According to one legend, the epithet “Tritonia,” traditionally applied to Athena, meant that she was born at Lake Tritonis in Libya. Phlegra was the scene of the Battle between the Gods and Giants; it is interesting that Aeschylus seems to conceive it as a continuous battle, not an incident in the past. ↩
Orestes’ prayer is followed by silence; a pause and no answer. Then the triumphant cry of the Fury, and the Binding Song to fix his despair. Then here, when hope had failed, Athena’s entrance. ↩
This song falls into two parts: a solemn and even philosophical statement of the place of the Avengers in the Cosmos, and a magical chorus or “Binding Song,” sinister and terrifying. “Binding charms” or Defixiones play a prominent part in ancient magic, and are sufficiently numerous to have a special volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum to themselves.
The Furies here explain that their business is to punish sin: they have no other function, and therefore are repugnant to the Gods—much as a hangman or a medieval torturer is, or was, repellent to ordinary society. Unjustly, since he was only doing his appointed duty. ↩
The Foe within the Dwelling. A murderer is one who behaves like the enemy inside his own household. ↩
Athena comes from Sigêum in the neighbourhood of Troy, which in the time of Aeschylus had long been part of the Athenian Empire. Tradition said that it had been given by the Greek army to the “Sons of Theseus” (the Athenians) for their services in the Trojan War. ↩
In the MS. two alternative lines are given, one to be used if Athena entered flying ex machina through the air, the other if it was more convenient for her to enter on a chariot. I have chosen the first. (The other may be translated:
Thence came I speeding, these young steeds of war
Impetuous yoked beneath my fiery car.)
The dialogue between Athena and the Furies is significant. They state their position impressively: to ordinary gods and mortals they are abominable, but Night loves them and “the wronged ones in the darkness” see in them their prayers personified. On the other hand, Athena’s question in l. 426, “What motive had he?” is just what they cannot answer or consider. “He has sinned; smite him,” is the whole of their doctrine.
This explains the point about the oath. The Furies follow the old ordeal by oath: the only trial permitted to the accused man is that both parties can be made to swear. If the accused can swear that he did not commit the crime, well and good. If he cannot, he is guilty. This leaves out of account any inquiry into justification or extenuating circumstances or even intention. Hence Athena condemns it, and eventually substitutes a trial by free inquiry into the whole of the facts. ↩
“A mystery graver to decide Than mortal dreameth.” Because it involves the whole problem of forgiveness. To reject the suppliant who has tried his best to do right is an offence; yet to save a particular sinner from the due consequence of his sin is an offence too. If one guilty man is to go unpunished, what remains of the Law? Athena decides to found a tribunal to inquire into the whole case and decide as it may think just, and this is the origin of the famous Court of the Areopagus. The Furies, as soon as they hear of this newfangled form of trial, are bewildered and begin to feel that they have been deceived. Their simple rule, that the doer shall suffer, is no longer holding good. ↩
The above leads on to the main argument of this fine lyric. “Spare the criminal, and the law is broken; and then there will be no protection for the helpless and innocent. Society cannot do without Fear, though of course it must be the Fear of Law. The righteous and law-fearing man may suffer, but is never utterly lost; the lawbreaker may succeed for a time, but in the end he is destroyed.” ↩
The Trial Scene, though curious, is perhaps below the level of the rest of the play. For one thing, I think it is deliberately set, like the play scene in Hamlet, one remove further from reality. As the play in general is to real life, so is the Trial Scene to the play. Further, the acquittal of Orestes does not depend on the arguments used in the trial, but on the Will of Zeus, which is an ultimate fact not dependent on argument. The interest lies in the foundation of the Court of the Areopagus, as a tribunal superseding the blood-feud, the ordeal by oath, and all the rigid and unreasoning practices of primitive justice, by a justice which can understand and therefore sympathize.
The arguments run roughly as follows:—
| Prosecution | Did the prisoner kill his mother? He admits it. He must die. |
| Defence | Apollo ordered him to kill, because she had killed her husband.—Why did you not pursue her? |
| Prosecution | A husband is not a blood relation. (A mere quibble, like Portia’s pound of flesh without blood.) |
| Defence | If it comes to that, neither is a mother. The best physiologists say that the human mother is in function exactly like Mother Earth. She provides the soil for the seed, she does not provide the seed itself. |
| Prosecution | A monstrous doctrine, to deny a mother’s sacred blood! |
| Defence | No more monstrous than to deny the bond between husband and wife. |
| Apollo’s Evidence | When I commanded the prisoner to kill his mother |
