#oresteia

"The person called the mother’s not the parent. She only nourishes the embryo planted by mounting her, and for a stranger she keeps the shoot alive—if no god blights it. And I can prove my claim: without a mother there can be fatherhood. For this we have proof here…the offspring of Olympian Zeus, not nurtured in the darkness of the womb: No goddess could give birth to such a child" - Line 658-665

]Apollo says this after everything Leto went through for him and Artemis. And he's not fooling anyone that he's not a Mama's boy.

The opening of Eumenides deserves more credit for the way the Oracle of Delphi describes the succession of the prophetic seat:

"Earth I address, the primal seer, giving her precedence, then Themis, the successor to her mother in the seat of prophecy— tradition says. The third who got the place— willingly, by no violent overthrown— was also Earth's child and a female Titan, Phoebe. And as a birthday gift, she gave it to Phoebus, adding that name to others" - Line 1-8

What makes this excerpt so interesting is how it goes against two of the Oresteria's most important patterns.

The first is the trilogy's obsession with inherited violence between generations. For the gods, it's Uranus, Kronos, and Zeus. And for the House of Atreus, it's Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Orestes.

And the second is the clash between older and younger gods. The Erinyes represent an ancient order of blood vengeance, while Athena and Apollo advocate for courts, trials, and civic justice.

But Delphi's succession offers a different mode. Instead of power being seized from older gods by newer gods through violence, it was inherited from a primordial to titanesses and finally an Olympian.

And interestingly enough, Apollo is Phoebe's grandson through Leto, so instead of it being framed as an Olympian taking control from a Titan, it is legacy being entrusted through family and trust.

It quietly foreshadowed the play's ending too. Athena doesn't undermine the Erinyes; she persuades and grants them a high position within the new order she made without erasing their identities.

Got this copy of Agamemnon from the library recently!! I’m only in Scene I lol but I can’t wait to read it :)

It makes her death more tragic because instead of seeing an avenger that reflects the husband she hated, she sees herself.

Not just physically, but emotionally too. Angry. Grieving. Thirsty over spilled family blood. The curse of the House of Atreus is all about the repetition of violence.

So in Eumenides, it would make Orestes denying his connection to his mother even more painful as he physically resembles her more and more.

The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus feels heavier than The Agamemnon.

Years after the murder of Agamemnon, it follows Orestes returns from exile to avenger his father, reunites with his sister, Electra, and they plot the deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

And much like it's prequel, the play's morality never stays black and white.

We see the fallout of Agamemnon's death. The household is haunted by his ghost, Orestes is exiled, and Electra is treated no better than a slave. So what follows next is believed to be the House of Atreus's restoration.

There's debate on whether Clytemnestra's grief reaction to hearing of her son's supposed death is genuine, but personally, the trilogy keeps exposing how she uses the roles of mother and lady of the house to her benefit.

While she claims she sent Orestes away for his own safety in The Agamemnon and that Phocis is an ally of Argos, she never brought him back after her revenge. And the nurse Cilissa claims her joy was hidden behind grief. (I swear, she deserves an Oscar.)

She pleas to Orestes that she's his mother, how she raised and nursed him, but Cilissa previously revealed that she was the one who did so.

Hot take, but if nurturing makes a parent, then Cilissa was more of Orestes' mother than Clytemnestra herself.

And yet, despite all of this, the play succeeds in making matricide never feel easy.

One of the play's saddest parts is how Orestes is encouraged to sever his relationship with his mother completely, to define himself only as Agamemnon's son, so that their emotional bond is destroyed to clear his guilt.

And after killing Clytemnestra, a disoriented Orestes returns to the chorus and begins unraveling as they celebrate their city's 'liberation':

"All that’s been done and suffered, all my bloodline grieves me, in my defiled, unenviable victory." - Line 1016-1017

There's no real victory here.

Agamemnon killed his daughter Iphigenia, so Clytemnestra avenged her by murdering him, and then Orestes avenged him by murdering his own mother. Every act of violence had a reason behind it, but it did them no good. It was just passed to the next person.

And Orestes' "choice" was never fully his own to begin with.

He explained how Apollo threatened him with disease, madness from the Furies, and a lonely death if he failed to avenge Agamemnon. While he said he would have done it anyway, he was still cornered.

A god didn't just command him. He threatened to pick one life to be destroyed: his or his mother's.

And the cruel part is Apollo's warnings still happen.

The Furies appear as Orestes’ mind begins to slip, and he’s driven to madness, running out of the stage.