Father kills daughter so mother kills father so son kills mother. Son is found not guilty cos mother deserved it.

The Oresteian Trilogy contains three works by Aeschylus: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and Eumenides. My audio version, which is read by a full cast, also includes an excerpt from Proteus in The Odyssey that refers to Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus. It was performed in 458 BCE and is the only Greek drama that survives in its entirety. It is a story of vengeance and justice. In the first part, when Agamemnon returns from Troy, his wife Clytemnestra takes revenge on him for his role in the sacrifice of their daughter Iphegenia. In The Libation Bearers, Orestes and Electra take revenge on their mother Clytemnestra. In Eumenides, Orestes goes on trial for killing Clytemnestra, with Athena as judge, the Furies as prosecutors, and Apollo speaking for the defense. It reflects the changes in Greek society at the time, told as a clash between the old gods and the new order. This Greek tragedy is written in an eloquent manner. It is surprisingly modern in its translation by Ian Johnston and adaptation by Yuri Rasovsky. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the classics. I think audio is a wonderful way to gain an appreciation for how it may have been performed.

Even compared to other Greek tragedies, the Oresteia stands out. It's not just about the family drama or the bloody cycle of revenge. It's more than that. It's about peering deeply into the darkness of the human soul, stripping any semblance of control over one's destiny, and seeing what would result--madness.

Orestes was driven by forces more ancient and far bloodier than his mere judgment. In a society divinely centered on the family, Orestes was ordained to avenge his father's death, even if it meant killing his own mother. What is a man to do? If he doesn't kill his mother, the furies of his father would pursue him. If he does kill his mother, same story. Hardly fair, as his father Agamemnon was the one who sparked this vicious chain of events in the first place by sacrificing his daughter so that the Achean fleet could sail to Illium. The lack of control, being tossed this way and that like a lone battered ship caught in a divine storm, the uncertainty of life and yet the certainty of eternal torment--such is the definition of hell.

In such a system, how will the House of Atreus, a house of kings and heroes, survive itself?

When I studied the play, many found Athena's judicial intervention jarring and strange, especially since the first two plays centered around emotionally charged brutality and violent justice. In comparison, the resolution of the trilogy seems cold, a stark contrast to the previous two plays. But it is in this intervention that Aeschylus really delivers his message to Greece. Bound by its own traditions and practices, the House of Atreus would ultimately collapse in on itself. But when subjected to a common, binding law determined by moral and impartial judges was the House of Atreus salvaged. A court system and laws, created by the people, established order where there was madness. In the end, man can find his own way, even if divine forces seek to drive us to another fate.

In these plays, Aeschylus wrested our destiny away from the gods and placed the strands of our fate in our hands. Though it might be a fleeting moment of control, even if we are truly the chess pieces of the gods, Aeschylus reminds us to a certain extent, our fates are our own.

And the blood that Mother Earth consumes
clots hard, it won’t seep through, it breeds revenge
and frenzy goes through the guilty,
seething like infection, swarming through the brain.

I’d give this ten stars. The trilogy creates an arc, a link from blood sacrifice and burnt offerings to the nascent construct of something resembling jurisprudence. Superstition giving way begrudgingly to law. While the final trial isn’t exactly one by peers, it is amazing to contemplate. This trilogy is simply wicked in all senses of the term. The sacrifices made for good fortune in the Trojan War are a bit too close to home and an eloquent vengeance awaits the conquering hero when he returns from the trenches to rebuke accolades and be greeted instead with just desserts.

I was astonished. As I noted I’ve felt my entire life like Cassandra.

Seeing the Oresteia on stage is an overwhelming experience to say the least.

Reading and discussing the drama at university felt like going through the Disney version of it by comparison. Hearing the screams, seeing the blood and madness, following real people on their anxious road down to hellish destruction while they stare at you - the audience - with blind eyes - that is almost more than one can bear, even if one is familiar with the intertwined plays beforehand.

Violence leads to more violence in a brutal chain reaction. That is a curse that the family of Atreus experiences in three consecutive steps. Agamemnon has to choose between political and military success and his "love" for his daughter Iphigenia. He chooses to be a "leader" over being a human, so he sacrifices his daughter on the way to Troy, and thus kicks off the action thriller. Klytamnestra, his wife, follows the call of revenge, as does Orestes, the son. Electra, on the sidelines, cheers on her brother when he kills his mother, and thus participates in the "honour" killings.

Spirals of violence are not unusual in the history of mankind, but unluckily, we don't possess the Greek dramatic device of a deus ex machina to set the score straight and suggest a solution that leads to better understanding and rule of law. Or could one see the international organisations formed after the Second World War, like the UNO or later the EU, as such attempts at reining in the blood lust of humiliated and hurt humanity?

Of eternal contemporary relevance, the Oresteia is hard to stomach but important to consider!

Must read - a classic even after two and a half millennia!

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.

سه‌گانه‌ای منسجم و شکوهمند با ترجمه‌ای هنری و شگفت‌انگیز


نمایشنامه‌ی آگاممنون: چیزی که اینجا متوجه نمی‌شدم این بود که چرا هیچ‌کس به این‌که خود آگاممنون هم آدم خوبی نبود اشاره نمی‌کرد (به‌جز کلوتمنسترا که حرفش اهمیتی نداشت). اگر اورستس فکر می‌کنه جنایتش با جنایتکار بودن مقتول پاک می‌شه، کلوتمنسترا هم همین رو می‌تونه بگه. اگه الاهگان انتقام سر اورستس فرو اومدن که همخونش رو کشته، چرا سر آگاممنون فرو نیومدن که بازم همخونش رو کشته؟ آگاممنون خیلی بیش از حد لیاقتش خوب جلوه داده شد.

نمایشنامه‌ی نیازآوران: محتوای این نمایشنامه تقریباً مشابه نمایشنامه «الکترا» اثر سوفوکلس بود که من اون رو بیشتر دوست داشتم.

نمایشنامه‌ی الاهگان انتقام: چطوریه که اسم زئوس تو یک نمایشنامه انقد نشان قدرت و احترام و عدالت و «دیگه حرفی نزنی اسم زئوس رو آوردم» عه ولی یه نمایشنامه بعد (پرومتئوس در بند» نشونه‌ی شر و بدی و بی‌عدالتیه؟ :/

cassandra and clytemnestra carried that book. apollo didnt do it for me. orsestus and athena were fine. fuck agemnemon thats my opp. had a great time reading it though
most of the plot happens off page though which was odd, like i want to see the murders taking place and the journey to athens and shit like that so that took off one star for me. all in all good play though

შენ რო შვილს მაჰკლავ, შენც მოგკვლენ, არც შენ მკვლელს შაარჩენს გვარია...

Robert Fagles' translation is excellent.

The Oresteia was written as a trilogy, and according to the scholars is the only Greek drama that survives as such. I would definitely recommend reading all 3 parts together, as they build one after the other. This trilogy is deceptively simple, in some ways, but the excellent introductory essay by W.B. Stanford, titled "The Serpent and the Eagle", helped me to see the much deeper issues that are explored in the play. I don't want to put any spoilers in this review, but let's say that after completing the trilogy, I feel like I have a deeper feeling for gender politics, parent/child bonds, and the transition from tribal law to Athenian concepts of democracy.

This is definitely a work that I will read again and refer to over the years.

EDIT: I re-read The Eumenides today. Much food for thought about transforming the bloodlust of primitive tribal vendetta into the more civilized concepts of justice found in a complex society based on laws, courts, and judges.

David Marksons wundervoller Roman "Wittgensteins Mätresse" gab mir den Anstoß, Aeschylus zu lesen, da ich den Inhalt der Geschichte, nicht jedoch die moralische Zuspitzung kannte. Mit Marksons Protagonistin liegen meine Sympathien klar bei Kassandra und stärker bei Klytemnestra, als bei Agamemnon, doch die eigentlich schuldigen dürften die Götter sein, allen voran Apollo. Kurzum ein großartiges moralisches Dilemma, dessen Auflösung nicht vollständig überzeugen kann.

Hervorzuheben ist die großartige Kommentierung und Einleitung dieser Ausgabe.

5 ⭐

Tantalus, oh Tantalus, he really screwed the pooch!
There is no beating ‘round the bush, he’s one first order douche!
His envy of the Gods and of their immortality,
led him to try and trick them and invite them o’er for tea.

He set a cauldron boiling, he chopped up his own son,
then lobbed the morsels in the urn, and told them it was done.
As Demeter was chowing down before the food got colder,
he smiled wide and told ‘er she was eating Pelops’ shoulder!

Furious at Tantalus, Zeus sent the pest to Tartarus,
for punishment befitting one who’d do a thing so barbarous.
If t’were only this perdition, it would be no great big fuss,
but his actions, in addition, cursed the House of Atreus!

And therein lies the kernel of Aeschylus’(s) tale,
A family’s curse eternal but for one descendent male.
Cursed to repeat bouts of inter-famil-ial violence,
And suffer irrec-oncil-able moral debts in silence.

It’s a story drenched in filicide, mariticide and matricide,
parenticide or parricide, excuse my synonymicide.
There’ll be cause for wild elation, if someone was wondering,
But ‘fore recon-cili-ation, first must come a sundering

Cue the King of Argos, Agamemnon in the flesh,
Who back from killing Trojans, wants to unwind and refresh,
But faithless Clytaemnestra, Queen whom in his place took tenure,
Slaughters him in retribution for poor Iphigenia

Violence begets violence in the House of Atreus,
And forced to suffer into truth is Princely Orestes.
Instructed by Apollo to avenge one he adored,
He kills his wretched mother, through her chest he pokes a sword.

At least he only murdered his, that seems a mild affliction
Compared to Oedipus of Thebes who shagged his with conviction.
But anyway, enough of that, frivolities aside,
I mentioned some elation, you weren’t thinking that I lied?

In the end this tragedy’s concerned with transformation,
It begins with savagery and ends with civilisation.
Athena turns from force majeure to justice and compassion
The furies turn their hand from roles of vengeance to protection

It’s occurred to me just now, I’ve bitten more than I can chew,
If you’ve read this far somehow, a thanks is due from me to you.
Apologies to those real poets, to whom this seems a vile abuse,
The cause to which I think I owe it, is reading too much Dr.Seuss.