Transcript From Classical to Contemporary

A House in Order
HUM 2051: Civilization I
Fall 2009
Dr. Perdigao
September 18, 2008
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)
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)
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.”
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)
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)
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).