The Furies as a Symbol of Absolution in Aeschylus’ “The Eumenides”
After finishing the last play in Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, The Eumenides, I am left with several questions.
After finishing the last play in Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, The Eumenides, I am left with several questions.
First, why is it that the Furies seek revenge for Clytaemnestra’s murder but not Iphigenia’s, given that each were killed by blood relations? Why is it worse for the child to kill the parent?
Second, why is it that Agamemnon’s spilled blood “clots hard, it won’t seep through, it breeds revenge” while the blood of Clytaemnestra “wets the ground, // you can never bring it back, dear god, // the Earth drinks, and the running life is gone” (Fagles, pp. 179 and 243)? If both are murdered by kin and each seeks revenge, why does one’s blood sit uneasy atop the Earth while the other’s is immediately consumed?
Beyond those queries, I am struck by a third point of interest that I’d like to try to unravel here. Out of all of the people in the tragedies we have read who commit murder — and especially out of all of the people who kill their own kin — Orestes is the first to go to official trial, one complete with witnesses and judges. He is cleansed of his blood-soaked hands thanks to the grace of Apollo, but still followed around by the horrifying Furies as he makes his way to Athens, where he is given a trial by ten Pallas-appointed judges and Pallas Athena herself. The judges tie the vote and Athena delivers a ruling in Orestes’ favor; he leaves the Crag of Ares a confident, vindicated man.
Here, I offer an interpretation of the Furies: while they function in the play as a symbol of retribution for murdered kin, they function within the setting of the trial as a direct symbol of guilt that can be eventually washed away by a favorable ruling.
Orestes flees the house of Atreus with bloody hands, yet the Furies push him onward to Delphi and Athens. He’s been absolved of blame by Apollo, but it is not until he is cleared of all charges by ten men and one goddess that he moves on from the matricidal ordeal. Thus, we can consider that the Furies who plagued him since the matricide were a direct personification (monsterification?) of Orestes’ self-given guilt, one that no one else could see (recall the Chorus’ confusion at the end of The Libation Bearers), one that he only allowed himself to be free of once the burden was lifted by a group of other people.
From there, we might consider what it says for the guilty to be ridden of shame by a favorable trial, regardless of the fact that they indeed committed the violent crime.
