You are amazing! Thank you so much for doing this class. I really appreciate the enthusiasm, caring, and patience that you showed our kids. I really hope to keep my child engaged in theatre. I am so thankful her first taste was through your organization and with you in particular.” Raaflaub, Kurt (1974). "Conceptualizing and Theorizing Peace in Ancient Greece". Transactions of the American Philological Association. 129 (2): 225–250. JSTOR 40651971. For more on the complexity of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, see Bednarowski, P. K. (2015). Surprise and Suspense in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. American Journal of Philology, 136(2), 179–205. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2015.0030 Interestingly, the gender conflict is finally resolved by a woman – the goddess Athene – but not in favor of women. On the contrary: the very fact that Athene doesn’t have a mother is used as an argument in support of Apollo’s and Orestes’ claim that a mother is less of a parent than a father, and, thus, punishing a matricide is beyond the moral realm of the Erinyes. Athena agrees with this assessment and votes for the acquittal of Orestes; her vote turns out to be the deciding one.

The Yoke Of Necessity: The Oresteia Of Aeschlyus Translated

newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}}}\) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)Vellacot, Philip (1984). "Aeschylus' Orestes". The Classical World. The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States. 77 (3): 145–157. doi: 10.2307/4349540. JSTOR 4349540.

The Oresteia of Aeschylus by Jeffrey Scott Bernstein

However, we can guess, with reasonable certainty, that it dramatized the adventures of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus in Egypt, for two reasons. Firstly, in the second episode of Agamemnon, the Herald mentions specifically that he does not know whether or not Menelaus’ ship has survived; and secondly, in the fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey, we are informed that Menelaus ends up on the island of Pharos, the home of the “unerring old man of the sea, the immortal Proteus of Egypt.” These murders echo those of Agamemnon and Cassandra in the previous play, though they are represented very differently. Clytemnestra luxuriates in the bloody slaughter of her husband, but Orestes hesitates, especially when Clytemnestra bares her breast to remind him that the body he threatens to kill is the source of his life. At the play’s end, Orestes presents the murders as an act of political liberation, freeing Argos from a ‘pair of tyrants’; but he begins to see visions of the Furies, the doglike, snake-haired goddesses who pursue and torture those who shed the blood of their own family members. Ruden echoes the riddling strangeness of Aeschylus’ language but makes the puzzle more or less possible to solve.

The Oresteia of Aeschylus

If Bernstein doesn’t stray far from the path of convention, his reworking of this cornerstone of the Tragic oeuvre adds a new, and highly accessible, richness to a story which has been told and re-told over two and a half millennia of depressingly consistent human endeavour. Chris Tandy as Odysseus in the Mark Bruce Company’s 2016 dance version. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Agamemnon – the former king of Argos and the father of Orestes and Electra, Agamemnon was murdered by Aegisthus prior to the story's onset. Orestes' desire to avenge his father's death is a major plot device in the play. Sartre's idea of freedom specifically requires that the being-for-itself be neither a being-for-others nor a being-in-itself. A being-for-others occurs when human beings accept morals thrust onto them by others. A being-in-itself occurs when human beings do not separate themselves from objects of nature. Zeus represents both a moral norm, the Good, and Nature. Freedom is not the ability to physically do whatever one wants. It is the ability to mentally interpret one's own life for oneself—to define oneself and create one's own values. Even the slave can interpret his or her life in different ways, and in this sense the slave is free. When Electra repudiates her crime, Orestes says that she is bringing guilt on herself. Guilt results from the failure to accept responsibility for one's actions as a product of one's freedom. To repudiate one's actions is to agree that it was wrong to take those actions in the first place. In doing this, Electra repudiates her ability to freely choose her own values (to Sartre, an act of bad faith). Instead, she accepts the values that Zeus imposes on her. In repudiating the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Electra allows Zeus to determine her past for her. She surrenders her freedom by letting her past take on a meaning that she did not give to it by herself, and as a result she becomes bound to a meaning that did not come from her. Electra can choose, like Orestes, to see the murders as right and therefore to reject feelings of guilt. Instead, she allows Zeus to tell her that the murders were wrong and to implicate her in a crime.

Oresteia | Penguin Random House Higher Education The Oresteia | Penguin Random House Higher Education

The second great female character in the Agamemnon is Cassandra, who seems, on her first entrance, to have a non-speaking role. In 458 BC, tragedians had only recently begun to use three actors rather than two, and Aeschylus brilliantly exploits the audience’s expectations to create surprise and confusion when the third actor, playing the foreign woman enslaved by Agamemnon, speaks. Still more surprising, the outsider turns out to know far more than any native-born Greek about the house of Argos – where, as she well knows, she will die alongside her captor. Queen Clytemnestra’s aggression, deceit and violence are counterbalanced by the insight and courage of Cassandra, who is blessed and cursed by Apollo with the gift of prophecy; she sets aside grieving for herself and her ruined city to step towards a death that will, as she also knows, bring down her killers. What makes all these plays so riveting is precisely this ambivalence and ambiguity, for characters are multi-layered, and actions can be both right and wrong within the context Aeschylus presents, so that our sympathies and understanding are constantly shifting and being challenged. Perhaps, though, audiences both ancient and modern will have had similar responses to the sheer audacity of Agamemnon’s final command to Clytemnestra, to look after his war-trophy mistress, Cassandra: Canadian author Anne Carson's An Oresteia, an adaptation featuring episodes from the Oresteia from three different playwrights: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Electra, and Euripides' Orestes. Smyth, H. W. (1930). Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides, Fragments. Harvard University Press. p.455. ISBN 0-674-99161-3. With our 2021-2022 season, we are thrilled to introduce you to our new, all-female board. Be sure to say hello if you see them at our shows!The Oresteia of Aeschylus - translated by Jeffrey Scott Bernstein with masks by Tom Phillips is published by Carcanet.

Jill Sharp on a new version of the Oresteia | The High Window

Cassandra, a prophetess cursed by Apollo not to be believed by anyone, senses this outcome. Even so, she decides to enter the palace as well, believing this to be her inevitable fate. Indeed, it is: Clytemnestra murders both Agamemnon and her, and defends this decision before the Chorus of Argive Elders as a just act of revenge for Agamemnon having sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the gods for a transgression of his own – killing Artemis’ sacred deer. The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister Electra in their quest to avenge the death of their father Agamemnon, king of Argos, by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her husband Aegisthus, who had deposed and killed him. To the anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen ( Das Mutterrecht, 1861), the Oresteia shows Ancient Greece's transition from "hetaerism" ( polyamory) to monogamy; and from "mother-right" ( matriarchal lineage) to "father-right" ( patriarchal lineage). According to Bachofen, religious laws changed in this period: the Apollo and Athena of The Eumenides present the patriarchal view. The Furies contrast what they call "gods of new descent" with the view that matricide is more serious than the killing of men. With Athena acquitting Orestes, and the Furies working for the new gods, The Eumenides shows the newfound dominance of father-right over mother-right. [21] Thank you for creating a space where my son feels safe to take risks. He looks forward to being a part of the Newton Theatre Kids community and cast each week.” The play opens to a watchman looking down and over the sea, reporting that he has been lying restless "like a dog" for a year, waiting to see some sort of signal confirming a Greek victory in Troy. He laments the fortunes of the house, but promises to keep silent: "A huge ox has stepped onto my tongue." The watchman sees a light far off in the distance—a bonfire signaling Troy's fall—and is overjoyed at the victory and hopes for the hasty return of his King, as the house has "wallowed" in his absence. Clytemnestra is introduced to the audience and she declares that there will be celebrations and sacrifices throughout the city as Agamemnon and his army return. [ citation needed]

Furies – also known as the Erinyes or "infernal goddesses", the Furies serve as Zeus' enforcers in Argos and punish those who swear false oaths. a b Engels, Friedrich (1891). "Preface (4th ed.)". The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (4thed.). But even if Taplin loses some of the original’s linguistic complexity, he has created an English version full of sonic and metaphorical wealth, as when the Chorus sings of an obscure fate that should be spoken, but is not: Theatre credits include: Jersey Boys (Norwegian Cruise Line), Songs for a New World (Electric Theatre, Guildford), Disco Inferno (UK Tour), Thursford Christmas Spectacular (Thursford, Norfolk), Chess (The Union Theatre, London). The Flies also shows the effect of Nietzsche on Sartre. Orestes represents the idea of the overman, as described in works such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra; the ability to free one's mind from dogma and the impressions of others, and instead think on a higher level. Like Zarathustra, Orestes feels he must "go down" to the people and open their eyes (though unlike Zarathustra, Orestes does it out of compassion). When debating Zeus, Orestes also talks about being "beyond" the moral yoke others allow to be placed on them - an idea explicitly discussed in Beyond Good and Evil, and implicitly described in other works by Nietzsche. Orestes is not bound by the false dichotomy of "good" and "evil," and instead accepts what has been done, choosing to focus on the present and the future.