1 The Living Art of Greek Tragedy Marianne McDonald, Ph.D., MRIA ...

it clear that Orestes is angered by Clytemnestra's concern for Aegisthus' body and mourning over
it. Orestes is jealous and angry when he sees his mother’s concern for another man, particularly
the man who killed his father. The analogies with Hamlet are obvious.
The deadly cycle is made visible, particularly by parallel scenes, like the revelation of
two bodies in both the first and second play. Orestes' mad scene at the end of the play is
comparable to Cassandra's in Agamemnon as a harbinger of doom.
The Eumenides
The final play of this trilogy ties up loose ends. Somehow the chorus of Furies (divine
avengers) must be appeased and an end brought to this cycle of vengeance. These women are
strikingly horrible in their appearance, monsters with snakes for hair. They have the most lines
and are the only divine chorus in Greek tragedy. Their transformation into Eumenides or "kindly
ones" constitutes one main action of this play. Naming the third play the Eumenides
expresses the wish that this transformation will take place when the furies accept the honors
offered them at the end.
The first scene takes place in Delphi. A priestess enters the temple of Apollo (the central
door of the skênê) only to run out again in terror because she has seen the sleeping Furies and
Orestes clasping Apollo's omphalos ("sacred navel stone") to hold them at bay. The Furies are
asleep, but the audience hears them loudly snoring, sometimes yelping like hunting dogs hot on a
chase. Apollo leads Orestes out of the temple and tells him to go to Athens and appeal to Athena.
The ghost of Clytemnestra enters and wakes the Furies up and tells them to pursue their victim.
The chorus (Furies) enter the stage from the temple. Apollo tells them to leave his sacred space.
The scene shifts to Athens, first to Athena's temple on the Acropolis, and then to the court on the
Areopagus hill. Such a striking change of location within a play is unparalleled in surviving
tragedies.
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