Orestes

Euripides’ Orestes reimagines the story of Orestes just after the murder of his mother Clytemnestra, and carries it much further from the older versions than the other surviving plays about him. It begins with a speech by his sister Electra, who sits next to her sleeping brother and tells us that on this very day the Argives will vote on whether the two of them are to die for the murder (lines 1–70). Their one hope is their uncle Menelaus, who has just landed at Nauplia on his way home from Troy with Helen (lines 52–60). Orestes wakes only to suffer another attack of the Furies, who appear to him in madness but not to Electra (lines 255–275). Menelaus arrives and, seeing Orestes’ condition, is sympathetic (lines 348–455). But Clytemnestra’s father Tyndareus arrives too, attacks Orestes as a godless matricide and threatens Menelaus with his anger if he helps him (lines 456–628). Menelaus leaves with a vague promise to speak to Tyndareus and the city (lines 682–716), which leaves Orestes without hope. Orestes’ friend Pylades then arrives from Phocis and persuades him to speak to the Argive assembly (lines 725–806). A messenger reports that the assembly has condemned both of them, allowing them only to kill themselves (lines 852–956). The two friends and Electra decide to take revenge on Menelaus: Pylades suggests killing Helen (lines 1098–1152), and Electra adds the seizing of Menelaus’ daughter Hermione as a hostage (lines 1177–1203). Orestes and Pylades go into the palace, and Electra deceives Hermione into following them (lines 1311–1352). A Phrygian slave of Helen escapes from the palace and describes the attack, ending with Helen’s disappearance from the room (lines 1366–1502). When Menelaus arrives, Orestes is on the roof with a sword at Hermione’s throat, and the palace is being set on fire (lines 1549–1620). Then the god Apollo appears and announces that Helen has been taken to heaven by Zeus, that Orestes must spend a year in Arcadia and then stand trial at Athens, that he is to marry Hermione, that Electra is to marry Pylades, and that Menelaus is to rule Sparta (lines 1625–1690).

Date and Historical Background

The text itself gives no date. According to an ancient commentator’s note (scholion) on line 371, Euripides produced Orestes in the archonship of Diocles, that is in 408 BC; no ancient source names the festival. Which plays Euripides staged with Orestes is not known, and nothing in the text tells us whether Cyclops was its satyr play.

Aristotle singles out the Menelaus of this play as an example of a character who is bad without any need in the plot (Poetics 1454a, and again 1461b). The play itself differs from the older stories in several points: the trial of Orestes is moved forward to Argos, where an assembly of the citizens votes (lines 440–442, 852–956), and the Furies are seen only by Orestes (lines 255–275, 408–412).

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, brother of Electra, murderer of his mother
• Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister of Orestes
• Helen, sister of Clytemnestra, wife of Menelaus
• Menelaus, king of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen
• Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen
• Tyndareus, father of Clytemnestra and of Helen (lines 249–250)
• Pylades, Orestes’ best friend
• Messenger, an old servant of Agamemnon’s house who has come from the country (lines 866–870)
• Phrygian, a slave of Helen
• Apollo, the god of the Delphic oracle, who ordered Clytemnestra’s murder
• Chorus of Argive women

Setting

The play is set before the royal palace at Argos, where Orestes lies sleeping on a couch (stage direction before line 1).

Summary of Orestes

Prologue

(Lines 1–139.) Electra begins by telling the story of the family from Tantalus, who is punished with a rock hanging over his head for talking too freely among the gods (lines 1–10), through Pelops and Atreus, who killed Thyestes’ children and fed them to him (lines 11–16), to Agamemnon and Menelaus, who married Clytemnestra and Helen (lines 17–20). Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had three daughters, Chrysothemis, Iphigenia and Electra, and a son, Orestes (lines 20–24). Clytemnestra killed her husband by trapping him in an inextricable robe (line 25). Electra blames Apollo, who persuaded Orestes to kill his mother, and says that she herself had a share in the murder, as did Pylades (lines 26–33). Orestes has lain wasting away on his couch, driven by his mother’s blood into fits of madness; Electra is ashamed to name the goddesses who terrify him (lines 34–39). It is the sixth day since the body of Clytemnestra was burned; he has eaten nothing and has not washed (lines 39–44). The city of Argos has decreed that no one may give them shelter or speak to them, and today the Argives will vote on whether they are to die by stoning or by the sword (lines 46–51).

“There is, it is true, one hope of escape from death,” Electra says: Menelaus has landed from Troy, and his ships are at Nauplia after ceaseless wanderings (lines 52–55). He has sent Helen on to the palace to wait for night, in case any of the parents of the men who died at Troy see her by day and stone her (lines 56–59). Helen sits inside, weeping for her sister Clytemnestra, but takes some comfort in her daughter Hermione, whom Menelaus left in Clytemnestra’s care when he sailed for Troy (lines 60–66). Electra is watching for Menelaus (lines 67–69).

Helen now comes out and speaks to Electra, saying she is sorry for the death of her sister (lines 71–80). She asks Electra to take a lock of hair and a libation to Clytemnestra’s tomb, since she is ashamed to show herself in Argos and afraid of the fathers of those who died at Troy (lines 92–103). Electra answers that she could not bear to look on her mother’s grave (line 105), and suggests that Helen send her daughter Hermione (line 107). Helen agrees, calls Hermione, and gives her instructions for the libations (lines 110–125). When Helen is gone, Electra remarks that Helen has cut her hair only at the ends, to preserve her beauty, and is “the same woman as of old” (lines 126–131).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

(Lines 140–207.) The Chorus of Argive women enters quietly, and Electra tells them to step softly and speak like the breath of a reed-pipe (lines 132–149). They ask how Orestes is, and Electra answers that he is still breathing but his moans are feeble (lines 153–155). She begs them to be silent: “You will kill him, if you disturb him from the sweet sleep he now enjoys” (line 158). Electra complains that Apollo gave an unjust command from the tripod (lines 162–165) and calls on Night, giver of sleep (lines 174–180). “Tell me, what end of troubles awaits him?” the Chorus asks. “Death, death; what else? For he has no desire for food,” Electra answers (lines 187–188). She says that Phoebus offered them up as a sacrifice when he ordered the murder of their mother (lines 191–193), and that she is unmarried and childless (lines 200–206).

First Episode

(Lines 208–315.) The Chorus Leader fears that Orestes may have died without Electra noticing (lines 208–210), but Orestes wakes, refreshed: “Sweet charm of sleep, savior in sickness, how sweetly you came to me, how needed!” (lines 211–214). Electra helps him up, wipes the foam from his mouth, brushes the hair from his face, and walks him a few steps (lines 217–236). She tells him that Menelaus has come and his ships are moored in Nauplia (lines 241–242). “Has he come to be a light in our troubles, a man of our own family, who owes gratitude to our father?” Orestes asks (lines 243–244). Electra says he has, and that he is bringing Helen from the walls of Troy (line 245). Orestes thinks it would be better had he come back alone (lines 247–248); Electra says that Tyndareus begot daughters notorious for blame (lines 249–250).

Suddenly Orestes starts up in madness, begging his mother not to shake at him the maidens with their bloodshot eyes and snaky hair (lines 255–257). He mistakes Electra for one of the Furies, who is dragging him down to Tartarus (lines 264–265), and asks for the horn-tipped bow that Apollo gave him to keep them off (lines 268–275). When the fit passes he sees his sister weeping and says that he is ashamed to have made her share his sufferings (lines 276–283). He blames Apollo, who encouraged him with words but not in deed, and says that his father would have begged him not to kill his mother (lines 285–293). He asks Electra to rest, to eat and bathe: “You are my only ally; I am deserted by all the rest, as you see” (lines 301–305). Electra promises not to leave him, tells him to lie down on his couch, and goes in (lines 307–315).

In the first choral song, the Argive women pray to the Furies, who dart on wings through the air: “I beg you, I beg you! Allow the son of Agamemnon to forget his wild whirling frenzy” (lines 316–347). They lament the fall of the house of Tantalus and the toils that Orestes strove after when he heard the voice from the tripod (lines 327–346).

Second Episode

(Lines 348–806.) The Chorus Leader announces Menelaus (lines 348–355). Menelaus says he feels joy and grief at seeing his home again (lines 356–359). He tells how, at Malea, the sea-god Glaucus told him of Agamemnon’s death in a bath at his wife’s hands (lines 360–368), and how at Nauplia he learned from a sailor of the murder of Clytemnestra (lines 369–374). He asks where Orestes is, since he was a baby in Clytemnestra’s arms when he left and would not recognize him (lines 375–379).

Orestes staggers from his couch and says: “Menelaus, I am Orestes.” He clasps his knees as a suppliant (lines 380–384). “O gods, what do I see? What living corpse greets my sight?” says Menelaus (line 385). He questions him quickly. Orestes tells him that what torments him is his conscience, a sense of having done a dreadful deed (lines 395–396), that his madness began on the day he heaped the mound over his mother’s grave (lines 401–404), and that he sees three maidens black as night (lines 407–412). Menelaus answers that he knows who they are but would rather not name them (line 409). When Orestes says that Phoebus commanded him to kill his mother, Menelaus replies that this shows “a strange ignorance of what is fair and right” (lines 416–417). Orestes says that no one will speak to him or purify him, that Oeax and friends of Aegisthus stir the city against him, and that a vote will be taken today to stone him (lines 427–442). He asks Menelaus to repay Agamemnon’s kindness (lines 448–455).

Then Tyndareus appears, “struggling with aged step, clad in black robes, with his hair cut short in mourning for his daughter” (lines 456–458). Orestes is afraid to meet him, since Tyndareus and Leda raised him as a child (lines 459–468). Tyndareus greets Menelaus, sees Orestes, and calls him “a viper darting venomous flashes from his eyes” (lines 470–479). He reproaches Menelaus for having lived so long among barbarians that he has become one (line 485). He says Orestes should not have killed his mother, but should have brought a charge against her and banished her from the house (lines 491–506). “Where will the chain of horrors end?” he asks (lines 507–511). The forefathers purified a killer by exile rather than killing him in revenge (lines 512–517). He turns to Orestes: “Had you no heart when your mother was baring her breast in her appeal to you?” (lines 526–529). He warns Menelaus either to leave Orestes to be stoned or never set foot on Spartan land again (lines 535–537).

Orestes defends himself. He says he is unholy for having killed his mother but holy for having avenged his father (lines 546–547); that the father is the author of the child, and the mother only the field that receives the seed (lines 551–556); that his mother took Aegisthus as secret husband (lines 557–562); and that if women were allowed to kill their husbands and take refuge in their children, no man would be safe (lines 564–571). He says that he acted on the command of Apollo, and that if the god cannot expiate the pollution, no one can be saved (lines 591–600). Tyndareus declares that this boldness will make him go to greater lengths to procure the execution of Orestes and of Electra, who he says embittered her brother against his mother (lines 607–621). He repeats his warning to Menelaus and goes out (lines 622–629).

Orestes appeals to Menelaus. He asks him to repay what he received from Agamemnon, who fought at Troy to win Helen back, with one day of effort in his defense, not ten years (lines 640–657). He also says that he lets him keep what Aulis took, the sacrifice of his sister Iphigenia, and asks him not to kill Hermione (lines 658–659). He imagines the dead Agamemnon speaking to Menelaus (lines 673–676). The Chorus Leader supports him (lines 680–681). Menelaus answers that he would like to help but has come with few allies, and that violence will not win Argos; he will go and try to persuade Tyndareus and the city to moderation, since a ship dips if its sheet is hauled too tight but rights itself again if it is let go (lines 682–715). He goes out. Orestes cries that he has been betrayed: “this man was my haven of safety” (lines 717–724).

At that moment Pylades arrives from Phocis, running (lines 725–733). He has heard that the citizens are gathering to condemn Orestes and Electra to death (lines 729–732). Orestes tells him about Menelaus, who preferred his family tie with Tyndareus to that with Agamemnon (lines 736–754). Pylades says that his father Strophius has banished him from his house for helping to kill Clytemnestra (lines 765–767). Orestes proposes to go to the assembly and defend himself, and Pylades agrees that this is better than staying (lines 774–786). They decide not to tell Electra (lines 787–789). Orestes asks Pylades to guide him to the tomb of his father (lines 796–797), and Pylades says he will carry him through the town and be unashamed (lines 799–803). They go out (line 806).

In the second choral song, the women recall the old curse on the sons of Tantalus, over a golden ram, which led to the banquet of children and to murder following murder (lines 807–818), and sing that the deed of Orestes in cutting a mother’s flesh was no good thing, even though it avenged his father (lines 819–843). “O the wretch!” they sing. “He saw a mother’s bosom over her robe of golden weave, and yet he made her his victim, in recompense for his father’s sufferings” (lines 838–842).

Third Episode

(Lines 844–1012.) Electra comes out and asks whether Orestes has left (lines 844–845). The Chorus Leader tells her that he has gone to the Argive assembly on the advice of Pylades (lines 846–850). A Messenger arrives and says that the Pelasgians have voted that she and her brother are to die this day (lines 852–858). He tells what happened in the assembly (lines 866–956). He was returning from the country and saw Orestes and Pylades arrive, Pylades tending his friend like a brother (lines 877–883). A herald asked who wished to speak (lines 884–886). Talthybius spoke first, “out of both sides of his mouth,” praising Agamemnon but not Orestes, and looking at the friends of Aegisthus (lines 887–896). Diomedes then said that they should not be killed but punished by exile (lines 898–901). Next came an unnamed man, an Argive “not of Argos,” who spoke for stoning them both, and Tyndareus was the one “who kept suggesting arguments of this kind to him” (lines 902–916). Then a farmer spoke for the opposite course and said that Orestes should be crowned, since he had avenged his father by killing a wicked woman who would keep men from going to war (lines 917–930). Orestes spoke last, saying that he had helped the Argives as much as his father, since if the murder of men by women were allowed they would be slaves of women (lines 931–942). He did not persuade the assembly, and the speaker who favored killing them won over the crowd (lines 943–945). Orestes scarcely persuaded them not to stone him, by promising to die by his own hand with Electra on this day (lines 946–949). The Messenger tells her to prepare the sword or the noose (lines 953–955).

Electra then sings a lament, in a monody, beating her head and cheeks and calling on the land to mourn (lines 960–981). She wishes she could reach the rock that hangs between earth and Olympus, and speak to her forefather Tantalus (lines 982–1011). She recalls the old crimes of the house: Pelops and Myrtilus, the golden lamb sent by Hermes to Atreus, the banquet of Thyestes, and the love of Aerope (lines 982–1010).

Fourth Episode

(Lines 1013–1245.) Orestes returns, leaning on Pylades (lines 1013–1017). The brother and sister take leave of each other (lines 1018–1052). Electra asks Orestes to kill her, so that no Argive will insult the daughter of Agamemnon by her death, and Orestes refuses because he has already a mother’s blood on him (lines 1037–1040). Electra asks whether Menelaus did nothing, and Orestes says he did not even show himself, as he was thinking only of the throne (lines 1056–1059). Orestes says he will plunge the sword into his heart and asks Pylades to bury them near their father (lines 1060–1068). Pylades refuses to live without him: he shared in the murder and he considers Electra his wife (lines 1069–1098).

“Since we are to die, let us take counsel together that Menelaus may share our misfortune,” says Pylades (lines 1098–1099). He proposes to kill Helen in her hiding place in the palace with swords hidden under their cloaks (lines 1105–1130). He argues that they will be called not “the matricide” but “the slayer of Helen the murderess,” because Helen has caused the deaths of so many Greeks (lines 1131–1141). If this fails, they will set fire to the house and die: “an honorable death or an honorable escape” (lines 1148–1151). The Chorus Leader approves (lines 1153–1154). Orestes praises his friend and says that he would rather take vengeance on his enemies before dying than submit to die like a slave (lines 1155–1176). Then Electra says she has a plan: Hermione has gone to Clytemnestra’s tomb, and when she returns she can be seized as a hostage (lines 1177–1190). If Menelaus tries to harm them after Helen’s death, they can threaten to kill Hermione with a sword at her throat; if he gives way they will give her back, and if not they will kill her (lines 1191–1203). Orestes says she has a man’s spirit in a woman’s body (lines 1204–1208). He tells Electra to keep watch outside the palace and signal by knocking on the door (lines 1216–1221). Orestes, Electra and Pylades call on Agamemnon in the underworld to help them (lines 1225–1245), and Orestes and Pylades go into the palace.

Electra posts the Chorus, divided into two semi-choruses, to watch the roads, one to the east and one to the west, for any Argive who may come (lines 1246–1295). She listens at the gate (lines 1281–1283).

Fifth Episode

(Lines 1296–1365.) Helen’s voice is heard from within: “Oh, Pelasgian Argos! I am being foully murdered” (line 1296), and then “Menelaus, I am dying, but you do not help me, though you are near” (line 1301). Electra cries: “Slay her, kill her, destroy her! Stab with your twin double-edged swords the woman who left her father, left her husband, and killed so many of the men of Hellas” (lines 1302–1310). The Chorus Leader hears footsteps, and Electra says it is Hermione coming into the net (lines 1311–1315). She tells the Chorus to look calm (lines 1316–1319). Hermione says she has returned from the tomb and was alarmed by a cry she heard (lines 1323–1325). Electra tells her that Argos has condemned her brother and herself, and that the cry was Orestes, who as a suppliant has fallen at Helen’s knees (lines 1328–1334). Hermione goes in to join the supplication (lines 1336–1345). Electra calls to her friends inside to seize her (line 1345), and Orestes shouts that she is there for their safety, not her own (lines 1347–1348). Electra tells him to point a sword at her throat (lines 1349–1352).

In the fifth choral song, the women make a din before the palace so that no Argive will hear the murder, and say that Helen has met the punishment of the gods (lines 1353–1365).

Exodos (Exit Song)

(Lines 1366–1693.) A Phrygian slave of Helen bursts out of the palace, saying that he escaped Argive swords by climbing over the roof beams of the porch in his Asian slippers (lines 1366–1376). He sings of Troy and of Helen, who has brought ruin (lines 1381–1392). He tells what happened: two lions of Hellas, one the general’s son and the other the son of Strophius, a cunning plotter like Odysseus, came in with tears and sat as suppliants at Helen’s knees (lines 1399–1415). Her Phrygian servants were shut up in different parts of the house (lines 1445–1450). The two men drew swords from under their cloaks and told Helen she would die because her husband had betrayed his brother’s son (lines 1455–1464). Orestes seized her by the hair and was about to drive the sword into her throat (lines 1467–1471). The Phrygians broke out and tried to help her, but Pylades met them like Hector or Ajax, and they were beaten (lines 1473–1489). As Hermione came in, the two men seized her too, and turned back to Helen, but she had vanished from the room, “whether by magic spells or wizards’ arts or heavenly theft” (lines 1490–1497).

Orestes comes out sword in hand and looks for the runaway (lines 1503–1506). The Phrygian prostrates himself, says that Helen died justly, and fears the sword (lines 1507–1523). Orestes spares him, explaining that he had left the palace only to stop his shouting, since Argos is quickly roused (lines 1524–1536).

The Chorus wonders whether to tell the town or keep silent, and sees smoke rising from the palace as the torches are lit (lines 1537–1548). The Chorus Leader sees Menelaus coming and tells those inside to bar the doors (lines 1549–1553). Menelaus says he has heard that his wife was not dead but had vanished, and orders the gates forced (lines 1554–1565). Orestes appears on the roof with a sword at the throat of Hermione, and threatens to tear off the parapet and throw it at Menelaus (lines 1567–1575). He tells Menelaus that he will kill his daughter and set fire to the palace if Menelaus does not go to the Argives and persuade them not to kill him and Electra (lines 1578–1612). When Menelaus does not give way, he calls on Electra and Pylades to set the palace on fire (lines 1617–1620). Menelaus calls on the Argives to arm and come to help (lines 1621–1624).

Apollo appears in the clouds. He tells Menelaus that Helen, whom Orestes failed to kill, is there in the air, saved at the bidding of Zeus, to be immortal, sit with Castor and Polydeuces and save sailors (lines 1625–1642). He tells Menelaus to choose another bride (lines 1638–1639). He tells Orestes to leave the land and spend a year on Parrhasian soil in Arcadia, then go to Athens to be tried for his mother’s murder at the hill of Ares, where he will win his case (lines 1643–1652). He is to marry Hermione, and Neoptolemus, who thinks he will marry her, will die by a Delphian sword (lines 1653–1657). Orestes is to give his sister in marriage to Pylades (lines 1658–1659). Menelaus must leave Argos to Orestes and rule Sparta (lines 1660–1662). Apollo says he will set things right between Orestes and the citizens, since he forced him to kill his mother (lines 1663–1665). Orestes thanks Apollo, saying he feared that it was some fiend he had listened to (lines 1666–1671). He releases Hermione, and Menelaus agrees to the marriage (lines 1672–1677). Apollo sends them away to make peace and says he will take Helen to the halls of Zeus, where she will be enthroned beside Hera and Hebe and be a guardian of sailors (lines 1678–1690). The Chorus ends with a prayer to Victory (line 1691).

A Brief Analysis

The ancient hypothesis printed with the play already noticed two of its peculiarities: it calls Orestes one of the plays that were popular on the stage but the worst in its characters, since all of them except Pylades are base, and it says that the play has an ending more like that of a comedy. What the text shows is that the play ends in a rescue, two betrothals and the appearance of a god, after a plot of hostage-taking and arson (lines 1549–1690).

Much of the play is a departure from the familiar stories, and this can be seen in the text: Tyndareus drives the vote against the two (lines 456–629, 915–916), Menelaus has a large part in the events (lines 348–716), the attack on Helen ends in her disappearance (lines 1296–1310, 1490–1497), and Hermione is seized as a hostage (lines 1177–1203, 1347–1352). The Furies are seen only by Orestes: Electra tells him that he sees nothing and only imagines it (lines 258–259), and Orestes himself says that his illness is his conscience, a knowledge of what he has done (lines 395–396). The Phrygian slave, with his comical terror and his fluent flattery before Orestes (lines 1507–1536), is one of the most unusual scenes of the play.

What is perhaps most striking in Orestes is how the leading figures behave. At the beginning Orestes and Electra deserve compassion, and Tyndareus is shown arguing from the law and from the fear that murder will follow murder (lines 507–525); Orestes in reply says that his act protected husbands everywhere and was ordered by Apollo (lines 564–600). But by the end of the play they, with Pylades, have attempted to kill Helen and threatened to kill Hermione, who is innocent (lines 1098–1203, 1578–1612), and set fire to the palace of their ancestors (lines 1617–1620). Orestes himself admits, once Apollo has appeared, that he had feared the voice he obeyed was that of some avenging fiend and not the god’s (lines 1668–1669), and the Chorus say that a god brings the end where he wishes (line 1545).

The god’s appearance at the end brings an unexpected solution. Apollo, whom Menelaus had said showed ignorance of what is right (lines 416–417), orders Orestes to marry the girl he is holding the sword to (lines 1653–1654), and Orestes accepts, saying that he makes a truce with his fate (lines 1680–1681). The ending leaves open how far the characters deserve it.

Orestes Sources

Euripides, Orestes, lines 1–1693, for all scenes, speakers and quotations in this article; Aristotle, Poetics 1454a and 1461b, for the remark about Menelaus; the ancient hypothesis of the play and the scholion on line 371, for the date and the ancient judgment of the play. The Greek text can be read here.

See Also: Euripides, Oresteia, Electra, Orestes