Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers The Oresteia – Part Three, The Eumenides, and our conclusions about The Oresteia trilogy as a whole.

As commanded by Apollo, who sanctioned the hit on Clytemnestra, Orestes travels to Apollo's temple at Delphi. Apollo washes the blood-guilt from Orestes' hands, but The Furies are not to be appeased so quickly. Athena is called in to mediate, and she convenes a tribunal of ten Athenians to hear testimony and pass judgment in the case. The judgment ends in a tie, with Athena casting the deciding vote in Orestes favor. (Hmmm… sounds a lot like the Supreme Court and the 2000 election.) Outraged, The Furies threaten to bring plagues and pestilence to the land, but Athena manages to appease them, and in the end, they all go home winners.

And so, we reach the end of the Oresteia – the only intact trilogy of ancient Greek drama. What did you think of the plays as a group? Did you sense a progression from ancient blood feuds, curses and vendettas, to a more reasoned, court of law mentality arranged by Athena? Do we live in a world of laws today, or are we still plagued by a blood thirst for revenge?

This is my favorite of the three plays. I read Ted Hughes translation, the recommended version was not available at my public library. The poetry in it is very good.

Jenny wrote: "This is my favorite of the three plays. I read Ted Hughes translation, the recommended version was not available at my public library. The poetry in it is very good."

After reading the trilogy, would you have voted in Orestes' favor?

BTW, if you come across a copy of the Fagles translation, I definitely recommend you read the essay "The Serpent and the Eagle". W.B. Stanford gives a great framework for understanding the trilogy and how it might have been perceived by Aeschylus' contemporaries.

Jim wrote: "Do we live in a world of laws today, or are we still plagued by a blood thirst for revenge? ..."

Both. During the recent interviews of pundits after the shootings in Wisconsin, the point was made that there are some 12,000 deaths by gunshot in the U.S. annually, perhaps 250 of those in events like Virginia Tech, Columbine, Wisconsin, Colorado, Arizona,.... I suspect a fair number in that larger category could be considered vengeance.

Yet, difficulties in putting in place just systems in places as diverse as China, Russia, third world countries,..., are often attributed partially to the lack of legal systems regarding human rights and property rights and the lack of systems for adjudicating the laws that do exist. (A humorous line in a book just read suggested that many ideas were developed multiple places in the world over long periods of time, but Americans managed to patent them. So, justice....)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gu...

Here is a quick sanity check that somewhat affirms and somewhat calls into question the numbers above on firearm deaths. There are a number of other viewpoints on the Net.