Discover Top Posts Tagged with #the libation bearers

Aeschylus, Robert Fagles (translator), The Oresteia: The Libation Bearers

#HEY??#siblings #words #drama #the libation bearers #aeschylus #photo #tais toi lys #*excerpts #the oresteia #tagamemnon #house of atreus

Where do you come from stranger? Who are you?

Jonas and Hannah Kahnwald // The Libation Bearers, Aeschylus

#Dark 2017 #Dark netflix #Jonas Kahnwald #Hannah Kahnwald #the orestia #the libation bearers #Orestes #Clytemnestra #fraught mother/son relationships you will always be famous #there were probably better Jonas and Hannah scenes for this but these were the best quality screenshots of them I could find #this too is dark #greek tragedy summer #web weaving

I’m so normal about the oresteia and the house of Atreus you have no idea… Clytemnestra so caught up in her grief for her daughter that she can’t bring herself to love her other children in the way she so desperately wants to… Electra sending Orestes away and still being stuck at home, left to stew in her ever-growing hatred of her mother, waiting for the day that her brother comes back to save her from it all… Orestes coming back to Mycenae, knowing nothing but that he has to kill the mother he never knew and never got the chance to know and love. Having to decide between a dead father he never knew and a living mother that could never have loved him…

#foaming at the mouth #the oresteia #the Agamemnon #the libation bearers #the Eumenides #agamemnon #clytemnestra #iphigenia #electra #orestes

The Libation Bearers Ramble Review

The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus feels heavier than The Agamemnon.

Years after the murder of Agamemnon, it follows Orestes returns from exile to avenger his father, reunites with his sister, Electra, and they plot the deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

And much like it's prequel, the play's morality never stays black and white.

We see the fallout of Agamemnon's death. The household is haunted by his ghost, Orestes is exiled, and Electra is treated no better than a slave. So what follows next is believed to be the House of Atreus's restoration.

There's debate on whether Clytemnestra's grief reaction to hearing of her son's supposed death is genuine, but personally, the trilogy keeps exposing how she uses the roles of mother and lady of the house to her benefit.

While she claims she sent Orestes away for his own safety in The Agamemnon and that Phocis is an ally of Argos, she never brought him back after her revenge. And the nurse Cilissa claims her joy was hidden behind grief. (I swear, she deserves an Oscar.)

She pleas to Orestes that she's his mother, how she raised and nursed him, but Cilissa previously revealed that she was the one who did so.

Hot take, but if nurturing makes a parent, then Cilissa was more of Orestes' mother than Clytemnestra herself.

And yet, despite all of this, the play succeeds in making matricide never feel easy.

One of the play's saddest parts is how Orestes is encouraged to sever his relationship with his mother completely, to define himself only as Agamemnon's son, so that their emotional bond is destroyed to clear his guilt.

And after killing Clytemnestra, a disoriented Orestes returns to the chorus and begins unraveling as they celebrate their city's 'liberation':

"All that’s been done and suffered, all my bloodline grieves me, in my defiled, unenviable victory." - Line 1016-1017

There's no real victory here.

Agamemnon killed his daughter Iphigenia, so Clytemnestra avenged her by murdering him, and then Orestes avenged him by murdering his own mother. Every act of violence had a reason behind it, but it did them no good. It was just passed to the next person.

And Orestes' "choice" was never fully his own to begin with.

He explained how Apollo threatened him with disease, madness from the Furies, and a lonely death if he failed to avenge Agamemnon. While he said he would have done it anyway, he was still cornered.

A god didn't just command him. He threatened to pick one life to be destroyed: his or his mother's.

And the cruel part is Apollo's warnings still happen.

The Furies appear as Orestes’ mind begins to slip, and he’s driven to madness, running out of the stage.

In the end—for now—nobody wins in the House of Atreus.

I actually rlly like making illustrations like this rven if they dont turn out that great :] I wanted to make one for electra bc I love her

#tagamemnon #the oresteia #electra #greek mythology #the libation bearers

It is the law: when the blood of slaughter wets the ground it wants more blood. Slaughter cries for the Fury of those long dead to bring destruction on destruction churning in its wake!

The Libation Bearers (The Oresteia), Aeschylus tr. Robert Fagles

#the libation bearers #the oresteia #aeschylus #greek plays #greek tragedy #greek myth #ancient greece #ancient greek #greek literature #literature #academia aesthetic #dark academia #classic academia #classics #classic literature

Black and white text reading Clytemnestra did nothing wrong • Millions of unique designs by independent artists. Find your thing.

New design for Clytemnestra truthers

im still thinking about the libation bearers its been hours i know but its such an insane play. elektra recongising orestes by a lock of his hair. orestes wearing a weaving elektra made for him. clytemnestra telling orestes she loves him before he kills her. orestes hesitating before the murder. orestes standing by clytemnestra & aegisthus' bodies like his mother did with agamemnon. pylades.

#i could go on #the oresteia #the libation bearers #dante.txt