I accept this home at Athene's side.
I shall not forget the cause
of this city, which Zeus all powerful and Ares
rule, stronghold of divinities,
glory of Hellene gods, their guarded alter.
So with the forecast of good
I speak this prayer for them
that the sun's bright magnificence shall break out wave
on wave of all the happiness
life can give, across their land
I recently had the pleasure of watching a video recording of an exquisite (though very English) adaptation of Aeschylus' Oresteia,
and thought it appropriate to give this masterpiece a review. I'm not
sure I would have used the word "masterpiece" before I saw the play
performed, but The National Theatre's 1983 rendition (which mimics the
direction and style of classical Greek theater, masks and all) brought
life to a stilted story. With this extra dimension the literature rises
to theater--a different art form than one I'm trained in. But I can
still give my impressions as well as a full-throated recommendation to
the only extant tragic trilogy of classical greek theater (CGT).
Writing
about CGT is difficult because it's so unique it's a genre onto itself.
The Greeks took well-known myths and added unique spins or
interpretations for the annual festival of Dionysus. It's important to
understand that these plays are as much sacred religious rituals as
entertainment, but the catch is that they're rituals for a god of
subversion. Hence we have a mix of the conservative and the radical, new
spins on old stories, and solemn civic reflections during a jolly good
time. Further, in terms of performance, theater began as choral
religious songs--reciting myths included--until the legendary Thespis
had a person step away from the Chorus and talk to them, inventing
characters and conflict. Aeschylus innovated by having a second
character step away, as Sophocles is credited with the third. But note
that the "chorus" is still an essential character in these plays, even
as we see their prominence fade over time, especially with Euripides.
These plays were always trilogies, but The Oresteia is our only extant one. It tells of what happened with the House of Atreus after Agamemnon returns from Troy. In Agamemnon
the king is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, upon his return to
Argos in retribution for the earlier sacrifice of their daughter,
Iphigenia. In The Libation Bearers Agamemnon's children--Orestes
and Electra--meet up to plot their mother's doom (Orestes commits the
act with Shakespearean delay). And Eumenides ends the story with
the Furies pursuing Orestes for the murder of his bloodkin, while Athena
flies in at the end to install a judicial institution to appraise
Orestes' guilt, and offer the Furies a legitimate civic station to
absorb-and-purify the ancient-but-destructive power of vengeance.
A
modern audience who finds the play difficult to follow (I urge you to
use subtitles if possible) may feel some relief in the knowledge that
the classical Greeks had a hard time with Aeschylus too, even as they
celebrated his plays. He spoke in a dignified, elevated language far
removed from the tongue of the commoner. But through this language he
explored themes that form the very foundation of civilization. On the
surface The Oresteia is about how the cycle of revenge can only
be satiated with institutional justice: an important enough lesson for
any peoples. But each part of the trilogy has its own depth that
complicates this idea. Agamemnon, the most self-contained play
(and could probably use its own review), examines Clytemnestra's murder
of her husband and the effect that murder has on society. While a lesser
playwright would have meekly bemoaned the death of the patriarchy,
Agamemnon's own cruelty and incompetence make Clytemnestra a sympathetic
figure and raises the argument that it was Agamemnon who first poisoned
the well, perhaps justifying his wife's actions. And though I want to
stress that Aeschylus was no Euripides and firmly reinstates the
established order at the end of the story, he makes it clear that he
takes the side of the "other" seriously, whether it be woman, barbarian,
or heretical force.
The Libation Bearers is the weakest of the plays because Hamlet
expands on the same themes better--indecision, civil conflict, the
self-destructive moral ambiguity of revenge--but at least it's short. Eumenides,
my favorite of the three, elevates the story from familial and tribal
significance to the national and even transcendent realm. Here the
avatar of vengeance threatens our (ostensible) hero, and by extension
community, as a force that's completely out of control. Even the god
Apollo is impotent to stop it (note his sexism). It takes Athena--the
reconciliation of man and woman as well as conflict and learning--to
create a human solution to the intractable dilemma. Here the
Furies and Apollo present their arguments to a jury who symbolize a
legitimate authority and resolution to conflict, sanctioned by the
divine order. In the end the jury is split over Orestes guilt, and
although Athena absolves him with a lame and offensive excuse, the
important thing here is less the merits of the debate than the crucial
stability that a respected decision commands. In fact after the verdict
Orestes is tossed aside as the mere tool he is, as Athena strives to
calm the Furies from their, well, fury. She succeeds by assimilating
them into the civilized order and finding a healthy conduit for their
destructive capacity.
Aeschylus is my favorite kind of
conservative: he believed that legitimate institutions, when engaging
seriously with the complaints of the subversive, can absorb and
transform the latter in a way that benefits everyone. The solution is to
find a reconciliation wherein those wronged by society can be allowed
to invest in and profit from the status-quo. His contrast to
Euripides--who questioned the very foundation of the state as almost
hopelessly rotted, and who also reveled in the perspective of the
exploited (especially women)--is more pregnant than even Aristophanes
could manage. I'll end by highlighting that The Oresteia is not
really about its namesake, who is a mere vehicle. The loci of
attention--Clytemnestra, the Furies, and even perhaps Electra--draw
attention to what's salient, with the respected maledom called into
question: Agamemnon, Apollo, and even Orestes. I don't think their
reinstatement as authority figures is perfunctory. You can criticize
leadership without removing them by force. To do so risks
self-perpetuating chaos, breeding more suffering than the original
injustice itself. The answer Aeschylus offers us is that rare thing in
CGT: a tragedy with a happy ending
