Seeing the Furies asleep, Clytemnestra's ghost comes to wake them up to obtain justice on her son Orestes for killing her. Upon the return of Agamemnon, his wife laments in full view of Argos how horrible the wait for her husband, and King, has been. There are many didactic motives in the Oresteia, one of them being the matter of moral responsibility. [2] Oresteia originally included a satyr play, Proteus (Πρωτεύς), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of Proteus has been lost. By Athena creating this blueprint the future of revenge-killings and the merciless hunting of the Furies would be eliminated from Greece. The Oresteia acts as a warning to those who believed in an absolutely binary of Good vs. "The satyrs who may have found themselves on the island as a result of shipwreck . [9] However, through the intervention of Apollo, Orestes is able to escape them for a brief moment while they are asleep and head to Athens under the protection of Hermes. b. The House of Atreus began with Tantalus, son of Zeus, who murdered his son, Pelops, and attempted to feed him to the gods. Cassandra is ordered out of her chariot and to the altar where, once she is alone, is heard crying out insane prophecies to Apollo about the death of Agamemnon and her own shared fate. When the doors are finally opened, Clytemnestra is seen standing over the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra. Once the trial concluded, Athena proclaimed the innocence of Orestes and he was set free from the Furies. The chorus separate from one another and ramble to themselves, proving their cowardice, when another final cry is heard. Both sides of the argument stand; that because of the circumstances surrounding his actions, Agamemnon cannot be seen as morally responsible, or, no matter the circumstances, he was morally responsible for killing his daughter. Waiting at home for Agamemnon is his wife, Queen Clytemnestra, who has been planning his murder. -Milton 2. Law in Society, the setting up of a court of justice that this section. b. Divine justice is either slow or the wronged mortals have no confidence in d. The price to society of the war dead and the attrition of bereavement. -Milton [10], After waking up, the Furies hunt down Orestes again and when they find him, Orestes pleads to the goddess Athena for help and she responds by setting up a trial for him in Athens on the Areopagus. [1] It is important that Athena did not just forgive Orestes and forbid the Furies from chasing him, she intended to put him to a trial and find a just answer to the question regarding his innocence. Revenge Agamemnon is the first play in The Oresteia , Aeschylus’ trilogy of tragedies which portray a set of revenges, each leading to the next in a vicious cycle, in the House of Atreus (the family and descendants of Atreus, Agamemnon ’s father). b. The King's new concubine, Cassandra, is now introduced and this immediately spawns hatred from the queen, Clytemnestra. And even after he gets away from them Clytemnestra's spirit comes back to rally them again so that they can kill Orestes and obtain vengeance for her. REVENGE Composed of three elements: a. to some extent heavenly gods vs. chthonic (underworld deities because These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. The following year, in 2016, playwright Zinnie Harris premiered her adaptation, This Restless House, at the Citizen's Theatre to five-star critical acclaim. much as Renaissance humanism was questioning it. Alan Sommerstein: Aeschylus Fragments, Loeb Classical Library, 2008, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "An inexhaustible masterpiece is transformed into a glib anti-war morality play", "Ancient Greek tragedy Oresteia receives surprise West End transfer", "This Restless House five star review Zinnie Harris", "The Forgotten Pistolero Review by Korano", "Theatre review: The Oresteia at York Theatre Royal Studio", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oresteia&oldid=982675132, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Articles needing additional references from January 2017, All articles needing additional references, Articles that may contain original research from January 2017, All articles that may contain original research, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz work identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, 2008: Theatre professor Ethan Sinnott directed an. 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