The Eumenides — Second Stasimon
The votes are tied. Athena casts for acquittal. Orestes goes free. The Furies begin to threaten the city.
Summary
Athena announces her vote: she casts for acquittal. Her reasoning has been debated ever since antiquity — she was born without a mother, having sprung from the head of Zeus, and therefore she finds herself inclined in all disputes to support the male principle over the female. With her vote, the acquittal side has a majority. Orestes is free.
He speaks his gratitude with precision: he thanks Athena, he thanks the court, he pledges on behalf of himself and all future rulers of Argos that Argos will be the eternal ally of Athens, never sending an army against the Attic soil. Then he leaves. The chorus of Furies erupts. They have been robbed, they say, of their ancient right. The younger gods have overruled the older. They will avenge themselves on Athens — they will breathe poison on the earth and the crops, they will blight the city's prosperity, they will undo what this trial has done.
The stasimon is a threat and an expression of genuine pain. The Furies are not lying — they have been overruled, their principle has been subordinated to a newer institution, and they have no framework to understand how this is not a defeat. It will be Athena's task in the final scene to give them such a framework.
- Scene 1The watchman on the palace roof sees the beacon from Troy after a year of waiting. He shouts, dances, calls for the queen — and...
- Scene 2The old men of Argos enter singing the history of the expedition — the omen of the eagles, the prophet's warning, the sacrifice of...
- Scene 3Clytemnestra announces the fall of Troy to the disbelieving chorus. Her proof is a chain of relay-beacons she herself designed...
- Scene 4The chorus sings of Zeus's law — that wisdom comes only through suffering — and of Paris's crime. The ode moves toward the...
- Scene 5The herald reaches Argos after a decade's absence and weeps at the sight of his homeland. He brings news of Troy's fall and...
- Scene 6The chorus sings of Helen through the image of a lion's cub raised as a pet — beautiful, then fatal. The ode circles the question...
- Scene 7Agamemnon arrives home. Clytemnestra greets him with a speech of exhausting flattery and persuades him to walk into the palace on...
- Scene 8The chorus is afraid and cannot explain why. Troy has fallen, the king has returned, the gods have been thanked. The ode turns on...
- Scene 9Cassandra, silent until now, begins to prophesy. She sees the children of Thyestes. She sees the bathtub and the woman holding the...
- Scene 10The scream from the palace. The chorus in paralysis. The doors open: Clytemnestra stands over the bodies of Agamemnon and...
- Scene 11Eight years after the murder. Orestes arrives at his father's tomb and cuts offering-locks of hair. He sees a group of mourning...
- Scene 12Clytemnestra has been woken by a nightmare and sent these women to Agamemnon's tomb with libations. They sing of the terror of the...
- Scene 13Electra discovers a lock of hair and then footprints at the tomb. Then Orestes steps forward. The recognition scene — the most...
- Scene 14The three-way lyric exchange at the tomb — Orestes, Electra, the chorus — calling on Agamemnon's ghost for strength and authority....
- Scene 15Orestes lays out Apollo's command and his plan — enter the palace as a stranger, announce his own death, kill Aegisthus first...
- Scene 16The chorus sings of women who committed terrible crimes — Althaea, the Lemnian women, Scylla — before turning to the justice about...
- Scene 17Orestes kills Aegisthus. Then Clytemnestra appears and faces her son. She bares her breast and pleads. Orestes hesitates. Pylades...
- Scene 18Orestes, mid-justification, begins to see the Furies — the chorus cannot. He names them, tells the chorus he will flee to Delphi...
- Scene 19The Pythia opens the shrine of Apollo at Delphi with a solemn prayer, goes inside, and comes back out crawling on her hands. At...
- Scene 20The ghost of Clytemnestra rises and wakes the Furies from their sleep — Orestes has escaped Delphi while they slumbered. The...
- Scene 21Orestes reaches Athens and grasps the ancient statue of Athena as a suppliant. He calls on the goddess to hear his case. The...
- Scene 22Athena arrives, hears both parties, and announces that she cannot judge this case alone. She founds the Areopagus court — twelve...
- Scene 23The Furies sing in defence of their own principle — the awe of bloodguilt — and warn that if it is overruled, the old laws that...
- Scene 24The first trial before the first jury. The Furies prosecute; Apollo defends; Orestes testifies. The votes are counted. They are...
- Scene 25Athena casts for acquittal; the tied vote breaks in Orestes's favour. He departs thanking Athens. The Furies begin their stasimon...
- Scene 26Athena reasons the Furies through their rage with patient, precise argument: they are not defeated; their principle is preserved...