Carl G. Anderson Fate and Motivation in Asechylus's the Libation Bearers 5 October, 2001
I. The Fatalistic Attitude and the Fate of Orestes
1. Cassandra, at Agamemnon’s palace: [Ag ll. 1279-1283]
Yet shall my death not go without vengeance from the gods!
For there shall soon come another to avenge us in turn,
a son that slays his mother, an atoner for his father;
an exile and a wanderer, estranged from this land
he shall return to put the coping-stone on this destruction for his kin.
2. Orestes on the oracle of Apollo: [LB ll. 283-290]
And he spoke of other assaults of the Erinyes,
brought about by the shedding of my father’s blood.
……
seeing … clear, though in the dark he directs his glance.
For the dark arrows of the infernal powers,
darted by kindred fallen who call for vengeance,
and madness and vain midnight fears
harass and torment and drive him from the city,
his body maimed by the brazen scourge.
II. Moral Significance under Inevitable Outcome: the Psyches of the Killers
3. Chorus on Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphegenia: [Ag ll. 218-226]
And when he had put on the yoke-strap of compulsion,
his spirit’s wind veering to an impious blast,
impure, unholy, from that moment
his mind changed to a temper of utter ruthlessness.
For mortals are made reckless by the evil councils
of merciless Infatuation, beginner of disaster.
And so he steeled himself to become the sacrificer
of his daughter, to aid a war
fought to avenge a woman’s loss
and to pay beforehand for his ships.
4. Clytemnestra on the killing of Agamemnon: [Ag ll. 1385-1392]
… and after he had fallen
I added a third stroke, a votive offering
for the Zeus below the earth, the savior of corpses.
So did he fall and quickly breathed away his life,
and spouting out a sharp jet of blood
he struck me with a dark shower of gory dew,
while I rejoiced no less than the crop rejoices
in the Zeus-given moisture at the birth of the bud.
5. Orestes faces Clytemnestra: [LB ll. 922-930]
Clytemnestra: It seems, my child, that you will kill your mother.
Orestes: You yourself, I say, not I will be your slayer.
C: Take care, beware your mother’s wrathful hounds!
O: And how shall I escape my father’s, if I neglect his duty?
C: I am like one who, still alive, laments to her own grave in vain.
O: Yes, for it is my father’s fate sends you this doom.
C: Ah woe, that I bore and reared this serpent!
O: In truth the fear your dream inspired was prophetic!
Wrong was the murder that you did, wrong is the fate that you now suffer!
III. At the Tomb of Agamemnon: Presentation of Psychological and Religious Motives
6. Orestes: [LB ll. 297-304]
Such were the oracles; and must I not believe them?
Even if I lack belief, the deed must be done.
For many longings move to one end;
so do the god’s command and my great sorrow for my father;
and moreover I am hard pressed by the want of my possessions,
not to leave the citizens of the most glorious city upon the earth,
the overthrowers of Troy with noble hearts,
thus to be subject to a pair of women.
Following Orestes’s speech, the next five verses of Orestes and Electra are addressed to Agammenon [LB ll. 315-321, 332-339, 345-353, 363-371, 380-385].
7. Chorus, in response to Electra’s appeal to "honored powers below": [LB ll. 402-404]
But it is the law that drops of blood
spilt on the ground demand further
bloodshed; for murder calls on the Erinys,
who from those who perished before
brings one ruin in another’s wake.
8. Chorus, in response to Orestes’s appeal to "sovereign powers of the world below" and "curses" [Arae, the underworld name for the Eumenides]: [LB ll 410-414]
My heart is in turmoil once more,
as I listen to this lament.
And now I am bereft of hope,
and my mind darkens
at these words as I hear them;
but when once more valiant confidence prevails,
hope removes my pain,
appearing before me in her beauty.
There are invocations of Justice by Orestes and Electra [LB ll. 461, 462, also l. 497]. Orestes and Electra then return to invocation of Agamemnon, and complete the lamentation [LB ll. 479-488 and 491-499].
IV. Declarations of Divine Allegiance
9. Clytemnestra on her sacrifice of Agamemnon: [Ag ll. 1432-1433]
I swear by the justice accomplished for my child,
by Ruin [Ate] and the Erinys, to whom I sacrificed this man,
10. Orestes after the killing of Clytemnestra: [LB ll. 980-989]
Look also, you who take cognizance of this sad work,
on the device they used, to bind my unhappy father,
their manacles for his hands and fetters for his feet!
Spread it out! Stand by in a circle,
and display her covering for her husband, that the father may behold
— not my father, but he who looks upon this whole world,
the Sun! — may behold my mother’s unholy work,
so that he may bear witness on the day of judgment when it comes
that it was with justice that I pursued this killing–
that of my mother…
11. Chorus on the killing of Clytemnestra by Orestes: [LB ll. 948-950]
and there guided his hand in the battle the trueborn
Daughter of Zeus — Justice is the name
We mortals give her, hitting the mark…
Bibliography
Foucault, Michel. 1990. The Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality Volume 2. Tr. Robert Hurley. New York: Random House.
Lattimore, Richmond. 1953. Oresteia. Chicago: U Chicago Press.
Lloyd-Jones, Hugh. 1993. The Oresteia. Berkeley: U California Press.
Roberts, Deborah. 1984. Apollo and his Oracle in the Oresteia. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Snell, Bruno. 1953. The Discovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U Press.
Taylor, Richard. 1992. Metaphysics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Vernant, Jean-Pierre and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. 1988. Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece. Tr. Janet Lloyd. New York: Zone Books.
Williams, Bernard. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: U C Press.
Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus