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Aeschylus
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Aeschylus
Greek dramatist
born 525/524 bc
died 456/455 bc, Gela, Sicily
Main
the first of classical Athens’ great dramatists, who raised the emerging
art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power.
Life and career
Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy,
having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to
prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders
from abroad. Aeschylus himself took part in his city’s first struggles
against the invading Persians. Later Greek chroniclers believed that
Aeschylus was 35 years old in 490 bc when he participated in the Battle
of Marathon, in which the Athenians first repelled the Persians; if this
is true it would place his birth in 525 bc. Aeschylus’ father’s name was
Euphorion, and the family probably lived at Eleusis (west of Athens).
Aeschylus was a notable participant in Athens’ major dramatic
competition, the Great Dionysia, which was a part of the festival of
Dionysus. Every year at this festival, each of three dramatists would
produce three tragedies, which either could be unconnected in plot
sequence or could have a connecting theme. This trilogy was followed by
a satyr play, which was a kind of lighthearted burlesque. Aeschylus is
recorded as having participated in this competition, probably for the
first time, in 499 bc. He won his first victory in the theatre in the
spring of 484 bc. In the meantime, he had fought and possibly been
wounded at Marathon, and Aeschylus singled out his participation in this
battle years later for mention on the verse epitaph he wrote for
himself. Aeschylus’ brother was killed in this battle. In 480 the
Persians again invaded Greece, and once again Aeschylus saw service,
fighting at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. His responses to the
Persian invasion found expression in his play Persians, the earliest of
his works to survive. This play was produced in the competition of the
spring of 472 bc and won first prize.
Around this time Aeschylus is said to have visited Sicily to present
Persians again at the tyrant Hieron I’s court in Syracuse. Aeschylus’
later career is a record of sustained dramatic success, though he is
said to have suffered one memorable defeat, at the hands of the novice
Sophocles, whose entry at the Dionysian festival of 468 bc was
victorious over the older poet’s entry. Aeschylus recouped the loss with
victory in the next year, 467, with his Oedipus trilogy (of which the
third play, Seven Against Thebes, survives). After producing the
masterpiece among his extant works, the Oresteia trilogy, in 458,
Aeschylus went to Sicily again. The chronographers recorded Aeschylus’
death at Gela (on Sicily’s south coast) in 456/455, aged 69. A ludicrous
story that he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald
pate was presumably fabricated by a later comic writer. At Gela he was
accorded a public funeral, with sacrifices and dramatic performances
held at his grave, which subsequently became a place of pilgrimage for
writers.
Aeschylus wrote approximately 90 plays, including satyr plays as well
as tragedies; of these, about 80 titles are known. Only seven tragedies
have survived entire. One account, perhaps based on the official lists,
assigns Aeschylus 13 first prizes, or victories; this would mean that
well over half of his plays won, since sets of four plays rather than
separate ones were judged. According to the philosopher Flavius
Philostratus, Aeschylus was known as the “Father of Tragedy.” Aeschylus’
two sons also achieved prominence as tragedians. One of them, Euphorion,
won first prize in his own right in 431 bc over Sophocles and Euripides.
Dramatic and literary achievements
Aeschylus’ influence on the development of tragedy was fundamental.
Previous to him, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who became known
as the protagonist, meaning first actor, once others were added) and a
chorus engaged in a largely static recitation. (The chorus was a group
of actors who responded to and commented on the main action of a play
with song, dance, and recitation.) The actor could assume different
roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in
dialogue only with the chorus. By adding a second actor (the
deuteragonist, or second actor) with whom the first could converse,
Aeschylus vastly increased the drama’s possibilities for dialogue and
dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot
construction. Although the dominance of the chorus in early tragedy is
ultimately only hypothesis, it is probably true that, as Aristotle says
in his Poetics, Aeschylus “reduced the chorus’ role and made the plot
the leading actor.” Aeschylus was an innovator in other ways as well. He
made good use of stage settings and stage machinery, and some of his
works were noted for their spectacular scenic effects. He also designed
costumes, trained his choruses in their songs and dances, and probably
acted in most of his own plays, this being the usual practice among
Greek dramatists.
But Aeschylus’ formal innovations account for only part of his
achievement. His plays are of lasting literary value in their majestic
and compelling lyrical language, in the intricate architecture of their
plots, and in the universal themes which they explore so honestly.
Aeschylus’ language in both dialogue and choral lyric is marked by
force, majesty, and emotional intensity. He makes bold use of compound
epithets, metaphors, and figurative turns of speech, but this rich
language is firmly harnessed to the dramatic action rather than used as
mere decoration. It is characteristic of Aeschylus to sustain an image
or group of images throughout a play; the ship of state in Seven Against
Thebes, the birds of prey in Suppliants, the snare in Agamemnon. More
generally, Aeschylus deploys throughout a play or trilogy of plays
several leading motifs that are often associated with a particular word
or group of words. In the Oresteia, for example, such themes as wrath,
mastery, persuasion, and the contrasts of light and darkness, of dirge
and triumphal song, run throughout the trilogy. This sort of dramatic
orchestration as applied to careful plot construction enabled Aeschylus
to give Greek drama a more truly artistic and intellectual form.
Aeschylean tragedy deals with the plights, decisions, and fates of
individuals with whom the destiny of the community or state is closely
bound up; in turn, both individual and community stand in close relation
to the gods. Personal, social, and religious issues are thus integrated,
as they still were in the Greek civilization of the poet’s time.
Theodicy (i.e., the justifying of the gods’ ways to men) was in some
sense the concern of Aeschylus, though it might be truer to say that he
aimed through dramatic conflict to throw light on the nature of divine
justice. Aeschylus and his Greek contemporaries believed that the gods
begrudged human greatness and sent infatuation on a man at the height of
his success, thus bringing him to disaster. Man’s infatuated act was
frequently one of impiety or pride (hubris), for which his downfall
could be seen as a just punishment. In this scheme of things, divine
jealousy and eternal justice formed the common fabric of a moral order
of which Zeus, supreme among the gods, was the guardian.
But the unjust are not always punished in their lifetime; it is upon
their descendants that justice may fall. It was this tradition of belief
in a just Zeus and in hereditary guilt that Aeschylus received, and
which is evinced in many of his plays. The simplest illustration of this
is in Persians, in which Xerxes and his invading Persians are punished
for their own offenses. But in a play such as Agamemnon, the issues of
just punishment and moral responsibility, of human innocence and guilt,
of individual freedom versus evil heredity and divine compulsion are
more complex and less easily disentangled, thus presenting
contradictions which still baffle the human intellect.
Finally, to Aeschylus, divine justice uses human motives to carry out
its decrees. Chief among these motives is the desire for vengeance,
which was basic to the ancient Greek scheme of values. In the one
complete extant trilogy, the Oresteia, this notion of vengeance or
retaliation is dominant. Retaliation is a motive of Agamemnon,
Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, and Orestes. But significantly, the chain of
retaliatory murder that pursues Agamemnon and his family ends not by a
perfect balance of blood guilt, not by a further perpetuation of
violence, but rather through reconciliation and the rule of law as
established by Athena and the Athenian courts of justice.
Aeschylus is almost unequaled in writing tragedy that, for all its
power of depicting evil and the fear and consequences of evil, ends, as
in the Oresteia, in joy and reconciliation. Living at a time when the
Greek people still truly felt themselves surrounded by the gods,
Aeschylus nevertheless had a capacity for detached and general thought,
which was typically Greek and which enabled him to treat the fundamental
problem of evil with singular honesty and success.
The plays » Persians
One of a trilogy of unconnected tragedies presented in 472 bc, Persians
(Greek Persai) is unique among surviving tragedies in that it dramatizes
recent history rather than events from the distant age of mythical
heroes. The play treats the decisive repulse of the Persians from Greece
in 480, in particular their defeat at the Battle of Salamis. The play is
set in the Persian capital, where a messenger brings news to the Persian
queen of the disaster at Salamis. After attributing the defeat of Persia
to both Greek independence and bravery and to the gods’ punishment of
Persian folly for going outside the bounds of Asia, the play ends with
the return of the broken and humiliated Persian king, Xerxes.
The plays » Seven Against Thebes
This is the third and only surviving play of a connected trilogy,
presented in 467 bc, that dealt with the impious transgressions of Laius
and the doom subsequently inflicted upon his descendants. The first play
seems to have shown how Laius, king of Thebes, had a son despite the
prohibition of the oracle of the god Apollo. In the second play it
appears that that son, Oedipus, killed his father and laid a curse on
his own two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices. In Seven Against Thebes
(Greek Hepta epi Thēbais) Eteocles is shown leading the defense of the
city of Thebes against an invading army led by his brother Polyneices
and six chieftains from the south of Greece who are bent on placing
Polyneices on the Theban throne. Eteocles assigns defenders to each of
six of the seven gates of Thebes; but he insists on fighting at the
seventh gate, where his opponent will be Polyneices. There the brothers
kill each other, and the Theban royal family is thus exterminated,
bringing to an end the horrors set in motion by Laius’ defiance of the
gods.
The plays » Suppliants
This is the first and only surviving play of a trilogy probably put on
in 463. It was long believed by scholars that Suppliants (Greek
Hiketides; Latin Supplices) was one of Aeschylus’ earliest plays because
of its archaic structure; its chorus, representing the daughters of
Danaus (the Danaïds), takes the leading role in the action. But there is
now evidence that the trilogy of which Suppliants formed a part was
produced in competition with Sophocles, who is first known to have
competed in 468. Suppliants thus dates presumably from the middle of
Aeschylus’ career, not from the beginning.
Born in Egypt, though of Greek descent, the Danaïds have fled with
their father to Argos in Greece in order to avoid forced marriage with
their cousins, the sons of Aegyptus. Pelasgus, the king of Argos, is
torn between charity to the Danaïds and anxiety to appease Aegyptus but
nobly agrees in the end to grant them asylum. The trilogy as a whole
seems to have favourably stressed the saving power of domestic love as
contrasted with both the willful virginity of the Danaïds and the
unfeeling, violent lust of their cousins.
The plays » Oresteia
The Oresteia trilogy consists of three closely connected plays, all
extant, that were presented in 458 bc. In Agamemnon the great Greek king
of that name returns triumphant from the siege of Troy, along with his
concubine, the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, only to be humiliated and
murdered by his fiercely vengeful wife, Clytemnestra. She is driven to
this act partly by a desire to avenge the death of her daughter
Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon has sacrificed for the sake of the war, partly
by her adulterous love for Aegisthus, and partly as agent for the curse
brought on Agamemnon’s family by the crimes of his father, Atreus. At
the play’s end Clytemnestra and her lover have taken over the palace and
now rule Argos. Many regard this play as one of the greatest Greek
tragedies. From its extraordinarily sustained dramatic and poetic power
one might single out the fascinating, deceitful richness of
Clytemnestra’s words and the huge choral songs, which raise in
metaphorical and often enigmatic terms the complex of major themes—of
theology, politics, and blood relationships—which are elaborated
throughout the trilogy.
Libation Bearers (Greek Choēphoroi) is the second play in the trilogy
and takes its title from the chorus of women servants who come to pour
propitiatory offerings at the tomb of the murdered Agamemnon. At the
start of this play Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who
was sent abroad as a child, returns as a man to take vengeance upon his
mother and her lover for their murder of his father. He is reunited with
his sister Electra, and together they invoke the aid of the dead
Agamemnon in their plans. Orestes then slays Aegisthus, but Orestes’
subsequent murder of Clytemnestra is committed reluctantly, at the god
Apollo’s bidding. Orestes’ attempts at self-justification then falter
and he flees, guilt-wracked, maddened, and pursued by the female
incarnations of his mother’s curse, the Erinyes (Furies). At this point
the chain of vengeance seems interminable.
Eumenides, the title of the third play, means “The Kind Goddesses.”
The play opens at the shrine of Apollo at Delphi, where Orestes has
taken sanctuary from the Furies. At the command of the Delphic oracle,
Orestes journeys to Athens to stand trial for his matricide. There the
goddess Athena organizes a trial with a jury of citizens. The Furies are
his accusers, while Apollo defends him. The jury divides evenly in its
vote and Athena casts the tie-breaking vote for Orestes’ acquittal. The
Furies then turn their vengeful resentment against the city itself, but
Athena persuades them, in return for a home and cult, to bless Athens
instead and reside there as the “Kind Goddesses” of the play’s title.
The trilogy thus ends with the cycle of retributive bloodshed ended and
supplanted by the rule of law and the justice of the state.
The plays » Prometheus Bound
The date of this play (and even its authorship) is disputed, but many
scholars regard it as a work of Aeschylus’ last years. In Prometheus
Bound (Greek Promētheus desmōtēs) the god Prometheus, who in defiance of
Zeus has saved mankind and given them fire, is chained to a remote crag
as a punishment ordered by the king of the gods. Despite his isolation
Prometheus is visited by the ancient god Oceanus, by a chorus of
Oceanus’ daughters, by the “cow-headed” Io (another victim of Zeus), and
finally by the god Hermes, who vainly demands from Prometheus his
knowledge of a secret that could threaten Zeus’s power. After refusing
to reveal his secret, Prometheus is cast into the underworld for further
torture. The drama of the play lies in the clash between the
irresistible power of Zeus and the immovable will of Prometheus, who has
been rendered still more stubborn by Io’s misfortunes at the hands of
Zeus. The most striking and controversial aspect of the play is its
depiction of Zeus as a tyrant. Prometheus himself has proved to be for
later ages an archetypal figure of defiance against tyrannical power, a
role exemplified in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Prometheus Unbound
(1820).
Anthony J. Podlecki
Oliver Taplin
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ORESTEIA
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Mosaic of Orestes
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Туре of work:
Drama
Author: Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)
Type of plot: Classical tragedy
Time of plot: After the fall of Troy
Locale: Argos
First presented: 458 B.C.
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Aeschylus won first prize with this trilogy about the doomed
descendants of the cruel and bloody Atreus. The atmosphere of the play
is one of doom and revenge, as the playwright delves into the
philosophical issue of the problem of evil and human suffering.
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Principal Characters
Agamemnon (a'ge-mem'non), of the doomed House of Atreus, King of Argos
and leader of the Greek expedition against Troy. When the Greeks were
detained at Aulis, he had been commanded by the gods to sacrifice his
daughter Iphigenia, so that the fleet might sail. This deed brought him
the hatred of his wife Clytemnestra, who plots his death. On his return
to Argos after the fall of Troy, she persuades him to commit the sin of
pride by walking on purple carpets to enter his palace. Once within the
palace, he is murdered in his bath by Clytemnestra and her lover
Aegisthus.
Clytemnestra (kll'tgm-nes'tra), daughter of Leda and wife of Agamemnon.
Infuriated by his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia, she murders him
and rules Argos with her lover, Aegisthus, until she is killed by her
son Orestes.
Cassandra (kasan'drs), the daughter of King Priam of Troy. She is fated
always to prophesy truth but never to be believed. Captured by Agamemnon
and brought to Argos, she foretells the king's death and is then killed
by Clytemnestra.
Aegisthus (e-jis'thas), cousin of Agamemnon and the lover of
Clytemnestra. After Agamemnon's death he rules Argos with her until he
is slain by Orestes.
Orestes (oresf'tez), the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. After his
father's murder, he is driven by his mother and her lover from his
heritage of Argos. Returning from exile, he meets his sister Electra at
their father's tomb and tells her that he has been commanded by the
oracle of Apollo to avenge Agamemnon by killing his murderers. This
revenge he carries out, but he is driven mad by the Furies, who pursue
him to the Delphi, where he takes refuge in the temple of Apollo.
Athena, the goddess of wisdom, appears. Unable to decide the case, she
calls in twelve Athenian citizens to act as judges. It is argued against
Orestes that Clytemnestra, in killing Agamemnon, had not slain a blood
relative of her family and thus did not deserve death. Apollo argues
that Clytemnestra, having only nourished the father's seed in her womb,
was no blood relation of Orestes, and therefore the latter was innocent.
The judges vote six to six, and Orestes is declared free of blood-guilt.
Electra (ёЧёкЧгэ), the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and sister
of Orestes. After the murder of her father and the exile of her brother,
she is left alone to mourn Agamemnon's death and to perform the rites at
his tomb. There she meets Orestes, who has returned to Argos, but at
first does not recognize him. Convinced at last of his identity, she
urges him to avenge their father by killing their mother and her lover.
The Furies or Eumenides (п-men'i-dez), children of Night, whose duty it
is to dog the footsteps of murderers and to drive them mad. They pursue
Orestes but are balked by the judges' decision that he is innocent. They
rail against the younger gods who have deprived them of their ancient
power. They are pacified by Athena, who promises them great honor and
reverence if they will remain at Athens as beneficent deities.
Athena (э-тё'пэ), the goddess of wisdom and patron of Athens, she is
always on the side of mercy. She defends the new law against the old in
the case of Orestes, pacifies the Furies, and changes them into the
Eumenides or "gracious ones."
Apollo (э-рбГб), the god of poetry, music, oracles, and healing. It is
he who commands Orestes to avenge his father's death by killing his
guilty mother. He then appears at Orestes' trial and defends the accused
with the argument that, by killing his mother, Orestes was not guilty of
shedding family blood, for the mother, being only the nourisher of the
seed, is no relation to her child. Family relationship comes only
through the father.
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William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Orestes pursued by the Furies
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The Story
The house of Atreus was accursed because in the great palace at Argos
the tyrant, Atreus, had killed the children of Thyestes and served their
flesh to their father at a royal banquet. Agamemnon and Menelaus were
the sons of Atreus. When Helen, wife of Menelaus, was carried off by
Paris, Agamemnon was among the Greek heroes who went with his brother to
battle the Trojans for her return. But on the way to Troy, while the
fleet lay idle at Aulis, Agamemnon was prevailed upon to sacrifice his
daughter, Iphigenia, to the gods. Hearing of this deed, Clytem-nestra,
his wife, vowed revenge. She gave her son, Orestes, into the care of the
King of Phocis, and in the darkened palace nursed her consuming hate.
In her desire for vengeance she was joined by Aegis-thus, surviving son
of Thyestes, who had returned from his long exile. Hate brought the
queen and Aegisthus together in a common cause; they became lovers as
well as plotters in crime.
The ship of Menelaus having been delayed by a storm, Agamemnon returned
alone from the Trojan wars. A watchman first saw the lights of his ship
upon the sea and brought to his queen the news of the king's return.
Leaving his men quartered in the town, Agamemnon drove to the palace in
his chariot, beside him Cassandra, captive daughter of the king of Troy
and an augeress of all misfortunes to come, who had fallen to Agamemnon
in the division of the spoils. She had already warned the king that some
evil was to befall him.
Agamemnon, however, had no suspicions of his homecoming, as Clytemnestra
came to greet him at the palace doorway, her armed retainers about her,
magnificent carpets unrolled for the feet of the conqueror of Troy.
Agamemnon chided his queen for the lavishness of her reception and
entered the palace to refresh himself after his long journey. He asked
Clytemnestra to receive Cassandra and to treat his captive kindly.
After Agamemnon had retired, Clytemnestra returned and ordered
Cassandra, who had refused to leave the chariot, to enter the palace.
When Cassandra persisted in remaining where she was, the queen declared
she would not demean herself by bandying words with a common slave and a
madwoman. She reentered the palace. Cassandra lifted her face toward the
sky and called upon Apollo to tell her why she had been brought to this
cursed house. She informed the spectators in front of the palace that
Clytemnestra would murder Agamemnon. She lamented the fall of Troy,
recalled the butchery of Thyestes' children, and the doom that hung over
the sons of Atreus, and foretold again the murder of Agamemnon by his
queen. As she entered the palace, those outside heard the death cry of
Agamemnon within.
A moment later Clytemnestra appeared in the doorway, the bloody sword of
Aegisthus in her hand. Behind her lay the body of the king, entangled in
the rich carpets.
Clytemnesta defended herself before the citizens, saying she had killed
the king for the murder of Iphigenia and had also killed Cassandra, with
whom Agamemnon had shamed her honor. Her deed, she told the citizens
defiantly, had ended the bloody lust of the house of Atreus.
Then she presented Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, who asserted that his
vengeance was just and that he intended to rule in the palace of
Agamemnon. Reproaches were hurled at the guilty pair. There were cries
that Orestes would avenge his father's murder. Aegisthus and
Clytemnestra, in a fury of guilty horror, roared out their
self-justification for the crime and defied the gods themselves to end
their seizure of power.
Orestes, grown to manhood, returned from the land of Phocis to discover
that his mother and Aegisthus had murdered his father. He mourned his
father's death and asked the king of the gods to give him ability to
take vengeance upon the guilty pair. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon,
also mourned and cursed the murderers. Encountering her brother, she did
not at first recognize him, for he appeared in the disguise of a
messenger who brought word of the death of Orestes. They met at their
father's tomb, where he made himself known to his sister. There he
begged his father's spirit to give him strength in his undertaking.
Electra assured him nothing but evil could befall any of the descendants
of Atreus and welcomed the quick fulfillment of approaching doom.
Learning that Clytemnestra had once dreamed of suckling a snake which
drew blood from her breast, Orestes saw in this dream the image of
himself and the deed he intended to commit. He went to the palace in
disguise and killed Aegisthus. Then he confronted Clytemnestra, his
sword dripping with the blood of his mother's lover, and struck her
down.
Orestes displayed the two bodies to the people and announced to Apollo
that he had done the deed required of him. But he realized that he must
suffer for his terrible crime. He began to go mad as Furies, sent by his
mother's dead spirit, pursued him.
The Furies drove Orestes from land to land. Finally he took refuge in a
temple, but the Pythian priestess claimed the temple was profaned by the
presence of the horrible Furies, who lay asleep near Orestes. Then
Apollo appeared to tell Orestes that he had put the Furies to sleep so
the haunted man could get some rest. He advised Orestes to visit the
temple of Pallas Athena and there gain full absolution for his crime.
While Orestes listened, the ghost of Clytemnestra spitefully aroused the
Furies and commanded them to torture Orestes again. When Apollo ordered
the Furies to leave, the creatures accused him of the murder of
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and the punishment of Orestes. The god
confessed he had demanded the death of Agamemnon's murderers. He was
told that by his demands he had caused an even greater crime, matricide.
Apollo said Athena should decide the justice of the case.
In Athens, in the temple of the goddess, Orestes begged Athena to help
him. Replying the case was too grave for her to decide alone, she called
upon the judges to help her reach a wise decision. There were some who
believed the ancient laws would be weakened if evidence were presented,
and they claimed Orestes deserved his terrible punishment.
When Orestes asked why Clytemnestra had not been persecuted for the
murder of Agamemnon, he was told her crime had not been the murder of a
blood relative, as his was. Apollo was another witness at the trial. He
claimed the mother was not the true parent, that the father, who planted
the seed in the mother's womb, was the real parent, as shown in the
tracing of descent through the male line. Therefore, Orestes was not
guilty of the murder of a true member of his blood family.
The judges decided in favor of Orestes. There were many, however, who in
an angry rage cursed and condemned the land where such a judgment might
prevail. They cried woe upon the younger gods and all those who tried to
wrest ancient rights from the hands of established tradition. But Athena
upheld the judgment of the court and Orestes was freed from the anger of
the Furies.
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Orestes slaying Aegisthus and Clytemnestra
Bernardino Mei
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Critical Evaluation
The Oresteia won first prize in the Athenian drama competition when it
was initially presented in 458 B.C. This was the thirteenth time
Aeschylus had been awarded the highest honors in a career of forty-one
years as a tragedian. He was foremost in establishing the drama as an
art form capable of exploring the most compelling problems of human
existence. And this dramatic trilogy—the only one in Greek drama to
survive intact— was a fitting climax to his life. The Oresteia is not
merely a magnificent work, it is one of the supreme achievements of
classical culture.
In it Aeschylus took up the theme of the ancestral curse, as he had done
in Seven Against Thebes, but here he uses that theme to probe the
metaphysical problem of evil. The question amounts to this: In a
divinely ordered universe why are atrocities committed, and what is the
reason for human suffering? Aeschylus brought all of his dramatic skill,
all of his lofty genius for poetry, and all of his intelligence and
feeling to bear on the issue. And he came as close as any writer ever
has to expressing the profoundest truths of human life.
The legend of the dynasty of Atreus is a series of crimes, each
committed in retaliation against a close relative. The murder of kin was
the most hideous sin a person could perform, according to Greek
morality. The blood curse was brought on the house of Atreus when Atreus
murdered his nephews, and from there on the history of the family is one
of slaughter. Agamemnon, the first play in the trilogy, reveals the
homecoming and murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra and his
cousin Aegisthus, who is also her lover. The second play, The
Libation-Bearers, shows Orestes' arrival in Argos and his revenge upon
his mother and Aegisthus for killing Agamemnon. Then he is pursued by
the Furies. And in the final play, The Eumenides (or "The Kindly Ones"),
the curse is put to rest when Orestes is absolved from guilt in the
Athenian law court of Athena.
The action of this trilogy is simple enough, but it is in the way
Aeschylus develops the action, with layer upon layer of meaning, that
these dramas engross us. The curse theme operates on several planes at
once, and it is given concrete expression in the recurring images of the
web, the net, the coiling snake full of venom.
On the simplest level the Oresteia is a revenge trilogy. Agamemnon kills
his daughter Iphigenia, which enables him to make war on Troy. When he
returns Clytemnestra kills him in retaliation, aided by Aegisthus, who
wants to avenge his father, Thyestes. Then Orestes slays the two of them
to avenge Agamemnon, for which the Furies persecute him. Conceivably
this chain of butchery could continue forever, if it were not for the
intervention of the gods.
Yet on the personal plane crime begets crime not because of any abstract
law, but because human motives require it. Aeschylus' characters have
freedom of choice and must take full responsibility for what they do.
However, their personalities are such that their deeds seem inevitable.
On this level character is fate and impels acts of violence. Agamemnon
brings Troy to rubble because family honor and his own pride demand it,
but in the process he kills his daughter and nearly wipes out the youth
of Greece. The tragedy of the Trojan War is repeatedly emphasized, and
Agamemnon is in large measure responsible for that waste of life. He is
rather a monster, grown fat and arrogant in his power.
Clytemnestra is equally prideful. Her vanity is injured when Agamemnon
brings his mistress, Cassandra, home, and out of personal honor she
avenges Iphigenia. Also, she is tied by sex to Aegisthus, a demagogue
who turns tyrant.
Here another level of meaning becomes visible—that of political intrigue
and the lust for power. Agamemnon is king. With him out of the way
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus become co-rulers of Argos. Agamemnon went to
Troy fully aware of the wealth and fame in store for him, and Orestes
knows, as well, that Argos will fall to him when he kills his mother and
her lover. Every act of vengeance in these plays carries some motive of
gain.
We see the inevitable sequence of events. Power or the drive for power
breeds insolence and crime, which brings retribution. Orestes breaks
this chain. Why? Because he was encouraged to the crime by Apollo;
because he feels pain and remorse afterward; because he does not take
over Argos once the crime is committed; and because the gods feel
compassion for such a man, even if the Furies do not.
Now the final level of meaning emerges—the divine revelation. That this
occurs in the Areopagus is Aeschylus' patriotic salute to the notion
that Athenian law had supernatural sanction. God, or Fate, tempers
retribution with mercy in the end, and the vengeful Furies are placated
with an honorary position as tutelary goddesses. If Orestes is absolved
by a sophism about paternal lineage, this merely underscores the fact
that Athena and Apollo, as the agents of Zeus, have compassion for him
and would use any legal pretext to get him off the hook. Man must learn
by suffering, Aeschylus says, and Orestes has shown himself to be the
only character in the trilogy who is able to learn by agony. Success
makes men proud and amoral, but pain teaches men the true way to live.
As a vindication of divine justice the Oresteia is splendid, and as a
depiction of the cumulative power of evil it is unsurpassed.
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Francois Bouchot
Pylades und Orestes
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PROMETHEUS BOUND
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Dirck van Baburen
Vulcan Chaining Promethus
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Type of work: Drama
Author: Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)
Type of plot: Classical tragedy
Time of plot: Remote antiquity
Locale: A barren cliff in Scythia First presented: Date unknown
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In this compelling drama, Aeschylus offers the spectacle of a
demigod in conflict with his destiny and defiant in the face of severe
punishment. The mood of the play is one of sharp irony and deep
reflection, for the suffering of the legendary Fire-Bearer symbolizes
man's inhumanity to man.
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Principal Characters
Prometheus, (ргэ-me'the-us, ргэ-me'thoos), a Titan, the son of Themis
(Earth). In the revolt of Zeus against Kronos, he had sided with Zeus
and had provided the counsel by which the older gods had been
overthrown. Later he persuaded Zeus to spare mankind, whom Zeus had
planned to destroy. But he has broken the command of the king of the
gods by bringing to men the gift of fire and instructing them in all the
arts and crafts. For this flouting of the will of Zeus he is carried, a
prisoner, by Kratos (Might) and Bia (Force) to a rocky cliff in remote
Scythia, there to be fastened by Hephaestus to the crag and to remain
bound for eternity. His only comfort in his anguish is his secret
foreknowledge of the eventual downfall of Zeus. His knowledge of the
future remains to him; he prophesies to Io the torments that await her;
tells her that her descendant, Herakles, will finally release him, and
declares that Zeus himself will one day be deposed by his own son, whose
future identity only he, Prometheus, knows. This secret he refuses to
divulge to Hermes, who brings the command of Zeus that Prometheus must
reveal this all-important name on pain of even worse torments. Defiant
to the last, Prometheus is blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus and sinks
into the underworld as the play ends. Prometheus is depicted in this
drama as the embodiment of stubborn resistance against the tyranny of
Zeus, willing to bear any punishment rather than submit. To the modern
mind, and especially to the writers of the Romantic period, he is the
personification of the revolt against tyranny of any sort, the symbol of
man's war against the forces of reaction and of his eternal quest for
knowledge.
Io (I'o), the daughter of the river-god Inachus, She was beloved by
Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to save her from the jealous wrath
of Hera. But the latter, penetrating her rival's disguise, sent a gadfly
to torment her throughout the world. Half-crazed with pain, she has
wandered to Scythia, where she finds in Prometheus a fellow sufferer. He
prophesies her future adventures and traces her descendants down to
Herakles, who will deliver him from his chains.
Hermes (hur'mez), the messenger of Zeus, sent to wring from Prometheus
the secret of the identity of that son of Zeus who will overthrow his
father. In his attitude, Hermes has been called the personification of
prudent self-interest. He fails in his errand, for the dauntless
Prometheus reviles him as a mere lackey and refuses to divulge the
secret.
Hephaestus (he-fes'tas), god of fire and of metal-working. He has been
ordered by Zeus to forge the chains that fasten Prometheus to the rock
and to drive an adamantine wedge through his breast. This horrible task
he performs reluctantly, bowing only to the superior power of Zeus.
Oceanus (o-se'a-nas), god of the sea. He comes to sympathize with
Prometheus and to preach to him the virtue of humility. He even offers
to intercede on his behalf with Zeus. But Prometheus warns him that, in
comforting a rebel, he himself may be charged with rebellion and urges
him to depart.
Kratos (Might) and Bia (Force), brute beings who symbolize the tyranny
of Zeus, for they carry out his will. They drag the captive Prometheus
to the cliff in Scythia and supervise Hephaestus as he chains the Titan
to the rock. Kratos taunts the fallen Titan, reminding him that the name
Prometheus—the Contriver—has a terrible irony, for no contrivance can
release him.
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Peter Paul Rubens
Prometheus Bound
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The Story
Condemned by Zeus for giving fire to mere mortals, the Titan Prometheus
was brought to a barren cliff in Scythia by Hephaestus, the god of fire,
and two guards, Kratos and Bia. There he was to be bound to the jagged
cliffs with bonds as strong as adamant. Kratos and Bia obeyed willingly
the commands of Zeus, but Hephaestus experienced pangs of sorrow and was
reluctant to bind his kinsman to the storm-beaten cliff in that waste
region where no man came, where Prometheus would never hear the voice or
see the form of a human being. He grieved that the Titan was doomed
forever to be guardian of the desolate cliff. But he was powerless
against the commands of Zeus, and so at last he chained Prometheus to
the cliff by riveting his arms beyond release, thrusting a biting wedge
of adamant straight through his heart, and putting iron girths on both
his sides with shackles around his legs. After Hephaestus and Bia
departed, Kratos remained to hurl one last taunt at Prometheus, asking
him what possible aid mankind might now offer their benefactor. The gods
who gave Prometheus his name, Forethinker, were foolish, Kratos pointed
out, for Prometheus required a higher intelligence to do his thinking
for him.
Alone and chained, Prometheus called upon the winds, the waters, mother
earth, and the sun, to look on him and see how the gods tortured a god.
Admitting that he must bear his lot as best he could because the power
of fate was invincible, he was still defiant. He had committed no crime,
he insisted; he had merely loved mankind. He remembered how the gods
first conceived the plan to revolt against the rule of Kronos and seat
Zeus on the throne. At first Prometheus did his best to bring about a
reasonable peace between the ancient Titans and the gods. Failing to do
so and to avoid further violence, he sided with Zeus, who through the
counsel of Prometheus overthrew Kronos. Once on the throne, Zeus
parceled out to the lesser gods their share of power, but ignored mortal
man with the ultimate plan of destroying him completely and creating
instead another race which would cringe and be servile to Zeus's every
word. Among all the gods, only Prometheus objected to this heartless
proposal, and it was Prometheus' courage, his act alone, which saved man
from burial in the deepest black of Hades. It was he who taught blind
hopes to spring within man's heart and who gave him the gift of fire.
Understanding the significance of these deeds, he had sinned willingly.
Oceanus, brother of Prometheus, came to offer aid out of love and
kinship, but he first offered Prometheus advice and preached humility in
the face of Zeus's wrath. Prometheus remained proud, defiant, and
refused his offer of help on the grounds that Oceanus himself would be
punished were it discovered that he sympathized with a rebel. Convinced
by Prometheus' argument, Oceanus took sorrowful leave of his brother.
Once more Prometheus recalled that man was a creature without language,
ingorant of everything before Prometheus came and told him of the rising
and setting of stars, of numbers, of letters, of the function of beasts
of burden, of the utility of ships, of curing diseases, of happiness and
lurking evil, of methods to bring wealth in iron, silver, copper, and
gold out of the earth. In spite of his torment, he rejoiced that he had
taught all arts to humankind.
Io, a young girl changed into a heifer and tormented by a stinging
gadfly, came to the place where Prometheus was chained. Daughter of
Inachus, a river-god, she was beloved by Zeus. His wife, Hera, out of
jealousy, had turned Io into a cow and set Argus, the hundred-eyed
monster, to watch her. When Zeus had Argus put to death, Hera set a
gadfly to sting Io and drive her all over the earth. Prometheus
prophesied her future wanderings to the end of the earth, predicting
that the day would come when Zeus would restore her to human form and
together they would conceive a son named Epaphus. Before Io left,
Prometheus also named his own rescuer, Hercules, who with his bow and
arrow would kill the eagle devouring his vital parts.
Hermes, messenger of Zeus, came to see Prometheus and threatened him
with more awful terrors at the hands of angry Zeus. Prometheus, still
defiant, belittled Hermes' position among the gods and called him a mere
menial. Suddenly there was a turbulent rumbling of the earth,
accompanied by lightning, thunder, and blasts of wind, as angry Zeus
shattered the rock with a thunderbolt and hurled Prometheus into an
abysmal dungeon within the earth. Such was the terrible fate of the
Fire-Bearer who defied the gods.
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Jacob Jordaens
Prometheus Bound
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Critical Evaluation
In several ways Prometheus Bound is something of a puzzle. We do not
know the date of its production, although we can safely assume it came
rather late in Aeschylus' career, possibly between 466 B.C. and 456
B.C., which was the year of his death. Nor do we know its exact place in
the Aeschylean trilogy on Prometheus, because this is the only surviving
play; we know only that it was followed by a last play entitled
Prometheus Unbound. Further, it is the one extant play by Aeschylus to
deal directly with a metaphysical problem by means of supernatural
characters, but even the questions it raises are unresolved. This drama
is a mystery centering on a mystery. The situation of the play is
static: Prometheus is fastened to a Scythian crag for enabling mankind
to live when Zeus intended to destroy this ephemeral creature. Once
Hephaestus wedges and binds him down, Prometheus is immobile. Thereafter
the theatrical movement lies in his visitors—the chorus of nymphs,
Oceanus, Io. and Hermes. Essentially this is a drama of ideas, and those
ideas probe the nature of the cosmos. We may forget that the characters
are mainly extinct Greek gods, but the issues that Aeschylus raises are
still very much alive today.
The Greeks loved a contest, and Prometheus Bound is about a contest of
wills. On the one side is Zeus, who is omnipotent in this world, while
on the other is Prometheus, who has divine intelligence. Neither will
give an inch, for each feels he is perfectly justified. Zeus rules by
right of conquest, and Prometheus resists by right of moral superiority.
On Zeus's side are might and force, the powers of complusion and
tyranny, but Prometheus has knowledge and prescience. The play consists
of a strange debate between the two. Zeus in his inscrutability and
majesty does not appear, but we see his agents enforcing his will.
The drama begins and ends with the exercise of Zeus's almighty power.
That power is used simply to make Prometheus suffer. At first it binds
him to a crag and finally it envelops him in a cataclysm. Zeus has a
fearsome capacity to inflict pain, not merely on Prometheus but on Io as
well. In both instances it seems due to disobedience. If Prometheus
opposed Zeus by giving man the fire and skills he needed to survive, Io
resisted Zeus's love. Because of this Zeus exiled her from her home and
changed her into a cow, while jealous Hera forced her to flee from land
to land, bitten by a gadfly. Thus Prometheus shows rebellion on the
divine plane (he being a Titan), while Io rebels on the human level. The
price of their rebellion is written in their flesh, and both regard Zeus
as their persecutor. Aeschylus certainly disliked political tyranny, but
it is a mistake to read this play merely as a parable of man's
inhumanity to man. The issues go far deeper.
Prometheus knew what would come of his revolt. He made a great personal
sacrifice when he supported mankind out of compassion. In a real sense
he is a savior and a tremendous hero. His knowledge does not keep him
from suffering like man, nor does it make him accept his pain calmly. He
knows why he suffers but still defies his fate. He feels that his is
right and Zeus is wrong. Moreover, he claims that Zeus is not the
ultimate power, that Zeus is subservient to the Fates and the Furies.
Yet Prometheus holds the winning hand in this play and he knows it, for
he possesses a secret that Zeus needs to retain his power. No matter how
much suffering Zeus may have caused him, one day Zeus will have to come
begging. That is Prometheus' only consolation in torment. Every counsel
to moderation or humility is superficial and vain, for why should
Prometheus give up the joy of seeing Zeus humbled just to alleviate his
own agony? This motivation comes through clearly in the bitter dialogue
with Hermes.
Thus Prometheus is not only self-rightous and vengeful, but he is full
of arrogant pride. He chooses his pain; perhaps he even deserves it. No
one justifies Zeus, for he is beyond any notion of justice, but
Prometheus exults in justifying himself to any divinity who will listen.
Yet we remember his services to man and feel compassion for him. He is
an authentic tragic hero, arousing both pity and fear.
As a dramatic character Io represents the human condition. The daughter
of a god, she is shut out of her home by Zeus's command, given an
animal's body, and made to run over the face of the earth in pain, stung
by the ghost of many-eyed Argus (conscience). In the distant future,
however, she and Zeus will be reconciled.
We can only guess at the resolution of the Zeus-Prometheus conflict that
Aeschylus unveiled in the lost Prometheus Unbound. Possibly Zeus gained
in maturity after centuries of rule and decided to release the Titan
freely, after which Prometheus gave him the secret. Just as man evolved
through the gifts of Prometheus into a civilized creature, perhaps Zeus
changed and made his reign one of wisdom and force. It is hard to
believe that Prometheus would alter unless such a change had come about
in Zeus. This, however, is only speculation. The debate between
Prometheus and Zeus remains open. Is Prometheus a rebel because God is
unjust? Or is it that he places himself above God, doing what pleases
him in the knowledge that he must suffer for it. Aeschylus never solves
this dilemma in the play—he merely shows it to us in the strongest
dramatic terms. Tautly written, Prometheus Bound is profound precisely
because it remains an enigma. In judging the debate we judge ourselves.
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Gustave Moreau
Prometheus Bound
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