Oresteia Story, as Trilogy of Events Written

¶ … Oresteia story, as trilogy of events written by Aeschylus, revolves around revenge.

In the first sequel, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra murders both her husband Agamemnon and his concubine, Cassandra, a priestess of the Greek god, Apollo. Cassandra had received prophecy of her imminent murder as well as future events that will befall the House of Atreus, but she had been restrained by Apollo from publicizing her vision since she had rejected his advances. Aegisthus's cousin and Clytemnestra's adulterer now assumes the throne with the chorus reminding the audience that avenge will soon ensue. In sequel two, The Libation Bearers, Agamemnon's children Electra and Orestes kill Clytemnestra to avenge the death of their father. He flees the palace with the Furies, deities that avenge patricide and matricide, chasing him and the Chorus informing us that the cycle of revenge will continue.

In the final sequal, The Eumenides, the ghost of Clytemnestra pushes the Furies to continue changing Orestes until they track him down. Apollo intercedes at the last moment and summons all to a trial bringing in eleven Athenians to serve as jury. There, Orestes (represented by Apollo) defends himself against the ceaseless torment endured from the Furies, whilst the Furies represent Clytemnestra the trail results in an equal vote. The Furies submit. Apollo announces that from hereon, hung juries should always consequent in acquittal, as mercy should take precedent over harshness.

The play, although ending fortuitously, orbits on the theme of revenge. The ancient law of the Furies mandates that blood must be reciprocated with blood in an unending cycle of doom. This has been the law for generations, and the Furies emphasize this at several points urging the play:

It is the law: when the blood of slaughter wets the ground it wants more blood.

Slaughter cries for the Fury of those long dead to bring destruction on destruction churning in its wake! (LB, 394-398)

This is the natural law, and nothing can stop this. Here, however, Apollo stops in to intercede. For mankind to continue, distinction must be made between legitimate and illegitimate revenge. Mankind will be annihilated if it submerges itself endlessly in bathos of violence. Mercy, says, Apollo, takes precedence over harshness, and she wins the Furies over to her cause.

The Bible

The God in the Old Testament is a mixture of revenge and loving kindness. At times, revenge seems to predominate, as when he brought the flood upon the world wiping out all creatures but one, and when he threatened to annihilate the entire Israelite tribe for worshipping the Golden Calf. Incidents abound. Prominent among these is the 'eye for an eye' phrase where violence seems to demand ditto violence as recompense. On the other hand, God tells us time and again that He is a just loving compassionate God. Children cannot be punished for the sins of their fathers and vice versa. Incidents of forbearance intervene with harshness and totalitarian rule.

In Mosaic legal theory, all breaches of the law offend God. All crimes are sins, and all sins are crimes. Offenses can only be pardoned and expunged by God. Making restitution to the offended individual is not always sufficient. Sometimes, God may require expiation too, and this may involve punishment.

Similarities.

Both the Old Testament and Oresteia have a deity sitting in judgment over mankind and concluding (as God, for instance, did after the flood), and as Apollo did in her verdict) that it is mercy that must dominate.

Similarities abound. One of the metaphors that appears in both places is that of a ground soaked with blood:

The Furies in Oresteia exclaim:

The mother's blood that wets the ground, you can never bring it back, dear god, the Earth drinks, and the running life is gone.

(Furies, Eum. 259-261)

And God says by Cain:

And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." (Gen. 4:11)

Both Apollo and God seem like guardians or parents who allow a foolish world to turn upon each other and knock each other out, and then they convene humanity to order and command them to stop because continuation in this cycle of violence will only spell the end to humanity.

Dissimilarities.

The closet parallel to the code of revenge mustered by the Furies (that revenge must continue unabated) would be the famous Old Testament phrase of:

If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Ex. 21:23-24)

However, as the next verse shows us this is figurative retribution (compensatory) rather than literal:

When a slave owner strikes the eye of a male or female slave, destroying it, the owner shall let the slave go, a free person, to compensate for the tooth. (Ex. 21:26)

In another dissimilarity, Aeschylus seems to tell us that it is up to man alone to select his choice regarding his conduct. There are no gods to advise and direct (although they monitor, judge, and intervene and occasionally fall into scrapes themselves). Rather, life is unfair and people are often stuck in sticky places and have to choose the best choice to extract themselves. Orestes was faced with a dilemma. According to the law of the furies, he had to avenge his father by killing his mother; yet, according to that same law he would still be punished for killing her. There seemed no way out, and Orestes had to chose. It was man, unaided by any superior code that made his decision.

In contradistinction, the Bible offers little traction for man announcing that judgments and actions are to be regulated by a God-given law that is inflexible and, on the whole, not determined by man. It is God, not man, that determines direction of actions.