The Libation Bearers — Third Episode

The episode begins with Clytemnestra inside the palace receiving the false news of her son's death. She weeps publicly. She gives the travellers hospitality. The servant comes out to fetch the nurse; the chorus redirects her. Aegisthus enters, alone. He is told the news directly. He goes inside to see for himself — and is killed in the instant, off stage, his cry barely heard before silence.

A servant runs out shrieking murder. Clytemnestra appears immediately, asking what has happened — and in the instant she sees Orestes's face, she understands. The dialogue between mother and son is the play's most concentrated exchange: she has heard his voice before; she knows this face; she calls on a servant to bring an axe. Then she speaks directly to Orestes. She bares her breast — the breast she suckled him from as an infant — and asks if he can look at this and strike. Orestes turns to Pylades. Should I spare my mother? Pylades speaks his only three lines in the play: Apollo commanded this; break faith with Apollo and you break faith with all. Orestes takes his mother inside. The doors close.

When the doors open again, both bodies are on the floor — Aegisthus and Clytemnestra — and Orestes is standing over them, the net she used to trap Agamemnon spread over the bodies as proof. He gives his justification: she conspired against Agamemnon; she wore him in a net like a fish; he has done what Apollo commanded. And then — almost immediately — he sees them. The Furies. Moving at the edge of his vision, winding themselves around him, their eyes dripping blood. The chorus cannot see them. Orestes is already gone from the world the other characters inhabit.