The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation-Bearers & the Furies (32 page)

Sheppard, John T.,
Aeschylus and Sophocles,
New York: Longmans, Greene, 1927; G. G. Harrap, 1927.

Smyth, Herbert Weir,
Aeschylean Tragedy,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1924.

Solmsen, Friedrich,
Hesiod and Aeschylus,
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1949.

Stanford, W B.,
Aeschylus in His Style: A Study in Language and Personality,
Dublin, 1942; re-published New York: Johnson Reprint, 1972.

Ambiguity in Greek Literature: Studies in Theory and Practice,
Oxford, 1939; re-published New York: Johnson Reprint, 1972.

Greek Metaphor: Studies in Theory and Practice,
Oxford, 1936: re-published New York: Johnson Reprint, 1972.

Steiner, George,
The Death of Tragedy,
New York: Knopf, 1961; Faber and Faber, 1961.

Taplin, Oliver,
The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy,
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1977.

Thomson, George,
Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origins of Drama
(2nd ed.), Lawrence & Wishart, 1966.

Vickers, Brian,
Towards Greek Tragedy: Drama, Myth, Society,
London: Longman, 1973.

Whallon, William,
Problem and Spectacle: Studies in the Oresteia,
Heidelberg, Winter, 1980.

Winnington-Ingram, R. P,
Studies in Aeschylus,
Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Zeitlin, Froma,
Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature,
Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

SCENE: THE HOUSE OF ATREUS IN ARGOS. When Aeschylus refers to Argos he may mean the entire Argolid in the north-eastern Peloponnese (including the cities of Argos and Mycenae) or the city of Argos in particular. The first is the more frequent meaning of ‘Argos’ in the Homeric poems; the second is the usual meaning in classical Greek. The Homeric poems specifically locate the murder of Agamemnon in Mycenae. But this city had been destroyed by its rival, Argos, about four years before the Oresteia was produced; and soon after its destruction Argos had become an ally of Athens (as alluded to elsewhere in the trilogy; see
Eumenides
n. 289). Probably, then, Aeschylus deliberately used ‘Argos’ ambiguously so that modernists in his audience might take the scene of the tragedy to be the city of Argos and traditionalists could continue to place it in Mycenae, then, no doubt, as now, much the more awesome setting for the terrible crimes of the House of Atreus. Vincent Scully has described the citadel and its surroundings eloquently: ‘To the left and right the flanking peaks form one huge pair of horns, so that the site as a whole rises as a mighty bull’s head above the valley. Yet the horns also suggest here the raised arms of the Mycenaean goddess as she is shown in the many terracotta figurines found at Mycenae and elsewhere . . . the formation as a whole can be seen as rising out of the earth like the goddess herself appearing in majesty: the mounded hill, the now terrible horns or arms above it, and in the place of the goddess’ head the fortress of the lords . . . Upon this most devouring of thrones the king dares to put himself, and the built-up cone of his citadel occupies its center.’ (
The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture
[New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962], pp. 37-8.) See n. 309.

 

WATCHMAN. A figure drawn from Homer, but in the
Odyssey
(Book IV, lines 524-8) he serves as a simple hireling of Aegisthus; here, an unwitting agent of the assassins, he is loyal to his king.

Throughout the introduction and the notes we refer to the Homeric background of the
Oresteia,
especially to those events from the House of Atreus which Homer narrates in the Odyssey. Taken in sequence, these passages begin with the successful vengeance of Orestes: chosen by Zeus as a strong example of justice (Book I, lines 29-43), then used by Athena to raise the spirits of Telemachus (Book I, lines 298-302), then by Nestor (Book III, lines 248-316) not only to encourage him but also to caution him with the added stories of Clytaemnestra’s infidelity and the wanderings of Menelaus, absent from Argos when Agamemnon was assassinated. Next Menelaus tells Telemachus how Proteus informed him of his brother’s murder by Aegisthus (Book IV, lines 511-47); and the crime expands when the ghost of Agamemnon tells Odysseus how both he and Cassandra were murdered by his wife together with her lover (Book XI, lines 385-439). However optimistic the sequel of Orestes’ vengeance, in other words, each version of Agamemnon’s death presents a greater darkness, and so a starker foil for the luminous reunion of Odysseus and Penelope; until, at the end of the Odyssey (Book XXIV, lines 191-202), Agamemnon’s ghost calls for a song to immortalize Penelope and another for the notorious Clytaemnestra. Homer has provided the first, and Aeschylus, in effect, the second. Adapting Homer more and more freely throughout the Oresteia, he reverses the events and carries them from the darkness to the light - from the bloody return of Agamemnon to the triumphant return of Athena to Athens. The last is Aeschylus’ ultimate expansion of Homer and departure from his master. See Introduction, pp. 14, 21, 24f., 37, 51, 53, 66f., 93f.

 

1
Dear gods, set me free from all the pain:
for relationships between the Mysteries of Eleusis and the Oresteia, see Introduction, pp. 71f., 85f., 96. The watchman’s appeal for deliverance - the typical appeal of the candidate for initiation - is answered by increased anxiety; see 1059, n. 1605;
Libation Bearers n. 950, Eumenides
n. 494.

8
Our great blazing kings:
dominant stars or constellations that demarcate the seasons. According to tradition Troy fell in the tenth year of the siege, at the setting of the Pleiades (812) that occurs before sunrise in the late autumn and signals the approach of winter, storms at sea and danger to human health.

18
I mustn’t sleep.
a sentry’s Nemesis, death for sleeping at the post.

25
Dawn of the darkness:
the watchman’s word for light,
phaos
, can mean hope and safety and may recall the word for man,
phôs,
though here the man is about to be eclipsed. Solar imagery will recur throughout the trilogy and reflect the light of human achievement emerging from the night of barbarism, but in A appeals to the sun will usher in a greater darkness, while the dawn of Orestes’ coming remains a distant possibility; see 264f., 596ff., 970f., 1183ff., 1605ff.;
LB
n. 950, E n. 7.

Destructive images and themes in
A
will often find a positive expression in Cassandra, as if she had a redemptive power over them and could foresee their eventual regeneration; see 1346ff., where she invokes the sun as the source of future retribution.

30
Lift a cry of triumph:
see 580, 1121, 1246; LB n. 383,
E
n. 1053.

35
Triple-sixes:
in the game of
petteia
or ‘falls’, an ancient version of backgammon, a throw of triple-sixes allowed the player to occupy the board and win.

45
Great avenger:
Aeschylus describes Menelaus and Agamemnon as Priam’s ‘adversary in a suit’, using the singular to unify the brothers. He breaks with tradition by removing Menelaus from Sparta to Argos, where he and Agamemnon share a common residence and so a common legal claim against the Trojans. The legal metaphor controls the
Oresteia.
It informs the punishment of Troy, the execution of Agamemnon, the indictment of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus by the chorus, and their subsequent execution by Orestes in
LB.
The metaphor will materialize when Orestes is acquitted in
E
and Athena establishes the Areopagus in Athens.

49
Atreus’ sturdy yoke of sons:
the metaphor is drawn from animal husbandry and joins the Atreidae in mutual power, conjugal hardship, and the destiny they must shoulder. Images from husbandry have a brutalizing effect in A (653ff., 1671ff.); the yoke is associated with the yoke of necessity (217) and slavery (951), with the hunt and the net (129 and n.), and every form of taming and suppression in the play (133f., 1066f.). Like its fellows, the yoke has a recoiling force; it will oppress Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigeneia (235f.), his enemies (331) and himself (1524). Cassandra ultimately rejects her yoke; see 1280ff;
LB
n. 74,
E
n. 116.

61
Someone hears on high:
Apollo presumably as god of prophecy, Pan as god of the natural world, Zeus as god of the sky and universal justice.

63
These guests:
Metics, resident aliens; the term will apply to Orestes and the Furies; see LB n. 959,
E
n. 1021.

65
Fury:
Clytaemnestra is its embodiment, and perhaps at this moment, as if evoked by mention of the Fury sent to punish Troy, she enters and performs her rites preliminary to her punishment of Agamemnon, (Aeschylus was known in antiquity, and ridiculed by Aristophanes, for his use of the ‘silent actor’.)

66
Zeus the god of guests:
Zeus
Xenios
presides over the rites of hospitality; these were violated by Paris who abducted Helen while he was the guest of Menelaus.

68
A woman manned by many:
Helen, who was won by Theseus, Menelaus and Paris among others, and many more pursued her to their graves (1484f.). She was also Clytaemnestra’s half-sister, and these lines may include a glance towards the queen.

71f
First blood rites:
the
proteleia
were sacrifices preliminary to the consummation of a rite, often that of marriage; see n. 226. A suggestive word-family in Aeschylus associates
teleia
(the rituals fulfilled) and
teleios
(an adjective for the perfect victim, or as applied to Zeus, the god who brings all things, especially all rituals, to perfection) with the noun
telos
(culmination) and cognate verbs for ‘consummations’ that bring to birth or bring to an end, destroy; see 629, 740, 791, 924, 974ff., 1000ff. Cassandra turns her death into a ritual with prophetic powers. The blasphemous rituals of Agamemnon and his diabolic queen will yield to the magnificent civic rites of Athens. The deadly ‘ends’ that begin the trilogy will culminate in the perfect ‘ends’ of humanity, the marriage of our supernatural and our human powers, the inception of our culture. See Froma Zeitlin, ‘The Motif of the Corrupted Sacrifice in Aeschylus’
Oresteia’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association,
xcvi (1965), 463-508.

75ff
The subject is left indefinite in the Greek, ‘anybody’. It could include a reference to Paris; Agamemnon who sacrificed Iphigeneia; and Clytaemnestra who is sacrificing now before she kills her husband.

89
Three legs at a time:
a reference to the notion that an old man’s walking-stick is a third leg (as in the riddle of the Sphinx).

91
A dream:
dreams in Aeschylus have been the subject of profound studies. Here we can only suggest that in
A
dreams extend from metaphors for insubstantiality or escapism to states of visionary experience. Such visions are used by Clytaemnestra to manipulate her listeners, to undermine her victim, finally to lead the chorus to their prophetic insights. Her visions, like those of Cassandra, are concentrated versions of reality. They fulfil the nightmare foreseen by Calchas, while subjecting it to the force of individual responsibility; see
LB
n. 42,
E
n. 42.

107
Heal us:
Aeschylus often uses medical terms for measures that promise cures but only aggravate the illness. See 199ff, and the futility of appealing to Apollo the Healer (1261) or Clytaemnestra here. There are no cures in
A
(390), merely palliatives (539) or remedies as remote as Orestes (1105) or cruel as the homeopathy of pain that actually intensifies the pain (180f.); see 832ff., 1004ff., 1017ff., 1507f.; LB n. 69ff., E n. 65f.

109
Now the hope shines,
etc. The ambivalence of Clytaemnestra’s fires, like the light-in-darkness theme, will prove benighting; see n. 25, 281ff., 581ff.;
LB
n. 950,
E
notes 7, 13.

112ff
The gods’ command . . . the twin command:
the word
kratos,
‘power’ or ‘authority’, applies both to the gods’ mandate and to the Greek commanders - the omen and its agents act as one.

113f
Power . . . fighting strength: Peitho
or Persuasion, the power to win belief, is what the old men have instead of military prowess; see n. 378ff.

120
Spearhand right:
the side on which auspicious omens appear.

125
Cry, cry for death,
etc. The refrain modulates from exultation to anguish (139) to a blend of both, stalwart resignation (160); ironic echoes may be heard at 256, 353, 567.

126
The loyal seer:
as at the outset of the
Iliad,
Calchas foresees much hardship for the Greeks and Agamemnon. The ambiguities in his vision are heightened by his oracular style. His antecedents are general (the wasted kingdom, 131, may include Argos as well as Troy); his verbs are set in a historical present that unifies the past and future, the legend of the house and the repercussions of the war.

129
The long hunt nets,
etc. The image of the hunt will associate the vengeance wreaked on Troy (810ff.) with the vengeance wreaked on Agamemnon (1402ff.), as the hunter becomes the hunted. The image will also describe Cassandra’s victimization (1047), her pursuit of the origins of the curse (1187f.), and her vindication (1338); see n. 49;
LB
n. 335,
E
n. 116. For the image of the net, see Introduction, pp. 50f., 68, 90f.;
LB
n. 493,
E
n. 116.