Orestes

And Orestes too, you doubtless see in the tragedies blaming the god and reproaching him, whenever he was mad, as though Apollo had counseled him to kill his mother.

and again, in another poet of later times, how Electra, inquiring about her brother with grief and pitying him for his exile, asks somewhat thus:

Indeed, men charge even their private passions to Fortune:

How great a thing this is the feigned fables of the ancients declare, in which, though they are so many and so various and fetched from the remotest antiquity, scarcely three pairs of friends are found, so that, setting out from Theseus, you come at last to Orestes.

Or, being Pylades, will you say that you are Orestes, that you may die for a friend?

'I am Orestes,' and, on the contrary, from the other:

Orestes:

Electra:

Orestes:

Who, then, was first and who last to be slain by Ares and Hektor?

Then, when we reach Achaean Argos, wealthiest of all lands, he shall be my son-in-law and I will show him like honor with my own dear son Orestes, who is being nurtured in all abundance.

Then, when we reach Achaean Argos, wealthiest of all lands, you shall be his son-in-law, and he will show you like honor with his own dear son Orestes, who is being nurtured in all abundance.

At that moment he was thinking of Aigisthos, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes;

have you not heard how people are singing Orestes' praises [ kleos] for having killed his father's murderer Aigisthos?

for I sent Hermes to warn him not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home.

First, then, in ancient times, as we are told by tradition, in this court alone the gods condescended both to render and to demand satisfaction for homicide, and to sit in judgement upon contending litigants,—Poseidon, according to the legend, deigning to demand justice from Ares on behalf of his son Halirrothius, and the twelve gods to adjudicate between the Eumenides and Orestes.

and that, arguing that Orestes, having slain his own mother, confessing the fact, and finding gods to adjudge his case, was acquitted, they formed the opinion that there is such thing as justifiable homicide,—for gods could not have given an unjust verdict.

Orestes:

Electra:

Orestes:

Awake to bless your sister’s wedding;

here, take this child Orestes, son of Agamemnon, baby as he still is.

and her mother, your wife Clytemnestra, is with her, and the child Orestes, a sight to gladden you after your long absence from your home;

Orestes:

Pylades:

Orestes:

Orestes:

Electra:

Paedagogus:

Should any mortal meet the hero Orestes at night, he would soon be stripped and covered with blows from head to foot.

Far away in the regions of darkness, where no ray of light ever enters, there is a country, where men sit at the table of the heroes and dwell with them always —except in the evening.

For this insanity, which, joined with folly, extends more widely, we separate from raving fury.

"Orestes, what disease destroys you?

Orestes:

Orestes:

Orestes:

This passage is parallel to a better known passage in the Eumenides of Æschylus, in which Apollo, as advocate for Orestes, argues that he was not of kin to his mother, Clytemnestra, whom he had killed.

for we are told, in the third book of the Odyssey, that Ægisthus, who had added the crime of murder to that of adultery, was honoured with funeral ceremonies by Orestes, the son of the murdered king.

Do you think that the mad Orestes, or Margites, the greatest fool of all time, would act like that?

Truly, it was easy to recognize in him the ancient blood of Peisander of Sparta, who came from Amyclae with Orestes, leading here a bronze-armored host of Aetolians, and also the blending of his blood with that of his mother’s ancestor Melanippus, beside the stream of the Ismenus.

But at last, with the help of Ares, he killed his mother and laid Aegisthus low in blood.

Cassandra, together with the soul of Agamemnon, to the shadowy bank of Acheron with her gray blade of bronze, the pitiless woman.

He himself died, the heroic son of Atreus, when at last he returned to famous Amyclae, and he caused the destruction of the prophetic girl, when he had robbed of their opulent treasures the houses of the Trojans, set on fire for Helen«s sake.

Well now, do you suppose that Orestes would ever have attacked his mother if he had similarly failed to know her?

For presumably he, too, had no intention of killing the first woman he met, or anybody else’s mother, but only his own.

But do you think that Orestes, if he had had all his wits about him and had known what was best for him to do, would have brought himself to commit any act of the sort?

So it seems, Socrates.

As the name of Orestes (mountain man) is undoubtedly correct, Hermogenes, whether it was given him by chance or by some poet who indicated by the name the fierceness, rudeness, and mountain-wildness of his nature.

So we have songs telling also how Orestes, Pylades, Theseus, Peirithous, and many other illustrious demi-gods wrought glorious deeds of valour side by side, not because they shared a common bed but because of mutual admiration and respect.