Orestês - definition of Orestês by The Free Dictionary Orestês - definition of Orestês by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia . O·res·tes (ô-rĕs′tēz) n. Greek Mythology The son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who with his sister Electra avenged the murder of his father by murdering his mother and her lover Aegisthus. Orestes (ɒˈrɛstiːz) n (Classical Myth & Legend) Greek myth the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who killed his mother and her lover Aegisthus in revenge for their murder of his father O•res•tes (ɔˈrɛs tiz, oʊˈrɛs-) n. the legendary son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who, together with his sister Electra, avenged the murder of his father by killing his mother and her lover, Aegisthus. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Noun 1.

Orestes - (Greek mythology) the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; his sister Electra persuaded him to avenge Agamemnon's death by killing Clytemnestra and Aegisthus Greek mythology - the mythology of the ancient Greeks Translations Orestes | Define Orestes at Dictionary.com Orestes [aw-res-teez, oh-res‐] /ɔˈrɛs tiz, oʊˈrɛs‐/ Spell noun 1. Classical Mythology. the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and the brother of Electra and Iphigenia: he avenged the murder of Agamemnon by killing Clytemenestra and her lover, Aegisthus, then was pursued by the Furies until saved by Athena. 2. (italics) a tragedy (408 b.c.) by Euripides. Dictionary.com Unabridged Examples from the Web for Orestes Expand Historical Examples She had openly and boldly censured the conduct of the bishop, and was deemed the friend of Orestes; therefore she must die.

The Martian George Du Maurier Electra, the sister of Orestes, saved her brother's life by sending him secretly to his uncle Strophius, king of Phocis. Homer's Odyssey Denton J. Snider Hardly was the fatal act committed when the Furies appeared and unceasingly pursued the unfortunate Orestes wherever he went. The Missing Ship W. H. G. Kingston Orestes insists on dying himself, reminding Pylades of his duty to Electra. Authors of Greece T. W. Lumb Orestes also killed his mother; and we do not judge Orestes as we judge Nero. British Dictionary definitions for Orestes Expand noun 1. (Greek myth) the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who killed his mother and her lover Aegisthus in revenge for their murder of his father Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.

1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for Orestes Expand son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, from Greek Orestes, literally "mountaineer," from oros "mountain" (see oread ). Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper Orestes Orestes See More Orestes Pictures > Orestes was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology, who was hunted by the Erinyes after he killed his mother. The story of Orestes is the main topic of various ancient Greek plays. After the Trojan War , Orestes ' father, Agamemnon , returned to Mycenae (or Argos), along with his prize, the Trojan princess Cassandra . Cassandra had the gift of foretelling the future, but was also cursed not to be believed by anyone.

Despite Cassandra 's warnings about what was about to happen, Agamemnon entered his palace, only to be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus , who was Agamemnon 's cousin. Orestes , a young boy at the time, was not present at the palace, but had run away with his sister Electra and found refuge at the court of Athens . When Orestes became an adult, he was urged by his sister and the god Apollo to avenge their father's death; Orestes , assisted by his friend Pylades , returned to the city, and murdered his mother and her lover. However, committing matricide was a horrible act that brought the fury of the Erinyes upon him. He was driven mad and was pursued by them. Orestes sought refuge at the temple of Apollo , but even the god was powerless to stop the Erinyes . In the end, Athena accepted his pleas and organised a formal trial to be held before twelve judges. The Erinyes asked that the perpetrator be punished, while Orestes said that he followed Apollo 's orders.

When the judges voted, the result was a tie; however, Athena 's vote, who was the chief justice, broke ties, leading to Orestes ' acquittal. Grateful, Orestes dedicated an altar to Athena , while the Erinyes were appeased by getting a new ritual, during which they were worshipped as the Venerable Ones. According to a different source, while Orestes was still pursued by the Erinyes , Apollo told him to go to the land of Tauris and bring back a statue of Artemis , which had fallen from the sky. Orestes agreed and went to Tauris , accompanied by his friend Pylades . There, they were captured by the cult of Artemis , who was told to sacrifice all Greeks to the goddess. When the priestess of Artemis heard that two Greeks had been captured, she offered to help one of them escape if they would agree to carry a letter to her brother; the priestess was in fact Iphigenia , Orestes ' sister, who was believed to have been sacrificed to Artemis before the Trojan War started. Orestes demanded that Pylades should go, while Orestes would stay behind to be slain.

Pylades reluctantly agreed, but when he received the letter, he realised who the priestess really was. All three of them eventually escaped, carrying with them the statue of Artemis . Upon returning to Greece, Orestes reclaimed the throne of his father, becoming the ruler of Mycenae. He died after being bitten by a snake in Arcadia . Clytemnestra Clytemnestra by Mia Gibson Clytemnestra (also spelled "Clytaemnestra") is the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus and the half sister of Helen . Clytemnestra and Helen are half sisters because Zeus appeared to Leda in the form of a swan and raped her. On the same night, Tyndareus also had sex with Leda and Leda became pregnant. Leda gave birth to four children or in some versions, laid four eggs. Clytemnestra and Castor was Tyndareus' children therefore they are mortal. Helen and Polydeuces was Zeus' therefor they are immortal. Clytemnestra's importance in Greek mythology comes from her marriage to Agamemnon , Menelaus ' brother.

There are two versions of Clytemnestra's involvement in the death of Agamemnon. Homer describes Agamemnon's departure for the Trojan War, to help to avenge his brother Menelaus. While Agamemnon is away, Aegisthus plotted to seduce Clytemnestra and murder Agamemnon once he returned from the Trojan War. As the years passed, and there was no word that the war was anywhere near an end, Clytemnestra weakened and welcomed the sensuous advances of Aegisthus . When the war does finally end, Agamemnon arrives home to be killed by men hired by Aegisthus. Orestes , Agamemnon's and Clytemnestra's son, kills Aegisthus to avenge his father's death. Clytemnestra disappears or is killed but Homer does not go into to much detail about her. In this version, Clytemnestra is weak and insignificant compared to the male players. Aeschylus series of plays called Orestia provide the most popular version of this myth.

In the first play, Agamemnon, Aeschylus describes Clytemnestra as a strong woman and not the weakling she appeared to be in Homer's version. When Agamemnon leaves for the Trojan War, Clytemnestra starts her torrid affair with Aegisthus. Together, they plot to kill Agamemnon as soon as he returns from the war. When the signal is given that the war is over, Clytmnestra prepares for the return of Agamemnon. She is already mad at Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter, Iphigenia , and then she finds out that Agamemnon is bringing home another wife, Cassandra . As soon as Agamemnon's chariot pulls up in front of the palace, Clytemnestra goes out to welcome Agamemnon. She lays a purple cloth on the ground for him to walk over, at first Agamemnon refuses to walk over the cloth but soon gives in to Clytmnestra's request.

Cassandra, given the sight of prophecy by Apollo but with the curse that no one would believe her because she failed to keep her promise to have sex with him, remained outside because she could see the doom surrounding the palace. When Cassandra finally enters the palace, a cry is heard and a blood drenched Clytemnestra is shown standing over the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra. Aegisthus marries Clytemnestra to become King but is no more than a puppet to Clytemnestra. This ends the play Agamemnon. Article details: Orestes - definition of Orestes by The Free Dictionary Orestes - definition of Orestes by The Free Dictionary (ô-rĕs′tēz) n. Greek Mythology The son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who with his sister Electra avenged the murder of his father by murdering his mother and her lover Aegisthus.

Orestes (ɒˈrɛstiːz) n (Classical Myth & Legend) Greek myth the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who killed his mother and her lover Aegisthus in revenge for their murder of his father O•res•tes (ɔˈrɛs tiz, oʊˈrɛs-) n. the legendary son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who, together with his sister Electra, avenged the murder of his father by killing his mother and her lover, Aegisthus. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Noun 1. Orestes - (Greek mythology) the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; his sister Electra persuaded him to avenge Agamemnon's death by killing Clytemnestra and Aegisthus Greek mythology - the mythology of the ancient Greeks Translations Madeline Miller - News - Myth of the Week: Clytemnestra Myth of the Week: Clytemnestra · In News Monday, November 7th, 2011. After Medea, Queen Clytemnestra is probably the most notorious woman in Greek mythology.

She is also one of the most magnetic, mesmerizing in her fierce determination to kill the man who killed her daughter. That this man happens to be her husband, and that she chooses to dispatch him in his bath-tub with an ax, makes her a storyteller’s lurid dream. Though there are countless depictions of Clytemnestra in ancient and modern works alike, the most enduring has been that in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. His Clytemnestra is bloody, bold and resolute, a proud lioness, fiercely protective of her children. After the murder, she does not try to hide or run, but strides victoriously before her people, gore-stained ax in hand, declaring that justice has been served. Clytemnestra, After the Murder Clytemnestra was born into a mythological epicenter. Her father was King Tyndareus of Sparta and her mother Queen Leda—the same who was later impregnated by Zeus, in the form of a swan. A potent family: Helen was her half-sister, Penelope her cousin, and the semi-divine duo Castor and Polydeuces her brothers.

She married a man with a similarly powerful lineage, Agamemnon of House Atreus, King of Mycenae. Division between Clytemnestra and her husband began with the Trojan War. Agamemnon and Menelaus’ fleet, set to sail for Troy, was stuck at harbor, with no wind to carry it. A priest revealed that the goddess Artemis was angry and Agamemnon could appease her by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia. The ambitious king agreed. By the time word reached Clytemnestra, the girl was dead and Agamemnon had already sailed. Clytemnestra isn’t the only woman in Greek mythology to lose a child. Queen Hecuba was eventually driven mad with grief and transformed into a dog, and Niobe cried so much for her lost children the gods took pity and made her a rock. But only Clytemnestra chooses retaliation over grief. And this is what makes her such a fascinating and scandalous figure in the ancient world–she is a woman who takes upon herself the traditionally masculine role of avenger, meter out of justice, judge of who should live, and who must die.

For the ten years Agamemnon was away at Troy, Clytemnestra plotted her revenge. She found a partner and lover in Aegisthos, a long-lost cousin of Agamemnon, back for his own vengeance: Agamemnon’s father had killed his brothers. (I’ll save the dysfunctional and murderous history of the House of Atreus for another day, but parricide, incest and cannibalism abound.) The two planned to rule the kingdom together, after Agamemnon’s death. Sexually faithless, deceitful, murderous: Clytemnestra is the incarnation of ancient anxieties about women and power. Mycenaean-era bathtub, from Nestor's Palace at Pylos When Agamemnon returned, bringing as his slave the Trojan princess Cassandra, Clytemnestra welcomed him warmly and led him to the fateful bath. In some versions of the story it is Aegisthos actually wielding the ax, and in others it is Clytemnestra. I prefer the latter—I think after all those years, she’d want to do the swinging herself. Afterwards, whether from jealousy, adrenaline or a neatening of accounts, she murdered Cassandra as well.

For me, this is one of the most poignant details of the story, and the most damning to Clytemnestra. Cassandra has lived a wretched life: condemned to foresee the destruction of her family and city, but unable to stop it from happening, then dragged from the ruins of her city, violated and handed over to Agamemnon as a prize concubine. I have always wished at this moment for Clytemnestra to pause, and recognize that Cassandra was more ally then enemy—surely she must have hated Agamemnon as much as Clytemnestra did. But reflection and empathy aren’t the queen’s strengths. Cassandra is an intruder, and must die. The cycle of blood does not stop there. Orestes, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s son, is bound by honor to avenge his father. Urged on by his sister, Electra (of the infamous ‘Electra complex’), he kills both Aegisthos and his mother. From the underworld, the ghost of Clytemnestra sends furies to torment her son, enraged that he would choose his father’s cause over hers. Even death, it seems, cannot contain her.

The Remorse of Orestes, William Adolphe Bouguereau In the end, how much sympathy we have for this powerful queen hinges significantly upon how we judge her husband. The king has many offenses of his own, beyond sacrificing his daughter: cowardice, greed, rape, reckless endangerment of his army, and the destruction of a city. In my opinion? I think Agamemnon had it coming. And, given all the slave-girls he terrorizes during the Trojan War, I can’t help but find it poetic justice that it’s a woman who does the deed. Orestes (mythology) facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Orestes (mythology) The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press Orestes, in Greek mythology, the only son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon and brother of Electra and Iphigenia. After the slaying of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Orestes, still a boy, was sent to live in exile.

Since it was the duty of the senior male in the house to punish the murderers, Orestes was commanded by Apollo to avenge the crime. With the assistance of Electra and his friend Pylades, who accompanied him in all his adventures, he killed his mother and her lover. After this matricide he was haunted by the Furies (Erinyes) until he reached Athens. He was tried and acquitted by the Areopagus, the tribunal of Athenian judges. Not all the Furies, however, accepted the verdict; and, to win full expiation from his crime, he was told to steal the sacred image of Artemis from Tauris. At Tauris he was reunited with Iphigenia and with her assistance stole the image and safely returned to Greece. It is said that he later married Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus dramatized his vengeance and expiation. The story was also used by Sophocles and Euripides.

Cite this article Myths and Legends of the World COPYRIGHT 2001 Macmillan Reference, USA Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes was the prince who avenged the murder of his father, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, by killing his own mother, Clytemnestra. Orestes' sisters Iphigenia and Electra play important roles in his story. A number of ancient writers and artists, including Greek playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides , have been inspired by the myth of Orestes. Orestes was still a child when Agamemnon sailed off to fight in the Trojan War*. While the king was away, Clytemnestra took a lover, Aegisthus. She may have been driven to infidelity by a desire for revenge. To obtain favorable winds to carry his ships to Troy, Agamemnon had sacrificed their young daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis *. When Agamemnon returned to Mycenae at the end of the war, he was murdered by his wife and her lover. Aegisthus seized the throne.

Electra feared that her young brother Orestes, the true heir to the throne, might be in danger, and she took him to stay with their father's old friend King Strophius of Phocis. Strophius raised Orestes with his own son Pylades, and the two boys became close friends. oracle priest or priestess or other creature through whom a god is believed to speak; also the location (such as a shrine) where such words are spoken When he grew up, Orestes visited Delphi * and asked the oracle of Apollo* what he should do to avenge his father's murder. The oracle replied that Orestes must kill his mother and her lover. So Orestes and his friend Pylades went to Mycenae disguised as messengers, and they met secretly with Electra to plan the murders. Then with the help of Electra and Pylades, Orestes killed Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, despite her pleas that a son should not kill his own mother. * See Names and Places at the end of this volume for further information. There are various versions of what happened next.

In some accounts, Orestes received praise for avenging his father's murder. In others, the crime of matricide—the murder of one's mother—was seen as a great sin that deserved great punishment. In these stories, Orestes was pursued relentlessly by the Furies, female spirits of justice and vengeance who drove men mad. In the version of the story told by Aeschylus, Orestes sought refuge from the Furies at Delphi, home of the oracle that had ordered him to avenge his father's death. Through the oracle, Apollo instructed Orestes to go to Athens and present his case to the Areopagus, an ancient court of elders. During the trial that followed, Orestes received the support of Apollo as well as that of the goddess Athena*, who cast the deciding vote in his favor. The angry Furies were eventually calmed, and they stopped pursuing Orestes. In another version of Orestes' story, told by the Greek playwright Euripides, the verdict of the Areopagus did not soothe the Furies.

Apollo told Orestes that he could put an end to their torment if he went to Tauris, a land of dangerous barbarians, and recovered a sacred statue of Artemis. Orestes and Pylades journeyed to Tauris but were captured by the barbarians. They were brought before the head priestess, who happened to be Orestes' sister Iphigenia. Iphigenia had been rescued from the sacrifice at Aulis before the Trojan War. She helped Orestes and Pylades escape with the statue, and she returned with them to Greece . Upon returning to Greece, Orestes became ruler of Mycenae and Argos. Eventually he married Hermione , the daughter of Menelaus and Helen* of Sparta . See also Agamemnon; Apollo; Athena; Clytemnestra; Electra; Furies; Greek Mythology; Iphigenia. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. MLA Agamemnon Study Guide Dr.

Diane Thompson, NVCC , ELI GREEK TRAGEDY Greek theatre was something new in its time; it developed out of a mixture of ancient myths, stories and religious rituals, contemporary lyric poetry, the genius of a remarkably few men, and the Greek love of theatrical spectacle. This theatre developed in some relation to the god Dionysus. Although scholars disagree about just how classical Greek theatre was involved with the religion of Dionysus, they generally agree that the early forms of Greek theatre stem from poems and dances performed for Dionysus, a rather disorderly god of mixed blessings. Whether we see the fully matured Greek theatre as Dionysian or not, we can certainly look for and see the elements of Dionysus in Greek tragedy and comedy: insanity, violence, intoxication, wildness--these are properties of Dionysus as well as of the theatre that developed in Greece. And we do know that performances of dithyrambs (poems celebrating Dionysus), as well as satyr plays, tragedies and comedies, took place at the festivals of Dionysus in Athens.

female worshippers of Dionysus - nursed infant male animals; also hunted and ate them raw Goat ("tragos") the sacred animal of Dionysus Dionysus was "the god who gave man wine. However, he was known also as the raving god whose presence makes man mad and incites him to savagery and even to lust for blood...he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share his tragic fate." (W. Otto) Dionysus had a difficult birth; he was snatched from his mother's womb and secreted in the thigh of his father, Zeus, until he was ready to be born. Because of this, he was called "Dithyramb" or twice-born. His sacred animal was the goat whose Greek name, "tragos" is included in the word tragedy. SATYRS AND MAENADS The satyrs joined the maenads in wild dances in honor of Dionysus. Many scholars, although not all, trace the development of tragedy back to such wild dance rituals worshipping the god Dionysus.

Bieber suggests that "The worshippers of Dionysus danced around the goat, singing the dithyramb; they then sacrificed it, devoured its flesh and made themselves a dress...out of its skin, or they threw it around their shoulders like the maenads. Then they felt themselves to be goats....the maenads and satyrs....were endowed with goat nature through a change of dress, by taking the goatskin as a costume." This ecstatic changing into someone else was supposedly the beginning of acting, of playing a character other than oneself. Not everyone agrees with her and Brian Vickers thinks that whatever was Dionysian in early Greek theatre was gone by the classical period of the fifth century. He also comments that probably the "tragos" goat was the prize for the winning play, not the disguise of the dancers. Whatever the case, these elements were related in some way in the early development of Greek drama. STEPS OF DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK DRAMA 1. Ecstatic dancing and singing in honor of Dionysus (men dressed as satyrs wearing animal skins, horse's ears and tails and animal-like masks). 2.

Satyr play--the leader of the chorus represented someone other than himself, usually a character from heroic saga, but still wore a satyr mask. 3. a prologue explaining preceding events; 480-406 BC: the deus ex machina ending Following Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater The theatres themselves were out of doors, with seating built around the slopes surrounding a circular arena. Behind this arena was a skene or backdrop building, which gradually became more elaborate over the years. A day of theatre would begin in the early morning and include a series of three tragedies, three separate comedies, and perhaps a satyr play. top TRAGEDY Greek tragedies are intensely emotional and focus on the horror of murder and violent death, often within the family. The characters are noble, often kings and queens, not ordinary folk. The chorus, representing the society as onlookers, worries and bewails events, but is helpless in the face of the disasters befalling the main characters. According to Aristotle, such intense emotions on stage make us experience pity and fear, and hence purge us of those emotions. This process of purgation is called catharsis.

There has been enormous controversy over the centuries as to exactly what Aristotle meant by this term, catharsis, but the only issue we need to think about in this context is: do we feel somehow calmer, if not wiser, after experiencing one of these tragedies? If so, that calmness may be called the effect of catharsis. Or does witnessing one of these tragedies in fact upset us and leave us in a more disturbed frame of mind than before we experienced it? Today we ask whether or not violence in the media is making people more violent, or in fact allowing them to release their tensions vicariously, so that their actual daily lives are calmer. People seem to be inclining to the position that watching violence in fact makes people more violent. However, it is important to recognize that while Greek drama dealt with emotional violence, it never showed physical violence on stage. Further, the violence it dealt with was witnessed by a sorrowing society in the form of the chorus, and the plays ended with some form of resolution. These differences are worth thinking about when asking whether the emotional violence of Greek tragedy is in any way like the emotional and physical violence of modern film and television.

Greek tragedies are often family tragedies: Agamemnon, for example, harks back to the sacrifice of a child (Iphigenia), enacts the murder of a spouse (Agamemnon), and looks forward to the murder of a parent (Clytemnestra). This stress on violence within the family is typical of Greek tragedy and stems from the great importance of the family in Greek life. Brian Vickers points out that since "The Greek expected to live on not in an afterworld so much as in this world, in the memory and continuous homage of his descendants....the most serious crimes for the Greeks were those which struck against the very basis of family existence: parricide, matricide, all `shedding of kindred blood', and incest" because such crimes interfered with the continuity of the family.(110-14) top GREEK TRAGEDIES AND TROY After Homer, Greek attitudes towards the Trojan War and its heroes changed. The individualistic behavior and violence of Homeric heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus became less acceptable in civilized fifth century Athens. The wild violence of heroic age women such as Clytemnestra, already a problem in Homer, became even more unacceptable.

Yet, the stories remained popular. A number of plays surviving from fifth century Athens are based on Trojan War material. They include: Aeschylus Euripides Hecuba, Andromache, The Trojan Women, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, Electra, Orestes, Iphigenia at Aulis Most of these plays are concerned with events before and after the war, rather than with the war itself, and a surprising number center on women, many suffering, some evil, rather than on the ancient heroes. Greek legends about the heroes and heroines of the Trojan Cycle were plentiful and varied; different stories about the same event or character might even contradict one another, especially in the details. For example, in one version of the legend of Iphigenia, she is sacrificed by her father Agamemnon at Aulis so that Artemis will allow favorable winds for the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. This sacrifice is used in the Agamemnon as a motive for Clytemnestra's murder of her husband.

In an alternate version of the legend, Iphigenia is saved at the moment of sacrifice by Artemis, who snatches Iphigenia away to Tauris and replaces her on the altar with a sacrificial deer. Euripides wrote two melodramatic plays about this happier variant, Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris. Consequently, although the stories used for Greek dramas were often based on stories about the Trojan War, the treatment of the stories was up to the individual dramatist. The legends of Troy were there for the taking, available to be made into plays that met the needs and interests of Athen's rapidly changing civilization. top THE STORY OF THE ORESTEIA The Oresteia tells the story of the resolution of an ancient myth-family tragedy, the blood guilt of the House of Atreus. This conflict started with the two sons of Pelops, Atreus and Thyestes, quarreling over the kingship of Mycenae. Atreus became king and banished his brother Thyestes.

However, when Atreus discovered that Thyestes had secretly committed adultery with Atreus' wife Aerope, he hid his rage, inviting Thyestes to return home for a banquet. Atreus murdered two of Thyestes' children and then served their bodies as meat to Thyestes at the banquet. After Thyestes had eaten, Atreus displayed their bloody heads, hands and feet on another dish. Thyestes vomited and cursed the seed of Atreus. Agamemnon and Menelaus are the sons of Atreus. The curse worked itself out through: Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband Agamemnon Orestes, Agamemnon's son, who murdered his mother, Clytemnestra. The Furies pursue and torment Orestes because he avenged one crime with another more forbidden crime. The Furies are the mythic enforcerers of ancient blood vengeance law, for whom the greatest crime is matricide, since the closest blood tie was between mother and child. Orestes, seeking purification from his guilt, petitions Apollo, who advises Orestes to seek help from Athena.

She sympathizes with Orestes, because she was not born of a woman herself, but sprang from her father Zeus' head. Athena arranges a trial, using Athenian citizens as jurors to weigh the claims of mother blood guilt versus Clytemnestra's crime killing her husband. The Furies agree to abide by the decision of the jury. They put forth their claims of the primary right of the mother. However, Apollo asserts that the mother is simply a passive vessel, so that the child is really connected by blood to the father alone. This would mean that matricide is not a blood guilt crime at all! His arguments only persuade half the jury, which gives a tie vote. However, the tie frees Orestes, ending his blood guilt. Athena then placates the Furies, persuading them to become the Kindly Ladies, benevolent powerful spirits of the city of Athens, tucked underground, safely out of sight. top AGAMEMNON Early Greek tragedy can be difficult for a modern audience to appreciate. Practically nothing happens in Agamemnon except an offstage murder of a man we have just met by a woman we don't like.

Because Greek dramas developed originally out of the lyric satyr choruses, they have large sections of lyric poetry (the choruses) interspersed with sections of dialogue. Agamemnon's lyric sections are especially long. They are supposed to be especially beautiful in the original Greek; unfortunately, the translations I've read have not been particularly attractive. Frankly, as a modern reader, I wish the choruses of this play were shorter and the dialogue longer. If you have a chance to see a film or play of Agamemnon, do so; It can be more accessible with real actors than as a text. top THE STORY OF AGAMEMNON Agamemnon is the first of three plays which display the unending and terrible consequences of a private blood feud which continues from one generation to the next until it is finally stopped by instituting a public legal process to replace private revenge. Agamemnon focuses on Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon. She wants vengeance because Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia at Aulis ten years earlier in order to placate the goddess Artemis. This goddess had been sending contrary winds to prevent the Greek Armies from sailing to Troy.

It is easy for us to be horrified at what Agamemnon did and want to excuse Clytemnestra, but the play offers no excuses for her--she is presented as thoroughly dislikeable, wicked, and dangerous. The play starts at night with a watchman awaiting a fire signal passed from hill top to hill top to indicate that the Trojan War has ended. Clytemnestra has arranged for these fires which cross many miles between Troy and Greece. She is a clever woman as well as a dangerous one, and even worse, she has the heart of a man in her woman's breast, as the watchman tells us at the very start. There is not much action in Agamemnon; the first half of the play is spent anxiously awaiting the arrival of Agamemnon. Here, the real action begins, centered on an argument between Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra which displays Agamemnon's conceited pride and Clytemnestra's treachery. She wants him to walk into the palace on a valuable blood-red tapestry; he objects that this would be an act of excessive pride.

Their argument, which is the only time we see them together in the play, reveals each of their characters. Philip Harsh remarks that "the essential weakness of [Agamemnon's]...character is only too apparent in this clash with the strong-willed Clytemnestra.... In attempting to make Agamemnon accept her base flattery and walk upon the blood-red tapestry, Clytemnestra is attempting to cause him to commit an act of insolence ...which will evoke the disgust and hatred of men and the vengeance of the gods." (69) Agamemnon surrenders to his wife and, walking on the blood-red tapestry, enters the palace, shortly to die. Now the most intense scene of the play occurs, the raving prophecy of the prophetess Cassandra outside the palace, predicting murder most foul, while Clytemnestra, with help from her lover Aegisthus prepares to murder Agamemnon within. Agamemnon's death cries follow and the play is essentially over. Agamemnon has been murdered, but there will be more murder to avenge his death. Murder is not able to solve the problems of this cursed household; indeed that is the whole point of the trilogy.

Murder only begets murder; setting up a court of law is the only way to stop the series of bloody feuds. This is a message about the need for civilization, but it is not yet made in Agamemnon, so we are left with only darkness and death. For this reason, the three plays of this trilogy should be read as a set; Agamemnon is really only the first act of a three act play. top OEDIPUS REX Modern audiences appreciate this play, but the more we think about it, the more troublesome it becomes. Oedipus Rex is difficult for us to cope with, because we believe so deeply today in the idea of freewill and the potential for both human and divine justice. But these concepts are not particularly relevant to Sophocles' play about a man who was born fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Everything that matters has already happened before the play begins. top THE STORY OF OEDIPUS REX Before Oedipus was even conceived, the oracle of Apollo prophesied that Oedipus would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta, who were the king and queen of Thebes.

This dire warning led Jocasta to give the infant Oedipus to a shepherd to expose to wild animals in the hills. The shepherd felt pity and gave the infant to another shepherd who took him to a distant city where Oedipus was adopted by the childless king and queen and raised as their son. Growing to adulthood, Oedipus heard a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he left the city to prevent these awful events from occurring. On his travels, he met a carriage and several men at a crossroad. The man in charge was rude and threatening and Oedipus killed him, not knowing the man was his real father, Laius. Oedipus then encountered the Sphinx and answered her riddle; this won him the reward of marrying Jocasta, Queen of Thebes. The play opens many years after these events. Thebes is being devastated by plague, sent by Apollo because there is pollution in the city. King Oedipus is determined to find out the source of the pollution and drive it out of the city in order to stop the plague. The play focuses on Oedipus' urgent drive to know the truth.

Being an impetuous man as well as a powerful king, Oedipus is rude and hostile toward anyone who seems to interfere with his search, especially the seer Tiresias who knows the truth but does not want to tell it to Oedipus. The terrible irony of this play is that Oedipus himself turns out to be the source of pollution, the cause of the plague, the murderer of his father and the husband of his mother. He finally discovers the truth, and knowing it destroys his life as king of Thebes. Oedipus responds to this terrible knowledge by blinding himself and at the end of the play he is prepared to leave Thebes and wander in the wilderness, knowing himself and knowing that his entire life was spent fulfilling his fated destiny. top IS OEDIPUS GUILTY? We must be careful not to blame Oedipus for what he did, nor to think of his final exile as punishment. As Rohde points out, the stain of pollution "is not `within the heart of man'. It clings to a man as something hostile, and from without, and that can be spread from him to others like an infectious disease.

Hence, the purification is effected by religious processes directed to the external removal of the evil thing." Oedipus must leave Thebes, but that does not mean he is guilty, merely that he is polluted and a source of disease for the city. Pollution is a fascinating index of a true difference between our contemporary culture and that of classical Greece. Our system of morality and justice is based firmly on the idea that each sane person is or can be responsible for his or her own actions, and that those actions can be "paid" for. E.g., a robber can pay for his crime by going to jail. We simply cannot accept the notion that a person could carry a moral disease like a virus without being personally responsible for it, and that this moral disease could sicken others just as physical viruses carry the flu from one "innocent" person to the next. The only exception we generally make is for insanity, which is why some people tried for crimes plead "insanity" to explain that they were NOT responsible. However, Oedipus is absolutely sane; there is no question here of insanity. It is useful to notice where other times and places are genuinely different from ours and pollution is a good example of such a genuine difference.

top MEDEA Medea is a revenge tragedy about a woman who murders her own children to punish her ex-husband. This is a difficult situation for us to identify with, yet Medea is an easy play to read and relate to because of the powerful psychological presentation of the mad, murderous, yet grieving mother. Medea is a powerful, dangerous witch. After committing various criminal acts including several murders to help her lover, Jason, Medea has fled into exile with him to Corinth. Here Jason deserts her and marries the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. top THE STORY OF MEDEA The actual play starts at this time. It begins with the Nurse worried about Medea's children; she evidently knows Medea well and fears for their lives. Creon, the King of Corinth and father of Jason's new bride intends to drive Medea and her children by Jason out of the city into exile. Medea pleads with Creon for one day's time before she leaves. Next comes a really disgusting scene in which Jason, an unbelievably smooth and egotistical rat, says that if Medea had only behaved nicely, she could have stayed in Corinth.

He further claims to have married the princess in order to consolidate the position of his and Medea's children. Medea doesn't buy that lame excuse. Medea schemes to prepare her revenge on Jason. First, she arranges for her own safety by promising the childless King Aegeus of Athens that if he gives her refuge she will enable him to have children. Next, Medea sends her own children to Jason's new bride, carrying rich gifts of a robe and tiara, supposedly to soften the princess' heart so that she and her father will let Medea's children stay in Corinth, even though Medea must leave. But the gifts are in fact poisoned, and when the princess puts them on, not only does she die, but her father embraces her and he too dies from the poison. Finally, Medea leaves Corinth in a dragon wagon, taking the bodies of the two dead children so that Jason won't even have the satisfaction of burying them. Not only is this her ultimate touch of revenge, but it is a good example of a deus ex machina ending. Medea's actions had made so much trouble that there was no way she could escape by natural means, so Euripides provided her a wagon pulled by a dragon.

Euripides makes Medea strangely sympathetic in her murderous sufferings. She loves her children and yet she is finally willing to kill them in order to complete her total revenge against their father. The most disturbing aspect of this play to modern readers is that Medea gets away with murdering her own children as well as Jason's new wife and her father. This was certainly disturbing to playgoers of Euripides' time, too, but they would have been more able to understand the outcome, because Medea was related to the sun god and such creatures did not have to operate strictly in terms of human morality. Niobe is an example of what the Greek gods did to human beings when offended. Niobe was a proud mother of many children and she bragged that she had more children than the goddess Leto, whose only two children were Apollo and Artemis. Leto was offended. To soothe their mother, Apollo and Artemis killed all of Niobe's children. Morality is for human beings; the gods are always potentially dangerous to impious, unwary, and even totally innocent humans (e.g. the unborn Oedipus).

Although the gods, at times, seem to have ideas of right and wrong, these ideas may be quite different from human ideas of right and wrong. top OLD COMEDY Old Comedy was the form of comedy written and presented in the fifth century B.C. in Greece. It is quite different from later kinds of Greek Comedy. top LYSISTRATA Lysistrata is set in contemporary Athens during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. This war eventually destroyed the Athenian democracy. The title character, Lysistrata reveals her happy idea of a sex strike to force the men to stop fighting and make peace. She convinces the other women that this is a good idea and the women seize the Acropolis, where the money for the war effort was kept. Then two half-choruses enter, one of old women and one of old men. Their clash represents the dramatic clash of the entire play. Next, the Magistrate tries to get the women to behave. He is a typical pompous Athenian male. After he is thoroughly humiliated, Lysistrata chastises the Athenians for their destructive warlike behavior which is destroying both Athens and Sparta.

Then the two choruses clash again providing low comic contrast to Lysistrata's serious advice. A few days pass and then Lysistrata announces that the women are undermining her revolt. The two half-choruses express their hatred of one another. The men are getting pretty horny by now, and we have the wonderful scene of Cinesias begging his wife Myrrhina for sex, while she teases and refuses him and he finally leaves. The Spartan Herald arrives and announces that the Spartan men are in the same fix as the Athenian men, and finally a meeting and truce is arranged. Lysistrata makes a moving appeal for pan-hellenism, reminding each side of the debt they owe to the other. Naturally, all ends with a banquet, singing and dancing.

INTERESTING ISSUES: THREATENING WOMEN: Lysistrata: organizes a revolt of women against men Clytemnestra: takes a lover while her husband is at Troy; murders her husband when he returns home Medea: a witch; murders many people, including her own children; gets away with it all Jocasta: tries to have her infant son killed; marries her unrecognized adult son; kills herself The plays Lysistrata and Agamemnon both make much of role reversal: in both plays women seizing power act as men. In the case of Lysistrata, it is all very amusing, but in the case of Clytemnestra it is the deadliest of dangers, as we saw earlier in the Odyssey, where Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon was a constant warning to Odysseus of what can happen to a homecoming soldier if he can't trust his wife. The actual role of women in classical Greece was extremely limited, especially in Athens where women were not even allowed out of the house to go marketing. They were tightly controlled to insure that the male head of the family had male heirs which were truly his own. Beyond this, women were not much valued.

Certainly they did not behave like the women in these plays. It is fascinating to wonder why a culture that so-controlled its women would write plays about such powerful and disturbing women...was it memories of being an infant dependent upon a woman, or was it memories of an earlier time when women had had a more active role in the society? At any rate, Medea is a powerful, dangerous witch woman. And one cannot feel good about Jocasta although her troubles were largely beyond her control. One gets the feeling that classical Greek playwrights were not comfortable with powerful women. None of these women are in any way normal, and are as much monsters as female in the way they are presented. Lysistrata is an amusing monster; Jocasta a disturbing one; Clytemnestra and Medea intensely dangerous. top INTERESTING ISSUES: FREEWILL IN OEDIPUS REX This play is wonderfully controversial. Oedipus Rex is probably the single best document we have for thinking and arguing about ideas of fate and freedom in classical Greece. I have selected just a few comments by contemporary scholars to give a sense of the ideas this play stirs up.

"There is no suggestion in the Oedipus Rex that Laius sinned or that Oedipus was the victim of an hereditary curse, and the critic must not assume what the poet has abstained from suggesting....we think of two clear-cut alternative views--either we believe in free will or else we are determinists. But fifth-century Greeks did not think in these terms...." (Dodds 40) "From Homer to Aristotle both poets and philosophers tended to ask not `was he free?' as we might do, but `is he responsible ...?'...the ancient question, is answered in the affirmative if it can be shown that the men involved acted according to their characters..." (Gould 52) "Sophocles has provided a conclusive answer to those who suggest that Oedipus could, and therefore should, have avoided his fate. The oracle was unconditional (l.

790): it did not say "If you do so-and-so you will kill your father"; it simply said "You will kill your father, you will sleep with your mother." And what an oracle predicts is bound to happen." (Dodds 39) Oedipus' "lack of freedom in the past needs to be emphasized since it is the assurance of his innocence in the present. Had he had the faintest suspicion of his true identity and relationship to Laius and Jocasta then he would indeed be an `inhuman monster'". (Vickers 499) INTERESTING ISSUES: KINGS AND HEROES Agamemnon in Agamemnon Oedipus in Oedipus Rex Jason in Medea Greek kings were pretty arrogant by modern standards and this was ok under most circumstances. Be careful not to impose our ideas of a nice guy on them. However, Agamemnon was perhaps a little too haughty for his own good, and gets in trouble in the Iliad because of his hot temper and pride which incite him to quarrel with Achilles. This pride is important in Aeschylus' Agamemnon too.

As Philip Harsh points out: "The pride of Agamemnon...is...spectacularly symbolized by Agamemnon's triumphant entrance in his chariot with followers and fanfare. He is ...too proud of his utter destruction of Troy. His conceit entirely prevents him from properly understanding the veiled warnings of the chorus. From his haughty and contemptuous response to Clytemnestra's hypocrisy, it is obvious that he despises her; but...he pathetically underestimates his adversary. " (69) Oedipus too is arrogant, but there is no doubt in the play that he has been a good king and is sincere in his attempts to root out the source of plague that is harming his country. And once Oedipus discovers the terrible truth about his life, his arrogance totally disappears. It would be interesting to compare the characters of Oedipus and Agamemnon to distinguish between two kinds of kingly pride, one excessive even in fifth century Greece. As for Jason, he is a self-seeking, egocentric rat and deserves to die, but of course it is not Jason, but his children, who are killed.

His smarmy speeches to Medea explaining why he "had" to marry the king's daughter to protect his and Medea's children are masterpieces of disgusting rationalization that would be perfectly at home in a modern context. Jason could be a villain on a daytime TV show. INTERESTING ISSUES: FOREIGNERS AND MONSTERS Cassandra Oedipus Tiresias Cassandra and Medea are both female, foreign, monstrous, and closely connected to things sacred. Cassandra has troubles because she deceived Apollo; her punishment is to prophesy truly while no one believes her, which she does while Agamemnon is about to be murdered. She uses her supernatural gift "to draw again and again the connection between crime and retribution, linking past, present and future in the house of Atreus." (Vickers 374) The chorus just listens to her and goes oh woe and such but nobody takes a step to help Agamemnon or to keep Cassandra from going into the palace to be herself murdered. Medea, on the other hand, gets away with everything, because she is descended from the sun god.

Indeed, "one of the chief difficulties which Euripides faced in writing this play was in the humanization of Medea, for the Medea of popular legend was both the most famous witch of antiquity and the cold perpetrator of barbaric murders." (Harsh 177) For all this, Euripides transforms the mythical witch into a passionate woman who can weep bitterly while she murders her own children. Oedipus is also foreign and monstrous. He becomes a sacred monster, especially after he blinds himself and prepares to leave the city as a wanderer. In a later play by Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, we are told that Oedipus' final death was a sacred event bringing blessings on the place where he died. Tiresias is an interesting character; he is the seer who gives Odysseus good advice in the underworld about how to get home safely. Tiresias lived part of his life as a man; part as a woman. He was ancient, wise, a sacred monster. In Oedipus Rex, Tiresias is still alive, blind, yet able to see the truth, something Oedipus cannot do until after he loses his physical eyes.

Much of the irony of the play lies in the contrast between the physically blind who can see and the mentally blind who cannot see even though their eyes function perfectly. Indeed, the development of Greek drama out of the rituals of Dionysus suggests much of the foreign and monstrous inherent in the very fabric of the early dramatic ritual. Dionysus was known as the god who came from elsewhere, forcing his way into Greece, overcoming resistance, driving people mad who refused to worship him. This is described at length in The Bacchae by Euripides. Dionysus' powerful ritual mixture of ecstasy and suffering, dance, song, wine and death, is eminently suitable for the god of Greek tragedy, a theatre of intense, complex emotion, great suffering and final calm. Atreus | Myths of the World Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Myths of the World Wiki For the asteroid, see 14791 Atreus . In Greek mythology , Atreus ( Template:Polytonic ) was a king of Mycenae , the son of Pelops and Hippodamia , and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus .

Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae. Atreus and his twin brother Thyestes were exiled by their father for murdering their half-brother Chrysippus in their desire for the throne of Olympia . They took refuge in Mycenae , where they ascended to the throne in the absence of King Eurystheus , who was fighting the Heracleidae . Eurystheus had meant for their stewardship to be temporary, but it became permanent after his death in battle. According to most ancient sources, Atreus was the father of Plisthenes , but in some lyric poets ( Ibycus , Bacchylides ) Plisthenides (son of Plisthenes) is used as an alternative name for Atreus himself. Contents Edit There is a possible reference to Atreus in a Hittite text known as the 'Indictment of Madduwatta '. The indictment describes several army clashes between the Greeks and the Hittites which took place around the late 15th or early 14th centuries BCE.

The Greek leader was a man called Attarsiya, and some scholars have speculated that Attarsiya (or Attarissiya) was the Hittite way of writing the Greek name Atreus. [1] Other scholars argue that even though the name is probably Greek (since the man is described as an Ahhiyawa ) and related to Atreus, the person carrying the name is not necessarily identical to the famous Atreus. [2] Atreides Edit The word Atreides refers to one of the sons of Atreus— Agamemnon and Menelaus . The plural form Atreidae or Atreidai refers to both sons collectively; in English, the form Atreides (the same form as the singular) is often used. This term is sometimes used for more distant descendants of Atreus. House of Atreus Edit The House of Atreus begins with Tantalus . Tantalus initially held the favor of the gods but decided to cook his own son Pelops and feed him to the gods as a test of their omniscience.

Most of the gods, as they sat down to dinner with Tantalus, immediately understood what had happened, because they knew the nature of the meat they were served, were appalled and did not partake. Nevertheless, Demeter , who was distracted due to the abduction by Hades of her daughter Persephone , obliviously ate Pelops' shoulder. The gods threw Tantalus into the underworld , where he spends eternity standing up to his chin in a pool of water, which drains whenever he attempts to slake his thirst. Above him are low-hanging fruit that lift just out of reach when he tries to grab it. Thus is derived the word "tantalize". The gods brought Pelops back to life, replacing the bone in his shoulder with a bit of ivory, thus marking the family forever afterwards. Pelops and Hippodamia Edit Pelops married Hippodamia , after winning a chariot race against her father by arranging for the sabotage of his would-be-father-in-law's chariot - resulting in his death.

The versions of the story differ here - the sabotage was arranged by a servant of the king, Myrtilus , who was killed by Pelops for one of the following reasons: 1) because he had been promised the right to take Hippodamia's virginity, which Pelops retracted, or 2) because he attempted to rape her, or 3) because Pelops did not wish to share the credit for the victory. As Myrtilus died, he cursed Pelops and his line, further adding to the house's curse. Atreus, Thyestes and Chrysippus Edit Pelops and Hippodamia had two sons, Atreus and Thyestes , who (depending on myth version) murdered Chrysippus , their stepbrother. Because of the murder, Hippodamia, Atreus, and Thyestes were banished to Mycenae , where Hippodamia is said to have hanged herself. Atreus vowed to sacrifice his best lamb to Artemis. Upon searching his flock, however, Atreus discovered a golden lamb which he gave to his wife, Aerope, to hide from the goddess.

She gave it to her lover, Thyestes (also Atreus' brother), who then convinced Atreus to agree that whoever had the lamb should be king. Thyestes produced the lamb and claimed the throne. Atreus retook the throne using advice he received from Hermes . Thyestes agreed to give the kingdom back when the sun moved backwards in the sky, a feat that Zeus accomplished. Atreus retook the throne and banished Thyestes. Atreus then learned of Thyestes' and Aerope's adultery and plotted revenge. He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and feet. He tricked Thyestes into eating the flesh of his own sons and then taunted him with their hands and feet. Thyestes was forced into exile for eating the flesh of a human. Thyestes responded by asking an oracle what to do, who advised him to have a son by his daughter, Pelopia , who would then kill Atreus. However, when Aegisthus was first born, he was abandoned by his mother who was ashamed of her incestuous act.

A shepherd found the infant Aegisthus and gave him to Atreus, who raised him as his own son. Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy. Aegisthus then killed Atreus, although not before Atreus had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus . Agamemnon married Clytemnestra , and Menelaus married Helen , her sister (known later as Helen of Troy ). Helen was taken away from Menelaus by Paris of Troy during a visit. Menelaus then called on the chieftains to help him take back Helen . Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Orestes and Electra Edit Prior to sailing off to war against Troy, Agamemnon had angered the goddess Artemis because he had killed a sacred deer in a sacred grove, and had then boasted that he was a better hunter than she was. When the time came, Artemis stilled the winds so that Agamemnon's fleet could not sail.

A prophet named Calchas told him that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon would have to sacrifice the most precious thing that had come to his possession in the year he killed the sacred deer. This was his first-born daughter, Iphigenia . He sent word home for her to come (in some versions of the story on the pretense that she was to be married to Achilles ). Iphigenia accepted her father's choice and was honored to be a part of the war. Clytemnestra tried to stop Iphigenia but was sent away. After doing the deed, Agamemnon's fleet was able to get under way. Artemis, however, had instantly switched Iphigenia, as she lay upon the altar, with another deer without anyone noticing, and had taken her to distant Colchis , there to be her priestess. While he was fighting the Trojans, his wife Clytemnestra, infuriated by the murder of her daughter, began an affair with Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned home he brought with him a new concubine, the doomed prophetess Cassandra .

When Agamemnon returned, Clytemnestra lured him into their room and hacked him to death with an axe. Agamemnon's only son, Orestes, was quite young when his mother killed his father. He was sent into exile. In some versions he was sent away by Clytemnestra to avoid having him present during the murder of Agamemnon; in others Electra herself rescued the infant Orestes and sent him away to protect him from their mother. In both versions he was the legitimate heir apparent and as such a potential danger to his usurper uncle. Goaded by his sister Electra , Orestes swore revenge. He knew it was his duty to avenge his father's death, but saw also that in doing so he would have to kill his mother. He was torn between avenging his father and sparing his mother. 'It was a son's duty to kill his father's murderers, a duty that came before all others. But a son who killed his mother was abhorrent to gods and to men.' When he prayed to Apollo , the god advised him to kill his mother.

Orestes realized that he must work out the curse on his house, exact vengeance and pay with his own ruin. After Orestes murdered Clytemnestra, he wandered the land with guilt in his heart. After many years, with Apollo by his side, he pleaded to Athena. No descendant of Atreus had ever done so noble an act and 'neither he nor any descendant of his would ever again be driven into evil by the irresistible power of the past.' Thus Orestes ended the curse of the House of Atreus. This story is the major plot line of Aeschylus 's trilogy The Oresteia . Plato Edit Plato in his dialogue The Statesman tells a "famous tale" that "the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus." [3] Later influence Edit In the Dune series, Frank Herbert tells the story of Leto , Paul and Leto II of House Atreides , the enemies of the Harkonnen clan.

The Atreides claim to trace their ancestry back to the original Atreides of the Trojan War . In one of the prequel novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson , the Play The Oresteia is performed in Castle Caladan, during the reign of Duke Paulus Atreides . Edgar Allan Poe 's short story, " The Purloined Letter ", makes reference to Atreus and Thyestes. In a column assessing Caroline Kennedy 's candidacy for the US Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton in early 2009, Maureen Dowd likened the Kennedy family role in US politics, from grandfather Joe Kennedy to father John Kennedy and uncles Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy , to the House of Atreus, and Caroline and her brother John Kennedy Jr. 's place in it as "heartbreaking." [4] The columnist had eight years earlier traced the Kennedy/Atreus parallels in more detail, in a piece comparing the then-ascendant " Bush dynasty" with the Kennedy one.

[5] [6] Heavy metal band Virgin Steele from New York has released a metal opera called 'The House of Atreus.' The metal opera is split up in ' The House of Atreus Act I ' (1999) and the double cd ' The House of Atreus Act II ' (2000) and spans the time from the end of the Trojan war until Orestes' death. Spoken-word myths - audio files

Question: In Greek myth, who was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who killed his mother to avenge his father's death?
Answer: Orestes