Aeschylus: Libation Bearers by C. W. Marshall

Author:C. W. Marshall [Marshall, C. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: drama, Ancient & Classical, Literary Collections, Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781474255073
Google: 54wEvgAACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2017-09-07T01:03:03+00:00

Chorus and Character

87

Orestes and Pylades, of course, are armed with swords. All travellers would carry swords because the roads are wild. 37 And Orestes’ sword, forged by Destiny, will pierce lungs (very soon …) in a place where Justice has been trampled and Zeus, god of kingship, dishonoured.

Orestes holds the weapon, and he is the child: this is no longer figurative, especially if Orestes is still on stage. It is a brutal, beautiful hymn.

Stage directions must be inferred from the words spoken, and there is a unanimity of opinion at this point, reflected in all major translations, against which I would like to argue. It is usually thought that Orestes and Pylades retire along an eisodos when Electra leaves at 584, leaving the chorus alone on stage for the stasimon, and then return along the same eisodos and approach the palace door.38 This view holds that the performance space ‘refocuses’ from the tomb of Agamemnon to the Palace at Argos (subsequently, the tomb is mentioned at 722–5). This refocusing is more problematic than is generally recognized, since it is not accompanied by an ‘empty stage’, as at Eumenides 234, which allows for the transition from Delphi to Athens.

Orestes has outlined his plans to arrive at the palace with Pylades assuming the accent of a Phocian: this is to be his disguise. Does he alter his appearance further? I believe he does not. There are no special ‘Phocian garments’ he must put on. He is a traveller who has come on the road with luggage. He and Pylades have the broad-brimmed petasos that travellers habitually wore (see Chapter 2.1). He is unknown in Argos as an adult and already looks like a foreigner.

No further disguise is necessary. Once this is acknowledged, the need for Orestes and Pylades to leave and return similarly disappears. If they stay onstage, readying themselves at the centre of the orchēstra while the chorus allusively sing about the evils women do, then at the final reference in strophē Δ to Orestes and the sword of Justice, the meaning of the image becomes strikingly clear. The audience has seen

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Aeschylus: Libation Bearers

their preparations (however minimal they were), and consequently is in the know, more closely allied to Orestes.

In this light, we should reconsider previous movements: I’ve suggested that the chorus and Electra make their initial appearance from the skēnē which represented the palace, and it was to there that Electra returned at 584. Scholars who assume the scene must ‘refocus’

over the course of this stasimon often have the characters enter by an eisodos, but this creates a needless complication. Electra has to go to the palace on receiving Orestes’ instructions, and the clearest indication of where that is can be achieved by having her walk to the visible central door of the skēnē. Using an eisodos requires the refocusing that others have postulated. With the continuous presence of the chorus, though, this is problematic.

On a non-naturalistic stage without defining or localizing details of setting, the distance that exists between

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