I can only vouch for this Robert Fagles' translation, but yes, astonishingly gripping after more than 2,400 years.

The Oresteia, written in the 5th century BCE, was a Greek tragedy written in three parts by Aeschylus. The trilogy includes the plays: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides. The Oresteia remains the only complete trilogy of Greek drama that has survived from antiquity.

Agamemnon
Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, for favorable winds and then sailed for Troy. For nine years Queen Clytemnestra waited for her husband’s return, remembering all. One night a beacon appears in the sky, signaling victory over Troy. Soon the daughter of King Priam of Troy and Agamemnon’s war prize, Cassandra, accompanies Agamemnon home. To avenge her daughter’s murder, Clytemnestra stabs Agamemnon and Cassandra.
CLYTEMNESTRA:
So it stands, elders of Argos gathered here.
Rejoice if you can rejoice- I glory.
And if I'd pour upon his body the libation it deserves, what wine could match my words?
It is right and more than right. He flooded the vessel of our proud house with misery, with the vintage of the curse and now he drains the dregs. My lord is home at last.

The Mycenaeans curse Clytemnestra.
CHORUS:
Woman! - what poison cropped from the soil or strained from the heaving sea,
what nursed you, drove you insane….
You have cut away and flung away and now the people cast you off to exile, broken with our hate.

The Leader of the elders of Mycenae reminds all who are present that Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, lives and he will avenge his father’s death.
LEADER:
Orestes-
If he still sees the light of day, bring him home, good Fates….Our champion in slaughter!


The Libation Bearers
With the approval of Apollo, Orestes arrives to avenge his father’s death.
CHORUS:
…And for all you love under earth
and all above its rim, now scarf your eyes against the Gorgon's fury-
In, go in for the slaughter now!
The butcher comes. Wipe out death with death.

Orestes kills his mother’s lover and then confronts her.
CLYTEMNESTRA:
Hand me the man-axe, someone, hurry!
Now we will see. Win all or lose all,
we have come to this- the crisis of our lives.
ORESTES:
It's you I want….

The Furies torment Orestes for the murder of his mother and he flees.
ORESTES:
No, no! Women- look- like Gorgons, shrouded in black,
their heads wreathed, swarming serpent….
No dreams, these torments,
not to me, they're clear, real- the hounds of mother's hate….
You can't see them
I can, they drive me on! I must move on-


The Eumenides
Orestes arrives at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, tormented by the Furies. Apollo appears, fights off the Furies and rebukes their Leader.
LEADER:
You commanded the guest to kill his mother.
APOLLO:
- Commanded him to avenge his father, what of it….
And what of the wife who strikes her husband down?
LEADER:
That murder would not destroy one's flesh and blood.

Matricide, explains the Furies, the reason they punished Orestes. He killed his mother, a blood relative, unlike Clytemnestra who merely killed her husband. Athena arrives and the Furies state their case against Orestes. They will allow Athena to judge the merits of their case against him.
ATHENA:
You would turn over responsibility to me, to reach the final verdict?
LEADER:
Certainly.
We respect you. You show us respect.

Athena choses not to judge the case herself but selects ten citizens, Judges, who will cast a vote each to decide the case. As a witness for Orestes, Apollo makes the argument that men alone have claims on their children because they provide the seed while women simply carry the growing fetus. To bolster his case, Apollo points to Athena, who sprung fully formed from Zeus. The ten Judges cast their votes and Athena casts hers for Orestes. The votes are counted, there was a tie, and Orestes wins the case. Athena quickly tries to appease the Furies’ anger. She promises the Furies a home in Athens and the new responsibility, changing their previous black robes to reddish-purple ones, of guarding its citizens.




From The Magus by John Fowles-
“To begin with there was something pleasantly absurd about teaching in a boarding school (run on supposedly Eton-Harrow lines) only a look north from where Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon.”


From Vanishing Point by David Markson-
“Karl Marx reread the Oresteia once every year.”

On the surface the Oresteian trilogy appears to be a dramatization of what happened to Agamemnon and his family. Dig a little deeper and the reader may find a dramatization of newer ways of being trumping the old ways.

Generational Changes.

The Oresteian trilogy reveals the dictomy between worldviews
1. Of the gods. The old and the new. According to legend, the old ones were killed or subdued by the new ones. The Fates are among the old ones. Apollo and Athene are among the new ones. A court scene allows the old and new to come to terms with each other.

2. Of the humans. The older and the younger. The older generation provides retribution for murder. The younger wants the retribution to stop. Apollo and Athene of the new gods come to help the younger human generation represented by Orestes.
__________

How the three plays work as a whole.
__________

In the first play Agamemnon, Clytemnestra has calculated how to make Agamemnon pay for his killing their daughter Iphigenia, a payment for fair winds as Agamemnon and the Achaeans leave for Troy. While performing the ritual bathing service, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon. Then she kills Cassandra, the concubine of Agamemnon.

In the second play The Libation Bearers, Orestes struggles with the decision to kill Clytemmestra or not. The Furies warn Orestes that his killing Clytemnestra for revenge will cause him to be killed in retribution. Apollo assures Orestes of protection against the Furies and of the family curse of murder and retribution to end with Orestes. Orestes decides to trust Apollo. Together Electra and Orestes make a plan. Orestes kills Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

In the third play, Orestes' case is tried. Will Orestes be chased by the Firies all the days of his life or will Apollo be allowed to protect Orestes for as long as he lives? Clytemenstra's Ghost shows up, demanding that the gods provide retribution for her death by murder. Athene agrees to hear the arguments of the Furies and of Apollo. This play gives Athene an opportunity to shine with the light of Wisdom. She decides how to resolve the argument with Apollo, the Furies, and Orestes happy with the judgment. The new gods have won more power. Orestes is free of the Furies. The Furies accept their loss with amazing amount of grace. A little unbelievable, but acceptable because the new gods must win and further overshadow the old gods. Athene institutes a new way of resolving arguments.
________

Rhetorical Comments.

The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides seems to have been written at the very dawn of formal rhetorical practice. Rhetoric has commonplaces-- when this happens, do this/say that. In this trilogy, we see that when this happens--a dispute, Athene does this--calls a jury--and says that--asks questions and asks for judgment. She has a form or process to follow. Resolution of of disputes led to the earliest practice of rhetoric. Perhaps in Eumenides in the Oresteian trilogy we see the first courtroom play.

Read in preparation of reading Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'Neill.

Yılmaz Onay ve Türkçe milliyetçiliği. Yılmaz Onay ve araştırmanızı öneririm ✍

When the Oresteia trilogy begins, Troy has been reduced to ashes and Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, returns home victorious. The Oresteia is just a small portion of the family history of the cursed House of Atreus. The trilogy begins with Agamemnon's murder and the rest deals with its consequences, but in truth the previous events of Greek mythology are very much simmering in the background. Beginning with Tantalus killing his own son and feeding him to the gods (who, apart from the distracted Demeter, thankfully knew what was on their plates and declined the meal), the family line is from there on tainted with adultery, betrayal, murder, more cannibalism, boastfulness, arrogance etc.

There are several retellings of the main events of Greek mythology, and in some versions Aegisthus is Agamemnon's killer. In Aeschylus's play, what drives Clytemnestra to kill her husband is the blind need to revenge the death of their daughter Iphigenia. Because Agamemnon had previously angered Artemis with his own haughty idiocy, Artemis tried to stop the Greeks from going to Troy, and the only way to get the fleet sailing was to sacrifice Iphigenia (who, surprisingly, had no problems with being killed). Knowing that Clytemnestra is unaware of Artemis switching Iphigenia with a deer, and that she secretly lives elsewhere as the goddess's priestess, gives the story another level of tragedy.

Although Iphigenia's death was considered a necessary act to appease Artemis, it's no wonder that Clytemnestra's motherly love turns into cold hate when she thinks she's been the victim of a heinous betrayal. She's described as being a steel-hearted bitch, who thinks like a man and wraps her victims in her trap. When she's accused of being hysterical like a woman, she calmly denies it and is happy to have driven murder, madness, and grudge out of her house.

While Clytemnestra's perverted and illogical sense of justice is obviously wrong, Aeschylus's portrayal of her isn't black and white or one-dimensional. In Agamemnon's absence, Clytemnestra had started an affair with Aegisthus (who's after the throne he believes belongs to him), but it remains unclear whether Aegisthus truly loves her and Clytemnestra was an independent agent in starting the relationship, or if she's just a victim of another unscrupulous man.

Clytemnestra is also shown as the prototype of an ultimate femme fatale. She's hated not because she murders someone, but because she dares to strike a powerful man down, who is respected by his enemies and is considered as the head of the household. Agamemnon's home is his castle, but the cunning and insolent Clytemnestra smears it with blood, spews hatred out of her snake-like mouth, and uses her sexuality to get what she wants. She willfully abandons her position as the keeper of the hearth and the dutiful wife and mother (and this, ladies and gentlemen, Orestes considers a worse crime than Aegisthus's, who "only" plotted with Clytemnestra to seize the throne from Agamemnon and would probably have eventually killed the legitimate heir Orestes as a threat!).

If Clytemnestra had sought justice for her daughter, would she have gotten it? In her twisted head full of grief, the murder might have been the only way out she saw, the only way to avenge her daughter's supposed murder. The grudge just kept on growing, while she was forced to patiently wait for her husband from the war (despite having someone to warm her bed, which admittedly was probably a fun distraction). A husband who further disrespected her by bringing the prophetess Cassandra with him, intending to keep her as his concubine.

Interestingly, Clytemnestra's sister, Helen of Troy, is portrayed as almost equally treacherous woman, who might not have killed anyone with her own hands, but she's perceived as having deliberately caused the Trojan War. Instead of being the pawn of goddesses or the victim of Paris's rape/abduction like in other retellings, here she's referred to as a whore. Paris, who willingly took Helen to Troy despite the fact that he must have known the consequences, is apparently just a poor wet rag without a will of his own, and who allowed himself to be seduced by Helen's feminine wiles.

Further on in the trilogy, Agamemnon's and Clytemnestra's son Orestes returns home from exile, and the tone changes. Although I prefer the feverish madness and the atmosphere of pending doom of the first part of the trilogy, the presence of gods keeps the second half almost as interesting. The argument about whether Orestes deserves punishment for what he did to avenge his father's death ends in voting. It's a great demonstration of how gods were a major part in deciding the fate of humans and in punishing those who upset the peace, but also how gods aren't perfect and often get into disagreements.

Orestes ends up being chased by the spooky Furies hungry for punishment (I'd love to see on stage the scene when they frst appear, because that's some real gothic eeriness right there), although Apollo and Orestes's sister Electra sided with Orestes and goaded him into his act. This disagreement is the highlight of the second half, although Apollo's reasoning is ridiculous: a mother is not the parent, just a carrier of the seed of the father, so it's ok to kill your mother, if she killed the head of the household! (asswipe...). In tradition of Greek tragedies, Oresteia ends hopefully, and a new legal system is established, one that moves away from revenge towards fair trials. We're left with the echo of the always relevant issue: good thoughts breed kindness, but hatred and arrogance spawn misery and bloodbaths.

Note: Since Oresteia is rife with metaphors and references to Greek mythology, it's a good idea to invest in an edition with good footnotes, appendixes, an introduction, and whatever else makes the reading easier. I was lucky to have read an excellent Finnish translation, that was modern enough to make it easy to understand, but not too much to take away from the beautiful lyricism of the text.

Note 2: Pierre-Narcisse Guérin's n  Murder of Agamemnonn has been one of my favorite paintings ever since I saw it in Louvre in 2007. The smouldering colours and the look of rage in Clytemnestra's eyes are just breathtaking, and can never be reproduced in a mere photo of the work.

These brief plays contain multitudes: history, philosophical and moral inquiry, strong characters, good writing, the perfect amount of drama....and does not fall into the trap of a perfectly happy or tragic ending.

“an unholy act
gives birth to more in their turn,
and they have the look of their lineage.”
—agamemnon, sarah ruden translation

i don’t think greek theater is ever going to do it for me like shakespearean theater. i (somewhat) understand the choral odes, but i get tangled in them anyway, and while i know theater is mostly speech, a lot of greek plays feel to my uncultured heart like a lot of people standing around talking and then sometimes there is a dead body. that said, i’ve been intending to read the oresteia for years and i’m so glad i finally got around to it, because whatever my feelings about the constraints of greek theater, these plays FUCK. they have it all. family dynamics toxic enough to kill. the law of revenge and the ancestral curses of hubris. axe murder. milves, even.

AGAMEMNON (5 stars)
—> this is definitely my favorite play of the cycle; the imagery in it is impeccable. it’s a greek tragedy, but it's also a horror story, and having read christa wolf’s cassandra first made me hypersensitive to the themes of the sun & cassandra’s role & the way she serves as a foil of sorts to clytemnestra. whom i love so much. cassandra is my dearest but clytemnestra… sexy. anyway this play is an absolute banger all the way through; every character is compelling in their own way (even agamemnon, whose actions i can't commend, is a horribly tragic and often-sympathetic character) and this play is iconic. the fucking red carpet? you WISH you had what the oresteia has

notable lines:
“some godsend burning through the dark—“ (Robert Fagles translation, line 24)
“the generations wrestle, knees grinding the dust… the spear snaps in the first blood rites that marry Greece and Troy” (Fagles, lines 69-72)
“he tore Troy from the root with Zeus’s harrow of justice” (Ruden, lines 525-6)
“Hope’s hand, hovering over the urn of mercy, left it empty” (Fagles, lines 801-2)
CASSANDRA: “no cure for the doom that took the city after all, and I, her last ember, I go down with her” (Fagles, lines 1172-4)
“Helen the grief that never heals” (Fagles, line 1495)
and perhaps the summation of the trilogy:
“You can’t dislodge these Furies, who are family” (Ruden, line 1190)

We read this book in class and we each had our own characters and it was really fun! Good plot and our teacher was super fun teaching it!

this is why family therapy is important

agamemnon - cel ucis de nevastă în baie

după 10 ani de război troian, agamemnon, după ce a cucerit bogata cetate troia, se-ntoarce acasă.

criminala clitemnestra
prefăcându-se că nu mai putuse de dorul lui, nevastă-sa, clitemnestra, îl întâmpină pe covor roșu. dar ea e sora curviștinei elena care-a provocat războiul, și n-are scrupule, așa că-l omoară pe agamemnon în cadă, la prima baie, în mod sadic. o omoară și pe una dintre amantele pe care învingătorul și-o adusese cu el, pe prorocița blestemată să nu fie crezută, casandra. iată, criminala sadică, cum povestește isprava:

CLITEMNESTRA
Atunci, zăcând, el își dă duhul, iar sângele, țâșnind din rănile străpunse, mă împroașcă, picături întunecate, nu mai puțin plăcute pentru mine, decât e roua sclipitoare, dar dumnezeiesc, pentru semințele din muguri. (p.79)

iaca și amantul
aflăm apoi că în vremea asta, cât timp bărba-su se războia departe, ea și-a tras amant, pe vărul mai laș al soțului, egist. nu era el prea bun la războaie - căci n-a plecat la troia - însă era expert, se pare, în sexul cu femeia altuia iar mai apoi convingerea ei să-l omoare.

ceea ce corul bătrânilor cetății îi reproșează:

Ești o muiere! Ai rămas acasă, pândind să se
întoarcă luptătorii din război!
Ai pângărit culcușul unui bărbat de seamă, ai pus
la cale moartea maimarelui oștirii! (p.89)

oare merita războinicul agamemnon să fie ucis de nevastă-sa în baie, după 10 de ani de lupte cu troienii?
- ucigașa zice că da, pentru că și-a jertfit fiica, pe ifigenia, înainte de plecarea la război.
- amantul ucigașei zice că da, pentru că tatăl lui agamemnon i i-a servit tatălui lui egist, la masă, pe propriii copii la dejun, așa că blestemat să fie!

Va dăinui o lege, cât Zeus va dăinui pe tron:
„Vinovatului pedeapsă!“ (p.86)

hoeforele

a doua piesă e cea mai slabă din trilogie. are două părți principale:
1) una în care cei doi copii orfani de tată - oreste și electra - își plâng peste ani tatăl
2) oreste, fiul ucisului agamemnon, îndemnat de oracolul din delphi, își ucide mama și pe amantul acestuia, egist.
nimic spectaculos.

eumenidele - cea mai mișto piesă a lui eschil

fără îndoială, mai abitir decât prometeu înlănțuit, eumenidele (binevoitoarele) este cea mai șmecheră din piesele lui eschil.
de ce?

cine erau eriniile?
pentru că personajele sunt eriniile (furiile la romani), care pornesc după ucigașul de mamă, oreste, să-l înnebunească de cap, ca pedeapsă pentru matricid.

eriniile sunt personaje horror, care fac parte din zeitățile vechi, născute (potrivit theogoniei lui hesiod) din picăturile de sânge scurse în gaia, de la castrarea lui uranos.
sunt ființe înaripate, cu șerpi împletiți în păr sau în mâini și au în mâini torțe sau bice.
au lăcaș în erebos sau în tartaros.

Născute pentru rele, hălăduiesc în umbra din care
se împărtășește răul și sub pământ, în Tartaros,
de oameni urgisite și de zeii din Olimp. (p.151)

rolul eriniilor este de a-i pedepsi pe oameni: pe prorocii care prevestesc prea mult, dar mai ales pe criminali, care zdruncină echilibrul omenirii și care trebuie să purifice prin canoane, dacă nu înnebunește.

cum le „rezolvă“ atena pe erinii și le face blânde?
ele nu se supun zeilor, nici chiar lui zeus, și se iau în gură chiar cu apolo sau cu atena. doar că șmechera atena le transformă din răuvoitoare în binevoitoare, care-i binecuvântează pe greci. astfel, folosindu-se de unealta tribunalului aeropagilor, soarta lui oreste este luată din mâna eriniilor (a blestemului crimei) și dată pe mâna oamenilor.

este o acțiune de îmblânzire a stihiilor originare, a schimbării legilor talionului în legile jurisprudenței. iar oreste este prilejul oportun.

nu mai spun despre prezența în piesă a templului de la delphi, centrul lumii elene, unde preoteasa pythia, muritoarea care ședea deasupra crăpăturii din pământ care emana aburi, și care profețea destinele elenilor, se sperie ea însăși de erinii.

iată ce spun eriniile despre dreapta măsură:
- Nici anarhie, nici puteri despotice, iată măsura. (p.180)
- Neîngrădit de teamă, care muritor mai știe să rămână drept? (p. 180)
- Nu te-nvoi să-ți petreci în
orânduire anarhică viață,
dar nici sub noime despotice,
Cumpănește în toată măsura,
așa-i rânduiala divină
împotriva puterii cu toane. (p.171)
- Cel care, singur, fără să fie silit,
se poartă cu dreptate,
va dobândi fericirea;
el nu va pieri niciodată cu totul,
În schimb, răzvrătitul obraznic,
care a strâns, împotriva dreptății,
de-a valma, atâtea grămezi
de comori ticăloase,
fără-ndoială, va fi nevoit
să-și coboare pânza, cu vremea,
când va sta îngrozit
lângă verga corăbiei ruptă. (p.172)

dincolo de acțiunea plină de personaje mitologice și de zei, eschil pune niște probleme. este, dincolo de poet, un filozof care aduce în mintea spectatorilor idei și probleme ce țin de viața oamenilor în genere și de cea de zi cu zi.

Such beautiful writing. This makes me heart both happy and sad. The chorus is haunting, the scenes are moving and full of feeling. Everything about it is chillingly elegant. It is yet another tragedy that more from this time period has not survived, and even this is fragmented. To have seen this when it was written must have been one of life's greatest pleasures.

This is perhaps ancient Greece's most famous tragic trilogy that has survived antiquity. "Agamemnon" deals with the treacherous murder of King Agamemnon, just returned from the Trojan war, at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra, and his brother (who had an affair with his wife and coveted the throne). "The Libation Bearers" brings karmic and bloody retribution upon Clytemnestra at the hands of her only son, Orestes, avenging the death of his father. "The Eumenides" deals with Orestes flight from 'the furies,' demon-like creatures who are hellbent on exacting justice for the unforgivable sin of matricide, with a climax of Orestes appealing for mercy and clemency from the gods of Olympus for his "crime." A fascinating read with such descriptions that one cannot help but imagine the scenes that take place. Highly recommended!