A House in Order

1. A House in Order HUM 2051: Civilization I Fall 2010 Dr. Perdigao September 17, 2010

2. Framing the Trilogy • Aeschylus— “creator of tragedy” (502) • Fought against Persians at Marathon, believed to have fought at Salamis, produced around ninety plays, of which six or seven survive (502) • At the end of The Libation Bearers, Furies appear to Orestes—to avenge matricide • With development of court, move from old era to the beginning of the new (503), with communal justice rather than the “inconclusive anarchy of individual revenge” (503)

3. Shifting Perspectives • “From suffering comes understanding and progress” (504) • “They are all caught in the net, the system of justice by vengeance that only binds tighter the more its captives struggle to free themselves” (505). • Gender asymmetry: “the Furies’ incorporation into Athens represents the appropriation and taming of female power, and it validates the exclusion of women from the civic processes of the democracy—a fact of Athenian daily life. On the other hand, in celebrating the Furies’ roles of maintaining obedience to law through inspiring fear and of promoting natural fertility, the text acknowledges the power of the female, which it associates with the Earth’s natural processes, ‘primitive’ and prior to the male-centered rationality of the city but vital still. The female is given a role in the city, even though she is excluded from its official public life, and that role is celebrated. There is no doubt, however, about the dominance of the patriarchal principle under the authority of the Olympian gods.” (504)

4. Staging the Drama • “The ox is on my tongue” (507) • Chorus: “We are the old, dishonoured ones, / the broken husks of men. / Even then they cast us off, / the rescue mission left us here / to prop a child’s strength upon a stick” (509). • Chorus: “that we must suffer, suffer into truth” (511) • Chorus: “But Justice turns the balance scales, / sees that we suffer / and we suffer and we learn. / And we will know the future when it comes. / Greet it too early, weep too soon. / It all comes clear in the light of day” (513). • Clytaemnestra: “And for his wife, / may he return and find her true at hall, / just as the day he left her, faithful to the last” (522). • Clytaemnestra’s defense—(528-530) “I endured it all.”

5. Tragic Vision • 530-532: Homecoming, walking on tapestries • Chorus: “Agamemnon! / Still it’s chanting, beating deep so deep in the heart, / this dirge of the Furies, oh dear god, / not fit for the lyre, its own master / it kills our spirits / kills our hopes / and it’s real, true, no fantasy— / stark terror whirls the brain / and the end is coming / Justice comes to birth” (532) • Not an epic: “But a man’s lifeblood / is dark and mortal. / Once it wets the earth / what song can sing it back?” (533) • Cassandra: “Oh no, what horror, what new plot, / new agony this? . . . how to tell the climax?” (535)

6. Hell hath no fury… • Clytaemnestra: “Here I stand and here I struck / and here my work is done. / I did it all. I don’t deny it, no. / He had no way to flee or fight his destiny-- / our never-ending, all embracing net, I cast it / wide for the royal haul, I coil him round and round / in the wealth, the robes of doom, and then I strike him. . . and the murderous shower / wounds me, dyes me black and I, I revel / like the Earth when the spring rains come down. . . So it stands, elders of Argos gathered here. / Rejoice if you can rejoice—I glory. / And if I’d pour upon his body the libation / it deserves, what whine would match my words?” (543-544). • Clytaemnestra: “No more, my dearest, / no more grief. We have too much to reap / right here, our mighty harvest of despair. / Our lives are based on pain. No bloodshed now.” (550)

7. Last Words • Agamemnon, Clytaemnestra: “Let them howl—they’re impotent. You and I have / power now. / We will set the house in order once for all” (550). • The Libation Bearers, Chorus: “Where will it end?— / where will it sink to sleep and rest, / this murderous hate, this Fury?” (578) • The Eumenides, The Women of the City: “Cry, cry in triumph, carry on the dancing on and on!” (606).