With The Oresteia, I begin my journey of Greek dramatists. I’ve only read Homer, and both his works are epic poems, not plays. I picked The Oresteia as my first choice because of its link to Homer’s works.
The Oresteia is a trilogy. The first play, Agamemnon, tells the tragic story of Agamemnon’s return from Troy and his murder by his wife, Clytemnestra. In the second play, The Libation Bearers, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, avenges his father’s death by committing matricide. The third play, The Eumenides , shows us the trial of Orestes, where Orestes is judged. The setting of the first two plays is in Argos, and the third is in Athens. I read a lot of explanatory texts regarding the trilogy before reading the plays, which overwhelmed me with information. They helped, of course, for me to appreciate the plays and understand their wider implications.
The Oresteia is a tragedy. There is a lot of violence and bloodshed. There is also the disturbing issue of matricide (Orestes kills his mother, Clytemnestra, to avenge his father, Agamemnon), and the balance of justice and sin. One thing must be remembered when reading these plays. Aeschylus wrote them for a patriarchal society. So, the balance of justice, as administered by goddess Athena and the citizens of Athens, backed by the god Apollo, is masculine. Orestes’s guilt for committing matricide is accepted by the tribunal, yet he goes free because he committed the matricide to avenge his father. And the action was spurred on by the god Apollo. From a feminist point of view, it is a horrible injustice to the mother. But the Greek patriarchal society has different ideas about parentage and the institution of marriage. For them, the “true” parent is the father, and the violation of the sacred institution of marriage is a weightier crime than matricide, justifying matricide. Interestingly enough, this justification doesn’t absolve the son of his guilt of matricide. Orestes’s guilt is established and accepted by the tribunal, yet the more dominant circumstance that led to his committing the crime acquits Orestes of the criminal charge.
The stories of the first two plays are not new. They are touched in Homer’s Odyssey in passing. But the stories come to full life through Aeschylus’s pen. The third (and the final now because the fourth play is lost) is new and that is where justice (both god’s and man’s) is administered. Aeschylus deliberately creates a tribunal of one goddess (Athena) and twelve citizens. So the justice is both god’s justice as well as human justice. In Homer’s works, we see that all human actions are forced and controlled by the Olympian gods. Aeschylus steps down from all enforcing gods to unite gods and humans in the administration of justice, bringing the concept of democracy and law and order. In Eumenides, the Furies of earth, activated by Orestes’s matricide, pursue Orestes, calling for his blood. Athena, through persuasion, appeases them, granting them powers to influence the lives of the citizens of Athens so that they won’t harm Athens with their wrath at the acquittal of Orestes. This act is widely accepted as a reconciliation between heavenly and earthly powers, ending the Olympian domination of human life.
The Oresteia is my first experience of reading Aeschylus. I love him as a dramatist. He is meticulous and methodical. The trilogy runs smoothly from one to the other like it’s a continuation of one play (which it literary is). The stories warrant moderate action, yet Aeschylus creates enough action to keep the audience’s attention. The shortness of each play highlights the drama. The pace is quick and the dialogue changes rapidly from character to character. I very much enjoyed the quick tempo of the plays. Another thing I liked about Aeschylus’s writing is how he moderated violence. There is tragedy; there is violence, a lot of it. But Aeschylus tackles them wonderfully. I don’t know how an audience would see it (since I’ve not seen a performance), but as a reader, the moderation helped me read through, enjoy, and appreciate it. I can honestly say that The Oresteia one of the beautiful tragedies I’ve read.
Rating: 4/5
