Aeschylus: The Oresteia Madeleine Scherer;

Overview 1. Background 2. Staging Conventions 3. The Space of the Stage 4. Major Themes 5. Adaptations

Aeschylus c.523BCE- 456BCE (approx. age: 67) First of the “Great Tragedians”

The City Dionysia

The Stage Source: ms.jpg ms.jpg

Themes

Theme: Male and Female Painting by Pierre Narcisse Guerin

Male and Female Clytemnestra, we come to you as we would to our clanchief for it's right that we honour the wife of the clanchief when the manlord himself's not here on the thronestone. It is good news and firm news or mere wishful thinking that makes you sacrifice now on the godstones? (10)

Male And Female Don't turn your hatred on Helen my she-kin Don't think she alone brought the Greeks to their ruin as though only she were the cause of their anguish (43)

Theme: Oikos and Polis Source: res.cloudinary.com/image/private/s--5iqIoLma-- /c_limit,g_center,h_550,w_65535/a_auto,fl_keep_iptc.pr ogressive,q_95/ oresteia_3.jpgoresteia_robertday.jpghttps://format-com-cld- res.cloudinary.com/image/private/s--5iqIoLma-- /c_limit,g_center,h_550,w_65535/a_auto,fl_keep_iptc.pr ogressive,q_95/ oresteia_3.jpgoresteia_robertday.jpg

Theme: cyclical Violence Source:

Cyclical Violence Bloodflow for bloodflow deathblow for deathblow blood-debt for blood-debt keeping the blades wet (57)

Theme: Dike; Justice Source: pg pg

Paris is described as ‘the man who kicked the altar of dike ̄ ’ (Aga. 382–3); dike ̄ is said to enforce Zeus’s rule that ‘learning comes from experience’ (Aga. 250–1); the destruction of Troy is from ‘Zeus who brings dike ̄ ’ (Aga. 525–6); Agamemnon sees himself as the agent of dike ̄ in the destruction of Troy (Aga. 813); Clytemnestra sees herself as the agent of dike ̄ in the destruction of Agamemnon (Aga. 1432); the chorus warns that ‘Dike ̄ is being sharpened to new deeds of harm on new whetstones of fate’ (Aga. 1535–6). So, in the Choephoroi, Orestes arrives as an agent of dike ̄ (Cho. 641–5); and the chorus sings that (Cho. 931) ‘Dike ̄ came to the sons of Priam in time...’ and so to the house of Agamemnon has come dike ̄, the daughter of Zeus.

Electra, however, expressly introduces a distinction: when she is exhorted by the chorus to pray for the arrival of a saviour, she asks if they mean (Cho. 120) ‘a juror or someone who brings retribution’, a dikastes or a dikephoros. The chorus retorts that they just want someone to kill in return, but Electra’s distinction looks forward to the Eumenides, where the Furies’ pursuit of dike ̄, retribution, leads to a trial, dikai, before jurors, dikastai, who evaluate the justice, dike ̄, of the case. ‘Revere the altar of dike ̄ ’, sings the chorus (Eum. 539), recalling the language used of Paris’ transgression in the Agamemnon. And it is finally with the dike ̄ of the city that the Oresteia ends (Eum. 993–4). (Goldhill The Oresteia 28-29)

THeme: The Old and New Source: profile-full/04/ _ jpg profile-full/04/ _ jpg