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1. Summary (1-139)
The scene of the play is at first in front of the temple of Apollo in Delphi, the home of the
Delphic oracle. The Pythia, the priestess of Apollo who delivers his oracles, prays before
entering the shrine. First she names the gods who have been worshiped at this temple, and
tells the story of a peaceful succession: Gaia (Earth) was the first prophet, then Themis, then
Phoebe, and Phoebe gave the seat as a birthday gift to her namesake, Phoebus Apollo. When
Apollo came to take his seat here, he was escorted by those sons of Hephaestus who make
roads that tame untamed lands. Zeus inspired him with prophecy, and Apollo speaks for Zeus.
Then she names the other gods revered at Delphi, and finally Zeus himself, and so goes in to
take her seat and prophesy as Apollo leads her.
She comes out again, terrified, scarcely able to stand. On her way to the innermost sanctuary,
she saw a man with blood on his hands and his drawn sword seated on the navel stone as a
suppliant, and in front of him, asleep, a troop of women more appalling than Gorgons or
Harpies, black and with blood dripping from their eyes, in unseemly rags. Apollo must handle
this himself.
She leaves, and Apollo and Orestes enter. Apollo promises Orestes that he will not abandon
him. Now these horrible creatures are asleep, but they will continue to hunt Orestes, and he
must fly from them, going to the city of Athena and asking her help. There we will find judges
and the words needed to charm them, he says; there release will come, “for it was I who
persuaded you to slay your mother” (line 84; all quotations not otherwise attributed are from
the literal translation of the Oresteia by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, published by the University of
California Press in 1979). Orestes tells Apollo to be sure to take care of him, and Apollo asks
Hermes to guide him and look after him.
Apollo and Orestes leave, and the ghost of Clytemnestra enters. She speaks to the Furies,
though the audience (at least according to some editions) can’t see them yet. She reproaches
them for sleeping and letting their quarry escape, while she has to suffer dishonor in the
Underworld. She has given them so many offerings, and they still act like this! The Furies whine
in their sleep after each reproach she makes, and then finally they speak in their sleep, urging
each other to seize Orestes. Clytemnestra urges them to stop pursuing him in their sleep like
dreaming hounds but to wake up, feel the strength of her reproaches, and catch up with
Orestes, breathe blood on him, and shrivel him up.
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2. Summary ( 140-234)
The ghost leaves, and the Furies become visible. They chant a choral ode, first urging each other
to wake up, then lamenting that their prey has escaped while they slept. They call Apollo a
thief, and speak of the pain they felt when reproached by Clytemnestra. The younger gods have
done this; Apollo has stained his altar with blood and destroyed “the ancient dispensations of
the fates” (172). Orestes will never be free of “the guilt of murder” (176).
Apollo enters and commands them to leave, or he will pierce them with one of his arrows.
They don’t belong in Apollo’s temple, they belong in torture chambers, and the gods all hate
them. The Furies accuse Apollo of deserving the blame for Orestes’ action. It was his oracle that
told Orestes to kill his mother. Apollo sees no problem with that—it was vengeance for his
father. Then, the Furies say accusingly, Apollo told Orestes to come to him with fresh blood on
his hands, and how can he blame them for coming too? It’s their duty to persecute killers of
mothers. Apollo wants to know why they don’t persecute women who kill their husbands, and
they answer that that doesn’t involve shedding one’s own blood. Apollo answers indignantly
that they are dishonoring the tie of marriage, Aphrodite, and the marriage bed. If you don’t
punish those who kill their spouses, it’s not just to pursue Orestes. Athena will “review this
case” (224). The Furies reiterate their determination to pursue Orestes, and Apollo vows to
protect him.
3. Summary( 235-396)
The scene is now Athens and the ancient temple of Athena. Orestes prays to Athena, with his
arms around an image of Athena. Following Apollo’s orders, he has undergone various
purifications, and now comes to Athena for help. The Chorus of Furies enter, and the Chorus
Leader speaks. We are on his scent, we have tracked him over land and sea, she says, and the
whole Chorus sing, we must find him, not let him escape unpunished.
They see Orestes and sing that he has his arms around the image of Athena and wants to stand
trial, but they can’t tolerate that—he has spilled his mother’s blood, and they want to suck his
blood. They will suck him dry and take him living to the Underworld, they threaten. In Hades
Justice pays back all impious actions.
Saying that he has learned when to speak and when to keep silent, Orestes in a long speech
maintains that he has been thoroughly purified: his pollution was washed away by the ritual
Apollo ordered, and time has faded the blood on his hands as well. As he has traveled, he has
stayed with many hosts without polluting them, and now he has come pure to Athens. If
Athena helps him, his land of Argos will be a faithful ally of Athens forever. Wherever she is,
she, being a goddess, hears him, and may she come and set him free from the persecution of
the Furies.
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The Chorus Leader tells him that neither Athena nor Apollo can save him—he is their prey and
they will feast on him; now they will sing a song that will bind him. First the Chorus chant how
just they are, pursuing only those with bloody hands, and then they “join hands in the dance”
(307) and sing their binding spell.
First they call to their mother, Night, telling of Apollo’s attempt to rob them. Then they sing the
recurring refrain of this choral ode, singing of the power of their song to drive the victim mad
and wither him. This is the office Fate has given them. They cannot hurt the gods, but no matter
how mighty a killer may be, they can ruin him. Zeus will have nothing to do with us, they sing,
but we wither the glories of all we pursue and we dance them to destruction:
The glories of men, for all their splendor beneath the light of day,
wither away and vanish below the earth, dishonored,
before the onslaught of our black raiment and the dancing
of our feet, instinct with malice.
For in truth leaping
from on high, with heavy fall
I bring down my foot;
my legs trip the runner,
swift though he be, with an irresistible doom.(367-75)
They continue, The gods do not honor us, but men cannot resist us. Mortals all feel “awe and
dread” (390), and so we have honor, even though we live in the darkness under the ground.
4. Summary (397-565)
Athena herself appears on stage; she describes her flight without wings over the sea from an
area near Troy that the Greek leaders gave to her after the Trojan War. Seeing the Furies, she
feels wonder, but not fear. She asks to know who they are, as well as who the stranger by her
image is; you are unlike any goddesses or mortals, she says to the Furies, “But to speak ill of
others who are free of blame / is far from Justice, and Right will have none of it” (413-14). The
Chorus Leader, speaking for all of them, explains that they are “the eternal children of Night, /
and Curses is our name in our home below the earth” (416-17). She explains that their privilege
is to drive those who kill their kin to the joyless place, and that is where they are driving this
man who killed his mother. Athena wants to know whether he was under any constraint, but
the Leader says that no threat could be a good reason for matricide. Athena insists that the
stranger’s side must be heard; the Leader complains that he will not take the usual oath.
Athena says they are not being just, and the Leader tells her to question Orestes and judge
rightly. They see her as worthy of reverence and are willing to have her settle the case.
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Athena turns to Orestes, and asks him to tell her his story and answer this accusation, it he has
come as a suppliant, holding her image, “with confidence in justice” (439). Orestes first explains
that he is no longer in need of purification, and he has not touched her image with polluted
hands. All the rites of purification he has been through elsewhere. He is from Argos, and his
father was Agamemnon, with whom she defeated Troy. My father died a shameful death, he
explains; my mother trapped him in the bath and killed him. I had been in exile, but I came back
and killed her as a penalty for her killing of my father. Apollo shares the responsibility; he told
me what I would suffer if I did not act. I will abide by your decision as to whether I acted justly
or not.
Athena does not want to decide the case herself. Orestes has come as a harmless suppliant to
her, and she accepts him, but if the Furies are defeated they will bring pestilence on Athens.
What she will do, she says, is establish a court. Orestes must bring his witnesses and proofs,
and she will choose the best of her citizens to decide the case.
Athena and Orestes leave, and the Chorus sing and dance their fear that if Orestes wins his
case, children will hurt their parents with impunity, for the Furies will no longer avenge such
deeds. Then it will be pointless for a father or mother to call on Justice and the Furies, and
Justice will be destroyed.
There is a place where what is terrible is good
and must abide, seated there
to keep watch upon men’s minds;
it is good for them
to learn wisdom under constraint.
And what city or what man
that in the light of the heart
fostered no dread could have the same
reverence for Justice?
Neither a life of anarchy
nor a life under a despot
should you praise.
To all that lies in the middle has a god given excellence.
(516-30)
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From impiety comes hubris, from a healthy mind, happiness, they sing. Reverence Justice,
don’t give it up for profit, or you will pay. Knowing this, let a man respect his parents and
reverence the honor a guest and host should have for each other, and he will be just and happy
and never face complete ruin. But the man who defiantly transgresses and heaps up plunder
unjustly and violently will be wrecked eventually “on the reef of Justice” (563) and struggle in
vain in the waves of misfortune while the god laughs. He thought nothing could ever happen to
him—he will be destroyed.
5. Summary (566-777)
The scene shifts to the Hill of Ares, the Areopagus. Athena, Apollo, and Orestes enter, along
with the silent actors who will represent a herald, the judges, and the audience. Athena bids
the herald invite the people to take their places and bids the trumpet sound; now all are to be
silent and learn her ordinances for this new court, now established to last forever. The Chorus
of Furies call on Apollo to explain what he is doing at the trial. He explains that he is there as a
witness and to argue for Orestes, and he takes responsibility for the killing of Orestes’ mother.
He calls on Athena to preside over the court. Athena calls on the Chorus of Furies to act as
prosecutor and present their case.
The Chorus Leader chooses to present the case by questioning Orestes. First she gets him to
admit he killed his mother and to say how, then to say that he acted upon Apollo’s oracles.
When he says that he has no problem with what Apollo persuaded him to do, the Leader
threatens him with what he will suffer if he loses the case, but Orestes speaks of his confidence
that his father from his grave is helping him. His mother committed two crimes, killing her
husband and Orestes’ father. Why didn’t the Furies persecute her? The Leader answers that she
was not killing someone of the same blood. Orestes asks whether he has the same blood as his
mother, and the Leader in horror asks him whether he actually wants to “disown [his] mother’s
dearest blood” (608). Orestes turns to Apollo for help—did he act justly?
First Apollo points out that he has never spoken an oracle that did not come from Zeus, and
that should carry the day with the judges. The Chorus Leader asks whether it was really Zeus
who told him to tell Orestes to avenge his father and put aside his reverence for his mother,
and Apollo answers yes, for the murder of a man and a ruler by a woman is a more serious
crime than the killing of a woman. And worse yet, Agamemnon was killed by a woman
treacherously and shamefully, entangling him with a robe as he stepped out of the bath. I have
said these things, explains Apollo, to stir those who judge to anger. You say Zeus cares so much
about fathers, says the Leader, yet he chained up his father. Apollo calls the Furies beasts, and
explains that chains can be undone, but once a man is dead and his blood is spilled on the
earth, that is the end—even Zeus cannot undo that.
The Chorus Leader asks how, then, can one who spilled his mother’s blood on the earth go
home to live and be part of society in Argos. Apollo answers that it is only the male who begets
the child; the mother simply nurses it in her womb. As proof, he points to Athena, who never
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had a mother at all, but sprang full-grown from the head of Zeus. And he promises Athena that
he will do everything he can to make her city and her people great, as he already has sent
Orestes to her, that her city might have his city as an ally.
Athena asks whether she should now call a vote; the Chorus Leader says they’ve said all they
have to say, and Apollo tells the judges to respect their oath. Athena speaks to the citizens in
what she calls “this council of judges” “who are trying your first trial for the shedding of blood”
(684, 682). Here on this hill the Amazons camped when they came to attack Athens, and here
they sacrificed to Ares, whence the name Areopagus. Here, she says, she establishes this
council for future times, and as long as Athenians fear and revere this court and keep their laws
intact, avoiding both tyranny and anarchy, they will restrain injustice and have the best possible
protector for their city. Her central words are these:
Neither anarchy nor tyranny shall the citizens defend and respect, if they
follow my counsel;
and they shall not cast out altogether from the city what is to be feared.
For who among mortals that fears nothing is just? (696-99)
This council will not be greedy for profit but worthy of respect and ready to be angry when
necessary, guarding the land. That is her advice for the future, she says; now they must decide
the case.
As the judges one by one deposit their ballots in the voting urns, the Chorus Leader and Apollo
speak in turn, urging them to vote the right way and continuing their argument with each other.
The Leader threatens the land with disaster if the Furies are dishonored, and Apollo calls on the
judges to respect Zeus, ultimate source of his oracles. Athena explains that if the votes are
equal, she will cast the decisive vote for Orestes. She had no mother, and is always on the
man’s side, since she belongs to her father, and can’t consider a woman’s death more
important than that woman’s killing of her husband.
As the votes are counted, Orestes calls on Apollo, and the Chorus Leader on her mother, Night.
Each sees this decision as meaning ruin or escape from ruin. Apollo adjures the counters to
count fairly—a single vote can save.
Athena announces that the votes are equal, and so Orestes is acquitted. Orestes rejoices,
uttering his thanks to Athena for giving him back his homeland, and to Zeus, who saw how his
father died and has saved him from the Furies. He swears solemnly that no ruler of Argos will
ever attack Athens. And if anyone should go against his oath, he from his tomb will visit them
with misfortune and make them repent. Only if they always are steadfast allies of Athens will he
show them favor. Wishing good fortune in war to Athena and her city, Orestes leaves, and
Apollo with him.
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6. Summary (778-1047)
The Chorus of Furies sing and dance their anger and grief against the “younger gods” who have
trampled on “the ancient laws” (778) and dishonored the Furies themselves. They threaten to
blast the land with diseases that will kill crops and children. They see themselves as mocked
and bemoan their fate. Athena speaks, begging them not to take it that way—they have not
been defeated, because the votes were equal. And Zeus and Apollo took responsibility, so that
it was reasonable for Orestes to be spared. She tells them not to blight the land. She promises
them an honorable place there and reverence from her citizens.
The Chorus repeat exactly their first song of wrath and grief, and Athena speaks again, assuring
them that they are not dishonored and that they should not blight the land.
I, for my part, have trust in Zeus, and—why need I speak of it?—
I alone among the gods know the keys of the house
wherein is sealed the lightning.
But there is no need of it; let me persuade you.
(826-29)
She urges them to “lull to repose the bitter force of your black wave of anger” (832). You will
be honored here, she says: whenever marriages are celebrated and children are born, you will
receive sacrifice in my city.
The Chorus of Furies again dance and sing their grief and rage, that they, possessors of ancient
wisdom, should be dishonored. They cry out in their pain, and call on their mother, Night,
claiming that the cunning gods have taken away their ancient honors and made them count for
nothing.
Athena says she will be patient, since they are older and in that way wiser. But Zeus has given
her some wisdom too, and she warns them that if they leave Athens, they will long for it, for
with time it will become more glorious, and they will receive more here than any other city
could give them. Don’t madden my young men with the spirit of civil war, she begs them; there
will be plenty of opportunity to satisfy the passion for glory in foreign wars. This is the choice
she offers them: remain in Athens and they can do good and receive good and be honored.
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Seeming not to have heard, the Chorus repeat exactly their second song of wrath and grief.
Athena protests:
I shall not weary of telling you of the good things I offer,
that you may never say that by me, who am younger,
and by the mortals who hold this city, you, an ancient goddess,
were driven off dishonored, an exile from this land.
No! If you revere Persuasion’s majesty,
the power to charm and soothe that sits upon my tongue,
then you should remain! (881-87)
She continues, And if you don’t want to stay, still you can’t in justice hurt the city, since you can
have eternal honor here if you choose.
Finally the Chorus Leader speaks, asking exactly what it is that Athena is offering. She explains
that no house will be able to prosper unless it pays them reverence, and she promises that this
power of theirs will last forever. The Leader feels her anger calming, and finally asks what
blessings Athena wants the Furies to bestow.
Athena answers:
Such blessings as may gain no evil victory:
And these shall come from the earth and from the waters of the sea,
and from the sky, and the blasts of the wind
shall pass over the land with sun-warmed breezes:
and the increase of the earth and of the herds, teeming with plenty,
shall not cease as time passes to prosper for the citizens;
and so also shall the seed of mortals be preserved. (903-9)
And she asks them to make the righteous prosper more, whom she also especially favors.
These blessings they can give; she herself will give the city glory and victory in battle.
The Chorus sing and dance their acceptance and their blessings. They will bring no dishonor on
this city dear to the gods. They pray for what they have to give—the blessing of fertility. Athena
chants her own accomplishment in bringing these powerful deities to settle in Athens. The man
with whom they are angry doesn’t know why he is suffering, but they are paying him for old
crimes and will destroy him.
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Again the Chorus sing, praying for what they have to give: safety from destructive wind, heat,
and pestilence for trees and crops, rich flocks, rich mines to honor the gods with. Athena
addresses her chant to the judges, asking them if they hear what the Furies have to offer. They
have great power; they bring joy to some and misery to others.
The Chorus sing that they forbid the early death of young men, and they pray that young
women may find husbands, appealing to their sisters (also daughters of Night) the Fates, who
assign the fates of all. Athena chants her joy at the blessings they are giving Athens; she loves
Persuasion for having guided her when they refused at first; Zeus who presides over peaceful
assemblies conquered, and now instead of strife there will be rivalry in doing good forever.
Here is the literal translation:
I cherish Persuasion’s eye,
for having guided my tongue and lips
when I met their fierce refusal.
But Zeus of the assembly prevailed’
and victory attends our rivalry
in good things forever! (970-975)
The Chorus sing their prayer that the evil of civil strife may stay away from Athens, and all the
horrors of civil war, when murder is avenged by murder. May the people love the common
good and give joy to each other, joining in common hatred of the city’s enemies. This cures
many human ills. Athena chants her praise for these who see so well; in their dread faces she
sees great good for her citizens. If you are kind to these kindly ones and always honor them, she
tells her citizens, you will follow justice and make the city great.
Saying farewell, the Chorus bid the people of Athens rejoice, dear as they are to Zeus and
Athena, and ever growing in wisdom. Athena echoes their farewell, bidding them rejoice, then
chants that she will go ahead of them to show the caverns where they will dwell by the light of
the torches of their escort. (The escort consists of a group of women of all ages who carry
crimson robes, and perhaps the judges form part of it too.) She adjures them to keep under the
earth whatever is harmful, and to send up all that can help the city. She urges the escort to lead
the way. Once more the Chorus bid both gods and mortals in the city farewell.
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Athena thanks them for their blessings, and says that she, along with those who guard her
image, will escort them by torchlight to their place under the earth. Speaking to the women of
the escort, she tells them to clothe the Furies with crimson robes. Then the escort, moving in
procession with the Furies behind Athena, sing the brief final choral ode:
Home, home, o high, o aspiring
Daughters of Night, aged children, in blithe processional.
bless them, all here, with silence
In the primeval dark of earth-hollows
held in high veneration with rights sacrificial
bless them, all people, with silence.
Gracious be, wish what the land wishes,
follow, grave goddesses, flushed in the flamesprung
torchlight gay on your journey.
Singing all follow our footsteps.
There shall be peace forever between these people
of Pallas and their guests. Zeus the all seeing
met with Destiny to confirm it.
Singing all follow our footsteps.
(1033-47; the translation is by Richmond Lattimore, from his translation of the Oresteia,
published by the University of Chicago Press in 1953.)

Analysis(1-139)
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The Eumenides is the third and final play of Aeschylus’ great trilogy, known as the Oresteia,
which he composed, choreographed, directed, and acted in, competing with other such
trilogies in the great yearly competition held in fifth-century Athens. The first play, the
Agamemnon, tells the story of the revenge killing of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra, with
the support of her lover Aegisthus, when he returns from the Trojan War; the second play, The
Libation Bearers, tells the story of the revenge killing of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by the son
of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Orestes. Unlike The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides is
sometimes performed alone, but it takes on much more meaning in light of the rest of the
trilogy. In this play, Aeschylus faced the challenge of retelling the last episode of an ancient
story of blood-for-blood vengeance that had been handed down for centuries in such a way
that it would have meaning for a fifth-century BC audience, who were at least as horrified as a
modern audience is by the idea that a man can kill his own mother and go on to rule his country
in peace. One of the ways the play gives the largest possible meaning to the story is to bring on
stage the cosmic forces—that is, the gods—that have been at work unseen in the two earlier
plays. In fact the Furies, constantly referred to in the first two plays, here make up the Chorus,
and the play is named for them—Eumenides, which may be translated “Gracious Goddesses,”
or “Kindly Ones”—so they were often called, as a way of gaining their favor. Though they are
scarcely kindly at the beginning of the play.
Of all the three plays in the trilogy, this one raises the most difficult questions. The tale the
Pythia tells about the gods who held the seat of prophecy at Delphi before Apollo is quite
different from the most common version of the story, in which Apollo wins his seat by battling
and killing a huge evil female serpent that had been wreaking destruction among human
beings. That conflict was an episode in what was often seen as a battle between the Olympian
gods and the older chthonian deities—deities associated with Earth. Yet the chthonian deities
were still worshiped in fifth-century Greece, and other versions of the way the Olympians
moved into the ascendancy they clearly held were possible. The Greeks did not have one sacred
book that gave an authoritative account of the doings of the gods, and poets felt free to
compose their own version of the ancient stories. (Myth comes from mythos, the Greek word
for story.) So here Aeschylus has the Pythia tell the story of a peaceful succession, one in which
the older (and female) deities are honored, even as the suggestion is that the new Olympian,
Apollo, is associated with the progress of civilization, since he is escorted by road builders. No
monsters to overcome, no problems—until the Pythia staggers out of the temple, overwhelmed
by the horror of the chthonian deities she has found there.
These particular chthonian deities are the Furies, the Avengers, sometimes seen as daughters
of Earth, sometimes (as in this play) as daughters of Night, who punish crimes against blood kin
(especially parents), breaking of oaths, violation of the guest-host bond, and injury to
suppliants. In Greek they are called the Erinyes, and they are often thought of as embodied
curses, especially the curses of a parent harmed by a child.
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Apollo may have received his seat at Delphi peacefully, as the Pythia tells the story, from his
grandmother Phoebe, one of the older chthonian deities, but he has nothing but scorn for these
daughters of Night, and claims that they are “loathed … by men and by Olympian gods” (73),
existing only to do “evil” (71). If one remembers that in the previous play Orestes describes how
Apollo threatened him with horrible suffering at the hands of his father’s Furies if he did not kill
his mother, Apollo’s attitude may seem a bit unfair. What is clear is that Apollo considers
Orestes’ deed to have been justifiable homicide, and therefore (according to the accepted
practice of the time), Orestes can be free of guilt and pollution by undergoing ritual purification.
The Furies utterly reject the possibility that anything can justify matricide. They hold rigidly to
the demand of blood for blood, as does the ghost of Clytemnestra.
( 140- 234)
The story goes that when the Furies appeared on stage, women fainted and pregnant women
miscarried, so horrible did they appear. In any performance, so horrible must their appearance
be that it almost justifies Apollo’s repugnance. Their choral ode and the dialogue with Apollo
that follows it have much that justifies repugnance too—they are hunting down Orestes as
though he were a beast, and they are blind to all other murders but those that involve shedding
one’s own blood—that is, the blood of close kin. It is a very narrow definition of justice. But the
duty they are carrying out is their ancient duty, and they naturally resent the young gods who
are trying to thwart them. Apollo can see nothing good in them at all and sees himself as
completely superior to them and justified in reviling them. This is the sort of Apollo who would
naturally have taken his seat of prophecy by force, destroying the ancient holder of the seat as
a destructive monster.
(235-396)
Orestes longs for freedom; the Furies want to drive him mad and bind him forever. Clearly the
ritual purification he has undergone has not been enough to set him free. If one looks at the
play from the point of view of depth psychology, Apollo seems to embody rationality, or at least
a more superficial level of wisdom, and to be all male and Olympian. Something more is
needed, something embodied in Athena, and what that is will become clearer later. Whatever it
is, it means real freedom. The Furies are thus the embodiment of everything that keeps a
human being trapped in guilt, even driven mad by guilt, and their song and dance in this scene
should have a quality of frenzy, the wildness of which is suggested by the passage quoted.
Orestes keeps silence, and it would seem right to play him as sitting holding on to the image of
Athena, unshaken in the middle of the frenzy, since he is clearly not driven mad by the Furies’
song, as they hope.
When Orestes promises that Argos will be a faithful ally of Athens forever if Athena will help
him, Aeschylus brings this play and all its cosmic implications into direct relationship with the
events of his own day; Athens had traditionally been an ally of Sparta, and at the time the play
was first produced, she had shifted her alliance to Argos. One of the play’s great
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accomplishments is that it works on all levels: it brings universal cosmic forces on stage, and it is
directly relevant to the most urgent of contemporary political questions. The change in scene
from Delphi to Athens is unusual for Greek tragedy, and it reflects the shift from a retelling of a
myth of the heroic age told more or less as it had always been told to a re-visioning of that
myth in terms directly relevant to its first audience.
(397-565)
The contrast between Athena’s attitude toward the Furies and Apollo’s could not be more
striking. She feels no fear, she assumes that they are blameless, and she will speak no ill of their
appearance, strange though it is. At the same time, she cannot approve their exclusive focus on
the question of whether Orestes actually killed his mother. The “usual oath” that the Chorus
Leader complains Orestes will not take is the oath he is innocent, and may the gods destroy him
if he lies. But of course the question is not whether he did the deed, but whether he can plead
any justification for it. The Furies reject any idea that such a deed could have any justification,
but Athena has paid them respect, and so they are willing to respect her and accept her
decision. Just as Orestes stayed calm with the help of the image of Athena, now Athena herself
exerts a calming influence on the Furies. Again, an interpretation in terms of depth psychology
is appealing; there is something deeper than reason that must come into action when such
deep guilt is involved, and the goddess who embodies that deeper level must be capable of
welcoming even the ugliest feelings, since only what has been welcomed can be transformed.
On the level of the play that involves human politics, the need Athena sees is for a solution that
involves a new institution, indeed, a completely different way of doing justice. Instead of
individuals taking revenge, let there be a court of law that can hear the arguments on both
sides and administer justice impersonally. Athena says that no individual human being can
decide such a case, and that it is too hard even for a god, yet human beings, and gods, can
forego the old insistence on personal revenge and agree to respect the decision of an
appointed group. That “new” way had been established in Athens for centuries at the time
Aeschylus wrote, but the first two plays of the trilogy have brought alive the suffering of the old
way so acutely that the first audience could feel freshly just what an overwhelmingly important
step that move from personal vengeance to impersonal courts was—as can we.
Not that the Furies are easy in their minds about such a huge change, but a comparison of the
choral ode that ends this scene to the previous choral ode shows the extent to which they have
already been transformed by the influence of Athena. No more wild dancing and spellbinding.
They have a reasoned argument for the need in the world for the kind of fear they inspire, and
they hold up the possibility of a happy life for those who revere Justice. No more spell-blinding,
just the fear of conservatives in every age that if institutions are changed, values may be
destroyed and society may fall apart. One way to see Aeschylus’ purpose here is that he was
reminding Athenian conservatives that the institutions they valued had once been new and had
been seen as threats to traditional values, though they were really a creation of divine forces,
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working with that divine gift to human beings from Zeus so often spoken of in the bleak first
play of the trilogy, the Agamemnon: the capacity to learn from suffering.
(566-777)
There is much here that is extremely strange to a modern audience, and the debates about
meaning have been going on ever since scholars began to write about the play. How should we
see Apollo and his arguments? Did Aeschylus himself believe them? Why are Athena’s reasons
for her decision so purely personal and even arbitrary? Why did Aeschylus make the council
split evenly on the decision?
In the first place, it’s important to remember that the Greeks had no problem with presenting
gods on stage with major flaws, as should already be obvious. Apollo was behind Cassandra’s
suffering in the first play of the trilogy, and we’ve already discussed the contrast between his
attitude to the Furies and Athena’s. In this scene, he only brings out his argument that the
mother isn’t really of the same blood as the child when the Furies have him backed into a
corner; Athena never mentions the argument; and clearly it does not carry overwhelming
weight with the council of judges, since they split evenly on the matter. Apparently the theory
had been advanced by some of the advanced philosophers of the day, one of whom
(Anaxagoras) had been a guest and friend of Pericles for many years, but it was by no means
universally held. Aristotle, in the fourth century, accepted it, and so it prevailed where Aristotle
was considered authoritative in later centuries, but Aristotle himself tells of other theories held
before his time. Given these and other arguments, it seems reasonable to see Aeschylus as
presenting Apollo as an extremist, ready to discard the traditional reverence for the tie
between mother and child in order to establish male dominance beyond question.
Aeschylus, on the other hand, is not so much concerned to establish male dominance (though
he clearly does not challenge it—no one did, in his world) as to show that even the most
difficult question can be resolved if the people respect the will of the majority of the highest
court, even if they completely disagree with it. On such respect, the possibility of a stable
democracy with an effective legal system depends. Changes were happening in Aeschylus’ own
time with which many disagreed, and at times it even seemed the city might sink into civil war.
Only respect for the decision-making process itself could save Athens.
More important than the reasons Athena gives for casting her vote for Orestes are the words
she speaks that echo the words of the Furies. Awe and fear are needed to preserve justice. She
here calls on all to have that kind of awe for the council she has established; in the next scene
she exhorts all to continue to reverence and fear the Furies. In fact, the council of the
Areopagus was closely associated with the Furies. That council had recently been stripped of
many of its powers, leaving it only with jurisdiction in cases of homicide. Aeschylus may well
have been trying to reconcile conservatives to that change by suggesting that the function of
trying cases of homicide was central from the beginning, as well as by showing the utmost
reverence for the council.
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The deeper reconciliation, the one that invites an interpretation in terms of depth psychology,
comes only in the next (and last) scene.
(778-1047)
Orestes is free, the horror of blood-for-blood vengeance has given place (at least within the city
of Athens) to a new institution for deciding cases of homicide, Athens has a new ally in Argos,
and a new age has begun. Why can’t the play end before this last scene?
One answer to that question is that we have yet to see the power of that goddess who makes
civilized life possible, when her power replaces that of violence—the goddess Persuasion. Any
force that plays a crucial role in human life could be thought of as divine in the ancient world,
and what is more crucial than the patient persuasion that converts enemies into friends and
makes it possible for a city to be unified and to prosper? When change comes in a city’s
institutions, and some threaten to resist it with violence, the best hope for reconciliation lies in
persuasion. That was true of Athens in Aeschylus’ day, and by celebrating the persuasion of the
Furies, Aeschylus points to the hope he has for Athens in his own day. No wonder he has
Athena express such gratitude to Persuasion and to Zeus as presider over assemblies (where
the great speakers like Pericles could exercise persuasion).
Another deeper answer to that question may play the largest role in making the Oresteia a play
with universal meaning, however alien some aspects of it may seem to a modern audience.
Again, this is the perspective of depth psychology.
The Furies cannot simply be dismissed in disgrace, as we move into a new “enlightened” age
that is above the barbarism they represent. They embody something real in the human psyche,
something real in the universe. It is something we do not want to be taken over by: we do not
want to become Furies, as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra did. Yet it is something we must
honor. It is only because Athena honors the Furies that a trial is able to happen at all. But that is
not enough. The Furies must be completely accepted, at the deepest level, and then and only
then can the energy they embody be available to be used for creation rather than destruction.
Apollo wanted the Furies to stay underground in the darkness, far away from the light and
order of the world ruled by the Olympian gods—to use the language of psychology, he wanted
them thoroughly repressed. Athena has the Furies enthroned underground, escorted there by a
torchlight procession that brings light into the darkness. To put it another way, Athena herself
combines male and female characteristics, and in honoring the Furies she can be seen as
honoring the dark side of the feminine.
The great final celebratory procession seems to have been designed to remind Athenians of
the great Panathenaia, the oldest and most important festival in Athens, a procession held
every year to celebrate the birth of Athena and her gifts to Athens. The transformation of the
Furies to the Eumenides is symbolized by clothing them in crimson cloaks; during the
Panathenaia, the resident aliens in Athens, “guest workers” allowed to stay in the city because
of the strengths they contributed, were clothed in crimson. Certainly the procession that ends
 16

the play was dear to the Athenian people; when, at the end of the fifth century, Aristophanes,
in his comic masterpiece The Frogs, portrays Aeschylus escorted up from the underworld to
save Athens, the procession is reminiscent of this one. Athens fell to Sparta a year later; this
great Greek tragedy survives, to remind us what it takes for a tragedy to have a joyful ending.