The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-09-01
Who was Orestes!

What had the Furies against him that they
were disposed to chase him up with a sharp stick !!
These were questions put to us the other day IN
a conversation respecting the difficulties on board
that crazy, sinking craft in our harbor, which
seems doomed to be the scene of trouble every
time she comes into port. There are two opin-
ions about the Orestes in honor Of whom the said
ship was named, first, the NEUROLOGICAL, and sec
ondly, the pathological.
The NEUROLOGICAL notion is that he was the
son .of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. After
his father, as commander-in-chie of the Greek
forces, had slain great Hector of Troy, he found
in his wife, the mother of Orestes, a greater
Hector still, for the old wretch was the death of
him. Orestes himself, then but a little jolly
boat, was saved from sharing his fathers fate by
being run off on the underground railroad to the
royal shanty of his uncle Strophius, ancestor of
the razor-strop-man, King of Phocis. There the
promising youth, with the help of his cousin
Pylades, concerted the means, which he success
fully adopted, of avenging his fathers death by
Staying his mother and Mr.. Kgisthus,-a gen.
tleman who was accustomed to call and see her
occasionally.
After Orestes had murdered his mother, the
Furies drove him into insanity and when the
oracle at Delphi was consulted respecting the
duration of the malady, an answer was given that
Orestes would not be restored to q sane mind
until he went to the laurie Chersonese (the Cri-
mea) and brought away the statue of Diana to
Sparta. 1t was the custom in the Crimea, or
Iaurica, as John Bull has found it since, to
sacrifice all strangers who landed upon those in
hospitabfe shores. Orestes and his cousin hav-
inc mazda tho ,rr ~ wv toootbo, xro,o @oloo ~
tives and brought as victims to the altar of
Diana. Iphigenia, a sister of Orestes, who had
been carried off to those parts, as luck would have
it, happened to be the pr~iestess at the altar.
Seeing that the boys were Greeks, she offered to
spare the life of one of them if he would carry a
letter for her and drop it in the post-offce in
Greece. This occasioned a memorable contest of
friendship as TO which should stay and be butch
cred by the fair priestess. Orestes being the
more crazy of the two, persuaded his cousin to
save his life by riding express on a ten-toed team,
while he accepted the alar-native of v%ictimizing
himself. The letter, however, was for her brother
Orestes, and so it was not necessary to carry it
far. His sister was introduced to him, and she,
very nagnanimously concluding that on the
whole his life was worth saving, spared him, and
the three managed to carry off the desired statue
and land it safe in Greece. After his return he
murdered the husband of his cousin and made
her his wife. So much and much more concern
ing the NEUROLOGICAL Orestes. Philologically we
shall be able to dispose of him in much shorter
space.
Rejecting these Anticipated notions. we adopt the
more sensible opinion which would have been
held by that fast man, Dean Swift, if he had
thought of it when he wrote his celebrated work
showing that the English was the great-grand-
mother-tongue, and that what are called the an.
cient languages are evidently derived from it.
Orestes was doubtless an freshman, and not n
Greek, Though they are sometimes called Greeks,)
who was always restless and spelling for a fight;
so that he was often requested to keep quiet, after
this manner O-rest-easy which after a time
became contracted into O-rest-es. Indeed, there
is good reason to suppose that this = broth of a
boy'' may have been that same Rory O'Moore,
(the kith of Tom Moore.) of whom it hath been
said or sung SO often
80 Rory be easy
And tease me no Moore