Scene 1
Agamemnon — Prologue
The watchman on the palace roof sees the beacon from Troy after a year of waiting. He shouts, dances, calls for the queen — and then goes silent on what he knows about the house he serves.
The Oresteia — chapter by chapter
All 26 scenes, across three plays — from the watchman's beacon-fire to the torchlit procession of the Kindly Ones.
The Oresteia unfolds in three plays of increasing scope. Agamemnon (scenes 1–10) stays inside the royal palace at Argos: the beacon from Troy, the homecoming, the purple carpet, Cassandra's vision, the axe. The Libation Bearers (scenes 11–18) returns to the same palace eight years later: Orestes at the tomb, the recognition, the Kommos, the killing of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, the Furies appearing. The Eumenides (scenes 19–26) moves to Delphi and then Athens: the Furies pursuing Orestes, Athena founding a court, the trial, the tied vote, and the final reconciliation. Twenty-six scenes in all.
Agamemnon · The homecoming
The beacon from Troy. The purple carpet. The axe in the bath.
Scene 2
Agamemnon — Parodos
The old men of Argos enter singing the history of the expedition — the omen of the eagles, the prophet's warning, the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis. This is the founding injury behind the whole trilogy.
Scene 3
Agamemnon — First Episode
Clytemnestra announces the fall of Troy to the disbelieving chorus. Her proof is a chain of relay-beacons she herself designed, stretching from the fires of Troy to the palace roof of Argos. The play's first glimpse of how her mind works.
Scene 4
Agamemnon — First Stasimon
The chorus sings of Zeus's law — that wisdom comes only through suffering — and of Paris's crime. The ode moves toward the question it cannot quite ask: what is the price for Agamemnon's own transgression at Aulis?
Scene 5
Agamemnon — Second Episode
The herald reaches Argos after a decade's absence and weeps at the sight of his homeland. He brings news of Troy's fall and Agamemnon's glory — and reluctantly admits that a storm has scattered the fleet and Menelaus is missing.
Scene 6
Agamemnon — Second Stasimon
The chorus sings of Helen through the image of a lion's cub raised as a pet — beautiful, then fatal. The ode circles the question of how ruin hides inside prosperity, and how the city knows too late that the thing it welcomed was its destroyer.
Scene 7
Agamemnon — Third Episode
Agamemnon arrives home. Clytemnestra greets him with a speech of exhausting flattery and persuades him to walk into the palace on a path of purple robes — an honour due only to gods. He hesitates, warns against impiety, gives in anyway.
Scene 8
Agamemnon — Third Stasimon
The chorus is afraid and cannot explain why. Troy has fallen, the king has returned, the gods have been thanked. The ode turns on the image of blood spilled and irreversible — and on the dread that gathers in a house where happiness has been too great.
Scene 9
Agamemnon — Fourth Episode
Cassandra, silent until now, begins to prophesy. She sees the children of Thyestes. She sees the bathtub and the woman holding the axe. She names the deed before it happens, in verse the chorus cannot follow. Then she removes her prophet's robes and walks into the palace to her death.
Scene 10
Agamemnon — Exodos
The scream from the palace. The chorus in paralysis. The doors open: Clytemnestra stands over the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra and delivers her defence — the sacrifice of Iphigenia answered by the sacrifice of the king. Aegisthus appears to claim the throne.
The Libation Bearers · The vengeance
Orestes at the tomb. The recognition. The Kommos. The killing.
Scene 11
The Libation Bearers — Prologue
Eight years after the murder. Orestes arrives at his father's tomb and cuts offering-locks of hair. He sees a group of mourning women approaching — among them his sister Electra, sent by Clytemnestra to pour libations. He steps aside to watch.
Scene 12
The Libation Bearers — Parodos
Clytemnestra has been woken by a nightmare and sent these women to Agamemnon's tomb with libations. They sing of the terror of the night, of the dream — a serpent at a woman's breast. They hate their mistress and grieve for the dead.
Scene 13
The Libation Bearers — First Episode
Electra discovers a lock of hair and then footprints at the tomb. Then Orestes steps forward. The recognition scene — the most intensely private moment in the trilogy — is also the compact of vengeance that sets the rest of the play in motion.
Scene 14
The Libation Bearers — Kommos
The three-way lyric exchange at the tomb — Orestes, Electra, the chorus — calling on Agamemnon's ghost for strength and authority. The emotional and ritual centre of the second play, unlike anything else in the trilogy.
Scene 15
The Libation Bearers — Second Episode
Orestes lays out Apollo's command and his plan — enter the palace as a stranger, announce his own death, kill Aegisthus first, then Clytemnestra. The chorus intercepts the nurse sent to fetch Aegisthus and changes her message: he should come without his guards.
Scene 16
The Libation Bearers — Second Stasimon
The chorus sings of women who committed terrible crimes — Althaea, the Lemnian women, Scylla — before turning to the justice about to enter the palace. The ode gives moral weight to what Orestes is about to do.
Scene 17
The Libation Bearers — Third Episode
Orestes kills Aegisthus. Then Clytemnestra appears and faces her son. She bares her breast and pleads. Orestes hesitates. Pylades speaks his only lines: Apollo commanded this. They go inside together. When the doors open again, the bodies are on the floor.
Scene 18
The Libation Bearers — Exodos
Orestes, mid-justification, begins to see the Furies — the chorus cannot. He names them, tells the chorus he will flee to Delphi, and runs from the stage. The second play ends with the inexorable logic of the blood feud: the avenger becomes the fugitive.
The Eumenides · The trial
The Furies pursuing. Athena's court. The tied vote. The kindly ones.
Scene 19
The Eumenides — Prologue
The Pythia opens the shrine of Apollo at Delphi with a solemn prayer, goes inside, and comes back out crawling on her hands. At the altar: a blood-stained suppliant clutching an olive branch. Asleep on the steps around him: a pack of creatures she cannot compare to anything she knows.
Scene 20
The Eumenides — Parodos
The ghost of Clytemnestra rises and wakes the Furies from their sleep — Orestes has escaped Delphi while they slumbered. The Furies wake, find him gone, and begin the binding song: the ancient hymn of their pursuit, meant to freeze a fugitive's limbs and paralyse his mind.
Scene 21
The Eumenides — First Episode
Orestes reaches Athens and grasps the ancient statue of Athena as a suppliant. He calls on the goddess to hear his case. The Furies surround the statue, claiming their right to him.
Scene 22
The Eumenides — Second Episode
Athena arrives, hears both parties, and announces that she cannot judge this case alone. She founds the Areopagus court — twelve Athenian citizens, on the hill of Ares, to judge cases of homicide. The founding act of law.
Scene 23
The Eumenides — First Stasimon
The Furies sing in defence of their own principle — the awe of bloodguilt — and warn that if it is overruled, the old laws that restrain murder will collapse. Their stasimon is a defence of fear as the ground of civic order.
Scene 24
The Eumenides — Third Episode
The first trial before the first jury. The Furies prosecute; Apollo defends; Orestes testifies. The votes are counted. They are tied.
Scene 25
The Eumenides — Second Stasimon
Athena casts for acquittal; the tied vote breaks in Orestes's favour. He departs thanking Athens. The Furies begin their stasimon of rage — they have been dishonoured and they will make the city suffer for it.
Scene 26
The Eumenides — Exodos
Athena reasons the Furies through their rage with patient, precise argument: they are not defeated; their principle is preserved in the new court; they are offered permanent honour in Athens. The Furies accept. They become the Eumenides. The torchlit procession closes the trilogy.