“You handmaidens who set our house in order”
Electra in The Libation Bearers
This session in
our beautiful online class; the
Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, we studied the last two plays in a trilogy
of plays called the “Oresteia” by
Aeschylus. They are “The Libation Bearers” and “The Eumenides”
Professor Nagy
said in class; “And I hope that those
people out there who are listening to us, who are members of that kind of
society, will share with us how their emotional world is shaped by the frequent
practice of libations for many
situations.” I didn’t reply, but I was from a
“culture” at one time that practiced libations.
For those unaware, libations are when you tip your glass, nominally to
the “gods and ghosts of this place” and spill a little on the ground. The Happy Jack Hotshots poured libations
before drinking out of their canteens, before the first sip out of their red
cup at keggers, their morning cups of coffee on the kitchen steps. When they began pouring libations on the cook
house floor, that’s when the crew boss tried to stop the tradition. I don’t know how it started. Admittedly spilling a little water out of
your canteen before taking a drink might wash off the ash, dust and grime, but
the habit went way beyond that. One slow
shift on the fire line we spread the crew out along a back-fired hand line to
watch for sparks and embers floating over into the “green”. The smoke from the burnt out valley below
rose slowly and low up slope. Patrolling
the light smoke proved tolerable. Come
lunch time when I meet up with my buddy Bob. We discovered clear air in the
first few feet above the pine-needle covered earth. We lay on our sides, dining Roman style. I gabbed away, pulled the small can of once
frozen orange juice from my lunch sack, poured a libation habitually and raised
it to my lips. Bob grasped my
wrist. “Pour another libation.” I did.
My orange juice was black.
Clearly something went wrong with it somewhere along the line. And after that the tradition of pouring
libations grew more entrenched than ever.
The two plays in
addition to libations are concerned with the effort of Orestes and his sister
Electra to avenge the death of their father. To do so requires them to kill
their mother. Ugh! Matricide is the ultimate sin in Greek mythology. Their
mother killed their father. The poets claim that Agamemnon (his name is
the title of the first of the three plays.) sacrificed their sister Iphigenia.
Rumor reports (Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses
27) that the girl wasn't their sister but a
bastard cousin raised in their household.
The second of
the three plays opens with Electra trying to perform the libations; the rituals
required in honor of dead ancestors. Being poorly raised in a dysfunctional
household she is unsure of her ceremonial responsibility. She asks the advice of the attendants who
came from the palace with her, the “handmaidens
who set our house in order,”
I find the
phraseology ironic because the ceremony turns from a little ritual honoring the
dead into a summoning of an Erinye; a spirit of bloody revenge. The Erinyes
are the three divine handmaidens with torches and whips who protect the cosmic
order from violation by men and gods. If
you want a description; they are generally winged maidens with snakes for hair,
they themselves dripping poisonous venom often covered in gore and blood.
The mortal “handmaidens”
suggest at line 400 that rather than the customary water (or even orange juice)
“it is the customary law that drops of
blood spilled on the ground demand yet more blood.
The devastation cries out for the Erinyes, which from those
who died before brings one disaster after another disaster. “
Eventually Orestes
and Electra revenge their father by slaying their mother, but some of her final
words are (Line 924] “Take care: beware
the hounds of wrath that avenge a mother.”
In response to
his doomed mother’s warning Orestes hopes at line 269 “Surely he will not abandon me, the mighty oracle of Loxias, who urged
me to brave this peril to the end and loudly proclaims calamities that
chill the warmth of my heart, if I do not take vengeance on those who are
guilty of my father’s murder.”
In previous
reading of this trilogy a feeling about the futility of revenge never crept
over me. Agamemnon’s family for generations
performed unbelievable acts evil on one another in the name of revenge. My realization that Agamemnon resorted to sorcery in slaying the virgin
Iphigenia, probably made me aware, that all these people made choices along the
way. Apparently, they didn’t hear Fannie
Flagg’s advice, “Love and forgiveness is always right. Meanness and pettiness is always wrong.”
The final play;
“The Eumenides” opens with Orestes trapped in the temple at Delphi by the
hideous Erinyes and his mother’s ghost. (So
much for Loxias’ help!) The god slips
him out the side door and sends him off to Athens and the protection of the
goddess Athena. Then more to himself
than anyone less Loxias says, “ And I
will aid the suppliant and rescue him! For the mēnis of the suppliant would be awesome to mortals and
gods, if I intentionally abandoned him.”
Interestingly
Loxias is not concerned about his reputation or the reputation of his Oracle,
but rather the wrath, the anger, the menis
of Orestes. “Menis” is a Greek word for
anger generally reserved for gods, but in this case, Orestes anger with the
gods would have consequences of cosmic proportions.
When the Erinyes
catch up with Orestes, his hostess Athena has a proposal. Something, “no other human could have anywhere else, either among the Scythians or
in the territories of Pelops.” Rather
than the ancient law of the blood feud, Athena introduces the idea of the rule
of law, specifically trial by jury. The Erinyes
object at line 779 that the “Younger
gods, you have ridden down the ancient laws and snatched them from my hands!” They object to being deprived of the honors
and prerogatives guaranteed them by Zeus
himself at Mecone. At 879 they pray to the mightiest force of the Underworld , “Hear my heart, Mother Night, for
the deceptions of the gods are hard to fight and they have nearly deprived
me of my ancient honors. “
Eventually, they
agree to try out this new-fangled jury idea.
Athena rigs the ballot and Orestes is declared innocent. The Erinyes froth
with menis, dripping venom and about
to hurl rage upon the ground. But,
Athena promises them the world; Olympian
honors, a place in her own temple with the local cult hero, a sanctuary of
their own, rites and festivals in their honor , etc., etc. Somewhere in there she mentions (Line 827) “I alone of the gods know where the keys are
to the house (of Zeus) where his thunderbolt is kept safe”
The Erinyes
accept the new situation and new name “The Eumenides”; the Kindly Ones, while continuing to be the " handmaidens who set our house in order"
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