing her no more than an animal from his flocks, as a charm against the Thracian winds (lines 1412–1418; the sacrifice is described in lines 184–249). The Elders blame her, but Clytemnestra answers that Agamemnon, and the spirit of Atreus’ house, have received what they gave (lines 1497–1504, 1521–1529). Aegisthus then appears, in the company of his guards, and claims the murder as his own justice (lines 1577–1611): in revenge for Atreus’ feast, at which Thyestes unknowingly ate the flesh of his own children, he planned the death of Atreus’ son. He is Thyestes’ surviving child and Agamemnon’s cousin. The Elders threaten him, the guards draw swords, and Clytemnestra calms the quarrel (lines 1649–1673). The Chorus has already expressed the hope that Orestes, if he still lives, will return as the avenger (lines 1646–1648).

Libation Bearers

Once again set before the palace of Argos, the Libation Bearers starts where Agamemnon leaves off – after a gap of years in which Orestes has lived in exile.

Orestes, accompanied by his friend Pylades, returns to his father’s tomb and prays to Hermes and Zeus for help in avenging his father’s death (Libation Bearers 1–20). He lays a lock of hair on the tomb, and withdraws when he sees women in black approaching the tomb with libations: a Chorus of slave women together with his sister Electra, sent by Clytemnestra to pour offerings because of a frightening dream (lines 21–83). Electra hesitates over what to say as she pours the offering (lines 84–151). Then she sees the lock of hair and the footprints, and reasons that her brother has come; Orestes steps forward and tells her who he is (lines 164–245).

The brother and sister, with the Chorus, appeal to their dead father (lines 306–478). Orestes says that Apollo’s oracle threatened terrible punishments if he did not take vengeance (lines 269–305), and then explains the plan: he and Pylades will come to the gate as strangers from Phocis, and kill Aegisthus when he receives them (lines 554–584). They come to the palace gate (lines 653–667), and, as strangers, tell Clytemnestra that Orestes is dead, and she is dismayed and welcomes them in (lines 674–718). She sends the nurse Cilissa to bring Aegisthus to hear the news, with his bodyguard. The Chorus persuades the nurse to tell him to come alone (lines 734–782). Aegisthus enters the palace and is killed; a servant runs out crying that the dead are slaying the living (lines 838–886).

Clytemnestra, realizing who the strangers are, asks for an axe (lines 887–889). Orestes confronts her over Aegisthus’ corpse, and she bares her breast: “Stop, my son! Child, respect this breast” (lines 896–898). Orestes turns to Pylades: “Pylades, what shall I do? Shall I shrink from killing my mother?” (line 899). Pylades speaks his only words in the play: what then will become of Apollo’s oracles and of their sworn pact? Better to have all men as enemies than the gods (lines 900–902). Orestes leads her in to die beside Aegisthus (lines 903–907), and after a last exchange (lines 908–930) kills her. Then he displays the bodies and the robe in which Agamemnon was killed, and declares that he killed his mother justly, on the command of Apollo, who said that he would be free from guilt if he did it and punished if he did not (lines 973–1034). He sets out for Delphi, to the hearth of Apollo (lines 1034–1043). But he sees the Furies, in black with snakes in their hair, whom the Chorus cannot see, and runs away, crying that they drip blood from their eyes (lines 1048–1062).

Eumenides

The play opens at Apollo’s temple at Delphi, where the Pythia, entering the shrine, comes out terrified: inside she has seen a man at the central stone with bloody hands, holding a sword and an olive branch, and around him sleeping women, black, wingless and dripping from their eyes (Eumenides 34–63). Apollo tells Orestes that he will not abandon him, that the Furies sleep, and that he must flee to Athens, embrace the ancient image of Athena, and be freed there by judges and persuasive speeches (lines 64–93). He puts Hermes in charge of Orestes’ journey. The Ghost of Clytemnestra wakes the sleeping Furies, reproaching them (lines 94–139).

The Furies pursue Orestes (lines 140–234), and he arrives at Athens, claiming that his guilt has been worn away by time and travel and asking Athena for help (lines 235–243). Athena arrives from the Scamander, where she was taking possession of the land given to her by the Greek leaders (lines 397–406). After both sides have spoken, she says that the matter is too great for any mortal to judge and that she cannot decide it herself: the Furies’ office cannot be lightly dismissed, and she will select judges of homicide and establish a tribunal for all time (lines 470–489). The play does not give the number of the jurors; Athena says only that they will be the best of her citizens, bound by oath (lines 483–485).

At the trial, the Furies act as prosecutors, Apollo as witness and advocate: he says that he is responsible for the murder (lines 576–580), and argues that the mother is not the parent of her child but the nurse of the newly sown embryo, and that Athena, who had no mother, is the proof (lines 657–666). Athena, as president, announces that she will cast her vote for Orestes, since no mother gave her birth and she is on the father’s side in all things except marriage, so that Orestes wins even if the vote is equal (lines 734–740). The votes are counted and found equal, and Orestes is acquitted (lines 741–753). He leaves for Argos.

The Furies, who feel that the younger gods have ridden down the ancient laws, threaten to poison the land with blight (lines 778–792, 808–822). Athena answers that they have not been defeated, that the trial resulted in an equal vote, and that Zeus himself bore witness (lines 794–799). She offers them a cavernous sanctuary and honor among her citizens (lines 800–806, 881–891), and gradually persuades them (lines 892–900). They accept, and become the Eumenides (“the kindly ones”). The play ends with a torchlit procession that escorts them to their new home under the earth (lines 1032–1047).

Proteus

As the ancient hypothesis to Agamemnon shows, the three tragedies were followed by a satyr play, a lighter piece whose chorus was made up of satyrs.

Only one satyr play has survived in its entirety (Euripides’ Cyclops). The ancient geographer Pausanias notes in his Description of Greece that Pratinas and his son Aristias composed satyr plays more popular than any save those of Aeschylus (Pausanias 2.13.6). We know little more than the title of the satyr play which followed the Oresteia tragic trilogy (Proteus), since only a few short fragments are preserved.

The title suggests that it dramatized the adventures of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus in Egypt. In the second episode of Agamemnon, the Herald says that he does not know whether Menelaus’ ship has survived (lines 617–680); and in the fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey Menelaus tells how he was held on the island of Pharos and learned from “the unerring old man of the sea, immortal Proteus of Egypt,” how to get home (Odyssey 4.351–570). Anything more than this is speculation.

A Brief Analysis

The Oresteia is wide in scope, and two lines of argument run through all three plays: how justice for killing is to be understood, and the opposition of male and female powers.

The Birth of a New Dike (Justice)

The first two plays work by retaliation. Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon, and defends it as repayment for Iphigenia (Agamemnon 1412–1418, 1521–1529). The Chorus states the rule: while Zeus remains on his throne, the doer must suffer, for that is the law (lines 1560–1564). Aegisthus claims he acts for the children of Thyestes (lines 1577–1611). Orestes, in turn, kills Clytemnestra at Apollo’s command, believing he will be punished if he does not (Libation Bearers 269–305, 1029–1034). In this chain it is difficult to separate those who wrong from those who are wronged, since each killer has a reason that the next accepts as a wrong. Agamemnon himself, as the Chorus describes, was in a difficult place when he sacrificed Iphigenia: the fleet was held at Aulis by the winds, and he said that it was hard to disobey and hard to kill his child (Agamemnon 184–217). And even the command of Apollo does not end the cycle: Orestes sees the Furies immediately after the killing (Libation Bearers 1048–1062).

In Eumenides Athena breaks the chain by a new institution. She says that the case is too great for any mortal, and for her alone (Eumenides 470–480), and she establishes a court of the best citizens, bound by oath, “for all time” (lines 482–489, 566–573). The tie of votes frees Orestes (lines 741–753), and the anger of the Furies, who would otherwise strike the land with blight, is turned aside by Athena’s persuasion and the promise of a place of honor in the city (lines 794–806, 881–900). The trilogy ends with a procession and a blessing on the city (lines 1032–1047).

The Gender War

Beneath the argument about justice there is another conflict, between the male and female powers of the house, and the Watcher announces it in the first speech of the trilogy, when he describes Clytemnestra as a woman with a heart that plans like a man’s (Agamemnon 10–11). Clytemnestra dominates the men around her: she persuades Agamemnon to walk on the tapestries (lines 905–957), kills him, and makes Aegisthus her partner. She is in turn killed by her son. Afterward, Orestes is attacked by the female powers of vengeance, the Furies.

The conflict is settled by a woman, Athena, but not in favor of the female side. Apollo argues that the mother is not the true parent of her child, but only the nurse of what the father has sown, and offers Athena herself, who had no mother, as proof (Eumenides 657–666). Athena agrees: she says that she is on the father’s side in all things except marriage, and will not give greater honor to the death of a woman who killed her husband (lines 734–740).

The decision, however, is not simply a defeat for the Furies. They are given a home under the earth and a share in the city’s worship, and Athena tells them that no house will flourish without them (lines 800–806, 895). They become the Eumenides, “the kindly ones,” and the city and its new neighbors are joined in peace (lines 1032–1047).

Oresteia Sources

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1–1673; Libation Bearers 1–1076; Eumenides 1–1047, with the ancient hypothesis to Agamemnon (date, prize and the satyr play Proteus); Greek text and English translation at the Perseus Digital Library; Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.13.6; Homer, Odyssey 4.351–570.