#libation bearers

[summerscaries]

Putting my text post hands to classical use

✨main characters in my working thesis on Greek tragedy: there’s a murder in the oikos✨

(pt2)

[garland-on-thy-brow]

So I was thinking about how this is very Antony's funeral speech: the body is substituted by a piece of clothing, a (theatrical) device.

And then there are also the dogs of war.

[All quotes are from Libation Bearers trans. Sarah Ruden.]

[evilios]

— Aeshylus, Libation Bearers (trans. by R. Fagles)

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

watch the confrontation between Clytemnestra and Orestes (52:22-57:17) in the 1983 production of the Libation Bearers in the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. Mommy Issues play of all time. utterly obsessed with the actor who plays Orestes's performance and delivery of his grievances in this confrontation. The translation is a little weird with the rhyming and alliteration BUT it really creates an interesting auditory vibe to it.

[blueberry-ink-93]

CHOEPHOROI - LIBATION BEARERS

ngl i was operating on half a braincell today (and somehow managed to read 3 plays? the math aint mathin but whatever) so forgib me

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i JUST started ant i want to cry for my girl already

this is as i understand it her first time at her fathers grave? in any case she asks the chorus of trojan women for help (if i think about it too hard ill weep) and asdlfktirdl shes so helpless here it kills me

persephone <3 and the cthonic dieties make an appearance! namely hermes lol but still. love the imagery all the same

i adore supplications the language is so beautiful to me

(mother) earth is called to several times and at first i was like gaia??? and then i was like no they mean agamemnon being buried and then later i was like gaia???? still not sure who was meant lol

foreshadowing (to me) :3

the third storm as mentioned in agamemnon

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ready ur handkerchiefs

nurse of orestes mourning her son & electras line nearly killed me

love love love that orestes is said to have a heart akin to the hero perseus! athena & hermes feature in the plays so its extra neat lol

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this bitch?? the chorus speaks of clytemnestras glee at the news

ur third eye wont fucking save u from whats coming. dipshit

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back to our regularly scheduled programming: crying over orestes

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funniest part by far is electra finding a lock of hair belonging to orestes and recognising it (i kid u not) and tracing his footsteps and all of it but when she sees him shes like who tf is u

lskdkdjfgfkd

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im going to kill clytemnestra myself

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ew ew ew

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get her ass orestes

third storm!!

ft. apollo the destroyer

the furies :D

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kindred counter: 6

[exit KINDRED]

[dijeh]

Libation Bearers, The Oresteia, Aeschylus

trans. Christopher Collard

[finelythreadedsky]

is it professional academic language to say that sophocles' electra "riffs" on aeschylus' libation bearers

[athensandspartaadventures]

doodling some possible outfits for upcoming scenes (though I will have to simplify them for comic purposes)

athens is the only one wearing the same clothes as last chapter since he was travelling light. He's just sulking around the house with his unpinned chlamys over his shoulders.

[clytemnestraenjoyer]

I actually rlly like making illustrations like this rven if they dont turn out that great :] I wanted to make one for electra bc I love her

[sumer-is-icumen-in]

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!

The Libation Bearers (The Oresteia), Aeschylus tr. Robert Fagles

[orpheuslament]

im still thinking about the libation bearers its been hours i know but its such an insane play. elektra recongising orestes by a lock of his hair. orestes wearing a weaving elektra made for him. clytemnestra telling orestes she loves him before he kills her. orestes hesitating before the murder. orestes standing by clytemnestra & aegisthus' bodies like his mother did with agamemnon. pylades.

[garland-on-thy-brow]

Jin Guangyao Clytemnestra question mark

[catilinas]

hot

[acetechne]

World Watercolour Month: 1. Pattern

Still suffering in this heatwave and trying to use up gritty paints. Here is a scene (or a more serious version) from The Libation Bearers which I've been liveblogging because I've been reading Aeschylus again when I am not doing my real work.

I am very obsessed with weaving as a motif in the Oresteia, partially for gendered reasons and partially because there's this connection between weaving and things I've been reading about Athenian citizenship and kinship on my mind. In this scene, Elektra recognizes Orestes because he shows her the robe that she made for him, and the beasts she embroidered on it. It's a stark contrast between the robe that Clytemnestra wove for Agamemnon.

[blueberry-ink-93]

AGAMEMNON

thoughts on the first play of the oresteia!

this is the chorus of trojan women praying to artemis & apollo

lion metaphor counter: 2

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clytemnestra telling the elders that shes recieved news by torch that troy has been taken (via hefefuf lol)

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love love love the metaphor of oil & vinegar not mixing its soso good, pointing out the difference in persepctive lest we forget that while this is a victory for greece its a huge huge loss for troy

ofc there are no winners in war but here the devastation hardly compares

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just a tiny bit funny to me that a couch was mentioned alongside a palace and a king lol

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anyway while reading i noticed the trend of the elders regarding clytemnestra at times with confusion and others with contempt at her being a woman. and one in power no less

i do believe cly played into it which i suppose goes to show how much restraint and patience she had to put on the performance (lol) of the loyal wife welcoming her hero husband home having finally restored the honour of hellas to appease the argives and get them off her back.

"o queen, thy speech would become the lips of a wise and temperate man" this comes after they exclaimed that it was so womanlike (and therefore beneath them) of her to iirc rejoice at news that had not yet reached nor been verified to them

going as far as to straight up tell her shes probably seen it in a dream, "ye flout my wisdom as if i were a silly girl". irritating but not at all unexpected.

then she explained to them that the torch thing was planned which shut them up nicely lol. moving on

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feeling kind of insane abt how ares here is described using the concept of usury; the interest rate *the price payed for war* is ridiculously high and extremely exploitative. lkdjfdekwejrewk

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me core lol

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this is worded so funny to me idk why.

what are ur hobbies? oh you know. i dabble in gore. on tuesdays

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the man of the hour himself speaks at last. ft. ody catching strays

i do love that hes a rat bastard and everyone knows its part of his rat bastard charm. unsubstantial shadow. woof

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agamemnon spitting facts. love that for him

here cly greets him in a foreign fashion, having spread some rich fabric on the path hes to take back home (greeks invented the red purple carpet u heard it here first folks) and hes like nay wench

he concedes in the end

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astaghfirullah brother agamemnon what is this

foreshadowing if u squint ig (the web)

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kindred counter: 5

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this line absolutely sent me i nearly fell out of my chair

drag her ass cassandra

cant believe i predicted the poisoning (if i understood that right lol idk in my mind cly kills her with poison, not the stained weapon. btw the axe is something of a recent depiction she used a sword)

lion metaphor counter: 3

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ORESTES MON BEBE <3

once again insane by the imagery; the bloodied orestes places the final stone, stained and dented, completing the cursed mural that is the house of atreus. im so sick oh god

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this is so heartwrenching.

oh cassandra :')

OH AND ALSO. she calls to apollo many a time during her the narration of her misfortunes, at one point saying "apollon to me", which iirc from another post reveals the etymology of his name meaning the destroyer, i.e my (cassandra's) destroyer.

excuse me while i go die in the corner (will link it when i find it)

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shout out to the land of my ancestors making it onto a greek play lol

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ok this part damn well near killed me; the elders have heard cass' prophecy and know that agamemnon is going to be killed but ofc they dont take her seriously

so hes being murdered offstage and theyre like: yall hear sum

KJSKAJSDKWJEFGBGS

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noice

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🥺

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brutal

he compares the speech (accusations) of the argive elders to orpheus' pleasing voice, pointing out the stark difference of the joy and peace the former brings whereas the latter provoke anger.

hes so ready to kill a bunch of old guys its so intense fdhsjak. the elders are all for it too lol. then cly puts an end to it

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assorted quotes:

(the line numbers arent numbering? i think theyre for the translations of the original greek more than for me to count in english lol but im not sure. if u know pls lmk!

"I know that hope is the exile's daily food" (aegisthus 1667)

"I have had enough of life" (cass 1315) <- same girlie same

"For thou hast with ease destroyed me this second time" (cass 1081) <- right after the apollon to me btw :')

"Who named her so unerringly? Was it some one whom we dream not of, foreknowing destiny and happy in his foretelling? Who named her 'Helene'*? the spear-wedded one, the strife-surrounded?" (chorus 682)

"who that is not a god, passeth the whole of his existence without suffering?" (agamemnons herald 554)

"To hearken beforehand is only to anticipate sorrow." (chorus 253)

"but let good auspices prevail" (121, 139, 159)

[exit KINDRED]

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

libation bearers literally play of all time forever to me like the reunion between Orestes and Elektra where he shows her the scrap of fabric with animals on it that she wove for him that he saved for YEARS and they're both so miserable and desperate and fail to raise their father's ghost and then the subversion and irony of Xenia with them mocking the infamous hospitality of Klytemnestra at the gates and and the trickery and the real grief of Orestes' nuresmaid and the way the chorus is an active participant in the plot and then god the confrontation between Kyltemnestra and Orestes. god that confrontation. What can you even say about it. The dream about the snake, the only lines Pylades speaks, the hellhounds of your mother and your father, accusing her of selling him as a child, OUGH and then afterwards when Orestes comes raving onto stage howling about the hideous Furies he is hallucinating.