Eumenides

“My lord Apollo, you understand what it means to do

No wrong. Learn also what it is not to neglect.

None can mistrust your power to do good, if you will.”

It is common for mortal characters in Attic tragedy to speak of the gods’ power to do good and to model righteous behavior—even if the gods do not always choose to do so. In Eumenides, Apollo is determined to help Orestes and thus demonstrate that he does know “what it is not to neglect.” At the same time, Apollo is the one who encouraged Orestes to kill his mother in the first place, an instruction whose moral rightness is certainly questionable.

“I suffered too, horribly, and from those most dear,

Yet none among the powers is angered for my sake

That I was slaughtered, and by matricidal hands.”

The Ghost of Clytemnestra wakes the Furies by reminding them of what she has suffered—being killed by the “matricidal hands” of her own son. Orestes, polluted with the blood of his own mother, must be punished by the Furies, who serve as the agents of blood-guilt; the Furies now neglect their duty by sleeping as Orestes makes for Athens.

“A young god, you have ridden down powers gray with age,

Honored the suppliant, though a godless man, who hurt

The mother who gave him birth.

Yourself a god, you stole the matricide away.

Where in this act shall any man say there is right?”

The Furies denounce Apollo as one of the new generations of younger gods who tread on the privileges of the older gods, including themselves. Now Apollo has helped the sinner Orestes, who must be punished for transgressing primordial laws by killing his own mother. These lines introduce some of the important distinctions between the values of the old and new gods, with the Furies’ hatred of Orestes highlighting the importance of feminine and maternal forces among the old gods, in contrast to the masculine and paternal forces that prevail among the new gods.

“Your own part in this is more than accessory.

You are the one who did it; all the guilt is yours.”

The Furies tell Apollo that he shares Orestes’s guilt for the murder of Clytemnestra because it was he who commanded Orestes to go through with the crime. Indeed, Apollo, so closely bound with the murder of Clytemnestra, admits his responsibility in the matter and will continue to advocate for Orestes until the moment the man is acquitted.

“But I shall give this suppliant help and rescue, for

If I willingly fail him who turns to me for aid,

His wrath, before gods and men, is a fearful thing.”

Before he exits at the end of the first episode, Apollo reiterates his commitment to helping Orestes, emphasizing, significantly, that even gods prefer to avoid angering those who seek their aid. We must remember, though, that it was Apollo who encouraged Orestes to kill his mother in the first place—Apollo is, in an important sense, responsible for Orestes’s actions.

“Over the beast doomed to the fire

This is the chant, scatter of wits,

Frenzy and fear, hurting the heart,

Song of the Furies

Binding brain and blighting blood

In its stringless melody.”

The Chorus of Furies chant as they dance around Orestes, singing a spell of “binding brain and bighting blood.” The striking ritualism of this dance underscores Orestes’s quasi-ritual role as sacrificial victim of the Furies.

“This the purpose that all-involving

Destiny spun, to be ours and to be shaken

Never: when mortals assume outrage

Of their own hand in violence,

These we hound, till one goes

Under earth. Nor does death

Set them altogether free.”

The Furies state their function: visiting vengeance on human beings who have spilled another’s blood or committed violence, and tormenting such wrongdoers eternally, even after they have gone “under earth.” But whereas it was typically possible in ancient Greece for people to be purified of this kind of blood-guilt, the Furies refuse to accept the purification of Orestes because he killed his own mother—a deeper and more sinful kind of transgression.

“This is the place of the just. Its rights forbid

To speak evil of another who is without blame.”

The Athenian Aeschylus has Athena engage in a bit of patriotic grandiloquence, defining Athens as “the place of the just.” From an Athenian perspective, it is only natural that Orestes should have his case heard out in a city as notable for its legal system as Athens.

“We drive from home those who have shed the blood of men.”

Interrogated by Athena, the Furies explicitly state that their function is to punish those who have committed murder (this seems to have been their chief function in other sources on Greek religion and myth as well). Yet it is clear that Orestes’s crime of matricide is particularly upsetting to them, and thus deserving of more severe retribution. In challenging this function of the Furies, the trial of Orestes will allow for the introduction of a new divine order and a new definition of justice as an impartial and civically controlled process.

“My father was dear, and this was vengeance for his blood.

Apollo shares responsibility for this.

He counterspurred my heart and told me of pains to come

If I should fail to act against the guilty ones.

This is my case. Decide if it be right or wrong.”

Orestes presents his case to Athena, arguing that he was justified in avenging his death and pointing out that it was no less an authority than Apollo who encouraged his deed. Orestes’s summation of his case, his reference to his “dear” father, and his deference to the authority of Apollo illustrate where his loyalties lie: Orestes is a product of the world of the new generation of gods, gods who represent the masculine and paternal generative principle over that of the maternal.

“There is

Advantage

In the wisdom won from pain.”

The Furies advertise the value of their harsh enforcement of justice by pointing out that fear and suffering are sometimes necessary for human society to function properly. These lines also reiterate the idea that wisdom comes from pain and suffering, a central idea in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, the first play of the Oresteia trilogy. This seemingly endless cycle of bloodshed is ultimately resolved in Eumenides, the final play of the trilogy, with the trial and acquittal of Orestes.

“He had good luck in his life. Now

He smashes on the reef of right

And drowns, unwept and forgotten.”

Nobody can escape the punishment of the Furies. Even those who prosper can have their fortunes overturned by the Furies and the powers of fate, as the Furies declare, thereby appropriating the theme of the changeability of fortune, itself so ubiquitous in ancient Greek literature.

“Yours to bear witness now, Apollo, and expound

The case for me, if I was right to cut her down.

I will not deny I did this thing, because I did

Do it. But was the bloodshed right or not? Decide

And answer.”

As the Furies complete their cross-examination, Orestes emphasizes that he freely confesses to having murdered his mother: What is at issue is whether he was justified in doing so. But Orestes does not make his case himself; rather, he calls on Apollo, the god who instructed him to kill Clytemnestra in the first place, to speak for him. Thus, Orestes allows his trial to become a contest between the values of the older generation of gods (represented by the Furies) and those of the newer generation of gods (represented by Apollo).

“I will tell you, and I will answer correctly. Watch.

The mother is no parent of that which is called

Her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed

That grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she

Preserves a stranger’s seed, if no god interfere.”

Apollo argues that only fathers are biologically related to their children, since they supply the seed from which children are born—a pseudo-scientific argument that rests on evidence from myth (namely, the myth that the goddess Athena was born from the head of her father Zeus without a mother). This argument’s ultimate victory reflects the patriarchal orientation of the new gods, and, more broadly, it also reflects the male-centered view of the world prevalent in the ancient Greek world.

“If it please you, men of Attica, hear my decree

Now, as you judge this case, the first trial for bloodshed.

For Aegeus’ population, this forevermore

Shall be the ground where justices deliberate.”

Athena’s description of the trial of Orestes as the “first trial for bloodshed” to be tried at the newly-minted court of the Areopagus is an etiological myth, or a myth describing the origin of a contemporary institution or custom. Yet in other sources, the Areopagus originated when the god Ares was tried for murdering Halirrhothius, a son of the god Poseidon. Aeschylus thus highlights what may have been his own innovation of commonly accepted tradition.

“It is my task to render final judgment here.

This is a ballot for Orestes I shall cast.

There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth,

And, but for marriage, I am always for the male

With all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side.

So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord

Of the house, I shall not value her death more highly than his.”

Athena votes to acquit Orestes, apparently concurring with Apollo that her birth without a mother is evidence that a mother is not biologically related to her child and that there is thus no reason to value Clytemnestra’s death “more highly” than Agamemnon’s. Athena herself, a goddess of the newer generation, shows herself to be aligned with patriarchal powers (“I am always for the male / With all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side”), but at the same time, her being a female goddess allows her to find space for the matriarchal old gods in the new patriarchy.

“The man before us has escaped the charge of blood.

The ballots are in equal number for each side.”

In announcing that Orestes has been acquitted of his mother’s murder, Athena proclaims the end of the cycle of violence and retribution that marked the narrative of the Oresteia thus far. Athena also establishes the precedent that equal votes mean acquittal rather than conviction, a precedent that was maintained in historical Athens, and thus serves as one of the play’s many embedded etiologies.

“Gods of the younger generation, you have ridden down

The laws of the elder time, torn them out of my hands.”

The Furies, not ready to let Orestes go so easily, rage against Athena and the “gods of the younger generation” who have challenged their power. For all their threats, though, the Furies and their primordial laws will be defeated when Athena mollifies the Furies by offering them new cult honors in Athens. In the end, the “laws of the elder time”—laws of retribution and vendetta—are allowed to lapse and a new idea of justice based on legal due process takes their place.

“In complete honesty I promise you a place

Of your own, deep hidden underground that is yours by right

Where you shall sit on shining chairs beside the Hearth

To accept devotions offered by your citizens.”

Athena seeks to placate the furious Furies by promising them new cult honors at Athens, probably corresponding to the real cult honors offered in historical Athens to the goddesses known as the Semnai Theai. In making these promises, Athena seeks to alter the very nature of the Furies, remaking them into gentle goddesses who accept offerings from willing worshipers rather than vengeful punishers of vendetta.

“No, not dishonored. You are goddesses. Do not

In too much anger make this place of mortal men

Uninhabitable. I have Zeus behind me. Do

We need to speak of that? I am the only god

Who knows the keys to where his thunderbolts are locked.

We do not need such, do we?”

In these lines, Athena displays the wisdom that was her divine domain, cunningly working on the Furies to steer them toward her will by diplomatically acknowledging that they are goddesses, while reminding them of her own privileged position as a daughter of Zeus. Athena prefers to use persuasion and argument to dissuade the Furies from doing harm to a land that could offer them worship. At the same time, her reminder to the Furies that she has access to the thunderbolts of Zeus serves as a subtle threat of force.

“I will bear your angers. You are elder born than I

And in that you are wiser far than I. Yet still

Zeus gave me too intelligence not to be despised.”

Athena maintains her diplomatic and deferential treatment of the Furies as she slowly convinces them to accept her offer for new cult honors at Athens, acknowledging that they are “elder born” and even “wiser far” than she is—a marked rhetorical concession for a goddess whose most important domain is wisdom. Yet Athena too has something of the older gods in her, for she too is female, and she also has “intelligence not to be despised,” as she also reminds the Furies—not to mention the backing of Zeus, the supreme god.

“I accept this home at Athena’s side.

I shall not forget the cause

Of this city, which Zeus all powerful and Ares

Rule, stronghold of divinities,

Glory of Hellene gods, their guarded altar.

So with forecast of good

I sing this prayer for them

That the sun’s bright magnificence shall break out wave

On wave of all the happiness

Life can give, across their land.”

The Furies are finally convinced to accept Athena’s offer to receive new cult honors at Athens, and in so doing they transform from goddesses of retribution and vendetta to gentler goddesses connected with light and joy. The Furies’ acceptance of their new role is an implicit surrender to the power of the new gods and their worldview.

“In the fearsome look of the faces of these

I see great good for our citizens.

While with goodwill you hold in high honor

These Kindly Spirits, their will shall be good, as you steer

Your city, your land

On an upright course clear through to the end.”

Athena renames the Furies as “Kindly Spirits” who will replace their pursuit of vendetta with goodwill and protection for her city of Athens. Of course, this title is somewhat euphemistic, as the Furies remain enforcers of justice as they steer Athens “on an upright course,” but the justice they represent now encompasses codified law and social order rather than the perpetuation of private retribution.