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AeschylusOresteia
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BetaThe Libation BearersChapter Summaries & Analyses
The Libation Bearers, Lines 1-633 Summary
Orestes returns to Argos several years after the murder of Agamemnon, accompanied by his friend, Pylades. He leaves a lock of hair at his father’s grave. From a distance, they spy Orestes’ sister Electra, accompanied by the chorus of enslaved women. Clytaemnestra has sent them to bring libations for the dead to quiet their spirits. Unsure of what sort of prayer to offer to her father’s spirit, Electra lets the leader of the chorus guide her; they have a mutual hatred of Clytaemnestra. She prays for the safety of her friends, for Orestes to come home, and for the vengeance to come to Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra.
Orestes and Electra are reunited after Electra finds his lock of hair and follows his footprints which are nearly identical to hers. Electra is skeptical at first, then overjoyed. Orestes prays to Zeus to watch over them. The leader of the chorus urges them to be cautious, lest they be overheard. Orestes reveals that Apollo himself charged him with avenging Agamemnon. Failure to do so will invoke the Furies. Orestes, Electra, and the chorus invoke Zeus, the Furies, and the spirit of Agamemnon to aid their vengeance. The chorus withdraws, and Orestes and Electra complete their prayer to their father.
The chorus returns. Orestes asks the leader why Clytaemnestra called for the offering of libations for Agamemnon. The leader explains that Clytaemnestra dreamed she gave birth to and nursed a snake. The queen took this as a sign and immediately called for an offering to be made. Orestes views this as a prophesy foretelling his success in avenging his father.
Orestes lays out his plan. Electra will go inside the house, keeping her meeting with Orestes a secret, because “They killed an honoured man by cunning, so/ they die by cunning, caught in the same noose” (543-544). He and Pylades will feign a foreign accent and call upon the rules of hospitality and hosting to be allowed in, where he will promptly slay Aegisthus. Orestes, Electra, and Pylades leave. The chorus sings an ode as Orestes stands poised to “wipe clean/ the inveterate stain of blood shed long ago” (630-631).
The Libation Bearers, Lines 633-1077 Summary
Orestes and Pylades stand outside the gates to the palace. Orestes demands he be received, claiming he has important news. Clytaemnestra arrives and offers them hospitality. He claims to be a stranger from a town near Delphi, sent by Strophios to tell Clytaemnestra that Orestes is dead. Clytaemnestra acts dismayed at the news, and promises Orestes the hospitality due to him. They all enter the house.
Clissa, Orestes’ childhood nurse, meets the chorus in tears. Clytaemnestra sent her to get Aegisthus to hear the news; she could sense Clytaemnestra’s mirth. Clissa raised Orestes and mourns at his supposed death. The chorus convinces Clissa to say Clytaemnestra wants Aegisthus to come without his bodyguards. The chorus prays to Zeus, Apollo, and Hermes for justice to be done. Aegisthus enters. He is skeptical that Orestes has really died and asks the chorus if they have any more information. The leader tells him to go see for himself. Aegisthus goes inside.
The chorus hears screaming from inside the house. A wounded servant exits, crying “Ai, over, master’s dead—Ai ,/ a third, last salute. Aegisthus is no more” (862-861). Clytaemnestra comes to investigate and is confronted by Orestes. Orestes’ courage wavers at the sight of his mother, but Pylades chides him, reminding him of the oath he swore to Apollo. Clytaemnestra attempts to convince him not to kill her, but it is to no avail. Orestes drags his mother into the house. The chorus sings of the redemption of the House of Atreus.
Orestes opens the door, standing over the bodies of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus, tangled up in the same robes in which Clytaemnestra entangled Agamemnon. Orestes reflects on his mother’s treachery. Pylades helps Orestes into Delphic supplicant robes. Orestes is suddenly beset by the Furies, the result of Clytaemnestra’s hatred, and flees along with Pylades. The chorus laments the turn of events, wondering, “Where will it end?— / where will it sink to sleep and rest, / this murderous hate, this Fury?” (1075-1077).
The Libation Bearers Analysis
The Libation Bearers begins sometime after the events of Agamemnon and deals with the familial and spiritual fallout of the Agamemnon’s murder. The domestic nature of the play is emphasized by the presence of Electra, the chorus of enslaved women, and Orestes’ old nurse, Clissa.
The House of Atreus is in disorder without its rightful heir, Orestes. The pollution that Agamemnon’s death left threatens the order of house and state, and failing to give him the proper funerary rites could have disastrous consequences. Apollo warns Orestes that “the dead take root beneath the soil, / they grow with hate and plague the lives of men” (283-284). Even though Agamemnon is not present (he does not appear as a ghost as Clytaemnestra does in The Eumenides), the threat of his curse is the omnipresent driving force of the action of The Libation Bearers. The main action of the play is to appease Agamemnon’s spirit by offering the proper funeral honors (the pouring of libations and prayer at his grave) and avenging his death by slaying his murderers, Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus.
Orestes is the tragic hero of The Libation Bearers; he must either murder his mother or face the wrath of his dead father’s curse. Unlike Agamemnon, Orestes does not particularly exhibit hamartia; his tragic nature derives from being descended from a cursed and polluted bloodline, forced to take his choice of two curses. Orestes explains, “You never see / your father’s wrath but it pulls you from the altars. / There is no refuge, none to take you in. / A pariah, reviled, at long last you die, / withered in the grip of all this dying” (297-301). Failing to avenge his father will doom him to life as a social pariah, a polluted exile.
Orestes is bound by fate and prophesy to kill his mother, bringing the laws of god and man into conflict. Because Apollo has ordained the murder, it is sanctified. However, matricide is still a crime, and violating the parent-child bond incurs the wrath of the Furies, who pursue Orestes at the end of the play, driving him on as “the hounds / of mother’s hate” (1054). Invisible to the chorus, the Furies represent a manifestation of Orestes’ guilt.
Moreover, Orestes and Pylades abuse xenia, the sacred relationship between hosts and guests, to plan their revenge. Xenia is at the heart of the blood curse of the House of Atreus that began when Atreus broke the host-guest bond by inviting his brother into his house and feeding him his own children. Disguised as a stranger, Orestes invokes xenia to be invited in. When Orestes kills Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra, he winds their bodies in the same net of robes Clytaemnestra used to trap Agamemnon, and he stands over their entwined bodies, mirroring the staging of Clytaemnestra standing over Agamemnon and Cassandra at the climax of the previous play.
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By Aeschylus
