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Delahoyde & Hughes
Orpheus
ORESTES
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One major editor of Euripides' Orestes compares it to Shakespeare's Troilus
and Cressida: "tragedy utterly without affirmation, an image of heroic action seen
as botched, disfigured, and sick, carried along by the machinery and slogans of heroic
action in a steady crescendo of biting irony and the rage of exposure" (106). There
seem to be no good characters other than the weak Hermione. The play is dated to
408 BCE, not long before Euripiedes withdrew from Athens.
Electra introduces the play, referring to family background (Tantalus, Pelops, Atreus)
with qualifying phrases: "or so they say," "Or so the legend goes" (113). More recently,
events with Menelaus, Helen, and the murder of Agamemnon after the Trojan War have led
to Orestes and Electra conspiring and carrying out the murder of their mother, Clytemnestra,
six days ago. Orestes hasn't eaten since nor bathed, and is half-mad. Electra doesn't know
if the city of Argos will condemn them to "stoning or the sword" (115), and she rails
about Helen, who appears and seems habitually to be blaming gods for all human events.
Helen and Menelaus' daughter Hermione will be sent to do honors to Clytemnestra's grave.
Orestes slowly comes to and blames Apollo for the crime (129). He requests help from
uncle Menelaus, but Tyndareus tells Menelaus that Orestes should have brought his
mother to a court of law (142). Orestes feels he did the state a service (145). But
Menelaus afterwards hems and haws:
It is reported that the Argives voted for the death penalty after some discussion.
Only one small farmer agreed that Orestes did them all a favor (166). Electra and
Orestes must kill themselves. Of course, Menelaus didn't even show up in support of
his family. Pylades decides they should murder Helen; then they'll really be heroes:
"men will ... thank us, congratulate us for doing away / with a vicious, worthless
woman" (177). Electra has a plan too: take Hermione hostage. Orestes is impressed
with Electra's "mind of a man" (180): "If ever a woman deserved to live, not die, /
that woman is you" (180). If?
After Orestes' prayer to Agamemnon, Electra divides the Chorus in half to guard while
Orestes and Pylades enter to murder Helen, which they do, although there is some
ambiguity involving possible disappearance or ascension when the event is reported
by a servant. Hermione is taken hostage, and Orestes and Pylades hold her on the roof
with Orestes holding a sword to her throat. Electra is ready to set the place ablaze,
and Menelaus must witness this.
In a bizarre deus ex machina ending, Apollo appears and reports that Helen was
magically delivered from death: "she sits enthroned forever, a star / for sailors" (205).
Menelaus will marry again, Orestes will live but in exile and marry Hermione. Everyone
praises Apollo and everyone else. The end.
Believe me, Orestes,
Blah blah blah. Orestes perceives the cheesiness and calls him a "cheap traitor" (153).
Pylades, who aided and abetted, speaks with Orestes and insists he'll stay to face the
music also instead of skulk away into hiding. "'Provide yourself with friends / as
well as kin,' they say. And the proverb tells the truth. / One loyal friend is worth
ten thousand relatives" (161), beams Orestes.
I sympathize from the bottom of my heart.
And nothing in this world would please me more
than to honor tha touching appeal for help.
. . .
Go knows,
I only wish I could. But it just so happens
that I arrived in Argos in a weakened way --
devoid of support.... (151)
Euripides. Orestes. Euripides IV. Ed. David Grene and Richard Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. 105-208.