Aeschylus' Trilogy

Orestes Pursued by the Furies
William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

In the spirit of posting papers I wrote for literature courses last year, here is another (shorter) gem that I got an A on. For those of you familiar with Greek mythology, especially the events immediately preceding the Trojan War, then you might enjoy this. For those of you unfamiliar, here is a brief summary: Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis so the Greeks could sail with fair winds to Troy. Upon his return, his wife Clytaemnestra murdered him and his captive/sex object Cassandra (the prophetess of legend). Orestes, sent away from home as a boy, returns to avenge his father and murder his mother (in this version, at the divine command of Apollo). However, he is forced to flee his land because he is being pursued by the avengers of parent killers, the Furies. He flees to Athens where a trial is held, Apollo on the defense, the Furies on the prosecution, and Athena presiding, but the verdict is a draw. Athena then declares Orestes absolved of guilt, and thus Athenian democracy is founded, creating the precedent of judicial process in Greece.

The Coiling, Crushing Cycle: Serpent Imagery in the Oresteia

Of the many motifs in the Oresteia that of the coiling serpent best exhibits the unknotting of imagery and the progressive literalization of metaphor from one play to the next. The knot begins in the Agamemnon with the complicated weaving of ferocious animal imagery around Clytaemnestra and Agamemnon. It is teased out in the Libation Bearers with Clytaemnestra’s prophetic dream of the suckling snake. Lastly, it is made literal in the Eumenides with the serpent-headed Furies in relentless pursuit of Orestes. Most importantly, the shift of the serpent from the husband-killing Clytaemnestra to the mother-killing Orestes and finally to the matricide-avenging Furies reveals the movement of the play away from the impious tribal justice of the house of Atreus towards the divine Justice of the house of the gods. It is Aeschylus’ most striking animal metaphors because it belongs to the avenger in each play. It is the disruptive act of vengeance to which each play is responding.

Necessarily, each instance of the serpent image is tied up with other motifs in the beginning of the trilogy. Upon committing the act of murder, Clytaemnestra emerges from the house and identifies herself as a serpent, yet simultaneously invoking the motifs of the net, robe, and sacrifice.
… our never ending, all-embracing net, I cast it/wide for the royal haul, round and round/in the wealth, the robes of doom, and the I strike him/once, twice, and at each stroke he cries in agony—/he buckles at the knees and crashes here!/And when he’s down I add the third, last blow,/to the Zeus who saves the dead beneath the ground/I send that third blow home in homage like a prayer (Ag. ll. 1401-09).


The coiling around of Clytaemnestra’s action represents the circularity of the curse of Atreus and the cycle of violence perpetuated by the blood vendetta. By profaning the murder of Agamemnon with the image of the sacrifice, she is invoking the justice of the gods and inviting her own destruction. The tightening coil of the curse of Atreus crushed Agamemnon; arrogance and pride lead Clytaemnestra to believe she is unsusceptible to the very same coiling trap. The Agamemnon ends with a self-righteous and ignorantly confident declaration that it is in her power to return order to the house of Atreus, when in fact her actions will merely turned the wheel of the curse round to crush her.

As with the Agamemnon, the appearance of the serpent image in the Libation Bearers is accompanied by other motifs. Clytaemnestra dreams that a snake she bore would draw blood from her breast as it suckled and waking from the dream sends libations to Agamemnon’s grave to appease his restless spirit. Again the image of the sacrificial ritual is tied to the serpent, as well as being interwoven with the fabric of her dream. Her misinterpretation of her dream, as well as the consequences of her profane sacrifices becomes her undoing. What is interesting about how Aeschylus introduces the motif of the serpent in the Libation Bearers is that while the image arises from Clytaemnestra’s dream, it is in fact Orestes who accurately interprets the dream by identifying himself as the snake.
No,/ I pray to the Earth and father’s grave to bring/that dream to life in me. I’ll play the seer—/it all fits together, watch!/If the serpent came from the same place as I,/and slept in the bands that swaddled me, and it’s jaws/spread wide for the breast that nurse me into life/and clots stained the milk, mother’s milk,/and she cried in fear and agony—so be it./As she bred this sign, this violent prodigy/so she dies by violence. I turn serpent,/I kill her. So the vision says (Lib. ll. 526-537).


It is Clytaemnestra’s lot that the same viciousness with which she struck down her husband would culminate with Orestes divine orders to destroy his mother. Most importantly, the dream is an element of the growing literalization of the metaphor as the trilogy advances towards resolution. The snake in the vision is quite literally a snake, seen vividly, as though real, by the dreaming Clytaemnestra. The viciousness of her crimes is reborn in Orestes, and upon her death, is reincarnated in the Furies, with snakes in their hair. The Furies are not represented physically on stage until the Eumenides, but Orestes is seized with the terrifying vision of them moments after the matricidal act:
No, no! Women—look—like Gorgons,/shrouded in black, their heads wreathed,/with swarming serpents!/--Cannot stay, I must move on. . .

No dreams, these torments,/not to me, they’re clear, real—the hounds,/of mother’s hate (Lib. ll. 1047-50, 52-54).


Finally, in the Eumenides the metaphor of the serpent is physically embodied in the three Furies on stage. As the punishers of matricides they are in pursuit of Orestes as he flees Mycenae. They are spurred on by the ghost of Clytaemnestra and the image of them is once again coupled with the motif of sleep; first, the sleepless phantom of Clytaemnestra and secondly, the agitated sleep of the Furies which she spurs after Orestes. This time, the Furies are recognized in a vision by a priestess of Apollo at Delphi. The way she is made to describe her vision is a key to the final unraveling of the images and the action of the story. She envisions them encircling the bloodstained “abomination to god”(Eum. ll. 42) that is the suppliant Orestes.
But there is a ring around the man, an amazing company—/women, sleeping, nestling against the benches . . ./women? No,/Gorgons I’d call them; but then with Gorgons/you’d see the grim, inhuman . . ./I saw a picture/years ago, the creatures tearing the feast/away from Phineus—/These have no wings,/I looked. But black they are, and so repulsive./Their heavy, rasping breathing makes me cringe./And their eyes ooze a discharge, sickening,/and what they wear—to flaunt that at the gods,/the idols, sacrilege! (Eum. 48-59).


The priestess first mistakes them for Gorgons but dismisses them as not inhuman enough. She then mistakes them for Harpies but corrects herself for their lack of wings. She has never seen such creatures, but they are disgusting. It is very important that she recognizes them opponents of the gods, because her speech is a foreshadowing of the conflict that will arise between the Furies and Athena, through which the last of Atreus’ line will be absolved of his wrongdoing. As not wholly inhuman, the Furies are the earthly incarnation of the price of the curse. However, it is that potential which allows the trial to be resolved in the manner it is, with the Furies vile robes of their past replaced with the robes of Athenian honor, Orestes’ casting off the guilt of his actions, and the powers of vengeance and justice being married into prosperity, dignity, and a reaffirmation of the community.

The motific knot unwinds itself from abstract metaphor in the Agamemnon to a more clearly defined image in the Libation Bearers and finally to the physical manifestation of the serpent with the Furies in the Euminides. The evolution and simplification of the imagery throughout the course of the three plays make possible the transformation and resolution of the trilogy’s end. The cyclical spiraling of the curse represented by the serpent eventually chokes on itself and spawns a new species full promise and balance—the civilized Greek man respectively coexisting with the dynamic cosmic forces of his universe.