An Oresteia

Notes

Quotes

CHORUS: Zeus! whoever Zeus is --
If he likes this name I'll use it --
measuring everything that exists I can
compare with Zeus nothing
except Zeus.

Quoted on April 20, 2013

AGAMEMNON: I am mortal. I can't trample luxuries underfoot. Honor me as a man not a divinity.
Anyway, who needs red carpets--my fame shouts aloud.
Here discretion is key.
Count no man happy until he dies happy.
If I keep this rule. I'll be okay.

Quoted on April 20, 2013

CHORUS: Still at the edge of my heart the song of the
Furies keep nagging--
no one taught me this song and it has no music,
all the same it shakes me.

Quoted on April 20, 2013

KLYTAIMESTRA: I said a lot of things before that sounded nice.
I'm not ashamed to contradict them now.

Quoted on April 20, 2013

ORESTES: As for me--
what harm can it do
to die in words?
I save my life and win glory besides!
Can a mere story be evil? No,
of course not--
so long as it pays in the end.

Quoted on April 20, 2013

KLYTAIMNESTRA: Call me
baseminded, blackmouthing bitch! if you like--
for if this is my nature
we know how I come by it, don't we?

Quoted on April 20, 2013

From Anne Carson's introduction to Orestes:

On the other hand, as an allegory or abstract design, it lacks all exactitude- seems to unfold like a bolt of cloth falling down stairs, spilling itself, random. Yet again, isn't there something terrible in randomness- the idea that at the very bottom of its calculations, real depravity has no master plan of any kind, it's just a dreamy whim that slides out of people when they are trapped or bored or too lazy to analyze their own mania.

Quoted on April 20, 2013

But it seemed to Orestes and me
there ought to be a law against a mother like that.
Turns out there is: Apollo.
Apollo had us kill her.
Oretes did it, I helped. Kudos were not universal.

Quoted on April 20, 2013