Story of Orestes

Story of Orestes, by Richard G.
Moulton

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Title: Story of Orestes A Condensation of the Trilogy
Author: Richard G. Moulton
Release Date: October 16, 2006 [EBook #19559]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY OF
ORESTES ***

Produced by Al Haines

BOOK OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
ANCIENT TRAGEDY

RICHARD G. MOULTON

CHICAGO
The University of Chicago Press
1904

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE ANCIENT DRAMA
(TRAGEDY)

CONTENTS
STORY OF ORESTES [Oresteia], A TRILOGY BY Aeschylus
AGAMEMNON THE SEPULCHRAL RITES [Choephori] THE
GENTLE GODDESSES [Eumenides]
ELECTRA, by Sophocles
ELECTRA, by Euripides
ALCESTIS, by Euripides
THE CYCLOPS, by Euripides
THE BACCHANALS, by Euripides
MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES

REFERENCES
In the case of Aeschylus and Sophocles the numbering of lines agrees
with that in the translations of Plumptre and in the original. In the
plays from Euripides the numbering is that of the lines in the cheap
translation (Routledge's Universal Library).
[Transcriber's note: In the original book, the line numbers mentioned
above were right-justified. In this e-book, they are enclosed in curly
braces, and placed immediately after their associated line of text, e.g.
". . . a line of text {123}".]

A CONDENSATION OF THE TRILOGY
STORY OF ORESTES
[ORESTEIA]

BEING THE ONLY GREEK TRILOGY, OR THREE-PLAY DRAMA,
WHICH HAS COME DOWN TO US COMPLETE

CONSISTING OF
MORNING PLAY:
AGAMEMNON
MIDDAY PLAY:
THE SEPULCHRAL RITES
[CHOEPHORI]

AFTERNOON PLAY:
THE GENTLE GODDESSES
[EUMENIDES]

COMPOSED BY AESCHYLUS, AND BROUGHT ON THE STAGE
AT ATHENS AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE 'GREATER DIONYSIA,'
IN MARCH OF 458 B. C., DURING THE POLITICAL
EXCITEMENT OCCASIONED BY THE POPULAR ATTACK ON
THE ARISTOCRATIC COURT OF MARS' HILL, OR AREOPAGUS

The passages quoted are from Plumptre's Translation

MEMORANDUM
The Sacred Legends touched by this Trilogy would be familiar, in
outline, to the Auditors: e. g.:
The woes of the House of Atreus: the foundation of them laid by
Atreus when, to take vengeance on his brother Thyestes, he served up
to him at a banquet the flesh of his own sons;
His grandsons were Agamemnon and Menelaus: Menelaus' wife, Helen,
was stolen by a guest, Paris of Troy, which caused the great Trojan
war.
Agamemnon, who commanded the Greek nations in that war, fretting at
the contrary winds which delayed the setting out of the fleet, was
persuaded by the Seers to slay his own daughter Iphigenia, to appease
the Deities;
Her mother Clytaemnestra treasured up this wrong all through the ten
years' war, and slew Agamemnon on his return, in the moment of

victory, slew him while in his bath by casting a net over him and
smiting him to death with her own arm;
Then she reigned in triumph with Aegisthus her paramour (himself one
of the fatal house), till Orestes her son, who had escaped as an infant
when his father was slaughtered, returned at last, and slew the guilty
pair;
For this act of matricide, though done by the command of Apollo,
Orestes was given up to the Furies, and driven over the earth, a
madman, till in Athens, on Mars' Hill they say, he was cleansed and
healed.
Cassandra too was involved in the fall of Agamemnon: the Trojan
maiden beloved of Apollo, who bestowed upon her the gift of prophecy;
when she slighted the God's love, Apollo--for no gift of a god can be
recalled--left her a prophetess, with the doom that her true forebodings
should ever be disbelieved. She, having thus vainly sought to save Troy,
with its fall fell into captivity, and to the lot of Agamemnon, with
whom she died.
The name of Orestes would suggest the proverbial friendship of Qrestes
[Transcriber's note: Orestes?] and Pylades, formed in Orestes' trouble
and never broken.

TRILOGY OF THE ORESTEIA
FIRST PLAY: IN THE MORNING:
AGAMEMNON
PROLOGUE
The Permanent Scene is decorated to represent the facade of the
Palace of Agamemnon, at Argos; the platform over the Central door
appearing as a Watch-tower. At intervals along the front of the Palace,
and especially by the three doors, are statues of Gods, amongst them

Apollo, Zeus, and Hermes. The time is supposed to be night, verging on
morning. Both Orchestra and Stage are vacant: only a Watchman is
discovered on the Tower, leaning on his elbow, and gazing into the
distance.
The Watchman soliloquizes on his toilsome task of watching all night
through for the first sight of the signal which is to tell of the capture of
Troy: he